There are moments in global politics when the mask slips – not because power suddenly discovers morality, but because maintaining the performance becomes too expensive.
Recently in Davos, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did something unusual. He admitted (almost casually) that the so-called rules-based international order has never quite been what it claimed to be.
That the rules were unevenly applied. That the strongest routinely exempted themselves. That integration, once sold as mutual benefit, has increasingly become a tool of coercion.
For a brief second, one could almost feel relief. Not because the truth was new – but because it was finally spoken aloud. We have lived under this system for generations. Born into it. Disciplined by it. Told it was neutral, benevolent, inevitable.
We were instructed to respect “rules” written elsewhere, interpreted elsewhere, enforced elsewhere – usually against us. The outcome was never order, but obedience; never justice, but management.
And yet, the system endured – not because it was true, but because everyone agreed to behave as if it were. This is the real source of its power.
And also its fatal weakness.
When even one actor stops performing – when the sign is removed from the shop window – the illusion begins to crack.
It is in this context that Emmanuel Macron’s sermon at Davos must be read. His denunciation of the “law of the strongest” on the international stage sounded almost … progressive.
A French president speaking the language of anti-colonial restraint. One might even be tempted to applaud.
But almost.
French President Emmanuel on screen during his speech to the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, January 2018.
Because it is hard to take lectures on power seriously when they come from countries that never truly relinquished it – only rebranded it.
France, after all, insists it has moved beyond colonialism. What remains are not colonies, but territories. Not domination, but administration. Not occupation, but overseas collectivities.
The vocabulary is elegant; the structure is not. From the Caribbean to the Pacific, the pattern repeats.
In Martinique, protests against an unbearable cost of living are met not with structural reform, but with police batons and arrests. In New Caledonia, decades-long demands for self-determination collide with electoral engineering and the familiar choreography of “restoring order.”
In the Indian Ocean, the contradiction is even starker. Mayotte remains under French control despite repeated U.N. resolutions recognizing it as part of the Comoros. International law, it seems, is binding – except when it isn’t.
Curiously, when the U.N. proposed establishing an international day against colonialism in all its forms, France, much of Western Europe, and the United States declined to support it. Colonialism is apparently unacceptable – provided the definition stops just short of home.
Protest against high costs of living in Martinique, October 2024.
But modern colonialism rarely announces itself with flags and governors anymore. It prefers balance sheets.
The CFA franc (African Financial Community franc) remains one of the most enduring instruments of European influence in Africa.
Fourteen countries still use a currency whose value is fixed in Paris, whose reserves are partially held abroad, and over which local populations exercise no meaningful control.
Political independence was granted. Monetary sovereignty was not.
The Netherlands offers its own version of this quiet continuity. From the Caribbean islands still tethered to The Hague, to Indonesia’s long economic afterlife of extraction, to corporate structures that funnel wealth through post-colonial asymmetries, Dutch colonialism did not disappear – it professionalized.
It outsourced violence to contracts, and domination to accounting.
Across Europe, the pattern is recognizable. Colonial power did not die. It diversified. And when financial leverage is insufficient, other tools emerge.
In the Sahel, armed groups terrorize civilians amid a fog of external interference. Former colonial powers present themselves as security guarantors, even as questions multiply about arms flows, training networks, and destabilization strategies.
When African governments point fingers, the Western media responds with disbelief – or silence. Which brings us to another enduring instrument of control: “narrative.”
Colonel Assimi Goïta, head of Mali’s transitional government, signing the Alliance of Sahel States on Sept. 16, 2023.
French or Western media corporations still dominate larger parts of the African information space, shaping perceptions of legitimacy, resistance and “terrorism.” Armed groups become “rebels” when convenient.
Governments asserting sovereignty become “juntas.” When countries suspend or expel foreign outlets accused of manipulation, the outrage in Europe is immediate. When African voices are silenced, the outrage is optional.
Militarily, the message from Africa has grown unmistakable. Mali. Niger. Burkina Faso. Senegal. Chad. French forces have been asked to leave.
And across francophone Africa, protests against French colonial aspirations continue to swell – not out of fashion, but out of memory.
Memory of forced labor in Central Africa. Memory of nuclear tests in Algeria, poisoning land and bodies for generations. Memory of the Senegalese Tirailleurs – sent to die for France, then shot when they demanded their pay.
The numbers remain “unclear.” The violence is not.
Algerian tirailleurs in France in 1914.
Europe likes to believe it has turned the page.
But it keeps rereading the same chapter – only with better lighting.
This is why the recent Western admissions about the collapse of the rules-based order matter – but only if taken seriously. Because this system was never sustained by fairness, but by ritual. By participation. By silence.
That bargain is now breaking. Integration has become a vulnerability. Trade has become leverage. Finance has become a weapon. Institutions once presented as neutral (W.T.O., U.N. frameworks, multilateral fora) are increasingly exposed as arenas of selective enforcement.
When the rules stop protecting you, you do not reform them politely. You protect yourself.
So yes – credit where it is due. When Western leaders admit the fiction, it is a step. But vigilance is necessary.
Because history teaches a simple lesson: Nothing truly good has ever come from empires discovering humility at the microphone. Especially when they still refuse to practice it at home.
Source: Consortium News.
