For many years, the global “rules-based order” has been presented as a benign world governance system established by Western countries. True, its origins date back to colonial times, and many of its institutions reflected colonial racial inequalities, but it was held up as a harbinger of global prosperity and order. In it, the West was magically transformed from colonial villains to saviors.
But for many parts of the Global South, times looked very different. It was experienced as genocide, dispossession, and forced displacement. Across Africa, Asia, and the Caribbean, colonial regimes disrupted and suppressed local institutions and industries, manipulated cash crop economies vulnerable to global price shocks, and rewritten political authority in favor of imperial control.
Over time, demands grew for a more accurate account of the havoc that the West had inflicted on the rest of the world, for recognition of historical crimes ranging from extermination to enslavement, and for reparations. It coincides with a global reordering of power in which the Western powers have become increasingly unsure of themselves, no longer our saviors and the good guys of history they have long pretended to be.
There was also a negative perception regarding this. In the case of Kenya, the existence of British torture camps was exposed during the country’s independence struggle in the 1950s, and the British government expressed its regret without an apology or even a small amount of compensation.
Similarly, Germany admitted that it had committed genocide against the Ovaherero and Nama peoples of Namibia in the first decade of the 20th century, but continued to refuse to pay reparations, offering instead $1.3 billion through a 30-year aid program as a “sign of reconciliation.”
These were just crumbs, but they marked an important turning point. Movements around the world, from Black Lives Matter in the United States to Rhodes Must Fall in South Africa, have prompted a reshaping of historical narratives about white supremacy and Western domination. Critical anti-colonial ideas and discourse leaked from academia into popular culture.
But the backlash came quickly. In some areas, “white guilt” was taken up by politicians who refused to incorporate it into political movements altogether. Colonial revisionism proved popular and electable. It was also quickly taken up by international forums.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s recent speech at the Munich Security Conference is a case in point. He spoke with admiration of the pre-1945 edicts. For him, it was “a time of Western expansion. Missionaries, pilgrims, soldiers, and explorers rushed from our shores and across the ocean to settle new continents and build vast empires that spanned the globe.”
Mr. Rubio framed Western supremacy as an era of prosperity and moral leadership, arguing that the West should not be ashamed of its past. In this story, colonialism was not about racial hierarchy and exploitation, but about control, order, and civilization. Its decline is implicitly regrettable.
What Mr. Rubio and others want is for the West to fully embrace its role as the villain. Not rhetorically, of course, and villains rarely proclaim themselves as such, but in practice by rebuilding empires and renouncing guilt and shame for historical wrongs. They see the cleansing of history as weakness and even self-loathing. And they propose using power to suppress memories rather than address past wrongs.
This is clearly an attempt at redemption through the conquest of memory. This is more than just discussing the past. It’s about forming the current moral vocabulary. It also means moving away from the current “rule-based order” and toward a reality where the rule “justice is justice” does not exist.
If empires were benevolent, modern hierarchies could be restructured as responsible leadership. The unequal trade system becomes stable. Military pressure becomes the guardian. Intervention becomes management. As we have seen in the case of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “peace commissions,” colonialism is being rebranded not as domination but as necessary order and a prelude to prosperity. Multipolarization is seen not as structural adjustment but as a decline that brings about instability.
This is politically useful as Western dominance faces challenges from emerging powers and shifting alliances. Nostalgia for indisputable superiority brings clarity and replaces discomfort with pride. It turns a demand for justice into an accusation of ingratitude. And its grammar reflects a familiar pattern. Empires harm, but ultimately save. It’s a mistake, but it redeems itself. Its centrality remains unquestioned.
There is no need for structural calculations or compensation. The focus shifts from the material effects of colonial rule to the psychological burden of Western shame. The story becomes about restoring trust rather than confronting inequality.
Although Rubio’s speech was aimed at a Western audience, it should also be a wake-up call for the rest of the world. It’s tempting to treat such rhetoric as the moral failings of a few bad guys, because it’s easily lampooned and just as easily ignored. That’s a grave mistake.
We must recognize that they are reconfiguring the structures of colonialism. It is a legal, economic, and epistemological system designed to privilege Western interests, its oppression codified in law, its commands enforced by coercion, and its benefits distributed along racial lines.
Rebuilding an empire is therefore not about nostalgia. I’m ready. It is the construction of a moral framework in which there is no need to justify present hierarchies because past hierarchies have been absolved. And while the past cannot be undone, it can be remembered incorrectly.
We have lived with the terrible consequences of such actions in our economies, our borders, and our bodies. And just when the scales begin to fall from our eyes, there are attempts to blind us again. We must not tolerate revisionism, but rather actively resist it by persistently and unapologetically telling the truth until it cannot be drowned out.
Memory is not passive. It’s a choice made every day, and that choice belongs to us as much as anyone else.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of Al Jazeera.
