World

‘Western civilization would be a good idea,’ joked Mahatma Gandhi, one of its most successful pupils. We are accustomed to hearing what is wrong with Western civilization: racism, sexism, colonialism and (gasp) capitalism. The world would be a kind of utopia, we are told, if only we could purge these sins from our societies. But if Western civilization is evil, what is the alternative? Four other -isms vie for our attention. The first is socialism. Its proponents include some old-fashioned Marxists, faithful to the old egalitarian nostrums, but most are pseudo- or neo-Marxists. The ‘woke’ activists fundamentally oppose capitalism and are aggressively committed to intersectionality, but they are vague on the alternatives. We can assume that they will not end in utopia.

In late 2018, Nils Melzer, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for Torture, was contacted by lawyers representing WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, asking him to intervene on their client’s behalf. ‘I was like, “No. Not this guy. Isn’t this the rapist hacker guy?”’ Melzer recalls. He ignored the email. Three months later, the lawyers contacted him again, this time warning that Assange’s extradition to the US — where he faces 17 counts of violating the Espionage Act for obtaining and publishing secret military and diplomatic documents — could be imminent.

There was a time when summit meetings between the presidents of Russia and the US were world-historical events on which the balance of world peace rested. Today — not so much. Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin didn’t even manage to fill the five hours allotted for their talks in Geneva today in large part because they simply didn’t have much to talk about. Russia today threatens no US vital interests, commands no alliances or strategic resources and remains a world power in only two areas, both inherited from the Cold War — its large nuclear arsenal and its UN Security Council veto.

This week's Nato summit communiqué was predictably replete with bombast about the ever growing threat of Russian aggression — along with tentative references to the 'challenges' of China's 'growing influence’. More cheerfully, it greeted the news that '24 allies are spending over 20 percent of their defense expenditures on major equipment’, with confident hopes that newcomers would join this exclusive club in the near future. Given that for seven European Nato members the principal item of ‘major equipment’ in question is Lockheed's F-35 fighter, this is good news for the Lockheed Corporation, but not such glad tidings for countries contracted to buy the plane, who find their armed forces steadily reduced to a state of emasculated beggary as a result.

All eyes today are on…Carrie and Jill, as the remainder of the G7 summit is effortlessly overshadowed by the leaders’ spouses. The First Lady of the US is having tea today with Carrie Johnson — this being Cornwall, it will be a cream tea, with scones. This is pretty well obligatory when you visit Cornwall. Mrs Johnson is not actually first lady of the UK, since no such role exists, and the only First Lady is the Queen, but irritatingly the British media have adopted the Americanism, so stand by for headlines along the lines of 'First Ladies Meet’. Thank goodness, then, the British prime minister got round to marrying his girlfriend just last Saturday, before the summit — in fact, one wonders whether the nuptials were timed precisely to avoid any awkwardness.

António Guterres, the UN's secretary-general, has described rising anti-Semitism as a ‘multi-headed monster' of intolerance that's creating a ‘tsunami of hatred’ across the world, and the UN proclaims ‘anti-racism’ as its defining ideology. But the UN is failing to confront discrimination and violence against Jews — and at times even nurturing it. The UN special rapporteur on racism, E. Tendayi Achiume, ought to be among the leading global voices speaking out against Jew hate. Last year, she called on Bulgaria to stop hate speech and discrimination against the Roma, she urged the Human Rights Council to address abuses against people of African descent and she appealed to world leaders to confront 'structural forms of racial and ethnic injustice’.

It’s difficult to get people to take the idea of Canadian world domination seriously — and I admit the notion snuck up on me too. My first inkling came last year, when I found out Toronto was on track to overtake Chicago as the city with the second-largest number of skyscrapers in North America, New York being the first. But then came the news about Kansas City Southern, at which point I realized: Canada is on the march. You’ve probably never heard of Kansas City Southern. I hadn’t either, and my knowledge of railroads — that’s what KCS is — is well above average. Here are two of the three things you need to know about it: 1) The KCS originates in Kansas City and heads south. You might have figured that out for yourself, I suppose, but railroad names can be deceptive.

Canadians pride themselves on their ultra-progressive reputation. In contrast to the gun-loving, war-mongering, big government-hating, get-off-my-lawn-you-commie reputation of Americans, Canadians see themselves as North America’s kinder, gentler half. But that smug politeness has seen us sleepwalk into an Orwellian nightmare. We have never felt much of an affinity to free speech in Canada — saying what you really think is mean and individual rights are for people who don’t have a feminist drama teacher as prime minister. So it’s perhaps unsurprising that a new bill proposing to regulate speech on the internet is being pushed by our politically center-left Liberal party.

Dear Americans, We're Canadian and, yes, we're sorry. No, this time we mean it. You likely hadn't noticed, but Canada has lost one of our greatest sources of consolation during the COVID-19 pandemic: that things weren’t nearly so bad as they have been south of our border. Even the editorial board of Canada's leading national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, acknowledges that Canada is doing far worse at managing the pandemic than the US. A smug feeling of moral superiority over Americans is a regrettable part of our national character. This attitude seemed more justified than ever as we watched the apparently chaotic early American approach to COVID. None of this is to say that any sane person took pleasure in the suffering of our American neighbors and allies.

With 40 percent of the population vaccinated, a palpable sense of normalcy has returned to America. The young are now getting their turn at the COVID vaccine and in almost every city, restaurants and bars are back in full swing. But while selfies of joyful reunions with older relatives flood social media here, in India, the picture is grim. The country reported world record-breaking coronavirus infection rates for four days in a row. Hospitals in several cities are grappling with severe shortages of beds, medicines and oxygen. For a country widely seen as the pharmacy of the world (India produces 60 percent of the world’s total vaccines), it is a sad irony that just 8 percent of its own population has been vaccinated thus far.