SEVERAL times I wrote on this page that I believe the genocide in Gaza has permanently destroyed the moral authority of the West to lecture any government in the Global South. Before I move on, let me openly declare my support for the presence of China as a superpower in the global system.
It is time the international system saw the emergence of a global player that can challenge the hegemony of the West that has gone on for centuries. The international system needs more superpowers other than the US, the EU and Russia. On a note of caution, I never believed that Russia ever sought world domination like its traditional rivals in the West.
Let’s get back to the caption of this column. The Gaza genocide has destroyed the moral authority of the West to lecture any government in the Global South about democratic accountability. Even if they tried, they would be ignored. Two attempts were made last year, and Guyana was the recipient.
First, the election observer mission of the EU submitted a report that contains paragraphs of asinine thinking. The report says that the incumbent enjoyed an advantage in the 2025 election because it was in government and used spending that brought it an advantage.
For too long, the people in the Global South thought that the West had more intellectual muscle. And it had a subliminal effect on us. But the intellectuals and researchers in the West are not what we think they are. Mediocrity characterises their work and mediocrity is in that EU observer report.
Because of space constraints, one example should suffice. It is beyond asinine to argue that once an election comes around, the ruling party as the incumbent ceases to spend money. No government in the West becomes immobilised because of an impending election. Any citizen of the Global South that believes that is a fool.
The other attempt came from Canada. The Canadian High Commission publicly called on Guyanese to intercede with their government to accept the EU election observer report. He said it was the democratic thing to do because democracy resides with the Guyanese people. Democracy resides with the Canadian people and the citizens of the West.
Yet Canadians and Western populations cannot get their government to accept that genocide occurred in Gaza perpetuated by the Nazi mentality of the Israeli government. A vast majority in each Western country would like their government to declare that Israel has committed genocide and sanction Israel. So much for democracy in the West.
Democracy in the West was further exposed by the moral corruptibility that characterised the recently concluded football World Cup. Right before the eyes of the entire world, many of the referees were blatantly horrible in their bias. The referees had video assistance facilities and the entire world saw what took place. Those referees favoured Argentina. The prejudice against Egypt was so shocking that right there and then Egypt should have pulled out of the tournament.
And who was in charge? FIFA turned a blind eye to the consistent criminalized conduct of some of its referees. Had that been the attitude of any football federation in any country in the Global South, the headlines around the world would have screamed with words of uncivilised conduct.
Argentina should have been banned from further participation in the World Cup because both players and supporters displayed racist attitudes to non-White teams. Argentina supporters echoed monkey chants against African teams and the white-dominated FIFA did absolutely nothing about it.
Then came the climax. The Argentinians lost the final and descended to uncivilised levels of animalistic behaviour. This descent into barbarity was shown around the world. Argentine players displayed barbaric behaviour that we only see among basket players in the US. If that losing team was from the Global South and behaved like that, the Western media would have demanded an immediate ban, and FIFA would have instituted maybe a lifelong ban.
FIFA lost its moral authority in the 2026 football World Cup to host any football competition. FIFA proved in that World Cup that its leadership has no idea what democratic governance means. An American player was given a one-game suspension, and FIFA removed the ban at the request of the American president, something that was unthinkable under World Cup rules.
These are the people that lecture to us in the Global South about democracy. Where were the democratic rules in the just-concluded World Cup? Where and with whom does democracy reside? I end with an email one of Guyana’s most accomplished scholars sent me last year. He wrote that the only time he sees any contact between the citizens and the British government is during election time when pamphlets are pushed under his door.
DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Guyana National Newspapers Limited.