Interesting Articles

I recently happened upon three articles, The Case Against the West by Kishore Mahbubani, What Have We Learned, If Anything? by Tony Judt, and The Rise of the Rest by Fareed Zakaria.

The article The Case Against the West, in particular, caught my interest. The author was attempting, as one might expect, to explain the seemingly imminent demise of Western hegemony. I have a multitude of problems with this article, chief among them the origins of the author. Kishre Mahbubani has served in the government of Singapore for many years, including as ambassador to the UN. For much of the article he waxes on about the hypocrisy of the West due to its rhetorical promotion of semocracy but its de facto promotion of dictatorship and supremacy when it serves their own interests. He argues that democracy is "among the world's best bet," and that we need to "inject the spirit of democracy into globabl governance." Coming from a Singaporean official, I find this to be, frankly, hilarious. Singapore is a one-party state that suppresses freedom of speech and press and has the highest execution rate per capita in the eintire world (see here). Despite everything he says about the benefits of democracy, he is, above all, a functionary of a semi-authroitarian state. As for the argument that the UN needs to be more democratic, I hardly think that giving dictatorships more say in international affairs will lead to greater freedoms for the people of the world. Overall, I find it hard to take what Mr. Mahbubani writes seriously - it is all overshadowed by the basic hypocrisy of his own history in government and foreign affairs.