When we speak of someone’s worldview, this is how they perceive not so much their own personal position in the world, which is usually limited to their ‘lived space,’ but instead the more abstract position of their tribe, the collective they identify with, relative to other tribes at whatever scale represents the limits of their imagination. Some Americans, for example, limit their worldview to the physical contours of North America, others to the globe, still others to outer space, at least up to and including Mars. In a way similar to how Benedict Anderson portrayed the nation, the tribe in question is an imagined community. It could be racial, economic (class), occupational (as in medieval guilds or militaries today), national, regional, educational, athletic, political, and so on. Some people may see themselves, in different contexts, as members of different tribes (and there is tension when multiple loyalties are called upon simultaneously). Some do not. This becomes a problem when members of one tribe try to demonize members of another tribe. This was true when George Bush demonised those who belonged to the American Civil Liberties Union (as some sort of undermining Communist influence in American society) and as Donald Trump has today villainised Globalists (as opposed to those who put America first).
This kind of tribalism is a problem and ironically one that puts Trump into bed with important thinkers on the Left, and in the Global South no less, on some issues. This does not mean Trump’s case is as legitimate. The Global South is the inverse product of the rise of the West and of the successive Anglophone Empires (Britain and the US) in particular. When countries in the Global South, nearly all former colonies, complain about the global imbalance of wealth, of vast differences in health and education for large parts of the population, for unfairly shouldering the burden of climate change produced largely by the industrialization of the Global North, they have an undeniable case. They certainly have complained about Globalism using different terminologies over the last 75 years. Hence, problems in a particular country, such as Myanmar, are for them to resolve (alone) and what happens in Myanmar is not relevant to other countries. Ironically, no one takes the “my country” first approach further than the culprit at the centre of so many global problems, the United States. Hence, just as foreign “meddlers” and “neo-imperialists” get villainised in Burmese commentary on Myanmar’s problems, Trump and MAGA (Make America Great Again) have frequently targeted, but not solely (they have too many targets for that), Globalists and Globalism.
The problem with the takes from both the Left and the Right and from both America and Myanmar is that the problems in any one country, weak or strong, big or small, has significant consequences for the well-being of the World Community (remember when this was a generally accepted referent?) as well and cannot be treated as a country-specific problem needing solely a country-specific panacea. The problems in Gaza are not just an Israeli concern, just as the Tatmadaw attacks on the Rohingya are not solely a Myanmar concern (ask Bangladesh). The environmental ramifications of Trump’s call to “burn, baby, burn” regarding coal and oil is of serious global concern. America’s position as the world’s largest debtor state and biggest economy are of global concern to world financial stability. If Xi fell in China, the availability of rare earth would be a concern globally. If Putin used nuclear weapons in Ukraine or India and Pakistan engaged in a “limited” thermo-nuclear exchange this would have a multitude of effects for everyone. Defunding of the World Health Organization, the cutting of 40% of the world’s humanitarian funding, assaulting the International Peace Institute, or eliminating the FBI office dealing with international human trafficking do not just concern the US, they affect the entire globe, the United States included.
The world is too integrated, not just economically, to cut large parts out of our NECESSARY worldview, the global one, as the Trump II administration evidently plans to do with Africa. We do not just have a few immigrant societies anymore. We have, instead, a migrant shaped world. This world will necessarily become more so as the entire Global North faces the inverted population pyramids that lay ahead in the next few decades. The world will need to be on better terms than it is, even today, not turn the clock back to 1930s-style isolationism. We will need stronger international institutions not weaker ones and more funding internationally for them and their global projects not less. We live in a world that is so interdependent that the World Community cannot afford to have large parts, like the United States, turn rogue and attempt to call all the shots, without cooperating and paying their share. This fair share should not be judged on the basis of a state-by-state head-tax, along the lines of what Trump II seems to lean towards, but instead on historically responsible contributions. A historically responsible contribution would take into account all the human and material resources the United States and other members of the G7 consumed that they took for free from elsewhere (yes, usually the Global South). What it also means is that, just as I would argue that the World Community has a responsibility and an interest in helping to resolve the civil war in Myanmar, that everyone, including the Burmese, have an interest and a right, as residents of the same world, to have a say in some of the world-affecting activities taking place within the United States. So, for those who demonise Globalists and Globalism, I am not backing down. It is the only responsible worldview to have.
A native of Flint, Michigan, Michael Charney, a FORSEA Board Member, is a full professor at SOAS, the University of London, in the Centre for International Studies and Diplomacy (School of Interdisciplinary Studies) and the School of History, Religions, and Philosophies, where he teaches global security, strategic studies, and Asian military history.
Mike Charney
SOAS, University of London
