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In an article last month, Catte Black and Iain Davis argued that we should oppose the multipolar world order just as vigorously as we might any other model of tyranny.

Why?

Because the multipolar world order, led by the BRICS nations, is the same agenda that you’ve heard from the talking heads of the “Western Empire,” the US, its allies and its so-called military-industrial complex.

The following is paraphrased from an article written by Catte Black and Iain Davis titled: Interrogating “Multipolarity”: A Response to “Understanding Power Dynamics”. Published on 18 January, it was written to challenge points made in an article written by Professor Piers Robinson and Vanessa Beeley. 

The Robinson/Beeley article maintains that multipolarity represents a positive alternative to Western Imperialism.  While there is much that Black/Davis agree with, they do not agree that humanity could free itself via the proposed “multipolar world order.” On the contrary, Black and Davis suggest we should oppose the multipolar world order just as vigorously as we might any other model of tyranny.

“What some might call ‘multipolarity’ does NOT represent any real alternative and that neither ‘side’ – whatever the depth of the objections to each other – have the welfare of ordinary people as their goal,”  Black and Davis wrote.

The Robinson/Beeley article suggested that the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East are the result of “the continued projection of power by the US and its allies.”  However, Black/Davis contend that the assertion that the “Western Empire” is essentially the sole driver of all evils is oversimplified and makes it hard for Robinson/Beeley to present a fully cohesive analysis of current events.

“Are we looking at a simple binary here? Red versus Blue? East versus West? Unipolar versus Multipolar? Or is that very projection of simplicity something we need to be wary of?” Black and Davies asked.

Although Black/Davis provides an analysis in the context of both Ukraine and the Middle East, we have only highlighted their arguments relating to Palestine/Israel.

It seems Hamas’ Al-Aqsa Flood attack on Israel on 7 October was, at the very least, an Israeli LIHOP false flag attack.  That is to say, it appears to have been “orchestrated.”

If so, assuming Israel is part of the identified “Western Empire,” it could be argued that Hamas’ attack – lauded by many as a blow against Western tyranny – was, in fact, the “projection of power” by Western Empire.

Further evidence suggests this possibility.

It is unlikely that Hamas would exist in the form it does today without the support of the Israeli state. In addition, when US-led coalition sponsored an Islamist insurrection against the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad, Hamas backed the so-called rebels.  Essentially, Hamas aligned with the US coalition and Israeli interests at the time.

Notably, the Hamas 7 October attack also served as a claimed casus belli for Israel. Hamas isn’t mentioned in Robinson/Beeley’s article but as they pointed out, Israel’s military response evidently “meets the criteria of genocide.”

If this imbroglio is really an attempt “to maintain US-led dominance of the global system,” as Robinson/Beeley suggested, it has been a strategic disaster from the outset, most notably through the overwhelming resistance it has faced in the United Nations (“UN”).

True, Israel has in the past been subject to censure following innumerable UN General Assembly resolutions, none of which it has ever been compelled to abide by. So, this condemnation is not entirely unique.

Nonetheless, the UN Secretary General’s condemnation of Israel’s military response to the Hamas-led Operation Al-Aqsa Flood at the UN Security Council was fairly remarkable.

Accusing Israel of operating a “suffocating occupation,” Antonio Guterres has effectively accused Israel of war crimes stating that nothing justifies “the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.”

A subsequent UN resolution saw 153 countries unite against Israel’s evident genocide of Palestinians, demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.

Meanwhile, even the Western legacy media, such as CNN, MSNBC, ABC, Sky News and others were increasingly featuring the horrors of the Gaza slaughter and telling its readers that the US was looking “increasingly isolated on the world stage.”

Humanity has long understood that dying empires are dangerous beasts, but if the mass slaughter in Gaza was an attempt “to maintain US-led dominance of the global system,” it couldn’t have backfired more comprehensively.

How is it repeatedly failing at its own objectives?  Why does it increasingly appear like a demented and blood-soaked anachronism – when it allegedly has total control of how its actions are portrayed?  Why is it apparently incapable any longer of even giving itself consistently good press from its own controlled media?

Black and Davis suggest this is not an accident and offer a different analysis of the global power dynamic.

The multipolar axis is led by the BRICS nations, including China, Russia, India and now with Saudi Arabia and Iran among them. Their shared objective is to construct a supposedly more “inclusive” model of “global governance.” It is essentially the same “world order” that has been until recently dominated by the “Western Empire.”

In multipolarity, the UN is the forum where the “balance of interests” will be judged. “All States must comply” with its balanced judgements.

After quoting from UN Resolution 70/224, Black/Davies wrote: “If this sounds like the same agenda you’ve heard from the talking heads of the Western Empire that’s because it is exactly the same agenda.  The only difference is that more “nation states” (meaning their appointed leaders of course, not the people) will supposedly have a say in the new “multipolar” version of global public-private governance.”

The “Covid-19 event” is the only concentration of power “process” highlighted in Robinson/Beeley’s article.  Consequently, the resistance to the “elite power networks” behind the reported power grab is named the “Covid resistance.”

“The ‘Covid-19 event’ and the rollout of the biosecurity state was not restricted to the West plus China. It was a truly global power grab ‘process’ in our view,” Black/Davis wrote.

The “multipolar” governments of Russia, Iran, Israel, India, Brazil, South Africa and Hamas – the government of Gaza – also followed the same “globalist technocratic agenda” and are all committed to the same global “biosecurity state.” If the “Covid resistance” is going to be united then it needs to mount opposition to these governments too.

At an extraordinary meeting of the G20, in response to Israel’s attack on Palestinians, Vladimir Putin was among the global leaders, including UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, to harshly criticise Israel. Putin stated:

Are you not shocked by the extermination of civilians in Palestine and the Gaza Strip today? Is it not shocking that doctors have to operate on children “do abdominal surgeries“ and use a scalpel on a child’s body without anaesthesia? Did it not shock you when the UN Secretary-General said that Gaza has turned into a huge children’s cemetery?

Strong words, and well said. Which isn’t unusual for Putin. He is a highly skilled communicator. He continued:

Dramatic transformation processes are underway in the world. New powerful global economic growth centres are emerging and gaining strength. A significant portion of global investment, trade and consumer activity is shifting to the Asian, African and Latin American regions, which are home to the majority of the world’s population.

That is exactly what we are seeing. It is an ongoing global “process” that is absent from the analysis of global power dynamics offered in the Robinson/Beeley article.

The Israeli state has deployed a digital ID-based surveillance grid against Palestinians. It is so draconian, in 2014, former members of Israel’s infamous Unit 8200 wrote a joint letter expressing their dismay to the Israeli government over its vice-like control of Palestinian’s whereabouts and activities.

Many of the facial recognition cameras, and the associated “identification” software systems, used by Israel to oppress and target Palestinians are supplied by the “multipolar” Chinese majority state-owned technology corporation Hikvision.

Amnesty International has called this surveillance operation “automated apartheid.” For its part in the Palestinian “lockdowns” and oppressive restrictions, and its complicity in the targeting of Palestinians, Hikvision-Israel states:

Hikvision is committed to serving various industries through its cutting-edge technologies of machine perception, artificial intelligence, and big data, leading the future of AIoT [artificial intelligence of things]: Through comprehensive machine perception technologies, we aim to help people better connect with the world around them.

Israel’s state partnership with the Chinese state is restricting Palestinians’ movements, identifying them for both Israeli settler and state violence and cutting them off from “the world around them.”

Perhaps this partnership shouldn’t come as a surprise.

After quoting from UN Resolution 70/224, Black/Davis wrote: “In the authors’ collective opinion, the ‘Greater Eurasian Partnership’ is the dominant geopolitical ‘partnership’ within of the ‘multipolar axis’. The Belt and Road Initiative is evidently an important component for the sustainable development of Greater Eurasian project.”

Israel is participating in the Chinese government’s Belt and Road Initiative (“BRI”). For example, the Chinese Shanghai International Port Group (“SIPG”) corporation built the enormous automated port in Haifa as part of the BRI. Between 1992 and 2017 the volume of overall trade between Israel and China multiplied 200 times over.

Alongside Israel’s possession of its own nuclear arsenal, Israel’s role as a conduit for Western military and industrial technology transfers to China is perhaps one of the world’s worst-kept “secrets.” While occasional gripes from “Western Empire” have been aired, the fact that Israel is known to provide China access to this technology has never deterred the Western Empire from handing it over.

The Palestinian priority is indeed to survive, but they are “fighting for their existence” against a multipolar threat. This multipolar threat is also the “emerging global-level political and economic” structure.

It is the overarching power axis and it is inextricably intertwined with, not mutually exclusive of, the threats faced by the Palestinians.

To point this out is not to “distract” anyone from the appalling suffering of the Palestinians. On the contrary, it is an attempt to highlight the totality of the power axes oppressing them.

Assuming that it is only the Western Empire that is subjecting them to tyranny is not only wrong, it runs the risk of “uniting the resistance” against a poorly defined adversary.

For Palestinians a “pivot towards the East” in the hope of at least some relief from the violence of Western Empire might be understandable – but given that the “East,” certainly in the form of China, is complicit in their present destruction, how much “liberation” they can expect from a multipolar saviour is questionable.

The Palestinian people gain nothing from the support of people who refuse to engage with geopolitical reality.  Part of that reality is that the new “multipolar world order” is currently testing its control mechanisms on Palestinians – and many other people around the world – in “partnership” with Israel.

It is also “projecting” its military might in Europe.

To not even acknowledge the existence of the “multipolar axis” or give any consideration to the nature of the public-private global governance regime it is attempting to construct, leaves the analysis of global “power dynamics,” offered in Robinson/Beeley’s article, wanting.

“We hope this opinion piece is part of the ‘start’ to a dialogue that will genuinely contribute, in some small way, toward a ‘united resistance’,”  Black/Davis concluded.

You can read Catte Black and Iain Davis’ full article on Iain Davis’ website HERE or on Off Guardian HERE.