Global Dispatch: 4.28.19
Welcome Discontenteurs, to the first edition of the Global Dispatch. I’ll be taking 4-6 countries each week to spotlight, surveying pressing domestic trends and offering insights from an op-ed or two. As I refine and polish this segment, your feedback is incredibly appreciated. From the sources I use to deciding what the most attractive font is, I’m all ears! (It’s PT Serif btw)
-Spencer
Sudan: Opposition and Military Factions Vy for Power Amidst Bashir’s Ousting
Tensions continue to rise between Sudanese protesters and the ruling military council, less than two weeks after mass demonstrations and a military coup have ended the 30-year rule of President Omar Al-Bashir. The Military Council, headed by Lieutenant-General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, has promised to begin formally engaging with civilians to begin a transitional government, with military rule lasting a maximum of two years. This proposal has been rejected by demonstrators, particularly by the leading Sudanese Professional Association (SPA). The SPA is a collection of doctors, lawyers, and engineers who were instrumental in mobilizing popular uprisings last December that were sparked over bread price hikes and soaring inflation.
Recent insights provided by Caitlin Chandler reveal how even prior to Western media coverage, activists had been mobilizing in the years leading up to final movement. Many civilians are highly distrustful of the military and are calling for immediate popular rule; As Rebecca Hamilton highlights, many in the interim military council played auxiliary roles in overseeing Bashir's security and intelligence apparatuses, which routinely tortured political opponents and dissidents of the ruling National Congress Party (NCP). While the future of the country is impossible to predict, the Sudanese people may attempt to construct a newfound cultural identity in the wake of Islamist rule, and remain attentive to the influence of many in the Gulf region who want to ensure a stable transition; democracy or otherwise.
Yemen: As the Crisis Continues, Trump Vetoes Crucial Resolution to End U.S Support
President Trump vetoed a joint resolution on April 16 that would put an end to unauthorized U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, bringing the vote back to senators when they return to the Capitol next week. Since 2015, the U.S. aided Saudi Arabia and its allies in combating the Houthi rebels in Yemen, including intelligence sharing, logistics and, until late last year, aerial refueling. The U.S. has also funneled billions of dollars in U.S.-made weapons to the kingdom. The resulting civil war has been internationally condemned by various entities as the "world's largest humanitarian crises," with the carnage of the Saudi Coalition leading to the deaths of 70,000 people since 2016, and leaving 80% of the population - or approximately 24 million people - struggling to survive.
Trump claimed that the congressional intervention represents “an unnecessary, dangerous attempt to weaken my constitutional authorities," While lawmakers in the House and Senate argue the President is wrong both on moral and legal grounds. Congressman Ro Khanna, who worked closely with his colleague Bernie Sanders in the Senate, says that the resolution gives Congress its authority to "decide on matters of war and peace," outlined in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution. Sanders echoes this idea, adding that the resolution restores to the forefront the use of the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which checks the president's power to commit the United States to an armed conflict without the consent of the U.S. Congress.
Ukraine: Satire Becomes Reality as a Nation Repudiates its Establishment
Last Sunday, comedian turned presidential candidate Volodymyr Zelensky trounced the incumbent Petro Poroshenkso in Ukraine’s elections, carrying 73% to the latter’s 25%. The results are widely seen as a referendum not only on Poroshenko’s presidency, but on the last five years of the country, mired by an ongoing war with Russia and longstanding corruption. Zelensky is famous his role in Servant of the People, a series in which he plays a teacher who accidentally becomes president after a rant about Ukrainian politics goes viral on social media. His campaign of the same name mirrors his fictional style, preferring social media outreach to in-person interviews, and appealing to a broad anti-corruption message over a policy-laden one. That isn’t to say he doesn’t take stances on key issues, argues Lev Golinkin, notably rejecting the ultranationalism that Poroshenko has whipped into a fervor, preferring a peaceful outcome with Russia, and has a generally hands-off view of government intervention.
Despite repudiating his predecessor’s ties with Ukranian oligarchs, Zelensky himself has a relationship to oligarch Ihor Kolomoiskyi, although the extent to which it will play a factor is less certain. Concerns over Ukraine's vulnerability to Russian influence, notes Arkady Moshes, are due to Zelensky’s lack of political experience. President Vladimir Putin recently made moves to expedite the citizenship process for Ukranians living in Pro-Russian conflict zones, which was swiftly condemned by Zelensky as jeopardizing a potential peace process. While not representative of any broader Ukranian left-wing movement, Volodymyr Ischenko concludes that Zelensky offers not only an alternative to Poroshenko’s authoritarianism, but a repudiation to the traditional consensus of its politics parties, and new avenues of electoralism and activism to empower the country’s youth.
China: The Belt and Road Forum Takes a More 'Humble' Tone
In Beijing, China, the Second Belt and Road Forum kicked off on Thursday, hosting some 5,000 delegates across 37 countries to discuss opportunities for cooperation and trade amidst China’s signature infrastructure project. Conceived by President Xi Jinping, the 2013 project began as a symbolic gesture to rebuild ancestral trading routes of the Han Dynasty, but has manifested in recent years as the beginning of an alternative system of trade and finance that rivals the Western-created international monetary systems. Conversely, many partner nations who have signed agreements with China have also expressed concerns on a variety of issues, varying from the structure of their loans to the transparency of these deals.
At the Forum, President Xi was aware of the fears surrounding the Belt and Road, chairing a round table discussion with global leaders to push for “high-quality standards” around its infrastructure projects. In addition to tackling flaws ongoing projects face as well as pledging a “zero tolerance approach to corruption”, the Forum notably attracted Malaysia, a critic of the initiative, and Italy, the first of the Group of 7 countries to sign a BRI-related agreement. Eli Friedman and Andi Kao make the case for China’s recent development showing the ease of function between capitalism and anti-democratic states, forming an economic “third way" that rivals the United States. By doing away with a concern for liberal norms and values, the country has increasingly become an attractive market for foreign investment from Western multinationals; whether China can consolidate these economic arrangements into political capital will become clear in the coming years.
Foreign Policy in Focus: Social Democracy at Home Requires Anti-Imperialism Abroad
In an interview for Jacobin Magazine, Professor of Law at Cornell University Aziz Rana discusses the growing demand for a vision of left-wing internationalism that matches the vision of figures such as Bernie Sanders and Ilhan Omar while reinventing the traditional bipartisan consensus around U.S Foreign Policy. The development of US actions abroad and our role in the world took shape in the Post-World War II landscape, Rana argues, where its professed values of promoting freedom and equality at home and abroad were subsumed by a special responsibility to pursue a hegemonic state of affairs. In other words, in order to compete for the title of the sole superpower in the world, the United States leveraged an arsenal of military, economic, and political instruments, often circumventing international legal constraints to do so, to defeat its arch-rival the Soviet Union. It was in this period that the Left and labor movements ceded the floor, opting instead to focus on improving domestic policies and material conditions for its own citizens.
Jumping to the present, Rana takes the elite-centered argument of foreign policy not being a matter of priority for most Americans as one that should be dismantled. A mass-democratic movement, much like the kind that provided the groundswell for Medicare for All to become popular, should similarly take the existing security budget and retool it for policies that connect solidarity at home to workers abroad. Holding US Multinationals responsible for labor and environmental rights, reigning in their profits via capital controls, and incorporating immigration activists into a transnational agenda of economic empowerment are all in line with a mission of social democracy at home and anti-imperialism abroad.