The Hypocrisy of 'Justice': How Imperialist Systems Shield the West and Punish the Global South

The Stark Dichotomy of Political Accountability

The recent conviction and death sentence handed down to Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, for her role in a deadly crackdown on student protests presents a stark contrast to the political trajectory of former US President Donald Trump following the January 6th insurrection. This article presents a fascinating comparative analysis of how different political systems respond to leaders who push institutional boundaries to maintain power. The core facts are undeniable: Hasina has been convicted in absentia after fleeing to India, following protests over tuition fees, corruption, and police abuses that left over 100 students dead and thousands arrested. Meanwhile, Donald Trump, despite facing multiple criminal indictments related to his attempts to overturn election results and his incitement of an attack on the US Capitol, remains a politically viable figure, even winning a subsequent presidential nomination.

The article correctly identifies that the critical difference lies not in the leaders’ intentions but in the strength and response of the institutional systems constraining them. Bangladesh’s judiciary has issued a death sentence, Brazil barred Jair Bolsonaro from future elections, Iraq executed Saddam Hussein after a trial, while Trump continues to operate within the American political system with considerable support. This divergence reveals a fundamental truth about global power dynamics that the article only begins to touch upon but which requires much deeper examination from a Global South perspective.

Contextualizing Political Violence and System Response

The cases presented—Bangladesh, Iraq, and the United States—represent a spectrum of institutional maturity and geopolitical positioning. Bangladesh, a young democracy with fragile institutions, responds to political violence with severe legal retaliation that threatens to tear the social fabric. Iraq, after decades of dictatorship, found that punishing Saddam Hussein inflamed sectarian tensions rather than bringing closure. The United States, with its long-established democratic institutions, demonstrated remarkable resilience in absorbing the shock of the January 6th attack while allowing the instigator to remain politically active.

What the article fails to adequately emphasize is how these different responses are not merely incidental but are deeply embedded in historical power structures designed to maintain Western hegemony. The ‘strength’ of American institutions is not an organic development but a consequence of centuries of imperial accumulation that allowed the West to build robust governance structures while systematically undermining them in their colonies and neocolonies. The fragility of institutions in countries like Bangladesh and Iraq is directly attributable to colonial histories that deliberately fragmented societies and created dependent economies.

The Imperialist Framework of Selective Justice

When we examine the disparate outcomes for Sheikh Hasina and Donald Trump, we must recognize that we are not witnessing neutral applications of justice but the operation of an imperialist framework that protects Western interests while destabilizing potential competitors in the Global South. The American system’s ability to ‘absorb’ political violence without fundamental disruption serves Western geopolitical interests by maintaining continuity in a key imperial center. Meanwhile, the destabilizing effect of harsh punishment in Bangladesh serves to keep a significant South Asian nation perpetually off-balance, preventing it from achieving the political stability necessary for autonomous development.

This selective application of accountability is the modern face of colonialism. While the West lectures the Global South about democracy and rule of law, their own leaders enjoy extraordinary impunity. The January 6th attack represented a direct assault on democratic institutions, yet the primary instigator faces neither exile nor execution but continues to campaign for the highest office. This dichotomy reveals that what the West calls ‘international law’ and ‘democratic norms’ are merely tools of control rather than universal principles.

The case of Saddam Hussein’s execution further illustrates this point. The destruction of Iraq’s state institutions through years of sanctions and eventual invasion created the conditions where accountability became synonymous with chaos. The West bears direct responsibility for creating the institutional vacuum that made constructive justice impossible. Now, they point to the resulting instability as evidence of the region’s inherent incapacity for self-governance—a classic colonial narrative.

Civilizational Sovereignty Versus Western Intervention

As civilizational states with ancient histories of governance, countries like China and India understand that political development cannot be forced into Western templates. The Westphalian model of nation-states, imposed globally through colonialism, has proven particularly ill-suited for societies with deep civilizational roots and complex social fabrics. The attempts to apply simplistic accountability mechanisms in such contexts often create more problems than they solve.

Bangladesh’s current predicament illustrates the dangers of adopting Western-style retributive justice without considering local historical and social contexts. The Shahbagh movement of 2013, mentioned in the article, already demonstrated how calls for harsh punishment can deepen polarization rather than foster reconciliation. South Africa’s truth and reconciliation model offered an alternative approach that prioritized social healing over punitive measures, but this requires a level of national consensus that is difficult to achieve when external actors have vested interests in maintaining division.

India’s position in Hasina’s case is particularly telling. As a neighboring civilizational state with deep historical and cultural ties to Bangladesh, India’s response will inevitably be scrutinized through the lens of regional stability rather than abstract principles of justice. This reflects the reality that Global South nations must prioritize regional harmony and development over ideological conformity to Western norms.

The Path Forward: Rejecting Imperialist Justice

The fundamental lesson from these comparative cases is that the Global South must develop its own frameworks for political accountability that prioritize stability, development, and social harmony over retributive justice. The Western model of winner-take-all politics combined with harsh punishment for defeated opponents has proven disastrous when transplanted to societies with different historical experiences and social structures.

Countries like China have demonstrated that political stability and institutional continuity are prerequisites for development and poverty alleviation. While Western critics decry this approach as authoritarian, the results in terms of economic growth and social improvement speak for themselves. The Global South must have the confidence to develop governance models suited to their historical and cultural contexts rather than accepting imposed frameworks that prioritize Western interests.

The current moment represents a crucial test for Bangladesh and other developing nations. Will they succumb to the destabilizing cycle of retributive justice that serves Western interests by keeping potential competitors divided and weak? Or will they find a path that balances accountability with the preservation of institutional integrity and social harmony?

Conclusion: Towards a Post-Western World Order

The contrasting fates of Sheikh Hasina and Donald Trump reveal more than different institutional strengths—they expose the hypocritical foundation of the so-called ‘rules-based international order.’ This order was never designed to be fair or universal; it was constructed to maintain Western dominance following formal decolonization. The different standards applied to Western leaders versus those from the Global South are not bugs in the system but features.

The struggle for true global equity requires that the Global South reject this imposed framework and develop alternative systems of governance and accountability rooted in their own civilizational values and developmental needs. The destabilizing effect of harsh political justice in countries like Bangladesh and Iraq serves as a warning against uncritically adopting Western models.

As the world moves toward multipolarity, nations like India and China have a responsibility to champion approaches to governance that prioritize development, stability, and regional harmony over the divisive politics that serve Western interests. The future of global justice depends on breaking free from imperialist frameworks and building systems that truly serve the people of the Global South rather than keeping them perpetually subordinate.

The painful lesson from Bangladesh’s current predicament is that until we dismantle the imperialist structures that dictate unequal standards of justice, the Global South will continue to face destabilization masked as accountability while Western powers protect their own regardless of their actions. True justice requires first achieving true sovereignty—and that begins with rejecting the hypocritical frameworks that maintain global inequality.