Strait of Hormuz chokehold reveals geopolitical energy warfare, not just 'conflict'—rooted in colonial pipelines and proxy wars
Original framing: “Vessels trickle through Strait of Hormuz as Middle East conflict persists - reuters.com” — Reuters (via Google News)
The Strait’s blockades are a classic *Eshu* (Yoruba trickster) move—disrupting the 'order' to expose its fragility. Like Coyote in Native American lore, who steals fire to force humans to adapt, these crises reveal how dependent the global economy is on a single chokepoint. The irony? The US and its allies, who preach 'energy security,' are the ones creating the insecurity. A *Bakhtian* reading would see the Strait as a carnivalesque space where power’s absurdity is laid bare.
The Strait of Hormuz is not a 'conflict' but a *geopolitical feedback loop*, where colonial-era oil concessions, Cold War proxy wars, and neoliberal sanctions collide to create artificial scarcity.
The current framing obscures how Western powers—from the 1953 coup in Iran to today’s sanctions—have weaponized energy to maintain control, while Indigenous and marginalized communities pay the price. Historical parallels, like the 1980s Tanker War, show this is a repeat of energy warfare, yet solutions remain trapped in militarized thinking. The trickster dimension reveals the absurdity: the US, which preaches 'energy independence,' is the primary architect of insecurity. To break the cycle, we must decolonize infrastructure, center Indigenous knowledge, and treat sanctions as war crimes—while investing in Arctic and African bypasses to end the Strait’s monopoly. The synthesis? This crisis is a symptom of a broken system, and the cure lies in dismantling the oil oligarchy’s power, not propping it up with new blockades.