If Western imperialism took the form of direct colonial rule since the European conquest of the Americas in the late fif

[马来] 赛义德·法里德·阿拉塔斯

   [新加坡[国立大学（NUS）社会学系

✪ 文化纵横（译）

【导读】近期，美国及受其支持的以色列对加沙发动的残酷战争、对伊朗的军事打击，以及对委内瑞拉总统的绑架等一系列单边霸权行动，让外界再次审视这个标榜“自由民主”的西方阵营的真实面目。

本文指出，人们往往误以为传统的殖民统治已经随着20世纪的民族解放运动彻底终结，然而，当代帝国主义实际上转变为一个更加隐蔽的间接控制过程。以美国为首的西方阵营，正通过经济制裁、政治胁迫与文化霸权等手段，持续对“全球多数”实施统治。在以金砖国家崛起、拉美左翼运动为代表的全球反帝国主义力量日益壮大的背景下，美国政客不仅没有反思，反而试图通过鼓吹西方文明优越论，妄图将全球“重新西方化”，重塑其岌岌可危的帝国主义霸权。

本文作者赛义德·法里德·阿拉塔斯（Syed Farid Alatas），是当代东南亚极具国际影响力的批判社会学家与伊斯兰社会学领军学者。他提供了一种来自第三世界的分析视角，审视近期中东等地缘冲突的深层逻辑。在他看来，这种单边行为非但不能挽回颓势，反而可能加速全球南方国家的集体觉醒。

文化纵横新媒体·国际观察 

2026年第15期  总第295期

伊朗、美国与帝国主义 

近期发生的一系列事件——即美国绑架委内瑞拉总统尼古拉斯·马杜罗及其夫人西莉亚·弗洛雷斯，美国及其支持的以色列对伊朗发动战争，对运往古巴燃料进行无理封锁，以及以色列在美国的全力支持下对加沙发动种族灭绝战争——都无一例外地印证了帝国主义在当代生活中的现实存在。

如果说从15世纪末欧洲征服美洲到20世纪中叶，西方帝国主义采取的是直接殖民统治的形式，那么在今天，它则是通过说服、恐吓、威胁与干涉等手段，以对“全球多数”（Global Majority）进行经济、政治和文化控制的方式进行间接统治。尽管世界上绝大多数国家已经经历了形式上的非殖民化，但我们仍然受制于外部统治（特别是来自美国的统治），其表现形式往往是经济控制或政治胁迫。这正是苏加诺总统在1955年亚非会议（即万隆会议）上所指称的“新殖民主义”。

近期，美国国务卿马可·鲁比奥与伊朗外交部长赛义德·阿巴斯·阿拉格齐这两位首席外交官分别在不同的国际论坛上发表了演讲，他们的讲话折射出两种截然不同的关于世界秩序的愿景。前者是帝国主义冲动的一场荒诞展示，而后者则是对国际秩序、相互尊重与和平的郑重呼吁。

阿拉格齐出席了今年2月7日至9日在多哈举行的半岛电视台论坛。他在演讲中谈到了（巴勒斯坦人的）民族自决权，强调了对国际法保持最高尊重的必要性，并阐明了抗击一种特定霸权秩序的重要性——在这种秩序下，边界是暂时的，主权是有条件的，而安全是由军事占领所决定的。阿拉格齐的演讲是以以色列对巴勒斯坦的殖民化为背景的，但其言论同样适用于委内瑞拉或伊朗。这位伊朗外交官所呼吁的，正是世界的非殖民化与去帝国主义化。而这一呼吁，正值美国致力于巩固帝国主义并试图将世界“重新西方化”（rewesternize）之际。

这就引出了鲁比奥的演讲，该演讲发表于慕尼黑安全会议，恰在阿拉格齐多哈演讲的一周之后。值得注意的是，鲁比奥的受众是欧洲人；在其演讲的开头部分，他大肆美化了美国的建国史，却对欧洲“发现者”对原住民犯下的种族灭绝罪行只字未提。相反，他将基督教信仰称为一种神圣的遗产，是由那些在他们所谓的“新大陆”——而当地原住民称之为“阿比亚·雅拉”（Abya Yala）——定居的人从欧洲带来的。

鲁比奥强调：“我们同属一个文明——西方文明。将我们彼此紧密相连的，是国家间所能共享的最深层的纽带，这些纽带由几个世纪以来的共同历史、基督教信仰、文化、遗产、语言、血统，以及我们的祖辈为我们共同继承的文明所做出的牺牲铸就而成。”他细数了西方文明在科学与文化领域的伟大成就，却绝口不提中国人、印度人和穆斯林对现代西方缔造所作出的重大贡献，更不用提西方现代化与工业化过去和现在所赖以建立的剥削根基——欧洲和美国的种族主义、厌女症、奴隶制与殖民主义。

鲁比奥的演讲不仅毫无多元文化包容精神，反而渗露出赤裸裸的仇外心理。他哀叹道，敞开“我们的大门，迎接史无前例的大规模移民浪潮，这威胁着我们社会的凝聚力、文化的延续性以及我们人民的未来。”他对2025年6月轰炸伊朗以及绑架委内瑞拉总统和第一夫人的行径大加赞美。在哀叹导致西方帝国衰落的反殖民运动之余，鲁比奥呼吁复兴和重塑西方文明，以“构建一个新的西方世纪”。

他指出，在过去五个世纪里，西方文明通过传教士和士兵的努力不断扩张，在各个大陆定居并建立了诸多帝国。但他同时指出，西方自1945年起开始走向收缩；鲁比奥在慕尼黑对听众表示，特朗普总统和美国希望与欧洲携手合作，重返西方称霸的时代。对于身处亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的我们而言，这将被解读为一种将我们“重新西方化”的意志，即再次将西方的现代性模式强加于我们。鲁比奥试图在欧洲人中点燃的那种“驱使船只驶向未知海域并孕育了我们文明”的精神，毫无疑问是极具帝国主义色彩的。我们担忧，近期美国在加沙、委内瑞拉和伊朗的种种行径，正是这种黑暗精神在作祟。

西方重新标榜自身优越性，并表达出重塑其在世界上占主导地位的帝国主义角色的意愿，这很可能是其感知到自身虚弱的反映，也是出于对沦为其过去“微弱而无力的回音”（如鲁比奥所言）的恐惧。这是第三世界、全球多数以及亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲人民必须保持警惕并加以防范的严峻态势。

反帝国主义的冲动一直存在，但近年来兴起的一些变局与运动令西方深感惊惧。这包括金砖国家（BRICS）的崛起与“去美元化”理念的提出；非洲萨赫勒地区拒绝法国与美国控制的地缘政治重组；中国、朝鲜和俄罗斯等国为抗衡西方主导地位而巩固的双边或多边纽带；以及拉丁美洲的“粉红浪潮”（The Pink Tide），即该地区自20世纪90年代末和21世纪初兴起的左翼政治运动和政府浪潮。伊朗坚定不移的反帝国主义与反犹太复国主义立场，及其对美国干涉西亚国家事务的坚决反对，正是这种全球反帝国主义阵线的重要组成部分。

因此，以美国为首的西方是一个正在衰落的霸权力量。这不仅是客观现实，也已成为包括西方内部在内的各界共识。在走向衰落的过程中，西方必将为重夺昔日荣光而战，且由于恐惧与不断加剧的不安全感，其手段将变得肆无忌惮且血腥残暴。在亚洲、非洲和拉丁美洲的我们，我们的公民、民间社会运动以及政府，必须决定要站在历史的哪一边。我们是允许国际法和国家主权遭到侵蚀，并通过积极参与该过程或以沉默的共谋来助长新殖民主义和帝国主义，还是选择加入反帝国主义的力量？我们认真考量这些历史性抉择的时刻已经到来。

Iran, the United States and Imperialism 

Recent events, namely the abduction of Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores by the United States, the US and US-backed Israeli war of against Iran, the unjust blockade of fule shipments to Cuna and, of course, the Israeli genocidal war against Gaza with full US backing, have all merely served to confirm the reality of imperialism in our contemporary lives. If Western imperialism took the form of direct colonial rule since the European conquest of the Americas in the late fifteenth century till the mid-twentieth century, today it operates indirectly through the economic, political and cultural control of the Global Majority via persuasion, intimidation, threats and intervention. Despite the vast majority of the world having undergone formal decolonization, we are still subject to domination, particularly by the United States, that take the form of economic controls or political coercion. This is what President Sukarno, at the.Asian-African Conference of 1955, also known as the Bandung Conference, referred to as neocolonialism.

Recently, two chief diplomats, the American Secretary of State, Mr. Marco Rubio, and the Iranian Foreign Minister, Dr. Seyyed Abbas Araghchi, spoke at separate international for a and reflected in their speeches two widely differing visions of what the world should be like. One was a grotesque display of the imperialist impulse while the other a plea for international order, respect and peace.

Araghchi spoke at the Al-Jazeera Forum in Doha, held on 7-9 February this year. He spoke about the right to self-determination [of Palestinians], of the need to maintain the utmost respect for international law, and of the importance of struggling against an order in which borders are temporary, sovereignty is conditional, and security is determined by military occupation. Araghchi spoke in the context of the Israeli colonization of Palestine, but he could just as well have been speaking about Venezuela or Iran. What the Iranian diplomat was calling for is the decolonization and deimperialization of the world.

This comes at a time when the United States is working to consolidate imperialism and rewesternize the world. This brings us to Rubio’s speech which was delivered at the Munich Security Conference, one week after Araghchi spoke in Doha. Remember that Rubio was addressing the Europeans. In the early part of his address, Rubio glorified the founding of America, never once referring to the genocide that the European “discoverers” perpetrated against the natives. Instead, he referred to the Christian faith as a sacred inheritance brought from Europe by those who settled what they called the “New World,” but which was known to the indigenous natives as Abya Yala. Rubio stressed that “[w]e are part of one civilization – Western civilization.  We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir.” He went on to recount the great scientific and cultural achievements of Western civilization, without making any reference to the significant contributions of the Chinese, Indians and Muslims to the making of the modern West, not to mention Europeans and American racism, misogyny, slavery and colonialism that the modernization and industrialization of the West was founded on. 

Not only was Rubio’s speech completely devoid of a multiculturalist sensibility, it secreted xenophobia. He lamented opening “our doors to an unprecedented wave of mass migration that threatens the cohesion of our societies, the continuity of our culture, and the future of our people.” He glorified the bombing of Iran in June 2025 as well as the abduction of Venezuala’s president and first lady.

Bemoaning the anti-colonial movements that contributed to the decline of the Western empires, Rubio called for the renewal and restoration of Western civilization to “build a new Western century.” He noted that for five centuries. Western civilization had expanded through the work of its missionaries and soldiers, and settled continents and established empires. But, the West began to contract from 1945. Rubio told the audience in Munich that President Trump and the United States wanted to work with Europe to return to the Western age of dominance. For us in Asia, Africa and Latin America, this would be read as the will to rewesternize us, that is, to reimpose the Western mode of modernity on us. The spirit that Rubio wishes to ignite among the Europeans, one which “sent ships out into uncharted seas and birthed our civilization,” is decidedly imperialist. We fear that the recent United States initiatives in Gaza, Venezuela and Iran are the workings of that spirit. 

The reassertion of the West’s superiority and expression of the will to renew its dominant, imperialist role in the world is likely a reflection of perceived weakness and fear of becoming a “faint and feeble echo,” as Rubio put it, of their past. It is something that the Third World, Global Majority, the peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America must be weary of and guard against. The anti-imperialist impulse had always been there, but has alarmed the West due to certain changes and movements that have arisen in recent years. These include the rise of BRICS and the idea of de-dollarization, regional re-alignments in the African Sahel that reject French and United States control, the consolidation of ties among socialist states such as China, North Korea and Russia to counter Western dominance, and the Latin American The Pink Tide, that is,  the wave of leftist political movements and governments that emerged there since the beginning in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Iran’s steadfast anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist stance, and its firm opposition to US interference in the affairs of West Asian nations is a part of global anti-imperialism.

The West, led by the United States is, therefore, a declining hegemonic power. This is not just an objective reality but is also perceived to be the case by all, including those in the West. While on the decline, the West will fight to regain its glory and, in the process, be reckless and bloody, due to fear and a rising insecurity. We in Asian, Africa and Latin America, our citizens, civil society movements and governments, must decide on what side of history to stand. Do we allow for the erosion of international law and sovereignty, and the promotion of neo-colonialism and imperialism, through the active participation in that process or complicity via silence, or do we join the forces of anti-imperialism. The time is coming for us to consider these choices.