Watching the seeds of our future germinate on CNN

Through the shock and disbelief that greeted my viewing of the right-wing insurrection at the US Capitol, I must confess to a certain schadenfreude.

“Tshotsho, US. Tshotsho,” I thought to myself. “It serves you right.”

I’m not proud of this feeling, but there it is. I couldn’t help thinking that after years of the country tolerating and accommodating white-supremacist ideology, it was not surprising that right-wing nationalists would feel entitled to attempt a coup after losing an election.

One doesn’t want to be happy about an attempted coup, exactly, as the instability it causes can cost lives and disrupt a society. But it has been looking likely for several years, in what must be one of the world’s most polarised countries.

Not only is the US a polarised society, but it inspires polarised opinions across the planet. Even our own attitude towards the great north American nation may be conflicted.

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The US is the country that gave the world hip-hop, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. The US has led our exploration of space. The US helped to defeat fascism during World War II. The United States is the home of Hollywood, for better or worse the source of much of our film and television entertainment.

Despite its centuries-long oppression of black people, the US also gave birth to the civil-rights movement, and its descendant Black Lives Matter. These movements fight for racial equality. Many parts of the feminist and gay-rights movements can trace their roots to the US.

In many ways, the US is the cultural font from which we drink. Why do we not care as much any longer?

We see their attempted right-wing coup, and if we are progressive people, we are glad it seems not to have succeeded. But at the same time, we reserve judgment. After all, are the new Democrat leaders of their government really much different to the Republicans they recently defeated?

This ambivalence can perhaps be traced to the global interventionism and imperialism the US has been guilty of for many decades. The US not only powers the world economically through big tech companies, energy firms and consumer brands, it manipulates the countries of the planet to serve its own interests.

During the Cold War, this meant staging coups across the planet, deposing, installing and assassinating leaders of other nations, fomenting and staging wars and invasions; the isolation of non-capitalist countries.

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In South Africa, the US helped to prop up the apartheid government. Across Africa and Latin America, leaders were protected who oppressed, exploited and killed their people – simply because this was advantageous to America.

Regimes were undermined using some of the very same methods now being employed by the Washington insurrectionists.

The final outcome of the current political showdown remains to be seen. There are no guarantees that America will emerge on the side of human rights, freedom and equal opportunity.

The rest of the world watches from the sidelines. We are conscious that this is not our fight, but at the same time, it definitely is.

If the dispensation that emerges from this flare-up is the same as the one that has governed the US for the past few decades, the lives of the less powerful members of society will suffer – right across the planet.

Possibly the most harmful set of values the US has exported has been the cult of individualism, winner-takes-all exploitation and market fundamentalism. Wherever these principles have been adopted, they have led to gross inequality, poverty and the exploitation of poor people by the rich.

If these values are retained in US domestic and foreign policy – in the name of economic growth, or political reconciliation – our relationship with the US will remain as conflicted as ever. America gives so much, but it takes so much away.

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If this is simply about who can have access to the levers of government, and the tools of exploitation, then a great opportunity will be lost.

However, if this instability represents the birth pangs of a more progressive approach, founded on human rights, sustainable evolution and the upliftment of all people, then it can be the saving of the world.

Political upheaval is the sign of an unsustainable political economy. The provocateurs who staged the attempted coup may be feeling the first impacts of a shift towards social equity. If this is so, their reactionary, fascist bullying should be resisted.

From the global sidelines, we watch America’s political shakedown. We are not directly involved, but we are affected. We have seen that American ideas are exported to the world, for better or worse.

This American revolution, whatever form it ultimately takes, has been in the post for a long time. Its outcome will be replayed in many different forms across the world in years to come. Much as we are watching America on TV, we are also watching our future.

Hagen Engler.

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