But in the case of Ukraine, it’s especially hard to blame the West for its grand illusion when after a long period of discord and dissension, the “Five Eyes” English-speaking nations and the European Union suddenly have had to fall in line behind the United States. For a very brief moment, leaders of the Western world must have thought they saw the rebirth of Atlanticism and marvelled at their new-found “unity” which must extend to the rest of the world.

This illusion is shared not only among Western policymakers, but many of their own citizens, too. After all, we all live in our own Platonic caves, that is, our socialisation and indoctrination or what people sometimes call “education”. The illusions of free thought – “free press”, “freedom of speech”, “freedom of expression” – make it all the more dangerous and insidious because they make you think you are free and that only others are trapped or brainwashed.

An ‘independent’ Taiwan will be a sitting duck

I came across this fascinating quote the other day from Clarence Darrow, an American lawyer who was involved in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and was a leading member of the American Civil Liberties Union.

“The most profound irony … our independent American press,” he said, “with its untrammelled freedom to twist and misrepresent the news, is one of the barriers in the way of the American people achieving their freedom.”

Thanks to a free press, “freedom” really is not free!

Of course, against the West, the global south has been pushing back for years. The Ukraine crisis just brings out more loudly a long-suppressed voice. Consider the following news headlines in the past few weeks; they are all symptomatic of the resentment and resistance from the developing world.

“Most of the world is coming together against Russia. India should get off the fence,” the professor claimed.

That set Goswami off: “You have no moral standing to talk. You are in no position as you are in America. America is in no position to pretend to be the guardian of democracy and human rights. You are the worst perpetrator of atrocities. You and Barack Obama in 2011 intervened in a nascent Libyan civil war, using the Nato and Arab League partners and prolonging the war for one decade. You launched armed conflicts in at least six countries – Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Niger … You’ve killed thousands with your drone strikes. You run Guantanamo Bay.”

America is not Spider-Man

Returning to India, he said: “You’re dealing with India. We’re a big country, we’re not your satellite state. So don’t lecture us on what we need to do. We are going to look out for ourselves. You talk about, you use the phrase geopolitical expediency in place of value. You lecture me as an American to an Indian on values and you say that we are acting in geopolitical expediency. Where were your values when in the first few months [of the US invasion of Iraq], 7,186 Iraqi civilians were direct casualties of the war? Was that expediency or an expression of your values?”

You may well disagree with Goswami, but his angry resentment at being lectured to by someone he clearly took to be a representative of Westerners who habitually pass judgments on others from a self-declared moral high ground is perfectly understandable for many people around the world.

Meanwhile, in a fiery speech, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare denounced Australia and New Zealand’s criticism of his government’s draft plan for a security pact with China.

“We find it very insulting,” he said, “to be branded as unfit to manage our sovereign affairs or have other motives in pursuing our national interests,” adding that it was “utter nonsense” to say China posed a security threat in the Pacific.

He was responding to his New Zealand counterpart Jacinda Ardern, who warned: “We see such acts as the potential militarisation of the region.”

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has reportedly pressured Papua New Guinea and Fiji – both of which have shown signs of tilting towards China recently – to help scrap the Solomon Islands deal.

The West is deluding itself about its moral prestige and geopolitical prowess

And, as I wrote yesterday, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador was deeply offended after US ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar warned against the country’s neutrality over the Ukraine crisis.

“We need to send them telegrams informing them that Mexico is not a colony of any foreign country,” he said. “Mexico is a free, independent, sovereign country … We are not going to participate either for or against [this war in Ukraine], it is a position of neutrality of ours, which has to do with Mexico’s foreign policy.”

The West, correctly, sees Russia’s war not only as an act of aggression against a relatively minor country in central Europe, but a direct challenge to Western hegemony led by the US. That’s why it is, rightly, their war too. But for the rest of the world, they simply don’t have the proverbial skin in the game. They may be sympathetic to the plight of the Ukrainians – but what about the Palestinians or the Yemenis? – and are happy to play lip service against aggression – hence their condemnation votes at the United Nations, which many naive people took to be solidarity with the West. But they are not about to stick their necks out. And for Western leaders who criticise them, it is taken, not unreasonably, as typically self-serving hypocrisy.

In politics, morality is not usually about morals, but rather a weapon. Most of the world is not against democracy; many aspire to achieve it in their societies. But they also understand the pernicious hypocrisy of weaponising democracy and the language of good (democracy) and evil (autocracy) to further maintain and legitimise Western dominance. It’s that which they will not stand for.