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Gibson Nyikadzino-Correspondent

If nations of the Global South and those of the East accept the creeping influences of neoliberalism, the world’s values and great civilisations of their people will be hanging by the thread.

 The neoliberal ideology has sadly been elevated to the rank of official doctrine that should run the world. 

In line with what is termed the “rules-based order”, the West has found a way of trying and wanting to impose its own ethics, views on culture and history in a monographic perspective. 

In making sense of what neoliberalism entails and stands for, rejecting it means the Global South would have rejected cruelty, exploitation, wars and having embraced respect and humanity. 

Neoliberalism is the opposite of the collective good. 

It reflects the sense of one’s own exclusivity and historical superiority of the West and is one of the manifestations of neo-colonialism, national self-love and selfishness. 

Adherents of neoliberalism actively use ostentatious, empty slogans while in reality, speaking of “equality and freedom” in the West end where the interests of the “golden billion” begin. 

This ideology is essentially a culture of permissiveness, which comes into irreconcilable contradiction with all traditional values, as it leads to the blurring of the boundaries between good and evil. 

In place of traditional Christian values, new quasi-religious cults with their inherent intolerance of dissenters are beginning to emerge because of neoliberal influences.

 In all its forms, it ought to be rejected!

Democracy as an obligatory ritual

The concept of democracy in modern liberalism is understood very narrowly, only as a set of “obligatory rituals” that are characterised by the change of power and elections under international control. 

There is a conscious disregard for the political culture and traditions of other countries. 

The vagueness of the liberal democratic criteria allows other countries to determine the “democracy” of states through the prism of their loyalty to Washington, which itself is wrong and dislikeable.

The promotion of human rights in their liberal interpretation, either political or civil, has long turned into a pretext for interference in the internal affairs of other countries through the initiative of “exporting democracy” as happened in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Yugoslavia. 

But nowhere has the life of the common people been better after the neoliberalism intervention. 

Weaponising trade rules

The Western model of running businesses seeks emphasis on sustaining a system of managerial dominance and technological superiority of the West which relies on the monopoly of the US dollar. 

Open markets and the free movement of capital and technology are proclaimed as foundations of best trade relations. 

However, when it comes to the interests of the West, the “rules” of the market economy are easily dismissed through the blocking by the Americans of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) dispute resolution mechanism on the basis of awareness of the futility of US competition with China. 

In the conditions of geopolitical tension, the West weaponised the global economy and switched to the use of unfair competition methods against Africa, Russia and China. 

African countries have been threatened with sanctions for dealing with Russia.

There also has been the violation of the principle of inviolability of property by freezing of gold and foreign exchange reserves of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation through use of politically motivated economic sanctions to the detriment of freedom of entrepreneurship. 

Cancel culture, new barbarism

In the West, the values of the enlightenment, Christianity and other monotheistic religions are being replaced by the dogmas of the “new ethics” under the pretext of combating discrimination against minorities. 

Such once marginal phenomena as the obsessive LGBTQ+ agenda and radical feminism are taking root in the daily life of Western countries. 

These include special privileges for people who deny heterosexual norms, the harassment of people who do not accept LGBT deviations and the cancel culture.

The cancel culture is a direct consequence of the neoliberal model that does not tolerate diversity, competition, promotes destruction of the alien and is a new barbarism. 

 Through the culture of cancellation, the Western opinion leaders are encouraging the practice of denunciations and collective harassment of people, groups and races. 

In the work of health care, there are efforts on the inclusion of the concept of the “third sex” in the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines, the revision of ethical norms regarding the sexual integrity of children and the drug-induced changes of human nature. 

In doing so, the American oligarchs in the medical and pharmaceutical industries will generate profits. 

Breaking own climate policies

The process of shaping the global agenda, including within the framework of international organisations, is oriented towards the neoliberal paradigm. 

In multilateral relations, this provokes the destruction of the system of universal treaties and the obligations arising from them. 

The very culture of reaching a long-term agreement by searching and fixing compromise solutions is subject to corrosion. 

Thus, the “fight against climate change” was initially modelled as a tool to serve the interests of Western financial and industrial groups and individual political forces. 

Climate policy today has acquired the features of eco-extremism. 

Developing and poor countries, where harmful industrial production was once carried out, are being imposed strict Western standards of environmental protection, under far-fetched pretexts deprived of resources for development. 

This is a neo-colonial approach that talks about the burst bubble of “carbon neutrality” against the background of an increase in coal and fuel oil generation of electricity primarily in Europe in the era of the so-called “green transition”. 

The current energy crisis, inspired by the Western world, is forcing their governments to break their own climate policy. 

It is, therefore, apparent that neoliberalism is based on the postmodern rejection of tradition.  Such a destructive approach is itself a source of instability and confrontation in relations between countries.

As part of the substitution of concepts, the course continues to decriminalise and legalise drug use, blurring the boundaries between light and heavy illegal substances, destigmatising the image of a drug user and positioning the user as a normal, healthy member of society. 

Digital authoritarianism

Contrary to the declared principle of freedom of speech, the West is imposing “digital authoritarianism” through the strict control of IT giants, oligarchic clans and governments over public consciousness, as well as modelling the perception by the broad masses of beneficial topics, including the sphere of historical memory. 

To suppress the alternative voices, the West is using mechanisms of tacit censorship, self-censorship and the removal of unwanted online accounts along with progressive content that comes with them, which is a violation of the right to freedom of expression. 

For instance, anti-African, anti-Russian or anti-Chinese racism has become the language of hatred against other races placed outside the brackets of the usual Western tolerance. 

The media and opinion leaders are replicating the racist myths about Africa, China, Russia and the Arab world which is based on dehumanising and alienating rhetoric.

The approach being implemented is “if you are against Africa, Russia or China, then everything is forgiven to you.” 

Thus, the new “moral compass” of Western society allows forms of ethnic and linguistic hatred. By their inaction, this approach is also supported by some international organisations. 

There were little condemnation of the Western countries when the racially profiled Africans as sources and hosts of COVID-19 and monkey pox. International Western media emphasised such racist lies.

More so, UNESCO responded with silence to the murder of Daria Dugina by Ukrainians last month and for more than eight years, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has ignored the facts of the deaths of children of Donbass as a result of attacks by Ukrainian armed formations. 

It is clear to an unbiased observer that the “progressive” part of the West has significantly deviated from the generally recognised norms of human morality and interstate relations. 

In fact, the neoliberal agenda is nothing more than a revolutionary project aimed at scrapping the spiritual, cultural and political heritage of global civilisation.