Report on ‘The God That’s Failing’...

Alexander Cockburn’s article entitled ‘The God That’s Failing’ targets the Capitalist ideology that is so pervasive throughout the planet. It focalizes the United States, an utmost propagator of Capitalism that has made fruitless decisions in way of upholding it. Cockburn highlights the Western world’s failing relationship with not just the Third World but the Middle East. He projects a key reason behind this dilemma, ‘There is a God that’s failing – at least in its benign pretensions – and it’s called capitalism’.

Cockburn emphasizes on the recent Tunisian uprising and the subsequent and ongoing Egyptian revolution, both of which are partially resultants of the US’ Gestapo-like dominion in the region. In the midst of this muddle, it is almost impossible to develop a seeing-eye dog trust on the US and the ideology it so adamantly follows. The US’ carefully orchestrated missions with the aim of eliminating the ‘foe ideology – Communism’ are news to no one. The US’ combat and undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations against the Soviet Union, Vietnam, and Cuba, to name a few, were majorly driven by the urge to diminish the Communist perspective in its entirety.

The article makes one ponder over the legitimacy of Capitalism. The question that arises is that is the present day economy meeting basic human needs? The answer is No. Daniel De Leon says ‘Capitalism attacks and destroys all the finer sentiments of the human heart; it ruthlessly sweeps away old traditions and ideas opposed to its progress, and it exploits and corrupts those things once held sacred’.

In relation with Iran, the US is most certainly on the losing end. Iran’s power in the Middle Eastern region is rapidly burgeoning. The US, of course, is not in favor of a strong-willed Muslim country to curb its agenda of hegemonic maintenance. 

On a personal level, a few of Cockburn’s assertions are refutable. He provides poll-based statistics claiming that only a low percentage of Arabs agree with Washington that Iran is a threat. In addition, the poll shows that 57% of Arabs think that regional security would be enhanced if Iran had nuclear weapons. However, recent revelations of leaked US diplomatic cables, Wikileaks, show that Arab rulers secretly lobbied America to launch air strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme. This goes to show the incremental trend within Arab countries to minimize the regional influence of Iran. This could be, perhaps, due to sectarian differences within the Middle East, and Mahmoud Ahmedinejad’s personal ideology of Apocalyptic hastening, among other things.

Going back to the crux of the article, Cockburn sheds light on a fact that the world seems to be in denial about – the dismantling Capitalist ideology. Just like the Tunisian and Egyptian revolutions, a global ideological revolution is in order!

Ayesha Shaikh

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