Photo: AFP/Christophe Ena
Eurasia
15/12/2023 21:31
"It wasn’t western values that made the west pre-eminent, but performance," Kishore Mahbubani recalls, pointing out that "incompetence has replaced competence," and "societies that were once well-ordered have become deeply troubled and politically volatile."
The UN Security Council's former president stresses that "the massive amounts of aid sent to Ukraine only confirmed the growing belief in the global south that the west doesn’t really care for it." According to Kishore Mahbubani, "where many people in the rest of the world once saw the west as the answer to their problems, they now realise that they will have to find their own way." However, he says, this does not mean that "a total decoupling of the west and the rest is inevitable".
"We have to talk to each other. But we must do so as equals. The condescension must end. The time has come for a dialogue based on mutual respect between the west and the rest,"
Kishore Mahbubani concludes.
