A member of a conservative group waves a flag bearing a message of support for US President Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Seoul. Reuters
A member of a conservative group waves a flag bearing a message of support for US President Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Seoul. Reuters
A member of a conservative group waves a flag bearing a message of support for US President Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Seoul. Reuters
A member of a conservative group waves a flag bearing a message of support for US President Donald Trump in front of the US embassy in Seoul. Reuters

The danger to the world of a divided and self-obsessed America


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These are a few stories you may not have heard about over the past few weeks because the US election has sucked the oxygen out of everything on social and news media.

The number of coronavirus cases in north-west Syria, which is under rebel control and where many people live in crowded camps for the displaced, increased twenty fold in recent weeks, from 138 cases on September 8 to 2,865 cases as of October 19. The virus is surging across the Middle East, with thousands of cases a day in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Jordan and elsewhere. Much of Europe is going back into lockdown.

ISIS killed 22 people at Kabul University in Afghanistan, in a barbaric, hours-long assault.

Ethnic violence is flaring up in Ethiopia, threatening to undermine years of development and democratic progress. The largest protests since the fall of communism are taking place in Poland, and thousands of Belarusians continue to protest against the regime of Alexander Lukashenko.

The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh continues, with brutal results. Algeria had a constitutional referendum on Sunday.

Of course, none of these stories are likely to affect the lives of as many people as the outcome of elections in the globe’s hegemon, with its military capabilities and propensity to intervene in faraway conflicts, its influence on global trade, and its weight on matters of global significance such as the fight against climate change or the coronavirus. We are all at the mercy of America’s mood swings.

Nevertheless, the America-centrism of news and social platforms is a jarring and overpowering experience for all of us watching from the sidelines, and deeply skews one's perceptions and analysis of global events because of the primacy of the American worldview. One writer in The Atlantic last week described it as being akin to sharing your living room with a rhinoceros.

One example of this is the propensity to declare that the world is ending on a regular basis, whether due to incremental political developments or more substantial moments such as elections, even though the world has been in the throes of monumental and revolutionary upheaval for much of the last decade.

I had an epiphany of sorts about this many years ago now, in January 2020, when the US assassinated Iranian general Qassem Suleimani. Suleimani was the leader of Iran’s covert and offensive special military apparatus that carried out numerous crimes in Iraq and Syria. Many American pundits immediately decried the move because they said it may lead to region-wide conflict, ignoring the fact that the region had already been enduring the ongoing violent convulsions that emerged out of the 2003 Iraq invasion, the 2011 Arab uprisings, the decade-long war in Syria and regional conflicts and rivalries.

In politics, this has had the effect on me of consciously and subconsciously framing matters within an American-centric worldview that determines what is good or bad, who are rogue and evil actors and who are good, by sheer force of the dominant political narrative. It also creates a sense of expectation that US involvement and support is either positive or benign, an outdated belief based on an idealised image of America that did not pan out in Iraq, or when it failed to live up to its stated support for democratic ideals in Syria. It is not that US involvement is always bad, but that in the course of its pursuit of shaping the world in its image, America often succeeds in missing the opportunity to do the right thing.

This tendency also has cultural effects, because it lends primacy to American cultural products, values and debates and centres them in global discourse. The whole world closely followed the racial justice protests in the US over the past few months, and even appropriated some of its symbolism and language, but the sheer dominance of the American narrative dictates the terms of the debate and its appropriate terminology.

Part of the reason I found it difficult over the past few weeks to discuss the recent spate of attacks in Europe that were motivated by the republishing of cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed is that discussions of extremism and de-radicalisation and religious reform are limited by the shallow discourse of America's war on terror. The online outrage culture makes it impossible to have substantive, good faith debates.

Over four years of Donald Trump, the international order, a forum of co-operation crucial in tackling our most acute global challenges, has been weakened. That is the risk of an isolationist America that abandons the pillars that underpinned global trade and security – particularly an America as divided and self-obsessed as Tuesday’s election and its aftermath suggest. The challenge of a resurgent one is not to be subsumed within its hubris.

After the election, the rest of the world will go back to tending its own affairs, taking care to avoid the rhinoceros in its living room.

Kareem Shaheen is a veteran Middle East correspondent in Canada and a columnist for The National

Name: Colm McLoughlin

Country: Galway, Ireland

Job: Executive vice chairman and chief executive of Dubai Duty Free

Favourite golf course: Dubai Creek Golf and Yacht Club

Favourite part of Dubai: Palm Jumeirah

 

UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
CHATGPT%20ENTERPRISE%20FEATURES
%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Enterprise-grade%20security%20and%20privacy%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Unlimited%20higher-speed%20GPT-4%20access%20with%20no%20caps%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Longer%20context%20windows%20for%20processing%20longer%20inputs%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Advanced%20data%20analysis%20capabilities%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Customisation%20options%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Shareable%20chat%20templates%20that%20companies%20can%20use%20to%20collaborate%20and%20build%20common%20workflows%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Analytics%20dashboard%20for%20usage%20insights%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%E2%80%A2%20Free%20credits%20to%20use%20OpenAI%20APIs%20to%20extend%20OpenAI%20into%20a%20fully-custom%20solution%20for%20enterprises%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Sole survivors
  • Cecelia Crocker was on board Northwest Airlines Flight 255 in 1987 when it crashed in Detroit, killing 154 people, including her parents and brother. The plane had hit a light pole on take off
  • George Lamson Jr, from Minnesota, was on a Galaxy Airlines flight that crashed in Reno in 1985, killing 68 people. His entire seat was launched out of the plane
  • Bahia Bakari, then 12, survived when a Yemenia Airways flight crashed near the Comoros in 2009, killing 152. She was found clinging to wreckage after floating in the ocean for 13 hours.
  • Jim Polehinke was the co-pilot and sole survivor of a 2006 Comair flight that crashed in Lexington, Kentucky, killing 49.
The biog

Born: High Wycombe, England

Favourite vehicle: One with solid axels

Favourite camping spot: Anywhere I can get to.

Favourite road trip: My first trip to Kazakhstan-Kyrgyzstan. The desert they have over there is different and the language made it a bit more challenging.

Favourite spot in the UAE: Al Dhafra. It’s unique, natural, inaccessible, unspoilt.

The Details

Kabir Singh

Produced by: Cinestaan Studios, T-Series

Directed by: Sandeep Reddy Vanga

Starring: Shahid Kapoor, Kiara Advani, Suresh Oberoi, Soham Majumdar, Arjun Pahwa

Rating: 2.5/5 

Porsche Taycan Turbo specs

Engine: Two permanent-magnet synchronous AC motors

Transmission: two-speed

Power: 671hp

Torque: 1050Nm

Range: 450km

Price: Dh601,800

On sale: now

FROM%20THE%20ASHES
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The%20Crown%20season%205
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The Birkin bag is made by Hermès. 
It is named after actress and singer Jane Birkin
Noone from Hermès will go on record to say how much a new Birkin costs, how long one would have to wait to get one, and how many bags are actually made each year.

While you're here

THE SPECS

Aston Martin Rapide AMR

Engine: 6.0-litre V12

Transmission: Touchtronic III eight-speed automatic

Power: 595bhp

Torque: 630Nm

Price: Dh999,563

Brief scores:

QPR 0

Watford 1

Capoue 45' 1

The White Lotus: Season three

Creator: Mike White

Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell

Rating: 4.5/5

Key facilities
  • Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
  • Premier League-standard football pitch
  • 400m Olympic running track
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  • An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
  • Specialist robotics and science laboratories
  • AR and VR-enabled learning centres
  • Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Company%20profile
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About Karol Nawrocki

• Supports military aid for Ukraine, unlike other eurosceptic leaders, but he will oppose its membership in western alliances.

• A nationalist, his campaign slogan was Poland First. "Let's help others, but let's take care of our own citizens first," he said on social media in April.

• Cultivates tough-guy image, posting videos of himself at shooting ranges and in boxing rings.

• Met Donald Trump at the White House and received his backing.

Some of Darwish's last words

"They see their tomorrows slipping out of their reach. And though it seems to them that everything outside this reality is heaven, yet they do not want to go to that heaven. They stay, because they are afflicted with hope." - Mahmoud Darwish, to attendees of the Palestine Festival of Literature, 2008

His life in brief: Born in a village near Galilee, he lived in exile for most of his life and started writing poetry after high school. He was arrested several times by Israel for what were deemed to be inciteful poems. Most of his work focused on the love and yearning for his homeland, and he was regarded the Palestinian poet of resistance. Over the course of his life, he published more than 30 poetry collections and books of prose, with his work translated into more than 20 languages. Many of his poems were set to music by Arab composers, most significantly Marcel Khalife. Darwish died on August 9, 2008 after undergoing heart surgery in the United States. He was later buried in Ramallah where a shrine was erected in his honour.

Labour dispute

The insured employee may still file an ILOE claim even if a labour dispute is ongoing post termination, but the insurer may suspend or reject payment, until the courts resolve the dispute, especially if the reason for termination is contested. The outcome of the labour court proceedings can directly affect eligibility.


- Abdullah Ishnaneh, Partner, BSA Law 

UK-EU trade at a glance

EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years

Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products

Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries

Smoother border management with use of e-gates

Cutting red tape on import and export of food