A protest three full decades overdue

Protest in London against the UAE over the Sudan [Darfur] genocide from February this year — a protest that ought to have begun when the Kyōtō Protocol was signed in 1995 and the UAE avoided any reduction target or even any cap despite per-citizen emissions two-and-a-half orders of magnitude greater than the EU

Reading today the article ‘Food, land, water: Africa and emerging Gulf sub-imperialisms’ by Sarah Cotte and originally published in Review of African Political Economy eight months ago, it surprises and pleases me to see that there is some opposition to states whose power and danger is completely overlooked from every angle:

1. Ecosocialists concerned with climate change cannot see that the Gulf monarchies have per-citizen emissions between 10 [Bahrain, Oman and Sa^cudi Arabia] to 270 [the UAE] and 450 [Qaṭar] times the global average yet receive carte blanche to increase emissions under every climate protocol
2. Trotskyists underestimate or downplay how the oil monarchies engage in imperialist oppression of all of South Asia, the Levant and increasingly sub-Saharan Africa to a much greater degree since 1973 than the old colonial powers in Europe, Japan or New Zealand
3. Liberals do not recognise the role of the Gulf States in pushing deep downward pressure on taxation through “capital strikes” in the high-tax West, and through massive lobbying that has directly and indirectly completely eliminated the influence of the bottom ninety percent or more on policy
4. Anti-terrorists do not recognise the role of Sa^cudi Arabia and Qaṭar in sponsoring Islamic terrorism against the West, with Sa^cudi Arabia’s role in September 11 now well-documented
5. Christians do not recognise the role of the Gulf States in sponsoring persecution of Christians in Africa and Muslim proselytising in the West

During 2023 and 2024, I wrote a lengthy Quora post explaining why BDS is much more justified against Sa^cudi Arabia than against Israel. In doing so, I felt obliged to point out that the numerous justifications of why BDS is much more justifiable against Sa^cudi Arabia than against Israel to all the Gulf petromonarchies. Although Baḥrain and Oman taken separately do not have nearly the same justification in terms of support for terrorism and obscenely large per-citizen greenhouse gas emissions, they are too tightly linked to the four core imperialist petromonarchies to avoid being a part of a serious boycott.

Reading the article from the Lemkin Institute shows that the protest against the UAE is organised by the Sudanese disapora. It is a problem that it is not groups noted above reconsidering their neglect or “enemy of my enemy” policy towards the UAE or other petromonarchies, as one would hope.