Many leaders and commentators across the Global South and outside the Atlantic core have welcomed Mark Carney’s Davos speech with enthusiasm. I remain cautious and prefer a deeper reading of what was actually said - and, just as importantly, what was not.
Carney’s framing is fundamentally Western-centric. His concern is the preservation, repair, and future stability of the West and the Atlantic order. The language of values, rules, and responsibility is directed inward - towards Western economies, Western institutions, and Western legitimacy.
He speaks of the need for “middle powers” to step up. But who exactly are these middle powers? Are they limited to comfortable Western or Western-aligned states such as Canada, Australia, or parts of Europe? Or do they genuinely include countries like Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey - states that sit outside the Atlantic core, pursue strategic autonomy, and do not always align neatly with Western preferences?
And what about Iran? Strip away decades of sanctions and containment, and Iran is clearly a civilisational state with population size, human capital, energy resources, and regional influence - more than capable of becoming a prosperous and powerful middle power. The same applies to Venezuela. Their exclusion is not due to lack of potential or agency, but political choice - largely Western political choice.
This raises a deeper issue. Absent from the speech is any meaningful engagement with the lived realities of the Global South. There is no acknowledgement of Palestine. No reckoning with the double standards applied to Israel versus Russia. No reflection on how the so-called rules-based order operates selectively, depending on who violates it and who is protected.
This silence matters. When moral language avoids the most obvious inconsistencies of power, it becomes managerial rather than ethical - focused on system maintenance, not justice. What is presented as universal concern is, in practice, a conversation about Western cohesion and credibility, not global fairness.
That does not make the speech irrelevant. But it does make it partial. And partial truths, especially when delivered in the language of universality, deserve careful scrutiny - not uncritical applause.
Many in the West are already suggesting that Mark Carney’s speech will be remembered as an important moment in history. The question is: whose history?
Is it a myopic Western history, increasingly detached from lived global realities - or real history, shaped by suffering, restraint, and moral courage?
Jesus once said that the world does not belong to the powerful, but to the meek. If that insight still holds, then history will not be written by those who speak most confidently about order, but by those who refuse to normalise injustice.
“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” - Matthew 5:5
“And, indeed, after having set it down in the Psalms, We gave this reminder: ‘My righteous servants shall inherit the earth.” - Qur’an 21:105
Peace, anas
No comments:
Post a Comment