Since the end of the Second World War, the world has remained distinctly divided into two distinct groups on ideological, political and economic adaptations; generally called Right and Left in Geopolitics. The unending ideological debate between the Right (which normally defends private enterprise, market economies with minimal government interference, democratic forms of government and traditional family values) and the Left (which supports social solidarity, government involvement in the economy, subordination of democratic forms to social priorities and defence of minority rights on social behaviour) is a struggle between opponents who are not necessarily true to themselves; and therefore often do not seem to defend their interests. Therefore, it is worth asking whether there is still a genuine ideological dimension in this contest.
In his book “The Road to Freedom” Joseph Stiglitz writes, “Freedom is a core human value…Freedom from whom? What happens when one person’s freedom comes at the expense of another’s?... How are we to balance political and economic freedom?” This is a dilemma being faced by countries like Pakistan gravely debt-ridden and crawling on the World Bank, IMF and other countries/ IFIs loans; and coerced to take decisions to the detriment of the public interest, and consequently facing unrelenting political instability.
Nevertheless, the lack of understanding of the current state of the world economy prevents both the left and the right from defining clear ideological options that would allow them to develop solid and consistent political messages. There is an ignorance of key economic facts that have worsened the current geopolitical confrontation, including the declining economic importance of the West vis-à-vis the rest of the world, the increase in US public debt and its unsustainable financing through monetary issuance. According to Oscar Silva-Valladares, “a key reason for this disorientation in the left versus right debate is unawareness of the current world geopolitical confrontation. This conflict is a struggle between an exclusivist vision of Western hegemonic dominance (based on its conviction that it offers a superior political, ethical and economic model because of its supposedly proven effectiveness in defeating antagonistic models and because it is the result of a millenary evolution of Western civilisation) and a multipolarity perception promoted by Russia and China, among other powers. The conflict between the West and the East (which certainly does not follow strict geographic boundaries) is not a recent phenomenon, but today it has new meaning because the division that existed between political, economic, and ideological economic systems from the time of the Russian Revolution of 1917 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 (in simple terms, capitalism versus communism) no longer exists”.
The new geopolitical alignments manifested by China led SCO and Russia dominated and recently consolidated BRICS due to American sanctions in the wake of Ukraine conflict is a clear indication of blurring lines between Western hegemonism versus multipolarity. This new alignment does not respond to a division between opposing political or economic models of governance, but to a simple power struggle for the continuation of Western hegemonic primacy resisted by a growing majority of countries with diverse economic and political models. On the one hand, Western hegemonic power transcends political formulas and ignores or dispenses with them as it sees fit; for example in its interest in forging alliances with Arabian Gulf countries that do not follow democracy. On the other hand, the BRICS countries followed diverse political and economic models but have in common a paramount inclination to preserve cultural and social autonomy; Russia and China, for instance, strive to strike a balance between their authoritarian political models and the need to maintain stability among their diverse multi-ethnic groups.
Traditionally, most right-wing countries have had a robust similarity with Western hegemonic groups. There is also great complacency and comfort with the US security umbrella and a conceptual difficulty in understanding that today’s Russia is not the Soviet Union, let alone Tsarist Russia. The left, for its part, pretends to have less empathy with the US-led status quo but in practice much of its leadership has a strong economic dependence on the West as employees/ beneficiaries of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), international organisations or academic institutions funded directly or indirectly by Western governments.
These historical gravitations of the left and the right have created relations of dependency which, in the face of the new geopolitics, have led to great ideological distortion and confusion. Irrespective of their roots and objectives in the context of the Cold War, and despite growing convergence with leftist sectors, globalism and progressivism are firmly embedded in the current political leadership of the West. Needless to say, NGOs, for example, are precisely the opposite of their name, as they are organisations that design, coordinate and execute government agendas in the geopolitical interests of the West. Globalism is a weapon and a manifestation of the Western hegemonic power struggle and will likely continue regardless of the results of the upcoming US presidential election.
The worsening of the geopolitical hostility will sooner or later lead to a larger widening of positions on both the left and the right. Pakistan's internal, foreign and economic policies (if there are really any) are hardly followed for more than a few months; and can best be understood keeping in view this geopolitical confusion and failure to clearly pick up the correct strategic alignment, economic and security bloc. “Once bitten twice shy” is the epigram that ought to be deeply ingrained in Pakistani policy makers’ brains as a main historical lesson.
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