Anti-Imperialist Countries Need to Develop Own Communication, Banking Systems: Activist


Anti-Imperialist Countries Need to Develop Own Communication, Banking Systems: Activist

TEHRAN (Tasnim) – An international activist said that anti-imperialist countries need to develop their own banking and communicating systems so they can trade with each other and avoid being restricted or censored by the West.

“The West is still ruling over the world economy through its tools, and we need to develop a plan on how to change this,” said the head of the Munich-based Anti-Imperialist Alliance and international activist, Tobias Pfennig, in an interview with the secretariat of the 2nd International Conference on the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World.

Referring to different economic blocks and alliances, such as BRICS, Tobias Pfennig said, “Real economic alliances should be formed to bring down the US Dollar hegemony and the dominance of the West. These economic alliances should be based on fundamental principles where people have the same ideology or common goal.”

“Speaking economy-wise,” he went on to say, “we should really push forward towards a move to unite the economies, so that the anti-hegemony and anti-imperialist countries like Iran, Russia and China are able to more and more control the world economy.”

“On digital warfare, we are developing possibilities to spread information in the recent years. So, there will be some channels where you could spread information to inform people and keep them updated. But we're still lacking new ideas on how to connect people, how to inform people. For example, now in Germany, Russia Today is still under development. It's an alternative media that exists, but is also very restrictively censored. So, it's hard for ordinary people to access this kind of information,” Pfennig said.

As regards the internet warfare, he stressed, “If you look at all the tools that are currently in use on the internet, despite being a decentralized platform, the main tools, like Google, Facebook, and Twitter, are all big US companies that are heavily influenced by the US secret services and they were mostly even funded with money from secret services.”

“It's important to think about how we can fight the West and how we can wage information warfare against the other side, but also develop alternative ways of communication among ourselves,” Pfennig emphasized. “Now it's getting even harder to communicate with people even on the internet. So, we need to go back into the streets, go and talk to people. But also, we need to think about how we can connect with each other all around the world, and within our own countries, on the internet in a different way. Online conferences can be one thing, but we also need to meet again. We need to discuss things. That's an important point right now.”

“There are two points that we can talk about,” Pfennig continued. “One is of course the internet. In the long term, a disconnection in the worldwide internet is almost inevitable, because we're seeing this drive towards nationalism. And at the same time, we’ll see a lot more national networks than international networks. And here, every cooperation between anti-hegemonic, anti-imperialist countries will be very much productive, because for example, there are good social media tools and good developers, for example, in Russia and also Iran. Things like that could be productive.”

“When we're talking about the internet, we're not only talking about the exchange of information,” he added. “We're also talking about a part of our economy. We're seeing trade and all the banking networks running on the internet. This is important as there has been a constant attack and drive towards putting even Russia out of the SWIFT banking system trying to block trade with Russia completely. So, if we're talking about developing our own systems, we should not only develop our own Facebook to communicate with each other, but also a banking system within the anti-imperialist countries so that these countries can trade with each other.”

“I’m heavily skeptical the post-American world being a lot better than the American world that we see right now,” Pfennig asserted. “Because I see the US is being replaced by different institutions that are still supernational and dominated by the West and are going to govern us and force us to do things that we might not want. So, this aspect is a major threat for us and for our freedom.”

“We and the whole world now is even under stronger censorship than ever before,” he pointed out. “And interestingly this is happening alongside the US decline. Demonstrations are basically banned now. You get fined for protesting and it's getting so ridiculous. At the same time, there are giant protests happening in the West, such as in France, but you may not even know about them because the news does not get out. Opposition to governments is growing, but we're still under such a tight grip that I think the future might be a lot more totalitarian than now. It's a real threat for societies and we need to find a way to counter it.”

“We might see an even worse and even more strict control of the world through digital means especially, but without the hegemony by the US,” Pfennig concluded. “However, the US Imperialists themselves will be still in the background of all these institutions that will rule over us. They will still control them but they won't do it directly anymore. So, if we really want to go towards a multipolar world, it's inevitable that we also fight the institutions like IMF, WHO, the United Nations, and so on, and that we find our own way and our own possibilities to interact on an international scale, and replace these institutions so that we can really find and go towards a multipolar world and not a new hegemony. And that's a goal for the future.”

The 2nd International Conference on the Decline of the United States: The Post-American World will be held on November 2, 2021, by Imam Hussein Comprehensive University and the Secretariat of the Expediency Discernment Council, in cooperation with the universities and research institutes.

For more information, interested parties may see the conference website at www.usdecline.ir and the virtual pages of the conference secretariat on social media at @usdecline.

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