Photo via DW
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Crowds revel through the streets, cloaked in the colors of their capital. It’s difficult to differentiate between the calculated movements of a performance and their everyday movements. I don’t mean the proud red, white and blue of the U.S., but the rich emerald of Oz. In a scene portrayed a thousand times before—and most recently captured in the hit movie “Wicked” – Glinda and Elphaba finally reach the Emerald City and find a depiction of perfection and opulence that manages to match their wildest dreams.
As they marvel at the riches, they’re swept through the streets by a shimmering, ever-changing dance troupe. It’s this display of soft power that allows the Wizard to control the narrative in such a way that turns the people against Elphaba, who’s the only one truly fighting for the undoing of an unjust order. A similar dynamic is found between the United States, which fills the shoes of the Wizard, relaxing in his status, and post-colonial countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), whose betterment challenges global power hierarchies.
Cast in halls of marble rather than emerald, D.C. dangles over the United States with a similar theatrical authority. Here, oppression and deception are hidden behind layers of political rhetoric. While the United States has failed to master the art of governance, it has mastered the construction of institutions that shroud us in the same mysterious godhood as the Wizard and his constructed kingdom.
The might of the United States has allowed it to contribute to the construction of global institutions that shape contemporary global hierarchies. Much like the wit of the Wizard that allowed him to construct an empire around his false idol, the United States built itself a perch above the people from which it may cast judgment but not be judged in return. If one pauses to look, they may catch a glimpse of the man behind the curtain. Rather than the smile of a perfectly established democracy, the gears and levers of America’s deeply ingrained institutionalization and militarization might gleam in the dull light.
The United States has never been a democracy, nor has it even been safe for all of its citizens. Now as we teeter on the edge of a dangerous, authoritarian government, I’m left wondering how the United States has escaped the intervention that many other countries would face.
The answer is a myriad of reasons: namely its military might that has allowed it to help shape the rules that build the world and develop economic prominence. Even when one catches glimpses of the Wizard through the gaps in his facade, the deep belief that the people have in his story and what he built causes their eyes to glance over reality until they can safely settle back into their illusion. He had wound the roots of his empirical ideology deep within the systems that governed the everyday lives of his people. The alluring whisper of a common enemy was too difficult to look away from (today arguably found in the idea of the immigrant crisis), and thus the true danger (white supremacy) was ignored.
To peer behind the curtain, I want to look at the events of January 6 and compare them to the actions of the March 23 Movement (M23) in the DRC, a country that has been cast as a failed state. Decades of colonial rule and more decades of exploitation prevented the DRC from being able to build government institutions with as much control as the United States.
The United States had the time to construct a system in which it reigns eternal, one in which it can subdue any threat that rises against it—including the threat to its global hegemony embodied by the development of post-colonial countries.
On Wednesday, January 6, 2021, a mob stormed this country’s Capitol Building in an attempted coup. Egged on by the current president of the United States, they succeeded in breaching the Capitol and wreaking havoc before security shut them down. Vision clouded by a false narrative of election fraud, this mob protested against the institutions of democracy themselves.
These people believe (or in some cases believed) that their government no longer serves them and has sold out their interests to various groups. These theories include those of Robert Gieswein of the Three Percenters, who believes that the government has sold our country to the wealthy, and the Great Replacement Theory, which states that white citizens are being slowly and systematically replaced by immigrants and people of color. Due to this, they sought a “massively bloody revolution” against the government, according to Stewart Rhodes, leader of the Oathkeepers.
The beliefs and desires of many of these white supremacist groups are echoed in M23, a rebel paramilitary group in the DRC. It arose in the wake of the DRC government attempting to distance itself from the Tutsi people and the harsh reputation that their actions were accruing in the international community as they sought retribution for the genocide they had suffered.
M23 now fights for the rights of the Tutsi people, fearing further persecution from the government. Both M23 and far-right groups in the U.S. have a belief that they’re fighting against a government-backed persecution of their people.
It is important to quickly note that following the genocide launched against them, the Tutsi people were facing mass removals at the hands of the government. They have far greater reason to fear state persecution than white supremacist groups in the United States, and I in no way mean to cheapen the position or situation of the Tutsi people by comparing the two. I solely seek to point out a similar lack of effective democracy allowing for violent groups to form in both countries.
It was military and economic might, not democracy, that carved a seat for the United States at the founder’s table of the UN—a seat so exclusive that the U.S. originally desired it to be a hegemon of white, English-speaking countries. This seat at the founder’s table has grown into a throne from which the U.S. can aid in dictating which issues gain momentum on the international stage.
It’s also nearly impossible to oust the U.S. from its throne. This is exemplified by the use of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) to intervene in countries from the “Global South” while not intervening in matters of the Global North. Of the 96 times that R2P has been invoked in UN meetings, a white, Western country has never been the subject of discussion. In fact, Russia has even been allowed to invade Ukraine without R2P being called upon.
While the dream of the United States to have a global Anglo-American hegemony wasn’t realized, its prevalent involvement in the creation of the UN allowed it to pass certain rules or be granted certain privileges that allowed it to maintain its global power. For example, the UN’s support of liberal or democratic values and principles stems from the involvement of the United States in writing its founding documents.
Even the motions that the United States once fought against, such as the Permanent Five members of the UN Security Council possessing vetoes, now allow them to decide which countries do and do not experience intervention or condemnation. This privilege can be most recently seen in the repeated U.S. vetoing of resolutions on the genocide in Gaza.
Further, since the United States is not only a founding member but foots the majority of the bill for the UN, it’s allowed to function as though it is not constrained by international bodies. The regulations for this payment plan were put in place under the supervision of the United States.
This can be seen in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. Despite not having approval, the U.S. formed a “coalition of the willing” and chose to invade anyway. In the long term, it suffered no persecution or punishment. On the other hand, the bureaucracy that less powerful member states must jump through in order to simply receive aid is ludicrous. It seems as though the organization places no constraints upon one country while providing an obstacle to peace in another.
The United States is currently hurtling towards an authoritarian regime that has been likened to the onslaught of Nazism, with racially targeted rounding up of citizens, walking back of rights, and potential construction of “detention centers.” Yet the international community has remained silent. The United States has procured for itself—whether through dollars or intimidation—the ability to experience failures of government without having the state’s ability to run a country questioned.
However, when conflict occurs in another state that the U.S. benefits from the oppression of, the narrative surrounding failures of state becomes much harsher—and are used to justify intervention. Much as the Wizard controlled the perception of Elphaba as a terrifying witch when her actions threatened his standing, the West calls “failed state” on a post-colonial country so that they may retain control.
In order to allow the UN to begin to function as a pacifist federation rather than a tool through which the powerful may govern their various hegemons, the ability of less empowered nations to utilize the UN against more powerful nations must be achieved.
While the deep institutionalization of the UN itself makes this a difficult goal to imagine realizing, it’s interesting to imagine what utilizing the R2P against the U.S. under the argument of early warning signs would accomplish. I fear many may view it much the same as Elphaba pulling back the curtain on the Wizard, viewed not as someone attempting to improve the system by questioning it but rather as someone attempting to bring about destruction. “Get the witch,” as the Wizard announced to his empire. Or, to quote former Senator Dingell, “I’ll let you write the substance…you let me write the procedure, and I’ll screw you every time.”
The U.S. helped build the rules for the global order so it would win the argument every time. But what if we stopped paying attention to their show? No matter how impressive the production value, a show without an audience holds no power.
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This article was edited by Gagandeep Kaur and Katherine Hohman.
Ava Bedoya 
Julia Baechli 
Suzana Paljusevic