I HAD the misfortune of being taught International Relations by Western professors steeped in Western bias. Believe me; it is an uncomfortable feeling that is close to being a nightmare. Use your imagination to think what it would be like doing a course in international politics and being taught by a Black South African professor as against a Western social scientist?

I came back from studies abroad and taught a course in International Relations at both the undergraduate and graduate levels at UG and, in my course outlines, I omitted all the nonsense, bias, and shameless propaganda I learnt from those professors. I was forcefully pellucid in my teaching that the USSR played the most crucial role than any other nation in the defeat of Nazi Germany, a fact my Western professor poured scorn on.
It was appalling to read a Guyanese scholar Dr Bertrand Ramcharran in his criticism on Guyana’s governance in the Stabroek News of Tuesday, August 27, quote from one of the world’s most irrational ant-communist, pro-Israeli, pro-Ukrainian academic, Anne Applebaum, on what the world is like today.

He accepts the canvas of the world that Applebaum paints, obviously missing the encrustations, indelible stains, and mouldy smell on the canvas. Ramcharran quotes from one of the bibles of anti-communism and anti-Third-worldism titled, “Autocracy Inc.” It is doubtful that the book will ever make the reading list of any lecturer in world politics from a Third World university.
Let’s show you the propaganda in Applebaum’s work which Ramcharran finds appealing, so he quotes her and recommends we read her book. I recommend that as a Guyanese stay far away from anything Applebaum writes and her outputs include support for genocide, once the genocide is committed by counties she admirers.

She lists a number of authoritarian countries that have strongmen, but the ones that did not make the list are the ones the Western governments are close to, like the Gulf States and Saudia Arabia and Israel (Ms Applebaum is Jewish). Macron in France doesn’t make her list, even though he exhibits more of a strongman mentality than the President of China. China, of course, is on her enumeration.
Ms Applebaum tells us that people live better lives in liberal countries, but she did not do any survey in China, Singapore, the United States etc to ascertain how people feel about their leadership and their countries. So smitten is Ramcharran by the nonsense and hysteria that Applebaum puts in her book that he overenthusiastically quotes her, which is worth reproducing here.

I will quote Ramcharran on how Applebaum see these authoritarian countries’ effort to undermine the UN and when I do so, remember that Ramcharran should know better about who undermines the work of the UN, because at one time he was Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Here is Ramcharran: “The details in this book are staggering of the efforts within this group of countries to overturn the principles and rules of the United Nations charter and universal values of human rights.” Really Dr Ramcharran! You are writing this nonsense when, from last October to the present, the UN has never faced a more crucial moment of imminent disintegration.

I can only conclude that this gentleman has not been following the pressures being borne by the UN over the attitude by certain countries that side with Israel at the expense of the UN Charter. In fact, most dispassionate International Relations scholars have opined that the Western governments’ frenetic embrace of Israel’s conduct and these countries’ stance have severely weakened the UN, a point that Ms Applebaum would furiously reject.
But wait a minute! Does Dr Ramcharran know that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has given notice that it wants an arrest warrant for Mr. Netanyahu and while that warrant is being studied, Mr Netanyahu was given a standing ovation two weeks ago at a joint session of the House and Senate and met with President Biden?

Dr Ramcharran reminds us that Ms Applebaum believes that liberal countries offer a far greater opportunity for people to live meaningful lives. Are the Palestinians in Gaza living useful lives and can Ramcharran and Applebaum tell us if the bad, terrible autocratic countries are the reason why the Palestinians in Gaza are starving?
I don’t know if Ramcharran ever read a copy of The Jacobin,  it is a brilliant left-leaning American magazine that did a brilliant review of Applebaum’s book.  In conclusion, there are no staggering details of scholarship in Applebaum’s publication. It is a compendium of staggering pro-Western propaganda that should not be introduced even to a kindergarten kid. Next – Ramcharran’s fear of autocracy under the PPP.