By Nco Dube | 21 January 2026

There is something almost comical if it weren’t so tragic, about watching Western elites applaud Mark Carney’s Davos speech as though he has just discovered fire. The breathless praise, the declarations that “the adults are back in the room,” the insistence that this marks a turning point for the West, all betray a profound amnesia about how we arrived at this moment. Carney’s speech, for all its eloquence and rhetorical polish, is not the beginning of a new chapter. It is the West finally reading aloud the obituary that the Global South wrote decades ago.

From Pretoria to Accra, from Nairobi to Harare, the critique Carney now advances that the so‑called rules‑based international order was always selectively applied. Always tilted toward the interests of the powerful. Always a performance of virtue rather than the practice of it, is not new. 

It is the political equivalent of a veteran jazz musician watching a newcomer receive applause for “inventing” improvisation. Africa has been saying these things for half a century. Latin America has been saying them. The Arab world has been saying them. The Caribbean has been saying them. But when the critique comes from the periphery, it is dismissed as grievance. When it comes from a G7 prime minister at Davos, it becomes “bold.”

Let’s be honest: the West is not having a moral awakening. It is having a panic attack.

And Carney’s speech, for all its sophistication, is not a roadmap to renewal. It is a beautifully written confession that the old order is dead and that the West only noticed the corpse when it no longer served them.

A Damascus Moment Born of Fear, Not Justice

Carney frames his argument around a rupture in the global order. A world where great powers no longer pretend to be bound by rules, where economic integration becomes a weapon, where middle powers must fend for themselves. But what he does not say, and what the Global South has been shouting for decades, is that this rupture did not begin with Russia, or China, or the erosion of multilateral institutions. It began with the West’s own choices.

The West is not suddenly discovering that the rules are uneven. It is discovering that it is no longer the sole beneficiary of the unevenness.

Europe and Canada are not taking the “sign out of the window” because they have found moral courage. They are doing so because their superpower patron is now led by a mad man whose foreign policy philosophy can be summarised as: “if it doesn’t benefit me personally, it doesn’t exist”. They are not rejecting hypocrisy; they are reacting to vulnerability.

This is not a principled stand. It is a survival instinct. And survival instincts, while understandable, should not be confused with moral clarity.

The Gaza Precedent: The Moment the Mask Fell

Carney speaks of the erosion of the rules‑based order as though it were a natural process. A slow decay, a gradual weakening. But the world watched the real collapse happen in real time, and it was not subtle.

For two years, Western governments did not merely fail to restrain Israel’s actions in Gaza; they actively enabled them. They armed, funded, shielded, vetoed, and justified. They rewrote legal standards on the fly. They criminalised dissent at home. They suspended international law not because it was overwhelmed, but because it was inconvenient.

That was the moment the world understood that the rules were not broken, they were optional. And once the law becomes optional, it ceases to be law.

This is why Carney’s appeal to “values‑based realism” rings hollow. You cannot preach sovereignty and territorial integrity while selectively ignoring them. You cannot call for a world anchored in legitimacy while demonstrating that legitimacy is a luxury reserved for allies. You cannot lament the decline of multilateral institutions while being the one who hollowed them out.

The Global South did not need Davos to explain this. We have lived it.

Africa’s Long Memory

When Carney speaks of middle powers needing to “live in truth,” he is echoing Václav Havel’s famous metaphor of the greengrocer removing the sign from his window. But Africa removed that sign decades ago. We stopped believing in the fiction of Western neutrality long before the West stopped believing in it themselves.

We remember the coups supported in the name of stability. 

We remember the structural adjustment programmes that gutted our economies.  

We remember the selective outrage, the selective sanctions, the selective interventions.  

We remember Libya.  

We remember Iraq.  

We remember the IMF’s double standards.  

We remember the WTO’s asymmetries.  

We remember the climate promises that never materialised. 

We remember the vaccine hoarding during COVID‑19.  

We remember the lectures about democracy delivered by governments arming dictatorships.

So when Carney says the old order is gone, Africa’s response is simple: “Welcome to the party. You’re late.”

The West’s Crisis Is Not the World’s Crisis

Carney’s speech is framed as a call for middle powers to build a new order. One based on shared values, resilience, and strategic autonomy. But the subtext is clear: this is not a global project. It is a Western project to salvage Western influence. The West is not trying to build a fairer world. It is trying to build a world in which it can still matter.

This is why the applause at Davos is so misplaced. Carney is not offering a vision of renewal. He is offering a strategy of containment. A way for the West to navigate a world where its dominance is no longer guaranteed.

And that is fine. Every region has the right to pursue its interests. But let us not pretend that this is a moral awakening.

The Hypocrisy of Timing

If Carney had delivered this speech in 2003, during the invasion of Iraq, it would have been courageous.  

If he had delivered it in 2011, during the destruction of Libya, it would have been principled.  

If he had delivered it in 2020, during the vaccine apartheid of COVID‑19, it would have been timely. 

If he had delivered it in 2023, during the height of the Gaza bombardment, it would have been necessary.

But he delivered it in 2026 — when the West is finally feeling the consequences of its own behaviour.

This is not courage. It is convenience. And convenience is not the foundation of a new world order.

The Material World Still Matters

One of the most striking reactions to Carney’s speech has been the claim that it signals the “end of empire.” But the United States still maintains hundreds of military bases across the world. Its financial system still anchors global markets. Its currency still dominates global trade. Its tech giants still shape global infrastructure.

Empires do not end because someone gives a good speech at Davos. Empires end when their material capacity collapses. And the material capacity of the United States while strained, is far from collapse.

This is why the Global South is not fooled by rhetorical flourishes. We measure power in ports, pipelines, minerals, markets, and militaries, not in speeches.

Carney’s Honesty Is Welcome. But Insufficient

To be fair, Carney’s speech is more honest than anything we have heard from a G7 leader in years. He acknowledges the hypocrisy. He acknowledges the fragility. He acknowledges the need for middle powers to act collectively. He acknowledges that nostalgia is not a strategy.

But honesty without accountability is just confession without repentance. And confession without repentance is just performance.

The West cannot rebuild credibility through eloquence. It must rebuild it through action and through a willingness to apply the same standards to itself that it applies to others.

Until then, the Global South must continue building its own institutions, its own alliances, its own trade corridors, its own financial systems, its own technological ecosystems. Not out of hostility, but out of necessity.

Because we learned long ago what the West is only learning now: sovereignty is not granted by alliances. It is built through autonomy.

The House Is Already Burning

Those celebrating Carney’s speech as a hopeful turning point are like people watching their house burn and believing that installing better fire alarms will restore the structure. The fire is not the problem. The structure is the problem. The rules‑based order did not collapse because others violated it. It collapsed because the West demonstrated that it was never real.

Carney has written a beautiful obituary. But an obituary is not a resurrection. And the world is not waiting for the West to rise again.

It is already moving on.

(Dube is a noted Political Economist, Businessperson, and Social Commentator whose insights are regularly featured on Ukhozi FM and in various newspapers. For further reading and perspectives, visit: http://www.ncodube.blog)