On anglocentrism in it's negative form....

Anglocentrism~ The practice of viewing the world from English or Anglo-American perspective, with an implied belief, either consciously or subconsciously, in the preeminence of English or Anglo-American culture.

Liberals, 'leftists' and naive 'anti-war' critics of the USA & other English speaking countries, appear to me to be one side -the negative detracting side- of anglocentrism.
There is no teary eyed, flag waving patriotism behind this antithetical, ideological position, nor any kind of self righteous chauvinism that can be easily discerned in anglocentrism proper, yet I don't think it can be denied that there is a likely unconscious, but nonetheless strong sense of Anglo-American culture's primacy on the global stage.

For instance, this rather varied subgroup within Western societies, usually found in universities or on social media echo chambers of righteous socialist views, are frequently the most vocal critics of any military operations considered by UK or US Governments. All of these planned operations, no matter how benevolent or well intentioned, are described by this subgroup as "Imperialist Wars", which is to say resource grabs to sustain a non-existent Angloamerican Empire. Of course this is patently stupid, the language they're using here is probably a century or more out of date and barely corresponds to the situations they attempt to describe, still, their opposition to "The West"[1] is clearly more important than a genuine appraisal or understanding of modern situations.

The reason I think there is a anglocentrist attitude at work here, is because I catch glimpses of it while in disputation among these people, I will show a few examples, my interest is not in the factual accuracy of the claims, the substance of the arguments or lack thereof, but in the hints each position gives of a stunted, atrophied, simplistically dualistic and myopic view of the world, which represents a flip side, a self flagellating version of anglocentrism.

Firstly Iraq.
I often hear that Saddam Hussein was "put in power" by the West, that he was armed by the West, and supported by the West during his war against Iran. This I think is patently anglocentric, although implicitly so, as though these dark skinned sorts from the desert have neither the capability or desire to establish and run totalitarian State systems on their own behalf, that they couldn't plan or fight a war for their own interests or by their own initiative.

If you ask any average repeater of words to this effect, they will generally be ignorant as to the participation of German and French Governments and private companies, of Soviet Imperialism in arming and supporting the regime of Saddam Hussein, but more tellingly they will 9times out of 10 demonstrate a very tangible ignorance of social and economic conditions within Saddam's Iraq. The typical ignorance expected of a consumer of exclusively English speaking Media information? Or the kind of naivety, comfort and lack of empathy expected from people who grow up coddled in developed and democratic societies, and who assume in typically anglocentric fashion that elsewhere must be more or less the same. Perhaps they should read Kanan Makiya's book "Republic of Fear", maybe they'd begin to understand that fiction has barely yet conceived of a State as brutally sadistic, and arbitrarily violent as that of Saddam's Iraq?

So why do they still so vehemently oppose his removal? Maybe to their mind all 'evil' must originate, all negativity must be attributable to "The West", all examples of the West acting must be a manifestation of this evil acting against the 'poor hapless victims' they portray totalitarian dictators like Assad, Hussein or Qaddafi as?

I accept the West is far from covered in past-glories, but have these people stopped to consider that actually there are worse places, and that some of these might be inhabited by people fundamentally opposed to Western ideals of Liberal Democracy rather than acting on it's behalf?

Syria.
This was the most recent case of the West planning to go to War, sadly for the Syrian people, coming post Iraq and Libya, UK participation was put to a vote and was met with cumulative and most widespread resistance. The situation is familiar, rebellion of an oppressed majority seeking change and democracy, met with brutal repression at the hands of an authoritarian dictatorship, while the UK sits and watches (Kosovo & Bosnia, Yemen), but in this case it was popular sentiment which swayed our non-participation rather than cynical real-politik. The British public decided, and spent much of the week of the vote, demonstrating that Syrian people's lives are less important than the lives of a few hundred underused British military personnel, that it was more important to subsidize Western consumers', than support global aspirations towards democracy. How can British isolationism be anything other than anglocentric, regardless of how well intentioned it's advocates claim they are?

But there is further and similar accusation here to the case of Iraq, perhaps originating in foreign countries or Syria itself but certainly willingly adopted here, namely that the mass uprising of Syrian people was a "Western" intelligence operation, that these rebels and warriors for freedom were merely automatons, acting under the influence of Western Media and various Western seductions proliferated through the digital commons. This view seems to discount the Arab Spring, that this came as part of a series of public uprisings in the region against authoritarian, family dictatorships, in favour of democracy. Why were people reluctant to believe Syrians wanted democracy, if they do believe the mass of Syrians wanted democracy, why were they reluctant for their Government's to support this struggle? I feel that beneath answers to both these questions lies a feeling that maintaining our peace here, is more important than facilitating their peace there, and perhaps the idea, though I've never heard it formulated as such, that Democracy is a European system, and any adoption of it in other lands is evidence of "Western Imperialism"?

ISIS.
A few years in to the conflict in Syria a new force began to distinguish itself by it's brutality and antipathy towards any forms of Western or non-Islamic culture, the now infamous Islamic State. Emerging from the post Ba'athist rubble in both countries IS could draw on a wide base of angry, experienced and driven, anti-Western Jihadists. The emergence of IS, incidentally shows the failure of a non-Imperialistic approach to invasion by the US and UK in Iraq and Libya which is still in a very chaotic state. By destroying the dictatorship and leaving everyone pretty much to their own devices, "the West" loosened the chains of oppression on destructive forces as well as the average freedom loving Iraqi, this inevitably gave rise to the conflicts, sectarianism, power struggles and divisions, which were prevalent throughout the Saddam regime, though strongly repressed by means disavowed in the emerging, western aligned democratic governments.

I've heard many theories, for instance that ISIS is a reasonable response to Western actions in Iraq, Libya and Syria; that ISIS is the inevitable response of a 'War against Islam'; that ISIS is a CIA and Mossad front conducting war games to destabilize Syria and establish "Greater Israel"; or that IS represent the most active force in a fight against "Western Imperialism" in their region.

The conduct genocide, they have conquered land putting it's people to the sword or worse forms of punishment, they have a flag, a currency, extremely vicious and sexually repressive laws, media outlets and are called "a state". They actively seek to cleanse the World of unbelievers, launching pogroms against Zoroastrian Yazidi tribes, Shi'ite Muslims and the Kurdish people of Norther Iraq,  yet the accusation of Imperialism is never directed at them? Infact many of the criticisms of them, besides those listed above, are dismissed as Islamophobia or predictable Western propaganda.

Nor is any criticism directed towards Putin's Russia, who's propaganda arm of the State Department; Russia Today, actively works to reinforce these kinds of inverted, self flagellating concepts among those seeking to escape the 'lies' of the Western Media, while the Russian military actively supports their client Dictator in Syria, destroying infrastructure that will require prolonged and extensive participation of Russia's State owned corporations to rebuild,

That many young people in the West are deeply suspicious of State owned media like the BBC, but deeply aligned with the terminology and perspectives offered by foreign State owned media like Iran's Press TV or RT, seems on it's surface very un-anglocentric, but it should be noted that neither of these outlets depart from English language presentations, nor the general format or subject matter of well established Anglo-American media outlets. They seem to operate in order to undermine the West in as most subtle a way as possible, and of course by basing all of their positions in opposition to the 'West', the negative anglocentric view within various political subgroups finds an echo of it's sentiment, and an ally in their productions.

The evidence is, that among those who use the term Imperialism as a slur, the word has lost more or less all value, and instead expresses, on one hand a code for them & those who would deceive them, used to refer to Western Foreign policy, no matter how un-Imperialistic, and on the other the delusion of anti-Imperialist's who watch Russia and ISIS conducting their respective operations, yet struggle to find the adequate word to describe what it is they are engaged in; namely the construction, or reconstruction of former Empires.


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1. This term "the West" when used in the West, tends to refer exclusively to the US and UK, rather than Mexico, Canada, Spain, Latvia, Italy or the whole of Europe, unlike the General term mid-East or Far-East.

A response to Jess Phillips...

It's clear now is not a great time to be a politician, particularly a Labour Politician, so I sympathize with Jess Phillip's current anxieties when attending to her role in public service, but surely she must recognize that now is also not a great time to be Labour member, despite her lack of sympathy for the many thousands of labour members who voted for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party 10months ago?

Making good use of her public profile by writing a further explanation for the Huffington Post, as to why she decided to quit Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet, Ms Phillips begins in surprisingly confrontational fashion (for somebody complaining about her anxieties over confrontation), ridiculing the object of her ire, and dismissing the general discontent I assume has been directed at her over the past week or two, as coming from; "people who, I can only assume, think that the moon landing was a hoax and that Lord Lucan is currently sunning himself in a mankini sat with Anastasia and Rasputin on at a hedonism resort in Jamaica...."

When arguing or attempting to defend a position, misrepresenting all criticism is a common tactic employed by a party who knows they are on weak ground, in-fact the range of public resignations by Labour Mp's who've quit the shadow cabinet in the last week, demonstrate various attempts to avoid giving any substantial or honest explanation for their actions, from playing for sympathy, to the argument from authority, to the argument ad populum. I doubt the majority of criticisms or critical questions received by Ms Phillips represent a fringe paranoiac mentality as she asserts,but this is what she chooses to focus on when defending her position and perhaps justify her own sense of persecution, and paranoia.

Incase this portrayal of her 'detractors' as paranoiac loons is not enough of an explanation, Ms Phillip's adds rather patronizingly; "It is so easy to think about this whole episode in the Labour Party as binary, where one side is good, another bad." , but is this not a complete misrepresentation of an actual concrete division within the Labour Party? I.e that between radical socialist innovators and radical liberal conformists, or Blairites and assorted Leftists behind Corbyn? And does she not to some extent attempt to institute such a dualistic view as those who have exercised their freedom of speech to her?

I think people can deal with things in a good or bad way, generally the way the PLP have responded to the left turn of the wider party is bad, the way they have dealt with the democratic election of Jeremy Corbyn less than a year ago is appalling, they've essentially broken a Labour leadership which for the first time in decades was seen as being "in touch with people" in this country.
She goes on to say about fighting for the NHS and securing funding for refuges; "you have no chance of achieving those things because the vehicle you are using to do it is faulty."

If this is so, it really begs the question as to whether Jeremy Corbyn has been able to drastically alter the operation of "the vehicle", while maintaining his public schedule over the past 10 months, or whether the vehicle she refers to is not the Labour party but the Parliamentary system itself, overseen by the type of liberal conformist, establishment MP's who currently make up the majority of the Labour back benches and participants in this rebellion.
The kind of people who lost Scotland to the SNP, oversaw the European project and Global banking industry in the decade prior to the last big crash, were wrong about European Union, and who failed in the period of New Labour to institute an attitude of civic pride that would have made defending the institutions currently under attack a lot easier.

If these "rebel's" from conformity insist upon establishing Jeremy Corbyn's unelectability as fact through repetition, at some point they are going to have to explain why it is so, perhaps Jess's "parliamentary democracy is broken" is the closest explanation as to his unelectability we've had yet. If only she had similar concerns about the ideologically charged media outlets that permeate and underpin public discourse, contributing to his unelectability, perhaps she wouldn't be seen as a mediocre, conformist irrelevance, and her resignation would be taken as more than what was expected of just another butthurt, self indulgent liberal.