Hello, Dr. Pattberg here from Akihabara, Tokyo, the electronic city. Today a short lecture about the US colonial power, its Woke ideology, and the planned attack on Japan’s culture and honor.
The US had long planned a massive propaganda attack on Japan – ideally during the Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympics. The Olympic Games themselves are actually of no interest to anyone in the East or West, and they don’t trigger much attention.
But what triggers much attention are drama, hate, racism, smut and division.
Therefore, hundreds of Western journalists in 2020 had already prepared themselves to expose and humiliate the little “backward, racist and sexist” Japanese on the world stage.
For the historians, media and social scientists among you, the “propaganda game” should be familiar and well known. The Olympic Games force a country to open up. And a lot of shit floats through the grates in four weeks.
Thousands of activists come over and dig in the dirt, wanting to embarrass the host nation. This has actually always happened, but very spectacularly so in Munich in 1972, during the 2008 Olympic Games in China, and during the 2014 Winter Games in Russia.
And to describe this phenomenon with examples, I chose Akihabara in Tokyo for today. Akihabara is – or better: Once upon a time it was – a tourist attraction and a showcase for Japan’s high-tech, Japan’s manga, Japan’s anime and Japan’s game industry.
So, if a hostile power, say the US colonial office, wanted to damage Japan’s culture…then that power would strike here!
It would sabotage everything, use all the methods of modern psychological warfare: gaslighting (reality distortion), framing, the Hitler smash, racism, sexism and much more. And Japan has no media, no newspapers, that could possibly retaliate across national borders.
Eventually, the desperate Japanese would be labeled deniers, maniacs, or just bad losers.
A revolution or emancipation from the USA after more than 70 years of foreign rule is hardly conceivable. There would be a massacre if the US declared Japan a “rival” for a fourth or fifth time in history.
The USA needs a new deadly enemy every few years or so: be it the Vietnamese, the Soviets, the Iraqis, the Germans, the Afghans, the Cubans, the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Chinese or (again) – the Japanese!
Yes, but why would the USA, as a comfortable occupying power in Japan, want to intentionally harm the Japanese? Japan after all went along with everything:
De-Japanization;
De-Militarization;
Democratization;
Capitalization;
Americanization…
Is there more?
Yes, there is always more! A new brutal ideology has emerged in the USA: the ideology of Wokeness.
Wokeness actually just means “psychopathy”. In this deadly ideology, anything successful, competent and orderly is just the result of systematic racism, sexism, or discrimination.
With the Wokeness ideology we can sabotage, brainwash and, ultimately, cancel entire nations and peoples – friend or foe – i.e.: wipe them out.
Even the traditional genders, male and female, the father-mother-children family, national borders, the laws, the sciences —everything can and must be erased. That is the stated goal of woke or wokeness.
Everything is already “woke” in America, especially the White House, the big cartels, the ruling castes, Hollywood and the Jewish media. They all want to collapse the multi-polar world and then – after a restart – take over the planet completely.
Japan was a decent and dependable vassal from 1948 until today, 2022. It has ceded all powers of its industries, politics, education, banking and trade, and especially energy and food supply, to the USA.
Nonetheless, exotic Japanese culture is a tough nut to crack mainly because of the language barrier: There just aren’t enough Americans who know or want to learn Japanese. So, there’s a lot happening here in Japan that the Americans wouldn’t tolerate and wipe out at the first opportunity – if they could!
For example, they would like to mix the Japanese with other races. They would die for orchestrating mass migration to Japan. The country is very homogeneous. That’s why there are no ghettos here, no social parasites, hardly any crime, and almost everyone has good manners – citizens behave well, respect the elderly and so on.
The US would like to have black neighborhoods here, huge drug markets, racial unrest, chaos and violence – that would be ideal. Then the West could, just like in America and Europe, torment people at will, lock them up, release them, catch them again, confiscate everything, privatize public services, moderate social security systems, print fiat money.
A British agent once told me that there was so little going on in Japan that he wouldn’t be surprised if it were the Americans who started the constant earthquakes in the Pacific.
The huge market for sex and prostitution is definitely not American enough here in Tokyo.
Though some party towns like Roppongi are regularly crashed by American soldiers, and though Okinawa is one giant fat American whorehouse, all of Japan – like Thailand or the Philippines before them – could be turned into a massive whorehouse for western sex tourists.
In order to get to Japanese women though, the Americans have to cancel out the Japanese guys first, of course. So, the Japanese males are brutally portrayed as racists, sexists, patriarchs and monsters who tie their wives to the kitchen sink, bully their female secretaries, and grab young schoolgirls in the crotch on the train ride.
Since only American morals apply globally, Japan always pulls the ass card. For example, there are a lot of alien eccentricities in Japan. Every people have their own characteristics. For example, let me remind you that up until the 1990s in France and Germany it was completely normal to practice nudism – i.e. free body culture. We were naked in the garden. On the campsite. Or even on a bike tour.
We also had mixed saunas. However, this was only possible because the group was homogeneous and there was trust among its members. When migrants and competing groups of men joined in, however, things ended quickly.
This was also the case in Japan, when, before the Europeans arrived in Old Edo, it was completely normal for young women to sit bare-breasted in front of the bathhouses.
Many things in Japan are rather abnormal from the point of view of Americans. Fathers still take their daughters to the men’s changing area up to the age of six. Older men compensate high school students for a “date”.
There is also a clear fetishism of school uniforms.
Japanese have different love making rituals. They prioritize foreplay or role-play. Also, because of thin walls and super-small houses, sex is outsourced – to the so-called “love hotels”.
For 30 euros you can have a nice hour in the more than 10,000 love hotels.
There are also unusual rules for printing pornography. Pubic hair may not be shown in Japan; and also, not the act of penetration – with real people.
In art, however, anything goes, so there is a veritable pornographic market for pedophilia, gays, and animal lovers in Japan.
All of these “abnormalities” are easy targets for the American morality missionaries, who suspect a perverse male culture here and want to ban it all.
After that, only the West should run sex and porn here; with US Tinder or Canada’s Pornhub. Of course, I’m generalizing when I always cry “America”. That’s because woke Canada is just as much part of the US empire as is the City of London, which incidentally finances OnlyFans – with over 50 million registered sex workers, the largest prostitution ring in the world.
Not just porn, but also hard drugs like cocaine and heroin the West would like to sell in Japan. And that’s what western politicians want to achieve with mass black immigration. Because “black people” should never be racially profiled – that would be racist. And then they could sell cool drugs to the Japanese youth.
Japan is not yet prepared for all the grief of multiculturalism. If Japanese porn falls, then there really isn’t much Japan left.
It gets worse. Japanese men are not only portrayed as perverts or otakus (freaks), but also still, unfortunately, as mass murderers and sadists; similar to how German men are still vilified as living Nazis today.
The Japanese are doubly unlucky because they are non-white. For example, as is well known, Ida Hodolf borrowed the swastika, the swastika symbol I mean, from the Buddhist religion. There, the clockwise and the counterclockwise swastika both simply denote the grace of the Buddhas –incidentally also in Tibet, the favorite vacation spot of liberal German do-gooders.
Unfortunately, the West canceled this sacred sign as a symbol of absolute evil. What a pity that in Taiwan or in Mainland China and Japan, there are Buddhist temples with the swastika everywhere.
As a rule, and let’s be honest, every symbol can be canceled. Here is the flag of Imperial Japan: the rising sun. Today a hated, forbidden symbol –in China! And here, the swastika –banned in Europe!
In Japan the swastika is not a problem. You can buy one as a tourist. Memorabilia of the Third Reich can also be bought here. That’s “history”!
And by the way, here is the American flag, the most hated symbol on earth! Now you can believe that or not. This flag, the American flag, will one day characterize Satanism.
Japan’s imperial history and loss of World War II still get shoved up the ass of the Japanese today. They are per se the descendants of war criminals, rapists and subhumans.
Therefore, here in Japan, every US representative takes the following approach; whether the US ambassadors or US diplomats, the US media or US cultural people, they always and immediately contact critics of Japan – i.e. anti-Japanese dissidents, opposition figures and troublemakers.
This is no joke: Americans see their embassies as a government organ that actively coerces, promotes or fires local politicians and dictates foreign affairs.
Incidentally, the same British agent told me that the Americans “are the ultimate successor of Her Majesty’s Colonial Office in the last century”.
In plain language, this means that the Americans don’t cultivate any friendships at all, but simply let the colonial masters and exploiters and conquerors mentality hang out. The Japanese are conditioned to feel helpless and guilty, just as the Germans were conditioned to accept and submit to US military rule.
But now some very specific examples of how the Americans here in Japan want to undermine, sabotage and bury Japanese culture.
I won’t name names.
[Brief insertion: By “I won’t name names ” I mean the instigators and terrorists. But the names of the targets of their smear and hate campaigns are of course public figures:
Yoshiro Mori, a former prime minister, has been outed in the global press as the Olympic Committee’s chief sexist.
Taro Aso, a former deputy minister, was scandalized as a misogynist for daring to say that women are best for making children.
Hakuo Yanagisawa, the former health minister, was outright destroyed in the media and on the internet.
The strategy of the Woke spirit warriors is evident: sabotage the entire political system, destroy the top performers through injury, psychological terror and arbitrariness.
Ok, and now back to you, Dr. Pattberg!]
For example, there are several crazy Americans who walk into Japanese Onsen, bathhouses, with fat tattoos. Then they are declined because tattoos are banned; and because obnoxious foreigners disrupt the operation.
Then, of course, the provocateur turned out to be an agent provocateur with contacts in the Western media, or a tolerated criminal – and there begins another smear campaign against racist and anti-Western Japan, which does not tolerate foreigners.
The American foot soldiers of the Woke-and-Cancel cult seek out all possible groups of victims, and then spin their personal stories into stories about systematic homophobia, transphobia, gender phobia and hatred of women.
In America, Americans developed the political instrument of ‘D.I.E.’, an acronym for diversity, inclusivity and equity. For these lunatics, that means that Japan is literally hell.
Japan isn’t diverse for American expats because they won’t come to power here. It’s not inclusive for them because they can’t assimilate without language skills, and not fair because they won’t be able to keep up in school with the Japanese.
In order to denigrate the Japanese into villains, quotas for skin colors and ethnic groups and minorities are needed here, just like in America!
In other words, the emasculated Japan, which is totally dominated by America, is still far too Japanese in looks –and must be diluted!
For now, the US and the EU are busy with Russia. Want to cancel Russia. The Russian economy is completely paralyzed. This bought Japan some time to relax.
The fearful Japanese politicians, not a single one of whom is known by name in the West –the current prime minister is Fumio Kishida, and you don’t need to remember that– would authorize ten more US bases in, say Yokohama, if only more time could be won.
Because a war in which Japan is dragged along cannot be a war against Japan.
In 2013, for example, Washington sent Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of ex-President John F. Kennedy, to Tokyo as the next US ambassador to Japan.
This woman doesn’t speak Japanese, has no idea about Japan. But that’s the whole point. It is symbolic. Kiss my foreign rule! Whoever is white and American is in control here. Just like General Douglas MacArthur back then.
Again, the Americans are not engaged in diplomacy at all, but in colonialism.
Ms. Kennedy was practically unable to achieve anything positive in Japan. Firstly, she was hardly ever in Tokyo. Secondly, she only met with anti-Japanese elements. And thirdly, her incompetence was whitewashed by being the “first female ambassador” –a slap in the face of evil patriarchy. Hallelujah!
Well, the Americans in Tokyo act as Supreme Commanders. They rule Japan with the help of their Japanese finger puppets. Naruhito, the current new Emperor of Japan, studied at Oxford and is married to his wife from Harvard. Incidentally, the prime minister during Ms. Kennedy’s time in Tokyo was Shinzo Abe, who had studied in California. THOSE are the supreme rulers of Japan, friends. They can’t [and probably shouldn’t be] without the West.
That demolition team had completely surrendered Japan to US BIG-Tech monopolies: Wikipedia, YouTube, Zoom, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, Pornhub, Instagram, Apple, Facebook, Google, Twitter, and so on.
Japan lost BIG banking, telecom and social media. All gone.
Anyone who comes to Japan will quickly realize that everything is American here – KFC here is the traditional Christmas turkey– and all things American are considered sacred, not to be questioned.
It’s a real American cult, with American Hollywood actors like Arnold Schwarzenegger or Tommy Lee Jones or Scarlett Johansson in TV commercials all over the place.
It would be unimaginable to see German or Italian or Russian stars on a billboard here in Tokyo. Even the so-called imported goods from Germany, for example Ritter chocolate or gummy bears, are imported here by Americans, for example by Costco of the Jupiter Group, the latter belongs to a US investment firm.
This imbalance exists because Europeans mostly can only access the Japanese market through American intermediaries.
The whole thing is so ridiculous it makes one cry. Japan is an island nation… AND DOES NOT HAVE AIRCRAFT OF ITS OWN. May not build aircrafts in Japan. A post-war 70 years building ban!
Where was I? The Americans now want to deal another blow to Japan. The country must accommodate imaginary trans-people, black ghettos, Indian slums and more Islam. Christianity needs more offices here, too.
Japan is too old, they say; has too few children, they say. Japan is “too Japanese” –that’s the crime.
All this moral hectoring is of course fake: first Japan will be canceled, then the West will cheer its own champions here.
The toy industry in Japan was once very Japanese. Until US Disney copied everything. America has the world market, Japan doesn’t.
Before America dispelled the Japanese from the European market [mid 80s], I grew up as a young boy in Germany with Nausica of the Valley of the Wind or Taro the Dragon Boy. And I heard from the Japanese that they were fascinated by German-Austrian culture at that time and copied Heidi from the Mountains like crazy.
The Americans canceled Germany’s and Japan’s influences in one fell swoop. Today, Japanese children are growing up with US Elsa, the Disney Ice Princess and the Minions from Universal Pictures.
Sure, there’s still a lot of Japanese here in Akihabara, for example Japanese One-Piece, Pokémon and Naruto or Kamel… excuse me… Kamen Riders.
But precisely because the [last] Japanese silverware is on display here in Akihabara, the American planners come here seeing exactly what needs to be done about it.
Now they want to swamp the market for collectibles with US Marvel and DC Comics and -figures [and Disney Princesses, Star Wars Action Toys and Barbie dolls, and so on].
Godzilla is already “American”. The last five feature films were all shot in America!
Children are important in propaganda. Japan no longer has its own children’s channels. There is US Netflix, US Hulu, US Disney, US Youtube… Comcast, Tokyo Disneyland, Pixar Animation Studios, Nickelodeon, Harry Potter World, HBO and Amazon Prime, and many more. It is very insidious. I remember how Americans educated us Germans with their Sesame Street.
The advantage in post-war Germany was that we still got stuff like comics from France, Belgium or Spain. Asterix & Obelix or Clever & Smart [comics] or whatever. But Japan is an island, and the Japanese were trapped there with their American masters.
Conclusion:
Unless Japan kicks out the Americans, at least the US military and the subversive US media and agents, things are going to get very grim. Japan can’t win this.
I don’t know how else to explain that. I’m really at a loss for words. It’s so brutal and unfair, but there’s no stopping it.
Do you perhaps know this blatant experiment with the two monkeys? There are two monkeys in cages next to each other. The first monkey is given a piece of cucumber and then has to hand out a rock if he wants more. He is satisfied with the piece of cucumber.
But then the monkey in the neighboring cage is given a red grape. Well, one monkey only gets a tasteless piece of cucumber, no matter what he does. The other monkey gets a juicy red grape no matter what he does.
And now comes the hammer: The first monkey gives up. He doesn’t want the fucking pickle. He was perfectly content with his little cucumber as long as he didn’t see the other monkey with his big juicy bunches.
This is how it is with hyper-US capitalism around the world right now, and horribly in Japan. As long as the Japanese kept to themselves, they cooperated diligently and were content with what they got.
But now the Americans control everything here, and they own the whole world, and in this global economy, they simply always get the big juicy grapes, and don’t have to put in any more work than the rest of us.
It would be completely insane if the Japanese continued like this now. What for? You’ll never get the fat rewards anyway! Never and ever again!
Ok, this was brutal, but it was necessary. Not only Japan, but also Germany and Europe, but also other countries like Russia and China, finally have to wake up.
US world domination can’t go on like this. Absolutely not.
We need a multipolar world with opportunities for all countries and cultures. And most important of all: freedom and sovereignty for all states.
Thanks for listening, and see you later!
The author is a German writer and cultural critic.
An ultimately very healthy but in the meantime very unpleasant realization is gradually dawning in West—an insight that is simply shocking, that fundamentally alters their picture of the world: that the stronger becomes the hurricane of woke transformations that is raging there, the more attractive Russia becomes for hundreds of millions of Europeans and Americans. What is Russia’s most powerful weapon? Is it nuclear? Is it hypersonic (or “hydrosonic,” as per Trump)? Cybermagic, perhaps? No, Russia’s most powerful weapon is its values. And it grows stronger and more dangerous every day, in direct proportion to the intensifying fire of multiculturalism and political correctness that is raging in Europe and in America.
A recent article in The National Interest summarized various American authors who claim that the Kremlin is gradually developing its strategy of soft power and using it to successfully fight the West, splitting it and undermining it from within. What is the cause of their paranoid hysteria? Could it be that they have accidentally discovered who their true enemy is, and that it is… they themselves?
The simplest and most effective way to knock a geopolitical adversary out of the game is to impose on it a system of values that will split its society and lead the most active part of its population to occupy public buildings, to erect barricades and to support a pretender to the throne that is immediately given support and recognition by the country’s enemies. This is how all color revolutions of the late 20th and the early 21st centuries have been done: broadcast some propaganda, recruit some activists, help them to organize, provide some clandestine financial support, and then at some point this human mass, confident in their strength and their righteousness, surges through the police barriers and goes on to create history by overthrowing some faux-democrat petty tyrant, clearing the path for the next faux-democrat petty tyrant to be installed, with the country growing weaker, poorer and more disordered with each iteration. The process starts with the conversion of some significant part of the target population to “universal human values” with secular proselytizing of the “one true democratic faith.”
To the extent that this could be called a game, the West had a huge head start in it. The tools for fighting the “evil empire” have been honed for half a century. In the course of fighting the Cold War, radio stations, foundations, newspapers and magazines, parties and communities, publishing houses and TV channels have been created. Virtually all of them were then repurposed from fighting against the USSR to fighting against Russia. Collapse of the USSR, it was foolishly thought, was but a first step toward destroying Russia and absconding with its crude oil, natural gas, metal ores, fertile farmland and other natural treasures. And then, just in time, new, internet-based forms of influence appeared, completely controlled from America. For a time, the combination of a huge head start and the newly weaponized internet technologies seemed overwhelming.
But then something miraculous took place.
For a long time the USSR struggled mightily to propagandize socialist ideas in the United States and in Western Europe—to no avail. In the US, from its inception as a quintessential pirate colony, centuries of being conditioned to think that good persons are good by virtue of having goodly quantities of bounty and loot in their coffers has rendered people immune to socialist values. Meanwhile, Europe—its western half after the defeat of Nazism and in its eastern after the demise of Soviet communism—have been reduced to American satrapies where American propaganda reigns supreme and ceaselessly paints Russia as backward, corrupt, despotic and generally evil. No amount of broadcasting by Russia Today and no amount of toil by Russian internet trolls would ever be able to reprogram the consciousness of a Western person. But then suddenly Russia was awarded the supreme prize, giving it attractiveness, charm and influence no one could have dreamed of.
What has suddenly transformed the situation was mass insanity into which the West has been plunged. This group madness has destroyed much of what is infinitely dear to a very significant, if not overwhelming, part of Western civilization. Those conditional “conservatives”—normal people who do not want to be forced to be ashamed of their skin color, heterosexuality, respect for religion, generally accepted morality, and so on, are now humiliated, discriminated against and persecuted by the newest crop of toxic lefties.
Here is a lovely quote from an article in the Daily Beast: “…The Kremlin intends to attract Western converts with… bigotry—turning Russia into the land of ultimate political incorrectness, the world’s anti-woke capital.” Never mind the spurious claim of Kremlin’s intent to make Russia attractive; that is akin to blaming a beauty pageant contestant for being beautiful. Never mind the spurious claim of bigotry when it comes to opposing the West’s gender dysphoria and other psychiatric symptoms; there is a perfectly valid counterclaim of a society-wide psychiatric disorder that has plenty of biological science to back it up. What’s important is that the world has flipped to its mirror image: no longer is the United States “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” Russia now is, in the eyes of the Americans themselves! No longer is it Ivan sighing enviously while dreaming of American blue jeans, Coca-Cola and rock-and-roll; it is John who is wildly jealous of the absence of black-on-white racism, dumbed-down high school curricula, laughable yet lethal accusations of sexual harassment and a rainbow of public toilets.
Russia itself could never have achieved such a high level of attractiveness merely by using its propaganda machinery (all one and a half TV channels of it). It arose by itself when traditional (i.e., white heterosexual Christian) Europeans and Americans began to compare the surrounding Bedlam with Russia’s naturalness and orderliness. And then there spontaneously arose in them a very simple feeling: to hell with past grievances; it is the future which we must make livable for ourselves and our children. In the past, Russia was an adversary, but that past ended thirty years ago, and in the present Russia is safe, secure and happier than ever while we are burning in Hell and have no idea what to do about it. But at least we have Russia to hold up as a positive example.
It must also be understood that there are no other candidates for this role. There is no LGBT insanity, sexual harassment mania or violent reverse racism in North Korea, or Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or China, but these examples are all far too exotic and come with toxic baggage of their own. What the persecuted white Western Christian conservative heterosexual male needs is a normal European country, full of white people, comfortable for living in, but without any of the things he hates. What other options are there? It is not a competition if there is just one contestant.
And thus we have come to the point where Russia—in all seriousness and without any irony or puffery whatsoever, really—has become the light of the world, a shining city set upon a hill, a beacon of hope, a bastion of righteousness and free spirit and the symbol of a truly free world. This is an almost magical transformation: it was able to win this exalted status outright without even playing the game. It did the barest minimum in standing its ground and in preventing a smallish faction of foreign-controlled traitors and fools from destroying their country. Theirs has remained a wholesome world of brave, masculine men, of attractive, feminine women and of their above-average, non-gender-confused children. In their world, rewards and privileges are based on merit, corrupt politicians and businessmen spend years in jail, and respect for traditional ethics and religious faith is mandatory. In their world, all of history is permanently theirs: none of it will ever be forgotten, falsified or erased—all thousand-plus years of it, including life under the Golden Horde, the serfdom, great victories of the Russian Empire, the revolutionary terror, collectivization, Stalin’s purges, the defeat of Nazism, the destruction of Western colonialism throughout Africa and Asia, the conquest of space, the national humiliation of Gorbachev’s and Yeltsin’s puppet regimes and Russia’s rebirth under Putin.
It is a world to which more and more people in the West want to escape to, leaving behind a landscape blighted by leftist vandalism and enforced repentance for the crime of being of a certain race or of daring to exhale carbon dioxide. They do not wish to subject themselves to the unholy inquisition which doles out punishments to those who remain unenthusiastic about and unsupportive of sexual perversity, gender dysphoria, the destruction of traditional families and the brainwashing of youth. Even if they cannot escape, they can take comfort in knowing that a more normal and less damaged alternative reality exists, and they can secretly sympathize with it.
What makes this transformation particularly remarkable is that ten years ago Russia’s soft power barely existed. At that time, a small but vocal opposition demonstrated in the center of Moscow, chanting “We need a different Russia.” But now hundreds of millions of French, Germans, Americans and others in the West are chanting what amounts to “We need a different West.” To the abject horror of their political elites they look to Russia—the country of extreme political incorrectness—with longing, delight and hope. These people are self-organizing into parties, uniting like-minded people in much greater numbers than the Communist International had ever been able to gather. In many countries they already exert a very significant influence on the political agenda. The more the pandemic of woke madness rages, the greater their influence will become. When this conflagration of mass insanity finally burns itself out, it is Russia that will have the civilizational seed stock with which to re-fertilize the devastated cultural landscape of the West.
In the meantime, this is already shaping up to be a Russian century. This level of soft power is something beyond anyone’s wildest dreams; it is is Putin’s judo mastery taken to the nth level. In judo, one directs one’s opponent’s own force against him; here, the opponent is directing his own power against himself while the judo master merely stands back and watches, nodding in approval. In every country that the liberals attempt to reformat to their liking, Russia automatically gains millions of fans, forcing any possible geopolitical confrontation with Russia to fade into the background before the neutralizing force of a great commonality of traditional values. Remaining passive and risking nothing, Russia has gained a myriad ways to turn the geopolitical situation to its advantage.
For a very long time the West had monopolized the dominant discourse, but now Russia has gained control of it. Needless to say, this does not go down well with those who have been accustomed to uncontested dominance. They react hysterically: by throwing around groundless accusations and insults, staging provocations, imposing toothless yet self-defeating sanctions… They will try anything that they think might help to defer the moment when they will be forced to admit the horrible truth: that they have checked themselves into an insane asylum in Hell and they can’t check out. Meanwhile, all Russia has to do is to wait patiently for the fires of Hell to consume them and to burn themselves out; because they always do. Their desperate thrashing about and threatening Armageddon is for Russia to ignore.
[Based loosely on a text by Aftershock’s SKonst published as «Страна крайней политической некорректности»: как Россия обрела «мягкую силу» во всём мире]
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov holds a press conference after the 28th OSCE Ministerial Council in Stockholm on Thursday, December 2. The annual OSCE Ministerial Council, chaired by Sweden, takes place on December 2-3. The ministers are expected to discuss security issues in the OSCE area and review the organisation’s activities.
Question: Not so long ago, you said that Russia would not use ideology-based rules in its international diplomatic practices. What examples can you give to explain this to a layman in matters of politics?
Sergey Lavrov: It’s simple. Ideally, any society should obey generally accepted rules that have proved their efficacy and sensibility. Speaking about international life, the United Nations Charter is a book of collectively and universally coordinated rules. Later, when new members joined the UN, they accepted these rules in their entirety, without any exemptions, because UN membership requires that the Charter be ratified without any reservations. These rules are universal and mandatory for all.
With the age of multipolarity now dawning – and its emergence is an objective fact – new centres of economic growth, financial power and political influence have come into being. The multitude of voices is louder at the UN. A consensus or a vote are required in a situation where new solutions or rules have to be developed based on the UN Charter. In both cases, this work involves conflicting opinions and the need to defend one’s position and prove it is correct. Truth springs from argument and this is what this collective work is all about.
Conscious of the fact that its arguments are increasingly vulnerable because its policy is aimed at slowing down the objective formation of a polycentric world fully in keeping with the UN Charter, the collective West thinks it more beneficial for itself to discuss current issues outside of universal organisations and make arrangements within its inner circle, where there is no one to argue with it. I am referring to the collective West itself and some “docile” countries it invites from time to time. The latter are needed as extras and create a semblance of a process that is wider than a purely Western affair. There are quite a few such examples.
Specifically, they are pushing the idea of a “summit for democracy.” This summit will take place in December at the invitation of US President Joe Biden. To be sure, we will not be invited. Neither are the Chinese on the list of invitees. The list itself is missing as well. Some of our partners are “whispering in our ear” that they have been told to get ready: supposedly an invitation is in the pipeline. Asked, what they would do there, they reply that theirs will be an online address, after which a final statement will be circulated. Can we see it? They promise to show it later. So we have here the “sovereign” and his “vassals.”
The Summit for Democracy seeks to divide people and countries into “democracies” and “non-democracies.” Furthermore, my colleagues from a respected country have told me that they could infer from the invitation they had received that the democratic countries that were invited to attend were also divided into “fully” and “conditionally” democratic. I think the Americans want to have the biggest possible crowd to show that the Washington-led movement has so many followers. Watching who specifically gets invited and in what capacity will be quite amusing. I am certain that there will be attempts to reach out to some of our strategic partners and allies, but I do hope that they will remain faithful to the obligations they have in other frameworks instead of taking part in artificially concocted, one-off unofficial summits.
The same applies to the initiative Germany and France proposed two or three years ago. I am referring to the idea of an Alliance of Multilateralists. Asked, why should it be formed – after all, the United Nations, where all sovereign states are represented, stands at the pinnacle of multilateralism – they gave rather an interesting answer. According to them, there are many conservatives at the United Nations, who hinder the genuine multilateral processes, while they are the “forerunners,” they want to lead the van and show others with their example how to promote multilateralism. But this prompts the question: Where is the “ideal” of multilateralism? Allegedly, it is personified by the European Union, a paragon of “effective multilateralism.” Once again, they understand multilateralism as the need for the rest to accept the Western world’s leadership along with the superiority of Western “values” and other things western. At the same time, multilateralism, as described on the US dollar (E pluribus unum) and as embodied in the United Nations, seems inconvenient, because there is too much diversity for those who want to impose their uniform values everywhere.
Question: Is this a constructive approach?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, not! Let me reiterate that this is how they understand the serious processes that are unfolding across the world against the backdrop of the emerging multilateralism and multipolarity. The latter, by the way, were conceived by God, for He created all men equal. And this is what the US Constitution says, but they tend to forget its formulas, when it comes to geopolitics.
There are other examples. The Dutch and the British are pushing the idea of a Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence. Why not do this at UNESCO? Why discuss this outside the organisation that was specifically created for dealing with new scientific achievements and making them available to mankind? There is no reply.
There are several competing partnerships, and the Media Freedom Coalition formed by Canada and Britain is one of them. The French, together with Reporters without Borders, promote the Information and Democracy Partnership. Once again, not everyone is invited to join it. Several years ago, Britain held the Global Conference for Media Freedom.
Question: Russia was not invited to attend, was it?
Sergey Lavrov: At first, there was no invitation, but then we reminded them that if this was a “global forum,” it was right to hear opposing points of views. But they did not invite us all the same.
Examples of this kind are not in short supply. Talking about these matters, there are mechanisms within UNESCO, which is fully legitimate and competent to deal with these issues. However, it gives a voice to others who may have a different view on media freedom compared to that of our Western colleagues. I think that this sets the international community on a path that is quite destructive, just like the attempts to “privatise” the secretariats of international organisations.
The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) is a case in point, since people from Western and NATO countries are fully in control of its Technical Secretariat. The Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC) states that everything must be done by consensus. However, the Technical Secretariat obediently tolerates gross violations of the Convention. The Western countries vote for their decisions, which is completely at odds with the CWC, and claim that executing these is the Secretariat’s duty. By arrogating the right to pinpoint who is to blame for using chemical weapons, the Technical Secretariat takes over the functions of the UN Security Council.
The West has now instructed the Technical Secretariat to crack down on Syria, where many shady things and outright provocations took place over the past years. We exposed them and held news conferences in The Hague, where the OPCW has its headquarters, as well as in New York. We showed that the Technical Secretariat was being manipulated with the help of destructive and extremist NGOs like the White Helmets. I would like to note that we are starting to hear statements along these lines from heads of certain respected organisations. For example, some senior executives of the UNESCO Secretariat have come forward with the initiative to promote “values-based multilateralism.”
Question: And they are the ones who define these values, aren’t they?
Sergey Lavrov: Probably. The UNESCO leadership also represents a Western country and NATO. There is no doubt about this.
We do know that at the end of the day, behind all this talk on building consensus and having regard for the opinion of all countries, the collective West will set the tone. This has already happened more than once. The way the West views “values-based multilateralism” will shape its negotiating position.
At the same time, there is an effort to promote a “human rights-based” approach. If we look at the challenges the world is currently facing, there is security, including food security, as well as ensuring livelihoods and healthcare. This is also related to human rights. The right to life is central to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but it is being trampled upon in the most blatant manner, just like the socioeconomic rights. The United States has yet to join the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and has only signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that the West is seeking to emphasise. Lately they have been focusing on the ugliest ways to interpret these rights, including on transgender issues and other abnormal ideas that go against human nature itself.
Question: You mentioned the humanitarian aspect, which is very important. The border crisis in Belarus. Refugees from Syria and other Middle Eastern countries trying to enter the EU are being deported peremptorily. It is a serious crisis, and the problem has grown in scale. It concerns the border with the EU, which claims to respect human rights and the humanitarian rules. Can Russia mediate the settlement of this conflict? Can we influence the situation at all? And would there be any point?
Sergey Lavrov: I don’t think that mediation is needed here. I do not see any violations of international law or obligations by Belarus. I have access to information about these developments, just as all the other stakeholders. According to this information, those who do not want to live in Belarus are trying to enter the EU from the territory of Belarus. Demanding that President Alexander Lukashenko and the Belarusian law enforcement agencies stop this would be contrary to international law, especially humanitarian law. The hysterical claims made in some EU countries that Belarus, supported by Russia, is deliberately encouraging these flows of refugees are unseemly for serious politicians. This means that they are aware of their helplessness, including in terms of international law, which is why they are growing hysterical.
Here is a simple example. You have said that the EU does not want refugees to enter its territory. I believe that it is not the EU but individual countries that do not want this. The situation is different across the EU in terms of the positions of individual countries and regions. There is no unity on this matter. Poland and Lithuania are pushing the refugees eager to enter their territory back to Belarus. I wonder how this is different from the recent developments in Italy. Former Interior Minister Matteo Salvini refused to allow refugees to disembark in Italy. He argued that there were several other EU countries along their route where they could request asylum. Salvini is likely to face trial for endangering the lives of those refugees, who had fled from the dire, catastrophic conditions in their home countries. What is the difference between the behaviour of the Baltic states and Poland and the decision for which the former minister is about to stand trial?
There are many other examples of double standards here, but just take a look at the identity of those refugees fleeing to Europe. They are Syrians, Iraqis and, recently, Afghans. People from the Sahel-Sahara region in Africa are trying to enter Europe via Libya. As we list the countries from which illegal migrants are exporting instability, we should not forget the reason behind the collapse of their home countries. This collapse has been brought about by Western adventurism. A case in point is the US adventure in Iraq, where tens of thousands of NATO troops and contingents of other countries eager to please Washington were later stationed in a cover-up ploy . Look at the aggression against Libya, and the failure of the 20-year-long war trumpeted as a mission to restore peace in Afghanistan. They attempted to do the same in Syria. As a result, several million people have been uprooted and are now trying to enter Europe from Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. This is our Western partners’ style. They regard any situation from a historical and chronological angle that suits them best. They launched devastating bombing attacks on Libya and Iraq. But after both countries were reduced to ruins, they urged everyone to assume a shared responsibility for the fate of refugees. We asked, why this should be a “shared responsibility?”After all, it was them who created the problem in the first place. They replied: “Let bygones be bygones.” There is no point looking back, they have awakened to the problem, and now it rests with us. Ukraine is another remarkable example of the logic of forgetting historical embarrassments.
Question: I would be remiss not to ask you about Ukraine. The situation there is escalating. Not so long ago, an officer, a Russian citizen,from the Joint Centre for Control and Coordination (JCCC) on Ceasefire and Stabilisation in Southeastern Ukraine was detained (in fact, kidnapped) on the demarcation line. The Ukrainian military have become increasingly active in the grey zone. With that in mind, how much longer can the Normandy format dialogue continue? Is a ministerial meeting being planned? How productive will this dialogue be?
Sergey Lavrov: I would like to revisit the diplomatic tactics of cutting off inconvenient historical eras and periods. How did it all begin? In our exchanges with our German or French colleagues who co-founded the Normandy format and the February 2015 Minsk agreements, they unfailingly maintain a “constructive ambiguity” with regard to who must comply with the Minsk agreements. We keep telling them: What ambiguity is there? Here, it is clearly written: Kiev, Donetsk and Lugansk must enter into consultations and agree on a special status, an amnesty and elections under the auspices of the OSCE. This is clearly stated there. They say they know who plays the decisive role there. We reply that we do not know who else plays the decisive role there except the parties whom the UN Security Council has obliged to act upon what they signed. To their claims that we “annexed” Crimea, we say that, first, we did not annex Crimea, but rather responded to the request of the Crimean people, who had come under a direct threat of destruction. I remember very well the Right Sector leaders saying that Russians should be expelled from Crimea, because they would never speak, think, or write in Ukrainian. Everyone back then was telling me that it was a figure of speech. It was not. Recently, President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky confirmed this when he said: If you think you are Russian, go to Russia. This is exactly the ideology proclaimed by the Right Sector immediately after the EU-guaranteed settlement document had been trampled upon in the morning by the same people who had signed it on behalf of the opposition with President Viktor Yanukovych. When you remind them of Russophobia, which instantly manifested itself among the putschists who seized power as a result of the coup, they say no, it is a thing of the past. They propose starting the discussion with the fact that the sanctions were imposed on us. This is an unsavoury approach.
I am disappointed to see such a decline in the Western negotiating and diplomatic culture. Take any hot item on the international agenda and you will see that the West is either helpless or is cheating. Take, for example, the alleged poisoning of blogger Alexey Navalny. This is a separate matter.
Returning to Ukraine and the Normandy format, indeed, the situation has escalated. There are attempts to create a provocative situation, to provoke the militia into responding and to drag Russia into military actions.
The Bayraktar drone incident is nothing short of a mystery. The Commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that this weapon was indeed used, while the Defence Minister claimed that nothing of the kind had happened. I think they are now pondering options to see which one will work better for them: either to show how tough they are having started bombing in direct and gross violation of the Minsk agreements, or to say that they are complying with the Minsk agreements and to propose to get together in the Normandy format. We do not need a meeting for the sake of holding a meeting. They are sending mixed messages through characters like Alexey Arestovich (he is some kind of a semi-official adviser), or head of the presidential executive office Andrey Yermak, or Denis Shmygal, or President Zelensky himself. But they follow the same logic: the Minsk agreements should not and must not be fulfilled, because this will destroy Ukraine. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The Minsk agreements were created as a result of 17-hour-long talks precisely in order to preserve Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Initially, having proclaimed their independence, the new republics were even unhappy with us for encouraging them to find common ground with Kiev. Whatever the new authorities may be, Ukraine is our neighbour and a fraternal nation. After signing the Package of Measures for the Implementation of the Minsk Agreements in Minsk, the Russian Federation convinced representatives of Donetsk and Lugansk to sign this document as well.
Accusing us of destroying Ukraine’s territorial integrity is unseemly and dishonest. It is being destroyed by those who are trying to make it a super-unitary state while reducing the languages of ethnic minorities, primarily Russian, to the status of token tools of communication, and making education in Russian and other languages nonexistent. This is a neo-Nazi approach to society building.
As you may be aware, in April 2014, immediately after the Crimea referendum, former US Secretary of State John Kerry, former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Catherine Ashton, Acting Foreign Minister of the new regime in Ukraine Andrey Deshchitsa and I met in Vienna. We agreed on one page of a “dense” text to the effect that the United States, the EU and Russia welcomed the Kiev authorities’ plan to hold a nationwide dialogue on federalisation with the participation of all regions of Ukraine. It was approved. Truth be told, this document did not go anywhere, but it remains open information. It was made available to the media. That is, back then, neither the United States nor the EU wanted to make a “monster” out of Ukraine. They wanted it to be a truly democratic state with all regions and, most importantly, all ethnic minorities feeling involved in common work. Up until now, the Ukrainian Constitution has the linguistic and educational rights of ethnic minorities, including the separately stated rights of Russian speakers, enshrined in it. Just look at the outrageous things they are doing with the laws on education, languages and the state language. There is a law recently submitted by the government titled On State Policy during the Transition Period. It does more than just cross out the Minsk agreements. It explicitly makes it illegal for Ukrainian political, diplomatic and other officials to fulfil them. The Venice Commission of the Council of Europe recently came up with a positive opinion about this law, which did not surprise us. This decision does not say a word about the fact that this law undermines Ukraine’s commitments under the Minsk agreements and, accordingly, Kiev’s obligations to comply with the UN Security Council resolution.
Question: If I understood you correctly, a ministerial meeting cannot even be prepared in this atmosphere.
Sergey Lavrov: Our German and French colleagues have been saying all the time: let’s preserve “constructive ambivalence” as regards who must observe the Minsk agreements. An EU-Ukraine summit took place literally two days after the telephone conversation of the President of Russia, the Chancellor of Germany and the President of France, when Vladimir Putin said such law-making was unacceptable, including the destructive draft law on a transitional period. Following the summit, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Council Charles Michel and President of Ukraine Vladimir Zelensky signed a statement a good quarter of which is devoted to the crisis in southeastern Ukraine. The top-ranking EU officials and the Ukrainian President officially stated that Russia bears special responsibility for this crisis because it is a party to the conflict. We immediately asked Berlin and Paris: so which is it: constructive ambivalence or this position? We were told that we shouldn’t be surprised because from the very beginning of the crisis in 2014 they proceeded from the premise that we ought to do all this. If that is the case, what was the point of signing the Minsk agreements?
Now they are trying to draw us in, citing President Vladimir Putin, who promised to organise the Normandy format at least at the ministerial level. We are not avoiding meetings. But promising to instruct Russian officials to work on this process, President Putin said that first we must fulfil on what we agreed in Paris in December 2019. The Kiev authorities were supposed to do everything the sides agreed upon then. They did not move a finger to implement the Steinmeier formula, determine a special status for Donbass, fix it permanently in the Ukrainian legislation and settle security issues.
A draft of this document was prepared when the parties gathered for this summit in Paris in December 2019. Its first item was an appeal by the Normandy format leaders for the disengagement of troops and withdrawal of heavy artillery along the entire contact line. President Zelensky said he could not agree to do this along the entire contact line and suggested doing it in three points only. Even the German and French participants were a bit perplexed because the aides of the presidents and the Chancellor coordinated the text ahead of the summit. Eventually, they shook their heads and agreed to disengagement in three points. Ukraine has not carried out this provision so far. Its conduct was indicative: it did not want to adopt a radical measure that would considerably reduce the risks of armed clashes and threats to civilians.
With great difficulty, the parties agreed on special measures in the summer of 2020. They signed a Contact Group document stating that any fire must not immediately trigger reciprocal fire. Otherwise, there will be an escalation. After each shelling, a commander of a unit that was attacked was supposed to report to the supreme commander. Only after his approval, the commander of the unit could open reciprocal fire. The republics included this provision in their orders but Ukraine flatly refused to fulfil it. Then, several months ago, it was persuaded to accept it and went along with this, implementing what was agreed upon a year ago. However, recently the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said that none of this was required: if you hear a shot, even into the air, you can go ahead and bomb the civilian population.
Question: Let’s move on to Central Asia, if you don’t mind. The Taliban coming to power is a daunting challenge to Russia and the post-Soviet Central Asian countries, which are our former fraternal republics. Are we ready to take up this challenge and how can we help our neighbours in Central Asia?
Sergey Lavrov: We saw it coming one way or another all these years while the Americans were trying to “stimulate” agreements between the Afghans. This was done, I would say, not too skilfully. I’m not hiding my assessment. The agreement that was concluded with the Taliban in Doha without the involvement of then President Ashraf Ghani was the last “diplomatic victory” as it was portrayed by the previous US administration. On the one hand, it gave rise to a hope that the Taliban would now be amenable to talks. On the other hand, there were many skeptical assessments, because the Taliban agreed to create some kind of common government bodies in exchange for a complete withdrawal of all foreign troops by May 1, 2021. Former President Ghani was outright unhappy with this since he realised that if this agreement was fulfilled, he would have to share power. Under all scenarios, he was unlikely to remain the number one person in the new Afghan government. So, he did his best to slow down the process. As a result, the Americans stayed longer. According to a number of US political analysts, this happened because Washington failed to withdraw its troops by the agreed deadline. The Taliban then decided they were free from any commitment to form a government of national accord.
However, this is a thing of the past, and we believe that the United States and those who stayed there for 20 years promising to make a model country out of Afghanistan must now get directly involved, primarily financially, to avert a humanitarian disaster. In this sense, we want to preserve historical continuity with its causal relationship.
An event that we held recently in Moscow with the participation of Afghanistan’s neighbours and other leading countries of the region and the SCO and CSTO-sponsored events that took place not so long ago in Dushanbe were aimed at urging the Taliban to deliver on their promises and the obligations that they made and assumed when they came to power. First of all, this is to prevent the destabilisation of neighbouring countries and the spread of the terrorist and drug threat from Afghanistan and the need to suppress these threats in Afghanistan itself, to ensure the inclusive nature of government in terms of ethnopolitical diversity and to be sure to guarantee, as they said, Islam-based human rights. This can be interpreted fairly broadly, but, nevertheless, it provides at least some benchmarks in order to get the Taliban to make good on its promises.
Humanitarian aid must be provided now. I see the Western countries making their first contributions. The issue is about distributing this aid. Many are opposed to making it available directly to the government and prefer to act through international organisations. We see the point and are helping to reach an agreement with the current authorities in Kabul to allow international organisations, primarily humanitarian organisations, to carry out the relevant activities. Of course, we will do our fair share. We are supplying medicines and food there. The Central Asian countries are doing the same. Their stability is important to us, because we have no borders with our Central Asian allies, and we have visa-free travel arrangements with almost all of them. In this regard, President Putin told President Biden in Geneva in June that we are strongly opposed to the attempts to negotiate with the Central Asian countries on the deployment of the US military infrastructure on their territory in order to deliver over-the-horizon strikes on targets in Afghanistan, if necessary. They came up with similar proposals to Pakistan as well, but Pakistan said no. Uzbekistan has publicly stated that its Constitution does not provide for deployment of military bases on its territory. Kyrgyzstan has also publicly, through the mouth of the President, announced that they do not want this.
Knowing the pushy nature of the Americans, I do not rule out the possibility of them continuing to come up with the same proposal from different angles. I heard they are allegedly trying to persuade India to provide the Pentagon with certain capabilities on Indian territory.
Refugees are issue number two, which is now being seriously considered. Many of them simply came to Central Asia on their own. These countries have different policies towards them and try in every possible way to protect themselves against these incoming flows. In Uzbekistan, special premises for the refugees have been allocated right outside the airport, from where they are flown to other countries and they are not allowed to enter other parts of the Republic of Uzbekistan. Our Tajik neighbours are doing the same. They are also being pressured to accept refugees. They want to set up holding centres under strong guarantee that after some time the refugees will be relocated. The West rushed to beg the neighbouring countries to accept tens of thousands of refugees, each claiming that it was a temporary solution until the West gives them documents for immigration to Western countries.
Question: But it turned out it was for the long haul …
Sergey Lavrov: Thankfully, no one has agreed to that, at least not to the numbers the West was talking about. Of course, some refugees relocated there, and proper arrangements must be made with regard to them. The West said they needed “two to three months” to issue documents for these people and it was necessary to save them, since they collaborated with the coalition forces. But if you collaborated with these Afghans on the ground for a long time and employed them as translators and informants, you surely ran background checks on them. If, after they had worked for you for so long you were still unable to decide whether you could trust them or not, why are you then “dumping” them onto the Central Asian countries, which are our allies? This issue remains open.
As you may be aware, we have come up with a proposal for the UN to convene a conference to address the Afghan people’s pressing humanitarian needs. I think the message was taken, so we expect a more specific response will come.
1. We, representatives of Algeria, Angola, Belarus, Bolivia, Cambodia, China, Cuba, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Iran, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Nicaragua, the State of Palestine, Russia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Syria, and Venezuela, met at the ministerial level, in New York, on the sidelines of the High-Level Week of the 76th Session of the General Assembly of the United Nations, in order to undertake an assessment of recent developments in the international arena, including of challenges and threats to the Charter of the United Nations, which underpins multilateralism, and to exchange views on existing, new, and emerging issues of collective concern and common interest.
2. We recall the declaration adopted on 06 July 2021, in New York, at the ambassadorial level, and reaffirm that the Charter of the United Nations and its purposes and principles remain timeless, universal, and that they are all indispensable not only for preserving and promoting international peace and security, the rule of law, economic development and social progress, as well as all human rights for all, but also for achieving a more peaceful, prosperous, just and equitable world, and a system based, precisely, on the rules contained in that universal and legally binding instrument that constitutes an exceptional achievement for humankind and a true act of faith on the best of humanity.
3. We vow to spare no effort in preserving, promoting and defending the prevalence and validity of the Charter of the United Nations, which, in the current international juncture, has a renewed and even more important value and relevance. In this regard, we express our resolve to expand the work of our Group of Friends beyond the United Nations Headquarters, in New York, particularly at the Offices of the United Nations in Geneva, Nairobi and Vienna, as well as at the Headquarters of other UN Specialized Agencies, in order to advance our joint efforts for ensuring the respect and adherence to the Charter of the United Nations, in both its letter and spirit.
4. We express our serious concern at the growing resort to unilateralism, in detriment not only of multilateralism, but also of international cooperation and solidarity, which must be deepened now more than ever, including in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, in order to forge collective, inclusive and effective solutions to the common challenges and threats of a 21st century of interconnectedness. Hence, while renewing our firm commitment with a reinvigorated multilateralism that shall have the United Nations at its centre, we convey our support to nations and peoples subjected to unilateral and arbitrary approaches that violate both the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and the basic norms of international law, and renew our call for the full respect to the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination, as well as the territorial integrity and political independence of all nations.
5. We invite those members of the international community that are committed with the purposes and principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations, with the prevalence of legality over force, with the values of dialogue, tolerance and solidarity, as well as with an effective and inclusive multilateralism, in which all regions and all size of States are equal and engaged alike, to consider joining our Group of Friends and/or endorsing this Declaration at their earliest convenience, as part of our common efforts to advance our common agenda and to ultimately keep delivering on the promise of the Charter of the United Nations and ensuring that no one is left behind.
Filed under: Algeria, China, Multiculturalism, North Korea | Tagged: Bolivia, Cambodia, CUBA, UN Charter | Comments Off on Political Declaration adopted during the first ministerial meeting of the Group of Friends in Defense of the Charter of the United Nations, New York, September 23, 2021
As always, I am delighted to be here on September 1, and not only on this day, of course, since we hold events here at other times of the year as well. But September 1 has special importance, since this is Knowledge Day. First-year students get to feel the university spirit, and meetings like this help us streamline this experience and are sure to benefit students in their studies.
I am certain that you will not regret choosing this university. MGIMO graduates find work in a wide variety of spheres, from public service and research to business and journalism. We are proud that our alma mater has such a great reputation. MGIMO Rector, Anatoly Torkunov, has just shared some enrolment statistics. They are impressive. He said that the minister keeps a close eye on everything going on in this school. But you cannot keep track of everything, and I mean this in a good way. MGIMO University constantly improves its programmes and activity and expands its partnership networks. Today, MGIMO University will sign yet another cooperation agreement, this time with Ivannikov Institute for System Programming. This shows that we always need to be in step with the times. This is the right way to go. The quality of the education that graduates receive at this university is recognised both in Russia and around the world.
I am glad MGIMO University continues to attract international students. This is an important channel for maintaining humanitarian, educational and people-to-people ties. In today’s world these ties have special importance, since at the intergovernmental level our Western colleagues have little appetite for talking to us on equal terms. As you probably know, and I am certain that you have a keen interest in foreign policy, they persist with their demands that we change the way we behave and act the way they view as being correct. This is a dead end. We are open to a frank, constructive, mutually beneficial dialogue, taking into account each other’s interests. It is along these lines that we maintain dialogue and promote cooperation and partnerships with the overwhelming majority of countries around the world. This includes our closest allies and strategic partners – members of the CSTO, CIS, EAEU, SCO and BRICS. We have many reliable friends, almost in all continents interested in promoting mutually beneficial projects that benefit all the participants.
To counter this trend toward a multipolar world, which reflects the cultural and civilisational diversity on this planet, our Western partners seek to maintain their dominant standing in international affairs. They are acting in quite a brash manner making no secret out of the fact that their main objective is to contain their competitors, primarily Russia and China. The documents adopted at the NATO, EU, and US-EU summits over the past months are designed to consolidate the “collective West” in their efforts to counter the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China.
The Indo-Pacific strategies that are openly pursuing the goal (as it has been proclaimed) of containing China have gained currency in the Asia-Pacific region. They are trying to implicate another of our strategic partners, India, in these games. Everyone can see it and everyone understands what it is all about. But those who gave up their sovereignty and joined the ranks of the countries led by the United States and other Western countries are not in a position to utter a word of disagreement.
Truth be told, following the tragic events in Afghanistan and after the United States and its NATO allies had hurriedly left that country, a chorus of voices began to be heard in Europe advocating self-reliance in foreign affairs, especially in matters involving the deployment of armed forces, rather than reliance on directives issued by Washington that it can change in an instant. These are glimpses of something new in the position of the West, in this case, the Europeans.
The second notable aspect highlighted by US President Joe Biden and President of France Emmanuel Macron is as follows: both announced within one or two days of one another that it was time to give up on interfering in other countries’ internal affairs in order to impose Western-style democracy on them.
We welcome such statements. We have long been urging our Western colleagues to learn from the reckless ventures that they have got themselves into in recent decades in Iraq and Libya, and they tried to do the same in Syria. I hope (if the above statements are a true reflection of their hard-won understanding of the matter) that our planet will be a safer place in the future. But all the same, we have to “clear out the rubble” of the past policies. Hundreds of thousands of people, civilians, were impacted or killed during the invasion of Iraq and the attack on Libya. There are lots of problems stemming from the revived international terrorism in the Middle East and North Africa and huge numbers of illegal migrants. The illegal arms trade, drug smuggling and much more are on the rise. All this needs to be “cleared up” by the international community, because it affects almost everyone.
Now that the NATO troops have pulled out from Afghanistan, the most important thing for us is to ensure the security of our allies in Central Asia. First, they are our comrades, including comrades-in-arms, and second, the security of Russia’s southern borders directly depends on this.
I hope that if we act together, we will be able to agree on these external steps that will help create an environment within Afghanistan for forming a truly national leadership. We are working energetically to this end.
We are witnessing two trends in the international arena. On the one hand, it is about the formation of a multipolar and polycentric world. This trend reflects the position of most states around the world. On the other hand, efforts are being made to hold back this objective historical process and to artificially preserve control over everything that is happening in the international arena, including with the use of unscrupulous methods such as unilateral illegal sanctions, competition that is occasionally reminiscent of ultimatums, or changing the rules in the midst of an ongoing project.
The West tends to mention less often (if at all) the term “international law” and calls on everyone to maintain a “rules-based world order.” We have nothing against the rules. After all, the UN Charter is also a set of rules, but they were agreed with all states without exception. They are supported by every country that is a member of this one-of-a-kind organisation with incredible and unmatched legitimacy. The West has different rules in mind. They are creating formats of their own. For example, the US has announced that it will convene a Democracy Summit to create an Alliance of Democracies. Clearly, Washington will be the one to determine who will be invited and who is considered a democracy. By the same token, France and Germany announced an initiative to create an Alliance for Multilateralism, i.e. “multilateralists.” When asked why these issues cannot be discussed at the UN, where multilateralism is at its finest in the modern world, the answer is that the UN is home to “retrogrades” and they want to create an Alliance for Multilateralism based on “advanced” ideas. And the “leaders,” above all the EU, will set the rules for multilateralism, and the rest will have to look up to them. This is a crude description, but it conveys the essence of what they are trying to tell us in so many words.
There are initiatives to create partnerships, including in the areas that were supposed to be discussed at universal platforms long ago. Numerous initiatives appearing in the developing world are also being used for the same purpose. There are attempts to channel them to meet Western interests.
The policy of undermining international law and universal principles sealed in the UN Charter is reflected, to a certain extent, in the efforts to call into doubt the results of World War II. They are aimed at trying to equate the winners in this bloodiest war in human history with those who unleashed it and proclaimed the destruction of whole nations as their goal. These attempts are aimed at undermining our positions in the world. Similar attacks are being made on China’s positions. We cannot give up and remain indifferent on this issue.
Every year, we put forward major initiatives at the UN on the inadmissibility of glorifying Nazism, waging a war against monuments and fuelling any forms of racial discrimination and xenophobia.
The overwhelming majority of states not only support these initiatives but also become their co-authors. In most cases, our Western colleagues bashfully abstain from this. They explain that the appeal to prevent certain trends runs counter to democracy and freedom of speech. In other words, for them the neo-Nazi trends that are obvious in Europe, in part, in the Baltic states and Ukraine, do not amount to a gross violation of the Nuremberg trials verdict but merely reflect a commitment to tolerance and freedom of speech.
I do not think it is necessary to explain in detail the harmful and pernicious nature of such attempts to rewrite history and give the green light to those who want to reproduce misanthropic attitudes in the world arena. I do not believe it is necessary to speak in detail about the need to counter these attitudes with resolve and consistency.
We have a foreign policy course endorsed by President of Russia Vladimir Putin. Its main goal is to ensure the most favourable conditions for national development, security, economic growth and the improvement of the living standards of our citizens. We will consistently translate this course into reality.
We have never striven for confrontation, not to mention isolation. We are open to cooperation with the Western countries if they change their approach and stop acting like teachers who “know everything” and are “above reproach,” treating Russia like a pupil that must do its homework. It is inappropriate to talk to anyone in this manner, let alone Russia.
Our plans enjoy firm support of our people for the course towards strengthening the sovereignty of the Russian Federation and promoting good, friendly relations with our neighbours and all those who are willing to do this honestly, on an equitable basis.
Question: The question has to do with the changes in modern diplomacy under the influence of new technology. Digital diplomacy is a widespread term today. Technological development adds a fundamentally new dimension to a diplomats’ work, and also leads to a qualitative transformation of the system of international relations. How do you think new technologies will affect energy policy in particular and diplomacy in general?
Sergey Lavrov: I am asked this question every time I speak at Knowledge Day here. Apparently, this reflects the thinking of each new generation of students, about how technology will generally affect the processes concerning state-level problem solving and international relations.
Indeed, digital technologies are rapidly penetrating our lives, even faster in the context of the coronavirus pandemic. Many events, including international events, have transitioned to the online format. There is an upside to this. To a certain extent, it helps to save time, which is becoming a more sparse resource every day, given the aggravating international challenges and problems that our foreign policy tries to resolve.
When it comes to holding official meetings such as the UN Security Council or the UN General Assembly with a pre-agreed agenda where each country wants to express its point of view, such statements are prepared in advance through the efforts of a large number of specialists. The result is a policy document on a specific matter on the international agenda, which then goes through debates in one format or another. I see no problem with participating in this kind of discussion online using digital technology.
There are other international meetings, when something needs to be agreed upon as soon as possible; these meetings can also be held remotely. At least this way is better than a phone call because you can see the other person’s face, and this is very important.
But the most serious issues cannot be resolved online. All my colleagues agree with this. Maybe in the future, humanity will invent a way to convey the feeling of personal contact. But I doubt this will be possible. No machine is capable of replacing a person.
I am confident that conventional diplomacy will retain its importance as the main tool in international affairs. As soon as a serious problem arises, it is imperative to meet and try to negotiate.
Question: Will the autumn 2021 elections to the State Duma of the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation impact Russia’s foreign policy in the international arena?
SergeyLavrov: A good question. Elections in our country actually begin in a little more than a fortnight. Even now Western colleagues make it clear that they are set to cast discredit on them. Various political scientists are publishing articles and making speeches aimed at preparing public opinion in the direction of the narrative that the elections results will be rigged.
We regularly invite international observers to our national elections. This year, around 200 observers will come to us as well, including those from international organisations. The only one of them who arrogantly declined the invitation was the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). We told them they could send a group of 60 observers. This is the largest group we invite from abroad. They said they wanted 500. When you are being invited to visit someone, you do not demand gifts for yourself instead of showing respect towards the hosts. OSCE does not have a rule under which ODIHR must dictate election monitoring provisions. All the countries have only one obligation there – to invite international observers to elections. It is not even written down that they should be from OSCE. They may be from anywhere you like. We do it regularly and meet our obligations in full. This is an example of how international law (and this principle is prescribed at OSCE, I mean that all issues must be solved by consensus) is being replaced by “rules.” This Office itself made up a rule, along the same lines the West operates, by demanding that its own “rules” must be obeyed.
However important international observers might be, we will also have our own observers. Their number is immense. The voting will be streamed live in full. Our Central Electoral Board provides detailed coverage of this and other innovations being introduced. We are taking steps to ensure maximum transparency of voting at our embassies and general consulates. As always, we are making arrangements so that it is possible for our citizens abroad to cast their vote and fulfil their election right.
With all the importance of international observers, it is ultimately our citizens who will take a decision on how we will live on and with which members our parliament will draft new laws. Those who are going to objectively figure out developments in the Russia Federation are always welcome. As to those who have already passed a judgement, let them bear the shame.
Question: I know that poetry and art are among your hobbies. How can we make Russian literature and cinema more effective as a soft power tool abroad?
Sergey Lavrov: There is only one way, and that is to promote these works in other countries’ markets. This policy was vigorously pursued in the Soviet Union. That was a useful experience for the international film and literary community as well. I believe we are renewing these traditions now. I do not know about literary exhibitions, I just do not think I have seen a lot of information on this, but many film festivals recognise the work of our directors, actors and producers. A number of Russian films are highly valued in Cannes and in Karlovy Vary. We must continue to do this.
Question: Does Russia have effective and proportionate methods of fighting manifestations of Russophobia, oppression of Russians, persecution against the Russian language and the Russian world in certain countries?
Sergey Lavrov: This is a difficult question, given the recent manifestations of inappropriate attitudes towards ethnic Russians in a number of countries, including some of our neighbours. This topic has several dimensions to it. The most important point is that the government of a country where our citizens are subjected to some kind of discriminatory influence must firmly oppose such manifestations and take steps to prevent them. This is important, not only because they attack Russians or our other compatriots, but also because it’s required by international conventions, the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and many other documents that are universal and approved by everyone.
In Russia, too, we have seen situations recently where some migrant labourers were at odds with other labour migrants. This is also a problem because Russia needs migrant labourers. We are trying to make immigration as clear, transparent and legitimate as possible. We negotiate with the countries they come from for long-term employment (mostly the Central Asian countries) and agree on special courses for potential migrants that make sure they speak minimal Russian and are familiar with Russian customs, our laws, and that they are planning to behave in a way that is appropriate for being hired in the Russian Federation. This is important for our economy. Without migrant labourers, many Russian industries are now experiencing a significant shortage of personnel.
It is also important to keep in mind that these countries are our allies. We, as allies, must support each other; one way to do so is to ensure an appropriate environment for citizens who represent a different ethnic group.
We have a huge number of ethnic groups living in Russia. Russia is a record holder in multi-ethnicity. All this cultural and religious diversity has always made our country strong, providing the solid foundation on which we stand. We have never tried to destroy the traditions, cultures or languages of any peoples that have lived here since the Russian Empire, then the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation. We have always supported their languages, cultures, and customs.
Another factor that must be taken into account is the basic quality of life for each and every citizen. We pursue a most open policy. We will make every effort to ensure that our neighbours or other countries where our compatriots live or work fully comply with their international obligations. The fight against discrimination must use political methods based on respect for international commitments.
Question: Do conditions exist for economic and investment cooperation with Japan on the Kuril Islands?
Sergey Lavrov: Yes, they do, of course. It is even more than that. We made a relevant proposal to our Japanese colleagues a long time ago. When, several years ago, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the Japanese Prime Minister at the time, Shinzo Abe, we came up with an initiative to engage in joint economic activity on these islands. Our Japanese neighbours agreed to this proposal after a while, but decided to confine our cooperation to relatively unsophisticated areas, like aquaculture and waste treatment. These things are important but they are of no strategic significance. We offered them cooperation in any industry of their choice on the southern Kuril Islands and this has been stated repeatedly in the correspondence with our Japanese colleagues. However, the Japanese are seeking to secure a deal with us that would allow them to engage in economic activity and invest money [in the area], not in compliance with Russian law, but rather on the basis of an agreement that provides for another jurisdiction – not that of the Russian Federation. Under this jurisdiction, Russian and Japanese representatives in a certain administrative body would enjoy equal rights, meaning that some hybrid laws would be introduced. This cannot be done under our Constitution.
Regretfully, our Japanese friends are missing out on the opportunity to invest money with us for our mutual benefit. Nonetheless, we have good plans. Soon, new privileges will be announced for our foreign partners who agree to work with us in this part of the Russian Federation. I believe there will be practical interest in this.
Question: In one of your interviews you said (and I fully agree) that modern Western-style liberal democracies have run their course. How will nation states evolve going forward? What forms of state organisation hold the most promise? What should we be striving for?
The UN is plagued by many problems, ranging from Greta Thunberg to agreements that are not being acted upon, such as, for instance, the Paris Agreement. What can be done to turn this deplorable trend around? What laws need to be adopted? What kind of organisations must be created? What does Russia think about this?
Sergey Lavrov: I briefly touched on this matter in my opening remarks. I believe each state should be structured around its customs and traditions and be comfortable for its residents who will have children, grandchildren, etc. It appears that they have promised to stop trying to impose democracy on other countries. At least, President Biden and President Macron said this almost simultaneously. We’ll see how they deliver on their promises.
Each country should take care of its own affairs independently. Everyone now agrees that imposing a Western system on Afghanistan was a grave mistake. Afghanistan has always been a fairly decentralised country where clan-based and other bonds, as well as relations between different ethnic groups, have always played a major role. And Kabul usually balanced out these relations. Saying that tomorrow you will have elections and everyone should go and cast their vote to elect a president who will have certain powers – it was not the Afghans who came up with this idea. It was imposed on them and the ones who did it hurt themselves badly. I hope the promises not to impose democracy on anyone else will be kept.
With regard to environmental protection, the Paris Agreement can hardly be described as a treaty that is not being acted upon. It was based on the fundamental principle that included the need to reduce carbon dioxide and greenhouse gas emissions, but each country was supposed to assume commitments of its own. Preparations for another conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which will take place in Glasgow this autumn, are underway.
As part of this process, the most important thing is to agree on variables that will meet the interests of each participant. The proposal of several Western countries to stop using coal-fired power generation starting literally today cannot be complied with by many countries, including several Western countries, simply because this would undermine their energy security. The same applies to large developing countries, including China and India. They are reluctant to stop their growth. They are making it clear to the West that the Western countries have attained their current level of development due to intensive use of natural resources, which gave rise to the greenhouse effect, and now the West wants large developing countries to skip their current phase of development and go straight to a post-carbon economy. It doesn’t work that way, they say. First, they need to complete the economic development of their respective states, which is a complex process that involves the interests of each state. An attempt to balance these interests is being undertaken in the course of preparations for the next conference of the parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.
We made a commitment that by 2030 we would have 70 percent of the 1990 level when the countdown began under the UN Climate Convention. It is unlikely that anyone would have complaints with regard to us. President Vladimir Putin has made clear more than once that we must be extremely careful with regard to everything that is happening. The fact that Russia’s Arctic zone, which is mainly permafrost, is warming up much faster than the rest of the planet is worrisome. This matter is being carefully addressed by several of our ministries, and it is a concern for all of our Government.
Question: Can environmental issues motivate the world powers tо unite against a background of general discord? What is the potential for green diplomacy?
Sergey Lavrov: Environmental protection and concern for the planet’s climate must become a motive for pooling our efforts. It is hard to say now to what extent the world powers will manage to achieve this.
Let me repeat that the developing nations are strongly inclined to use their opportunities for the current stage of their development before assuming the commitments promoted by their Western colleagues. Many interests come together here. Our global interest lies in the health of the planet and the survival of humanity. However, every country has its own national assessment of the current situation and the commitments to their people. It is a complicated matter, but there is no doubt that this is a challenge that must prompt all of us to come together. We stand for pooling our efforts.
Question: Can the Russian Federation “enforce Ukraine to peace” under the Minsk Agreements?
Sergey Lavrov: The Minsk Agreements do not envisage any enforcement. They have been voluntarily approved, signed and unanimously endorsed by the UN Security Council, thereby becoming international law. When Ukraine as a state, both under Petr Poroshenko and Vladimir Zelensky, is doing all it can to avoid fulfilling these agreements, we must point this out to those who compiled them with us. I am primarily referring to Germany, France and other Western countries that are going all-out to justify the Kiev regime. When I say that it is trying to avoid fulfilling these agreements, I am referring to many laws that actually prohibit the Russian language, the transfer of special authority to the territories that have proclaimed themselves the Donetsk and Lugansk people’s republics and the efforts to harmonise the parameters of local elections in them. These are the basics of the Minsk Agreements.
Recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Moscow. This issue was raised at her talks with President of Russia Vladimir Putin. We showed our German colleagues the legal bans that Mr Zelensky adopted himself to justify his complete inability to fulfil what is required by all states in the world. All countries without exception believe that there is no alternative to the Minsk Agreements for settling the crisis in Donbass. Our Ukrainian colleagues are true prestidigitators. At one time, they believed that Rus was the true name of Ukraine (our ministry has already replied to this, so I will not repeat it). Later they said that the conversion of Rus was a Ukrainian holiday. This is sad. Mr Zelensky claims that Russian gas is the dirtiest in the world. He is doing this not because he is particularly bright but because he wants to maintain and fuel his Russophobic rhetoric and actions to prompt the West to continue supporting Kiev.
Ukraine continues to exploit the obvious efforts of the West to unbalance and destabilise Russia, sidetrack it from resolving its vital problems and make our foreign policy less effective. The Ukrainian regime is exploiting all this. This is clear to everyone. Having placed its bets on Kiev, the West feels uncomfortable about giving up on them. But this approach has obviously failed. The realisation of this fact is coming up but has not yet been embodied in practical steps aimed at convincing or, to use your expression, “enforcing” anything. It is the West that must enforce compliance from its client.
Question: How do you see yourself as a State Duma deputy, something you may soon be? Do you have proposals or ideas to offer? Perhaps, you have specific initiatives to promote our relations with Armenia or Georgia?
Sergey Lavrov: I will not speculate on the outcome of the elections to the State Duma.
We deal with our relations with Armenia and Georgia as Foreign Ministry officials. Armenia is our ally. New Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan was just in Moscow, on August 31. We had a good discussion. Our bilateral agenda is quite fulfilling and includes mutual visits, major projects and expanded economic cooperation. All of that is unfolding in a very intensive and confident manner.
There is the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, and Russia has played a decisive role in bringing a solution to it. The President of Russia, the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia signed agreements on November 9, 2020 (on ceasing hostilities and developing cooperation in this region) and on January 11. These agreements include specific actions that follow up on our leaders’ proposals to unblock all transport lines and economic ties. This is not a one-day project. It is underway, and the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan are closely following it. Our military personnel in the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh work daily on the ground to reduce tensions and build trust. The border guards are helping their Armenian allies sort out issues with their Azerbaijani neighbours.
Relations with Georgia are almost non-existent. There is a Section of Russia’s Interests in Georgia and a Section of Georgia’s Interests in Russia. There is trade, which is quite significant. Russia is one of Georgia’s leading trade partners. Our people love to go to Georgia (I myself love the country). There are no official interstate or diplomatic relations; they were severed at Tbilisi’s initiative. We have offered to resume them more than once. We planned to reciprocate to our Georgian neighbour when they introduced visa-free travel for our citizens. At first, we followed closely the developments as they were unfolding. We are not banning anyone from going to Georgia. In 2019, we were also willing to announce visa-free travel for Georgian citizens, but an unpleasant incident occurred with gross provocations against the Russian parliamentary delegation, which arrived in Tbilisi for a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of Orthodoxy. Our deputy was the assembly chairman. In a conference room in Georgia, the Georgian hosts offered him the chair of the chairman of the parliament themselves. Then, immediately, a group of thugs came in the room demanding that Russia stop interfering in Georgia’s internal affairs and stop “occupying” their parliament. It even came to fisticuffs. With no apologies coming our way, we held back introducing visa-free travel for Georgian citizens and put our decision to resume regular flights on hold. We were ready to go ahead with it. If Georgia really doesn’t want to “play the Russian card” in an effort to retain Western protection, but instead prefers to have good relations with us as a neighbour, we will respond at any time.
Question: What qualities do you think a diplomat’s wife might need? What rules of etiquette she should observe?
Sergey Lavrov: There are no special rules here. A wife and a husband should both understand each other. Rather than obstructing the other, they should help each other carry out the ideas they have decided to devote their lives to and also achieve self-fulfillment in their professions. There is no universal advice.
When I was a rank-and-file diplomat, I worked with some top officials, whose wives had different “styles” – this occurs sometimes. In both cases, this proved to be effective and useful in our work. If a wife has a profession, her husband should also have respect for it. When a woman, regardless of whether she is the wife of an ambassador or a diplomat in a lower position, goes to a country which her husband has been posted to but where she cannot realise her professional potential, this can be a serious problem, which has to be addressed. In this situation, each family decides on its own whether the spouses go together or each of them keeps his or her job and tries to travel as often as possible to see the other. This is life; it doesn’t necessarily fit into a particular pattern.
Question: I believe the man himself comes first – Sergey Lavrov – and only then there is the Russian Foreign Minister. I like to look at politics through the prism of humaneness. What is your favourite song, the one you listen to and feel happy?
Sergey Lavrov: There are many. I will not give examples. The list is long. I do not want to leave anyone out. These are mostly songs by singer-poets. I enjoy listening to them whenever I have the chance, say, in my car or when I meet with my friends.
Question: I have a question about Russia’s relations with the Eastern European countries, given the complexity of regulating relations in this region since World War II, not to mention after the USSR’s collapse. How will they develop in the near future?
Sergey Lavrov: If a particular country has a government concerned about national interests, projects that meet the needs of its population, economic growth, and a search for partners that will help it resolve these problems in the best way, Russia has no problems in relations with any Central or East European country or any other country in the world.
We have close ties with Hungary and it is being criticised for this. In the European Union, Hungary and Poland are reprimanded for not obeying the EU’s general standards and principles. Thus, they hold referendums calling into doubt LGBT rights. Recently, Hungary held a referendum on the same law as Russia did. This law does not prohibit anything but imposes administrative liability for promoting LGBT ideology among minors. Nothing else. I think this is the right thing to do. In addition to major economic projects (nuclear power plants, and railway carriage production for Egypt), we have many other undertakings and good humanitarian cooperation.
Together with Armenia and the Vatican in the OSCE and the UN Human Rights Council, Russia and Hungary are acting as the driver in protecting the rights of Christians, including in the Middle East where Christians are seriously harassed. Hungary is not embarrassed about its Christian roots (incidentally, nor is Poland ashamed of its past and present). When they start talking about the need to raise their voice in defence of Christians, other European countries say that this is not quite politically correct.
In the OSCE, we suggested adopting a declaration against Christianophobia and Islamophobia, because it has already passed a declaration on anti-Semitism. However, these proposals are getting nowhere. Seven years ago, the West promised to adopt them but so far the OSCE countries have failed to adopt a common position on banning both Christianophobia and Islamophobia.
Regarding other East European countries, we have good relations with Slovenia. In particular, we are both working to preserve our common memory, including the bloody events of WWI and WWII. People in Slovenia care a lot about war memorials. Recently, they established a new monument devoted to all Russian soldiers who perished in both world wars. Our economic cooperation is in good shape.
We are implementing economic projects with other Eastern European countries, for instance, with Slovakia. We have considered many ideas about projects with the Czech Republic, but in the past few months it has decided to take a more Russophobic attitude and adopt overtly discriminatory decisions, like banning Rosatom from a tender on building a new nuclear power plant unit. It justified its policy with allegations that have never been proved by anyone. It blamed us for detonating some arms depots in 2014. Even many people in the Czech Republic consider this far-fetched.
However, the allegations remain. We are used to being accused of all kinds of “sins” without any evidence. This happened during the so-called poisoning of the Skripals and Alexey Navalny, and the investigation of the Malaysia Airlines crash in Donbass in July 2014. As in many other cases, these accusations are not buttressed by anything. Our requests to present facts are ignored or qualified as “classified.” Or we are told someone has “prohibited” to transmit information or some other excuse. This position is not serious. It reflects the Western approach to fueling Russophobic tensions without grounds.
Question: Do you think that we can describe the meeting between President of Russia Vladimir Putin and US President Joe Biden in Switzerland as the beginning of a relative normalisation of relations between the two countries?
Sergey Lavrov: Holding a meeting is better than having no contact at all. No breakthroughs occurred, but there was a mutually respectful conversation, on an equal footing, without any grievances expressed to either side. The dialogue was permeated with the awareness of responsibility that the two biggest nuclear powers had for the state of affairs in the world. The presidents paid attention to the need to intensify bilateral contacts, particularly in the interests of stakeholders in the business community. But the main focus was on the international agenda.
The United States withdrew from the Treaty on Open Skies (TOS) just a few months before the meeting and from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) in 2019. This has created a background for the fading of the international arms reduction and control agenda. When Joe Biden took office, he promptly responded to the proposal (which was made way back to the Trump administration but remained unanswered for a couple of years) on the need to extend the New START Treaty without any preconditions. We have managed to preserve at least this element of the arms control architecture for the next five years.
This was the context for the presidents’ meeting in Geneva. The main positive result of the meeting is that the two leaders reaffirmed the position that there can be no winners in a nuclear war and therefore it must never be unleashed. A statement to this effect was made a long time ago by the USSR and the USA. We suggested that the United States confirm this axiom. The previous administration evaded this, but Joe Biden accepted the proposal.
Within the same statement that spoke about the inadmissibility of unleashing a nuclear war, the two presidents outlined an instruction to start a dialogue on matters of strategic stability. The first tentative meeting took place in July of this year. The second one is scheduled for September. At this stage, the parties’ positions are far apart, but the fact that the dialogue is under way gives hope for the coordination of a basis for further specific talks on arms limitation. These are our short-term objectives.
They also talked in general terms about the need to establish a dialogue on cyber security. This is yet another topic on which we were unable to reach out to Washington for several years. Vladimir Putin’s official statement was dedicated to the initiatives on ensuring a transparent dialogue based on trust and facts on cyber security in Russian-American relations. Contacts of this kind are being prepared as well. There are reasons to believe that we will reduce international tension just a little in some areas. But this does not abolish the fact that the United States continues to see the containment of Russia and China as one of its main tasks, as well as the encouragement of measures that may be instrumental in having an irritating effect on us.
Among the weirdest news a person might hear is that an enemy combats a religion’s culture and civilization.
It is either an aspect of Islamophobia, which is highly unlikely, or a blind maliciousness that the US custom authorities confiscated a set of Iranian tiles to be used in construction of a new mosque in Virginia, demanding they “must be shipped backed to Iran or destroyed.”
The tiles, which are adorned with Quranic verses, were shipped in June from the Iranian city of Qom, to be used in construction of the Manassas Mosque in northern Virginia.
However, they were confiscated at Dulles International Airport after they were deemed to violate sanctions on Iran, the mosque’s imam Abolfazl Nahidian said on Tuesday.
The tiles were a gift and he paid no money for them, but custom authorities at the airport blocked him from claiming them citing the sanctions, he told a news conference at the mosque.
A letter from Customs and Border Protection informed the mosque that the tiles must be either shipped back to Iran or destroyed, the Associated Press cited him as saying.
Destroying the tiles, which are adorned with Quranic verses, “is the same as destroying verses of the Quran, or the whole Quran itself”, Nahidian said.
The mosque is now asking the Biden administration to release the custom-made tiles.
Nahidian said he has received other tile shipments throughout the years without incident, including one shipment that arrived eight months ago. He has led the mosque for nearly three decades.
The Biden administration is locked in a standoff over the US return to a 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, showing an aversion to remove the most draconian sanctions which its predecessor imposed on the Islamic Republic.
Biden has admitted that Washington was wrong to abandon the nuclear agreement, but he is showing an urge to retain some aspects of the sanctions as leverage to pressure Iran.
Food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies are purportedly exempt from the sanctions that Washington imposed on Tehran after former president Donald Trump walked away from the international deal over Iran’s nuclear program.
But the US measures targeting everything from oil sales to shipping and financial activities have deterred any dealing with Iranians – including humanitarian activities.
For decades liberal gentiles and jews have been lying to us that diversity within a single country is wonderful. Hiding behind this lie is an agenda to undermine every Western country by destroying its unity. The tool used was massive non-white immigration, supplemented in the United States with teaching blacks racial hatred of whites.
Blacks learn to hate us from liberal gentiles and jews who brought America Cultural Marxism from Germany in the 1930s. Hatred of whites is institutionalized in American education—-critical race theory—-but also in entertainment such as movies, songs, and books. A new entertainment medium has emerged-—woke horror movies concerned with the rise of Trump supporters portrayed as white supremacists. In these movies white supremacists draped in the American flag wipe out black communities. https://www.rt.com/op-ed/528241-forever-purge-trump-capitol-riot/
What most Americans know they have learned from movies and TV. Hardly any Americans read books, much less serious ones. Back in those days when I was a university professor, I recall a lecture I gave on the Russian revolution. A student interrupted me and said, “that’s not the way in happened in the movie.”
At first I thought he was making a joke, but he was serious. He was challenging my explanation based on years of study with a Hollywood movie.
As I have stressed for decades in my annual Christmas column, There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but not within a single country. A Tower of Babel has no culture. Without a culture there is no nation.
Western countries are no longer nations. There is no longer an American nation, a British nation, a French nation, a German nation. There are only multicultural hell-holes in which dwindling white majorities are so overwhelmed by guilt and self-doubt that they are unable to resist their disintegration and that of their country.
Perhaps or perhaps not. The decades of propaganda and indoctrination have done their damage. Entire generations of white ethnicities have been brainwashed against themselves. In the United States critical race theory is institutionalized in the educational system. It has become the norm, and part of the enculturation of American youth. We can be assured that a similar process has long been underway in Europe. Jean Raspail identified it in 1973 in his novel, The Camp of the Saints. Except for Marine Le Pen in France and Nigel Farage in Britain, no European ethnicity has a champion. All European leaders are on the side of the immigrant-invaders.
It is ironic that during the decades that Western civilization was destroyed Western leaders were focused on “nation building” in former colonies.
(Republished from PaulCraigRoberts.org by permission of author or representative)
First of all, let me thank Mr Wang Yi, State Councillor and Foreign Minister of the People’s Republic of China, for organising today’s debates. Maintaining multilateralism and the UN-centred international system is as topical as ever and demands the UN Security Council’s constant attention.
Today the world finds itself in a critical stage of development. The coronavirus pandemic has posed a grave challenge to everyone without exception. Normal life has been completely upended. It is difficult to predict the long-term or deferred consequences of the crisis, although we can see some positive trends thanks to the massive deployment of coronavirus vaccines.
The pandemic broke out in a world that was already far from perfect. In recent years, we have seen growing international tensions, as well as escalating regional conflicts and cross-border challenges and threats. The entire architecture of global governance created after the Second World War is being tested.
It is clear that the prospects of the international community’s sustainable and predictable development are directly connected with our ability to find effective solutions to common problems and our readiness to exercise collective leadership in order for true multilateralism to prevail.
Russia, like the majority of countries, is convinced that such work must be carried out solely on the basis of universally recognised norms of international law. The United Nations must serve as the key platform for coordinating efforts: it is the backbone of the modern global order, where all independent states are represented. Today, its unique legitimacy and unique capabilities are especially needed.
The core tenets of international law enshrined in the UN Charter have withstood the test of time. Russia calls on all states to unconditionally follow the purposes and principles of the Charter as they chart their foreign policies, respecting the sovereign equality of states, not interfering in their internal affairs, settling disputes by political and diplomatic means, and renouncing the threat or use of force. This is especially important at the current stage in the difficult process of forming an international multipolar system. At a time when new centres of economic growth, financial and political influence are gaining strength, it is necessary to preserve the internationally recognised legal basis for building a stable balance of interests that meets the new realities.
Unfortunately, not all of our partners are driven by the imperative to work in good faith to promote comprehensive multilateral cooperation. Realising that it is impossible to impose their unilateral or bloc priorities on other states within the framework of the UN, the leading Western countries have tried to reverse the process of forming a polycentric world and slow down the course of history.
Toward this end, the concept of the rules-based order is advanced as a substitute for international law. It should be noted that international law already is a body of rules, but rules agreed at universal platforms and reflecting consensus or broad agreement. The West’s goal is to oppose the collective efforts of all members of the world community with other rules developed in closed, non-inclusive formats, and then imposed on everyone else. We only see harm in such actions that bypass the UN and seek to usurp the only decision-making process that can claim global relevance.
The well-known idea to convene a Summit for Democracy proposed by the US Administration is in the same vein. The establishment of a new club based on interests, with a clearly ideological nature, has the potential to further inflame international tensions and deepen dividing lines in a world that needs a unifying agenda more than ever. Of course, the list of democracies to be invited to the summit will be determined by the United States.
Another initiative with the goal of global leadership that bypasses the UN is the French and German idea to create an Alliance for Multilateralism. What could be more natural then discussing the tasks of strengthening multilateralism at the UN? However, Berlin and Paris think differently and issue joint documents declaring that “the European Union is the cornerstone of the multilateral international system” and promote the conclusions of the Council of the European Union under the title “The central role of the European Union and European institutions in promoting multilateralism.” Presumptuous, you might say. The EU does not think so and declares its own exceptionalism despite all its invocations of equality and brotherhood.
By the way, as soon as we suggest discussing the current state of democracy not just within states but on the international stage with our Western colleagues, they lose interest in the conversation.
New ambitious initiatives to create narrow partnerships are emerging all the time within the Alliance for Multilateralism, on issues that are already being discussed at the UN or its specialised agencies, for example, on cyber security (with 65 member countries), respect for the international humanitarian law (43 member countries), the Information and Democracy Partnership (over 30 countries), etc.
This also reveals the West’s true attitude toward multilateralism and the UN, which they do not regard as a universal format for developing solutions acceptable to everyone, but in the context of their claims to superiority over everyone else, who must accept what is required of them.
Another example of the dictatorial methods introduced by the West is the practice of imposing unilateral sanctions without any international and legal grounds, with the sole purpose of punishing “undesirable regimes” or sidelining competitors. During the pandemic, such restrictions have limited the capacity of a whole range of developing countries to counter the spread of the infection. Despite UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’s call to suspend such unilateral sanctions during the pandemic, we mostly see them becoming harsher.
We believe such efforts to impose totalitarianism in global affairs to be unacceptable, yet we see it more and more from our Western colleagues, above all the United States, the European Union and other allies, who reject all principles of democracy and multilateralism on the global stage. As if to say, either it’s our way, or there will be repercussions.
It is striking that Western leaders, while openly undermining international law, do not hesitate to argue that the main task of world politics should be to counter the attempts of Russia and China to “change the rules-based order.” Such statements were made the other day following the G7 ministerial meeting in London. In other words, there has already been a substitution of concepts: the West is no longer concerned with the norms of international law and now requires everyone to follow its rules and observe its order. What’s more, US representatives freely admit that the USA and Great Britain have had the biggest hand in shaping these rules.
I am not saying all of this to ratchet up the confrontational rhetoric or advance an accusatory agenda. I am simply stating facts. But if we all support multilateralism in word, let us honestly search for ways to ensure that there is fairness in deed, without attempts to prove one’s superiority or infringe on another’s rights. I hope that this approach to maintaining multilateralism and the UN-centred system will guide the activities of the UN Secretary-General and his team.
I am convinced that the time has come to do away with medieval and colonial habits and recognise the reality of today’s interconnected and interdependent world. Honest and mutually respectful cooperation based on equal partnership between all states, guided by pragmatism and devoid of any ideology or politicisation, is what is needed now. It is the only way to improve the atmosphere in the world and ensure predictability in the advancement of the human race. That is especially true of such global challenges as the threat of terrorism and the proliferation of WMDs, climate change, new infectious diseases, and protecting human rights, starting with the most important one – the right to life.
I agree with US Secretary of State Antony Blinken who stressed recently that no country can overcome such global threats to the lives of our citizens alone, not even the United States.
The permanent members of the UN Security Council are called on to play a key role in fostering open and direct dialogue about the most pressing problems of our time. According to the UN Charter, they bear special responsibility for maintaining international peace and security. President of Russia Vladimir Putin proposed convening a summit with the leaders of the five permanent members. We hope to make this idea a reality once the epidemiological situation in the world stabilises.
In conclusion I would like to emphasise that the UN, as the main multilateral platform, must keep pace with changes on the global stage. The organisation must constantly adapt to ever-changing conditions, while continuing to fully respect the division of labour between the main UN Charter bodies and maintaining the support of all the member states. At every stage of change, our actions must be measured by the improvements made to the United Nations’ real-world effectiveness.
Russia stands ready to continue working constructively with all partners who share these approaches in order to bolster the authority and fully unlock the potential of the UN as the true centre of multilateralism.
Four geoeconomic summits compressed in one week tell the story of where we stand in these supremely dystopian times.
The (virtual) signing of RCEP in Vietnam was followed by the equally virtual BRICS meeting hosted by Moscow, the APEC meeting hosted by Malaysia, and the G20 this past weekend hosted by Saudi Arabia.
Cynics have not failed to note the spectacular theater of the absurd of having the Top 20 – at least in theory – economies discussing what is arguably the turning point in the world-system linked to a beheading-friendly desert oil hacienda with a 7th century mentality.
The Riyadh declaration did its best to lift the somber planetary mood, vowing to deploy “all available policy tools” (no precise details) to contain Covid-19 and heroically “save” the global economy by “advancing” global pandemic preparedness, vaccine development and distribution – in tandem with debt relief – for the Global South.
Not a peep about The Great Reset – the Brave New World scheme concocted by Herr Schwab of Davos and fully supported by the IMF, Big Tech, transnational Big Capital interests and the oh so benign Prince Charles. Meanwhile, off the record, G20 sherpas moaned about the lack of real global governance and multiple attacks on multilateralism.
And not a peep as well about the real life vaccine war between the expensive Western candidates – Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca – and the much cheaper Russia-China versions – Sputnik V and Sinovac.
What seems to be the case is that any agenda – sinister or otherwise – fits the one-size-fits-all vow by the G20 to provide “opportunities of the 21st century for all by empowering people, safeguarding the planet, and shaping new frontiers.”
The House of Xi
At the G20, President Xi Jinping did not waste the chance – after RCEP, BRICS and APEC – to once again emphasize China’s priorities: multilateralism, support for WTO reform, ample international cooperation on vaccine research and production.
But then, in tandem with reducing tariffs and facilitating the trade of crucial medical supplies, Xi proposed a global health QR code – a sound way to restore global travel and trade: “While containing the virus, we need to restore the secure and smooth operation of global industrial and supply chains.”
Predictably, there were howls about neo-Orwellian intrusion, comparing the QR code with the exceptionally misunderstood Chinese credit system. Herr Schwab’s Great Reset in fact proposes something similar, with even more neo-Orwellian overtones, disguised under an innocent “Covid Pass” app, or highly secure “health passport”.
What Xi has proposed amounts to just a mutual recognition of health certificates, issued by different nations, based on nucleic acid tests. No gene altering vaccines coupled with nanochips. These QR codes, incorporated to health apps, are already used for domestic travel in China.
Chinese officials have made it very clear that Beijing has been working as the representative of the Global South inside the G20. That’s multilateralism in action. And the multilateralist drive extends from RCEP – signed between 15 nations – to the brilliant Sun Tzu maneuver of China now accepting even the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the successor of the Obama-promoted and Trump-detonated TPP.
This revival – a case of Make TPP Chinese Again – can be envisaged because Beijing not only has mastered how to contain Covid-19 but is also recovering in lightning speed. China will be the only major economy growing in 2020 – de facto leading the world to a tentative post-Covid paradigm.
What the APEC meeting made crystal clear is that with East Asia graphically hitting the economic limelight, as seen with RCEP, much vaunted US “leadership” inevitably diminishes.
APEC promoted a so-called Putrajaya Vision 2040, condensing an “open, dynamic, resilient and peaceful” Asia-Pacific all the way to 2040. That neatly ties in with the three accumulated five-year Chinese plans all the way to 2035, approved last month at the CCP plenum in Beijing.
The emphasis, once again, is on multilateralism and an open global economy.
Few are more capable to capture the moment than Professor Wang Yiwei at the Institute of International Affairs at Renmin University, who wrote the best Chinese book on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Wang stresses how China is in a period of “strategic opportunity” and is now “the most powerful leader of globalization”. China’s emphasis on multilateralism will “activate the connectivity and vitality of a trade platform like RCEP”.
Stranger than fiction
Now compare all of the above with Trump at the G20 tweeting about the election dystopia and privileging golfing instead of discussing Covid-19 containment.
And then there’s
The Elements of the China Challenge, the new 74-page delusional epic concocted by the office of secretary Mike “We Lie, We Cheat, We Steal” Pompeo.
Diplomatic howls comparing it with the notorious George Kennan “long telegram” that codified the containment of the USSR in the Cold War are nonsense. Chinese Foreign Ministry reaction was more to the point: this was concocted by some “living fossils of the Cold War” and is doomed to end up “being consigned to the dustbin of history”.
President Xi Jinping, at RCEP, BRICS, APEC and the G20, concisely laid out the Chinese case: multilateralism, international cooperation on multiple fields, an open global economy, due representation of Global South’s interests.
As we wait for a set of imponderables all the way to January 20, 2021, perhaps an angular approach to what may lie ahead for the world economy is best offered by fiction.
Enter Billions, season 5, episode 2, dialogue written by Andrew Ross Sorkin.
Axe: “You know they call us traders ‘gamblers’. The world’s economy is one big casino, fueled by a giant debt bubble and computer driven derivatives. And there’s only one thing better than being a gambler at a casino.”
Wags: “That’s being the house.”
Axe: “That’s right. There’s a systemized machine out there, sucking capital from localities and injecting it into the global markets, where it can be used to speculate and manipulate. And if something goes wrong there are bailouts and bail-ins, federal aid and easing. Where the government doesn’t hunt you down, but instead gives you a nice soft net to land in.”
Wags: “That’s your answer to the fireside chat: You want to become a bank.”
In this country[1]I am regarded as White and therefore, privileged – it seems.
People in the streets and on television say that Whites should kneel and apologise.
Really?
How come I find myself in this bizarre situation?
How did I get here?
How did a refugee from warn-torn socialist Yugoslavia turned fisherman in the South Pacific become a privileged White male?
Did I miss anything?
Is it something I did?
Something I said?
No, it’s not something I did or said. It has nothing to do with me.
Except that… it has everything to do with me and there is no-one to speak out for me!
So, there you go now, hear my voice.
I was born in Yugoslavia, the most multicultural country in Europe. Through the non-allied movement, it had many links with third-world countries and we used to call Africans: braća crnci,Black Brothers. I grew up in Belgrade listening to African American blues musicians such as BB King, Jimi Hendrix, John Lee Hooker and Blind Lemon Jefferson, playing basketball to better the likes of Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson! It was only in the late 90s that I noticed that the footballer Edson Arantes do Nascimento better known as Pele was black! And I remember watching him play for the first time in Sweden 1970! It took me thirty years or perhaps, ten years of living in an English-speaking country to think of the great football magician in terms of race.
In the early nineties, like many of my countrymen (and women, yes), I fled the war. I found myself in Nelson, New Zealand where a friend of a friend operated a fleet of fishing boats. I learnt the trade and a couple of years later, upon graduation, I could tell ALL the commercial fish species in the South Pacific. Filling the many forms of the New Zealand immigration service and later of the government, I identified as a Pakeha, the Maori term for white people and, apparently, also for a pig. Pakeha or Caucasian, that was the choice I had. At the same time, for most the Yugoslav immigrants in Aotearoa,[2], I was naš – ours. I was just one of us, ex-Yugoslavs and we all spoke naški – our language. We never bothered (very wisely) to call it Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or…
Locals struggled to tell us apart the same as we struggled to tell the English from the Dutch or the Maoris from the Pacific Islanders (nota bene: the great rugby player, Jonah Lomu was of Tongan origin, an Islander – not a Maori[3]).
While in Nelson, down very South, a good friend of mine Kit Carson, a farmer, wood turner and artist taught me an important lesson. We were barbequing some meat near the Tahunanui beach when Max said that as an Irish-born immigrant, Kit wasn’t a real Kiwi. The already well-aged and proud son of Joyce, Beckett, Heaney and a very long line of Celtic storytelling alchemists stood up from his chair with a drink in his mighty rugged hand and roared:
– You were born in this country, Max, but I chose to come here out my own free will. I am much more of a New Zealander than you will ever be!
Thus, spoke Kit Carson, Down Under Below, raising his glass to a thunderous – slaintè!
On the day the New York twin towers fell, I left Aotearoa[4] and moved to Britain (this country?). I now live in Cambridge, a multi-cultural city with a peculiar town and gown historical (class, racial?) divide.
For the immigration service and the government here, I am White, the other White, mind you. The official government web page lists those options:
One of the home nations[5] or Irish (Kit Carson!), Gypsy or Irish Traveller (Tyson Fury, the boxer) or any other White background. You can also belong to mixed ethnicities or declare yourself to be Jewish, Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi, Chinese or of any other Asian background. You can be African, Caribbean or of any other Black background. You could be Arab too (Dr Ali Meghji[6])![7]
So, all Europeans are other Whites.Nigel Farage however, the prominent and outspoken British politician, does not complain about his French, Italian or German and not even Greek neighbours. He just does not recommend living next door to a bunch of Romanians!
At the same time, ‘Go home Poles’ graffiti compete with Banksy’s excellent artwork, anti-Russian hyper-hysteria (you don’t really want me to give you any links for this one) and the already metastatic anti-Serbian bias (uh, where shall I start with links…) that I have been exposed to over these 30 years.
Nine in ten of my conversations that started with where are you from originally? and continued with me saying I am from Serbia, ended right there – in embarrassment and silence. A sure sign that my interlocutors were educated on the topic by alphabet soup corporations (CNN, BBC… ESPN, CIA?) rather than history or any other books. While I do not expect people to have read all the novels by the Nobel laureate Ivo Andrić or seen the films of multiple Palme d’Or winner Emir Kusturica, to have ever found themselves trapped in one of the Marina Abramović arty installations, to have understood the principles of Nikola Tesla’s coil and wireless transmission of electricity or even watched Novak Đoković play tennis, it would be nice if they could make a small mental effort to move beyond the “murderous Serbs” stereotype and the likes of Milošević, Karadžić and Mladić.
So, the western political correctness pill may pretend to be covering Muslims, Blacks and Jews but it does not cover the others, with special reference to Eastern Europeans (our subject).
I can inform you, for instance, that there is no such a thing as an East European accent.[8] Same as there is no such a thing as a Western European accent. The geographical Eastern Europe features languages that belong to different groups : Finno-Ugric, Greek, Romance, Slavic and Albanian among others. Native speakers of these language do not and cannot possibly have the same English accents. Again, is there such a thing as a Jewish, African or Muslim accent?
For instance,
Talking to a woman wearing a burka you ask leisurely: Oh, is that a Muslim accent that I hear, darling?
Talking to Shaquille O’Neal during a pick-up basketball game you say: Where does your accent come from? West Africa, perhaps? or,
Talking to a rabbi who happen to be dressed as a rabbi: Interesting accent that you have – Semitic isn’t it?
(Nota bene: do NOT try any of these techniques at home)
East European is not an ethnicity. East Europeans as a compact group do not exist linguistically, culturally оr religiously and they are no different from Western Europeans in that respect. East European is a prejudiced political, cold war denomination for marginalised white (other) people.
My ancestors fought the Ottoman Turks for centuries not to be enslaved or taken away by the Janissaries. As my name is not Muhammed and I am a Christian, grandad seems to have done well. Now both the descendants and victims of the British Empire slave traders tell me I should apologise. Uh, let me see…
Is racism, as we now know it, not a construct of Western European maritime imperial nations, of genocide, slave trade and slavery?
Where I come from we learnt about these sinister exploits at school. We were told about what happened to the American Indians, the Aborigines, the Mayas and the Incas, the Africans abducted from their ancestral homes, enslaved and shipped to the new brave world. We knew about the East India Company, the British concentration camps in South Africa, Churchill’s racism and crimes, the utter high-tech barbarism visited upon the civilian populations of Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Dresden.
This was all common knowledge among people outside the Anglo-Saxon imperial reach.
The British Empire is racist, you now tell me? No kidding.
The American fathers of theexceptional nation were slave owners? Say no more.
The Empire committed atrocities with the ‘excuse’ that their victims we not really human.[9] If they now, suddenly accepted the humanity of the colonised, exploited and murdered peoples, their minds would blow and disintegrate along with all of their cherished ethical, religious principles and civilised posturing.
But let’s go back to our topic, my Eastern European predicament. I am White, remember? Other White but still – sort of, White! To be better represented, I might want to join forces with the other Asians and the other Africans perhaps? So much for an identity crisis of the Others (capitalised though, mind you)!
I don’t think I am either privileged or responsible for racial tensions. I support human rights and equality and will not kneel or beg for forgiveness.
One day, when I return to the Balkans I may lay down and die of shame for what we allowed to happen to my generation and my country in those mountains. But I will not kneel. Not here, not now, not ever!
So, East Europeans are other Whites. We are not privileged and we often find ourselves at the receiving end of prejudice and intolerance. Do not paint us thus, with the old, stained, black & white brush. There are too many dirty brushes around us already… and so many wonderful colours.
Nebojša Radić is a native of Belgrade, Serbia. He has published fiction, essays and academic work in English (nom de guerre Sam Caxton), Serbian and Italian. He is Associate Professor at the University of Cambridge in the UK. Nebojša has two PhDs, one in Creative Writing from the UEA in Norwich and one in fish chucking form Talley’s Fisheries in Nelson, New Zealand.
New Zealand is officially bilingual and this is the Maori name. Aotearoa translates as The Land of the Long White Cloud) ↑
Advice based on personal experience acquired on the deck of a 15 metre-long fishing trawler at high sea during a storm: never call a Maori an Islander – BIG difference! ↑
Maori for New Zealand – The Land of the Long White Cloud. ↑
TEHRAN- Chinese ambassador to Tehran Chang Hua in an interview with the Mehr News Agency criticizes the U.S. baseless accusations over the outbreak of coronavirus.
Ambassador Chang also said, “China was, is and will be peace and stability builder and promoter in the region.”
On Saturday, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs published an article on COVID-19, rebutting claims from the U.S. on ties between COVID-19 and China. In the article, China rejected 24 claims.
Following the U.S. accusations against China, there have been some reports on the U.S. possible measures to punish China.
According to CNN, the Trump administration is formulating a long-term plan to punish China on multiple fronts for the coronavirus pandemic, injecting a rancorous new element into a critical relationship already on a steep downward slide.
Multiple sources inside the U.S. administration said that there is an appetite to use various tools, including sanctions, canceling U.S. debt obligations, and drawing up new trade policies, to make clear to China, and to everyone else, where they feel the responsibility lies.
To shed more light on the issue Mehr reached out to Ambassador Chang to discuss the issue and some other issues with him.
Here is the full text of the interview:
Q: It seems that the U.S. is trying to create an international consensus against China by repeating accusations that China has not provided the international community with the right information about COVID-19. What is your take of this? What are the real motives behind this?
A: Certain people in the U.S., out of political calculations, went from bad to worse, stigmatizing and smearing China with all they’ve got in an attempt to shift the blame. China has been open, transparent and responsible in releasing information on the epidemic. It can stand the test of history. We hope the U.S. can also make sure that what they say and do and their data is responsible to the people and could stand the test of history.
When Wuhan was locked down on January 23, there was only one officially confirmed case in the U.S. When the U.S. closed its border to China on February 2, there were 11. When the U.S. announced a nationwide emergency state on March 13, there were 1264. When the lockdown was lifted in Wuhan on April 8, there were already 400,000. Today, the number of confirmed cases in the U.S. tops 1.3 million with more than 80,000 deaths. It took less than 100 days for the number to jump from just one to over one million. What has the U.S. government been doing during these 100 days? The WHO head said that to all countries around the world, the warning from China is the same and the signal is clear. Why is it that some countries made adequate reactions and effective interventions, while the U.S. failed to do so? Blaming others won’t solve one’s own problems and bring back lost lives. We genuinely hope that those American politicians who are so bent on the blame game will change course and focus on fighting the epidemic inside the U.S. so that more lives will be saved and their people’s health and security be better protected.
Q: If the U.S. and its allies become able to create such a consensus against China, what can be the consequences for China?
A: The U.S. is exerting pressure on its Allies and on other countries as well. Actually the U.S. is asking them to be an accomplice in framing China. As we all know, the U.S., out of domestic political needs, has repeatedly ignored the facts so that it can dump the blame on others. It is true that a choice has to be made by Europe and others, not between China and the U.S., but between lies and facts, between unilateral bullying and multilateral cooperation. It is easy to make such a choice and in fact, many countries have done so with action. On strengthening solidarity and cooperation to combat the epidemic, China has always stood firmly with the UN, the WHO, and other countries and made every possible contribution, while the U.S. stands on the opposite side of the vast majority of the international community.
Q: Do you see any relation between these claims and the U.S. major strategy to contain Beijing as its main rival?
A: The development of China-U.S. relations over the past 40 years has proven that China and the United States stand to gain from cooperation and lose from confrontation. China-U.S. relations have far gone beyond the bilateral scope and assumed great significance to world peace, security, stability, and prosperity. While China-U.S. relations once again stand at a crossroads, China has always been on the side of cooperation and hopes the United States meet us halfway.
Q: How do you see the cooperation between Iran and China in the fight against COVID-19? How did you find Iran’s capabilities and medical infrastructures in this fight?
A: In this fight against the epidemic, the solidarity and mutual assistance between China and Iran fully demonstrate the profound friendship between the two countries and peoples.
Chinese and Iranian high-level officials maintain close communication. President Xi Jinping and President Rouhani have held telephone conversations and exchanged letters. State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Foreign Minister Zarif have also made several phone calls. At the critical moment of the Chinese people’s fight against the epidemic, Iran was the first country to extend sympathy and provide materials to China. We will always remember that. After the outbreak of the epidemic in Iran, the Chinese government and various institutions, enterprises, and the public of China also extended a helping hand to Iran. China sent its first medical expert team to Iran to assist its fight against the epidemic. The epidemic has caused temporary difficulties for bilateral cooperation but cannot cut off the strong ties between the two countries. The epidemic will end, and the mutual support during the epidemic will surely consolidate and further our comprehensive strategic partnership.
We are happy to see that under the leadership of the Iranian government and with solidarity and the rigorous response of the Iranian people, the measures taken by Iran are producing results as its epidemic curve is steadily leveling off. WHO officials also commended Iran’s response, saying that Iran ’s health officials and medical workers are working very hard to contain the epidemic and save lives. The government is also mobilizing the strong national health system and disaster management capabilities to tackle the epidemic. We are confident in the Iranian government and people’s last victory over the epidemic.
Q: Many believe there will be fundamental changes to the world order in post-corona era. What is your assessment?
A: The international order is always changing in the direction in favor of the common interest and homeland of mankind. The current international order was established after World War II and centered on the United Nations with multilateralism as its basic norm. It lays the foundation for peace, stability, and common development of the world conforms to the trend of peace, development, win-win cooperation of our times, and should be cherished and upheld by the international community. The Covid-19 epidemic has made it clear to various countries that mankind rise and fall together and that only through building a community with a shared future can mankind find the right path to future, and only with solidarity and cooperation can countries remove prejudice and achieve synergy in epidemic response.
What will the world look like in the post-epidemic era? Some people argue that the world will never return to the past. I believe that the epidemic will not change the world theme of peace and development, nor will it stop the historical trend of multi-polarization and globalization and mankind’s yearning for civilization and progress.
Q: Do you see any relation between the U.S.’s recent decision to withdraw its patriot air-missile air-defense system from Saudi Arabia and the U.S. efforts to endanger the energy route in the Middle East (West Asia) that China’s economy is heavily dependent on the oil coming from the region?
A: As a major energy importer and consumer in the world, China hopes that the international energy market could be kept stable. The mutual trust between nations and close interaction of interest through cooperation is the reliable guarantee to security, while military deterrence is not. As to the regional security in the Middle East, China has made its own contribution to the security and stability of the Middle East in accordance with UN resolutions and the aspirations of regional countries. China was, is, and will remain a builder of peace, a promoter of stability, and a contributor to the development of the Middle East.
MUNICH, GERMANY – FEBRUARY 15: Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi makes a speech during the 56th Munich Security Conference at Bayerischer Hof Hotel in Munich, Germany on February 15, 2020. Abdulhamid Hosbas / Anadolu Agency
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi stresses urgent need for international coordination ‘to build a shared future’
Few postmodern political pantomimes have been more revealing than the hundreds of so-called “international decision-makers,” mostly Western, waxing lyrical, disgusted or nostalgic over “Westlessness” at the Munich Security Conference.
“Westlessness” sounds like one of those constipated concepts issued from a post-party bad hangover at the Rive Gauche during the 1970s. In theory (but not French Theory) Westlessness in the age of Whatsapp should mean a deficit of multiparty action to address the most pressing threats to the “international order” – or (dis)order – as nationalism, derided as a narrow-minded populist wave, prevails.
Yet what Munich actually unveiled was some deep – Western – longing for those effervescent days of humanitarian imperialism, with nationalism in all its strands being cast as the villain impeding the relentless advance of profitable, neocolonial Forever Wars.
As much as the MSC organizers – a hefty Atlanticist bunch – tried to spin the discussions as emphasizing the need for multilateralism, a basket case of ills ranging from uncontrolled migration to “brain dead” NATO got billed as a direct consequence of “the rise of an illiberal and nationalist camp within the Western world.” As if this were a rampage perpetrated by an all-powerful Hydra featuring Bannon-Bolsonaro-Orban heads.
Far from those West-is-More heads in Munich is the courage to admit that assorted nationalist counter-coups also qualify as blowback for the relentless Western plunder of the Global South via wars – hot, cold, financial, corporate-exploitative.
For what it is worth, here’s the MSC report. Only two sentences would be enough to give away the MSC game: “In the post-Cold War era, Western-led coalitions were free to intervene almost anywhere. Most of the time, there was support in the UN Security Council, and whenever a military intervention was launched, the West enjoyed almost uncontested freedom of military movement.”
There you go. Those were the days when NATO, with full impunity, could bomb Serbia, miserably lose a war on Afghanistan, turn Libya into a militia hell and plot myriad interventions across the Global South. And of course none of that had any connection whatsoever with the bombed and the invaded being forced into becoming refugees in Europe.
West is more
In Munich, South Korean Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha got closer to the point when she said she found “Westlessness” quite insular as a theme. She made sure to stress that multilateralism is very much an Asian feature, expanding on the theme of ASEAN centrality.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, with his customary finesse, was sharper, noting how “the structure of the Cold War rivalry is being recreated” in Europe. Lavrov was a prodigy of euphemism when he noted how “escalating tensions, NATO’s military infrastructure advancing to the East, exercises of unprecedented scope near the Russian borders, the pumping of defense budgets beyond measure – all this generates unpredictability.”
Yet it was Chinese State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi who really got to the heart of the matter. While stressing that “strengthening global governance and international coordination is urgent right now,” Wang said, “We need to get rid of the division of the East and the West and go beyond the difference between the South and the North, in a bid to build a community with a shared future for mankind.”
“Community with a shared future” may be standard Beijing terminology, but it does carry a profound meaning as it embodies the Chinese concept of multilateralism as meaning no single state has priority and all nations share the same rights.
Wang went farther: The West – with or without Westlessness– should get rid of its subconscious mentality of civilization supremacy; give up its bias against China; and “accept and welcome the development and revitalization of a nation from the East with a system different from that of the West.” Wang is a sophisticated enough diplomat to know this is not going to happen.
Wang also could not fail to raise the Westlessness crowd’s eyebrows to alarming heights when he stressed, once again, that the Russia-China strategic partnership will be deepened – alongside exploring “ways of peaceful coexistence” with the US and deeper cooperation with Europe.
What to expect from the so-called “system leader” in Munich was quite predictable. And it was delivered, true to script, by current Pentagon head Mark Esper, yet another Washington revolving door practitioner.
21st Century threat
All Pentagon talking points were on display. China is nothing but a rising threat to the world order – as in “order” dictated by Washington. China steals Western know-how; intimidates all its smaller and weaker neighbors; seeks an “advantage by any means and at any cost.”
As if any reminder to this well-informed audience was needed, China was once again placed at the top of the Pentagon’s “threats,” followed by Russia, “rogue states” Iran and North Korea, and “extremist groups.” No one asked whether al-Qaeda in Syria is part of the list.
The “Communist Party and its associated organs, including the People’s Liberation Army,” were accused of “increasingly operating in theaters outside China’s borders, including in Europe.” Everyone knows only one “indispensable nation” is self-authorized to operate “in theaters outside its borders” to bomb others into democracy.
No wonder Wang was forced to qualify all of the above as “lies”: “The root cause of all these problems and issues is that the US does not want to see the rapid development and rejuvenation of China, and still less would they want to accept the success of a socialist country.”
So in the end Munich did disintegrate into the catfight that will dominate the rest of the century. With Europe de facto irrelevant and the EU subordinated to NATO’s designs, Westlessness is indeed just an empty, constipated concept: all reality is conditioned by the toxic dynamics of China ascension and US decline.
The irrepressible Maria Zakharova once again nailed it: “They spoke about that country [China] as a threat to entire humankind. They said that China’s policy is the threat of the 21st century. I have a feeling that we are witnessing, through the speeches delivered at the Munich conference in particular, the revival of new colonial approaches, as though the West no longer thinks it shameful to reincarnate the spirit of colonialism by means of dividing people, nations and countries.”
An absolute highlight of the MSC was when diplomat Fu Ying, the chairperson on foreign affairs for the National People’s Congress, reduced US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to dust with a simple question: “Do you really think the democratic system is so fragile” that it can be threatened by Huawei?
In my recent book, Being in Time, I analyse Jewish controlled opposition. I argue that some self-identified Jews end up being on both polar extremes of every debate that is even mildly relevant to Jewish existence: Those who have recently been disturbed about the Jews who are at the centre of the impeachment trial have also found that Jews hold key positions on Trump’s defense team. Those who accuse Jews of pushing immigration and multiculturalism can’t deny that Trump’s senior policy advisor on immigration is Stephen Miller and that breitbart.comwas “conceived in Jerusalem.” The Palestinians’ solidarity movement is dominated by a few well organized Jewish solidarity groups that do little but divert the discourse from the Palestinian right of return and exhaust the movement in their relentless witch-hunting of truth speakers and seekers.
In Being in Time, I point out that as soon as an issue or event is identified as a potential Jewish problem, a Jewish satellite dissent emerges to ‘calm things down.’ As soon as Corbyn became the modern Amalek (‘existential threat’), Jews for Jeremywas formed to dismantle the idea that Jews hate Corbyn collectively. Those who view Capitalism as a Jewish construct are similarly reminded that Marx was also a Jew. In Being in Time I argue that none of this is necessarily conspiratorial. It is only natural for Jews to denounce the crimes that are committed on ‘their behalf’ by a state that defines itself as ‘The Jewish State.’ The same applies to Jews who are genuinely tormented by the vast over representation of Jews in some problematic spheres. Yet, the outcome of all this is potentially volatile: every crucial debate regarding the West and its future; Globalism, Neocons wars, capitalism, immigration, multiculturalism, Israel and so on, is too frequently reduced into an internal Jewish exchange.
It was therefore just a matter of time before some Jews would admit that the involvement of a few prominent Jewish celebrities in some spectacular sex crimes is becoming rather embarrassing and even dangerous for the Jews.
It seems as if Jonah Goldberg has launched the ‘Jews against pedophilia’ campaign. Today, The Jewish World Review published an article titled “French pedo flap a cautionary tale for OUR cultural aristocrats.” In the commentary, Goldberg digs into the activities of Jewish radical ideology, along with those of the notorious paedophile, Gabriel Matzneff.
Goldberg was triggered by a New York Times article that examined the rise and fall of the paedophilia devotee. Matzneff is 83, an old man now, but he has been the darling of the French literary world and media for decades: his work was supported by leading newspapers and literary publications. “He’d appear on highbrow TV shows,” Goldberg writes, where he’d “regale interviewers and audiences with the sublime pleasures of having sex with children in France and on sex tours of southeast Asia.”
In his book “Under 16 Years Old,” Matzneff wrote, “To sleep with a child, it’s a holy experience, a baptismal event, a sacred adventure.”
But the contrast Goldberg draws between Jeffrey Epstein and Matzneff is surprisingly clumsy: “The well-connected billionaire spent vast sums to keep his sexual abuses at least somewhat secret. Matzneff not only confessed to his crimes, his confessions were celebrated as literary contributions.” I feel the need to remind Goldberg that nicknaming one’s plane the “Lolita Express” is hardly an attempt to hide one’s sexual morbidity and crimes. If anything Matzneff is like Epstein in that both celebrated a peculiar sense of impunity. Needless to mention, no Jewish outlet denounced either of them or their not very secretive activities before they were caught and charged.
Jewish Radicals and the role of the Orgasm
Next comes the ‘rationalisation.’ “Matzneff was a Child of 68,” Goldberg writes, “a product of the left-wing ‘May 68’ movement that shook France in the 1960s. These radicals subscribed to the idea that anything smacking of traditionalism or bourgeois morality was backward. Conventional sexual morality was part of the same rotten edifice as imperialism and racism.”
Goldberg doesn’t approve of the ‘Jewish radicals and their ideology. He reminds us that “a few years ago, Daniel Cohn-Bendit (a.k.a. Dany le Rouge), the famous former radical and leader of the European Green movement, got in hot water for his earlier writings and statements about “erotic” encounters with 5-year-olds. He (Cohn-Bendit ) dodged major consequences by disavowing his own words, saying they were merely intended to provoke.”
Goldberg is a well-known and successful writer, he could have published his criticism of Matzneff and Jewish radicals in numerous national American news outlets but, presumably he made the decision to use a Jewish outlet. Whether intentionally or not, Goldberg provides an insight into Jewish survival strategy in general and Jewish controlled opposition in particular. Criticizing radical philosophy and the advocacy of pedophilia on ideological grounds by Jews in a Jewish media outlet conveys the image that Jews can deal with their problems. The goyim should let it go or, even better, move on.
But Goldberg’s account is either mistaken or misleading. The sex revolution that branched into advocating paedophilia wasn’t invented in 1968. Its radical Jewish roots take us back to the 1920-30s and, in particular, to the early work of Wilhelm Reich.
The Following is an excerpt from Being in Time in which I delve into Wilhelm Reich and his ‘genital utopia.’
In his 1933 work, The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Jewish Marxist and Freudian psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich attempted to explain the striking victory of ‘reactionary’ Fascism over ‘progressive’ Communism. Reich was desperate to rescue the relevance of revolutionary Marxism. In order to do so he formed a new ‘post Marxist’ theoretical outlook to explain why the Germans of his time favoured ‘authoritarianism’ over a ‘preferable’ communist revolution.
According to Reich, the attraction of reactionary and conservative politics and the inclination towards fascism is driven by a long history of rigid, authoritarian patriarchy which affects the family, parenting, primal education and eventually, society as a whole. Of course, the remarkable popularity of fascism in Europe could have provided the scientifically-orientated Reich with a clear refutation of Marxist working class politics, theories and predictions. After all, dialectical Marxism had failed as a social theory as well as a methodical prophecy. But for some reason, he, like many other Jewish intellectuals of his time, decided to stick with Marx. Hoping to rescue what was left of dialectical materialism, and insisting that true communist political revolution would prevail once sexual repression was overthrown, Reich synthesized Marx and Freud into a ‘Sex Revolution.’
Wilhelm Reich posited that sexual liberation on a mass scale would save Marxist dogmatism and working people as well. In chapter five of The Mass Psychology of Fascism, he declared war on the patriarchal and conservative family which he saw as being at the core of mass conservatism: “From the standpoint of social development,” Reich wrote, “the family cannot be considered the basis of the authoritarian state, only as one of the most important institutions which support it.” The traditional family is a “central reactionary germ cell, the most important place of reproduction of the reactionary and conservative individual. Being itself caused by the authoritarian system, the family becomes the most important institution for its conservation.”
In the eyes of the neo-Marxist affection, both romanticism and traditional family values were obstacles to socialist reform and Reich’s vehicle towards the new world order was … orgasm! In his 1927 study, The Function of the Orgasm, he came to the conclusion that: “there is only one thing wrong with neurotic patients: the lack of full and repeated sexual satisfaction.” In the hands of Reich, the Marx-Freud hybrid was leading to what some critical cynics dubbed “genital utopia.”
Reich believed that for women within the patriarchal society, sex was within the realm of duty and/or restricted to procreation. “The maintenance of the authoritarian family institution requires more than economic dependence of wife and children on husband and father. This dependence can be tolerated only under the condition that the consciousness of being a sexual being is extinguished as far as possible in women and children. The woman is not supposed to be a sexual being, only the producer of children.”(The Mass Psychology of Fascism, Wilhelm Reich pg 56 37. Ibid pg 56)
Within the traditional society, the woman was robbed of any libidinal consciousness: “This idealization of motherhood is essentially a means of keeping women from developing a sexual consciousness and from breaking through the barriers of sexual repression, of keeping alive their sexual anxieties and guilt feelings. The very existence of woman as a sexual being would threaten authoritarian ideology; her recognition and social affirmation would mean its collapse.” Women were mere baby factories, who had only an instrumental role because: “Imperialistic wars require that there be no rebellion in the women against the function that is imposed on them, that of being nothing but child-bearing machines.” This description of the woman and the family fits the traditional Jewish orthodox family rather better than, say, the German, French, Italian or Spanish family cell.
But Wilhelm Reich wasn’t only a dialectic social revolutionary, he was also a pragmatist. He invented the Orgone Energy Accumulator, a wooden box about the size of a telephone booth, lined with metal and insulated with steel wool. The Orgone itself was a vague concept: an esoteric energy, a universal life force that was massless yet omnipresent and promised to charge up the body with the life force that circulated in the atmosphere and which he christened “orgone energy.” His Orgone box promised to improve “orgastic potency” and, by extension, physical and mental health . Thus, the newly liberated Western subject was invited to experience the true meaning of Marx and Freud through sweating towards full emancipation by means of accumulating ‘Orgone energy’ in this wooden box.
Those who watched Woody Allen’s comedy film Sleeper (1973) probably remember the Orgasmatron – the orgasm inducing machine. In Allen’s satirical take on Reich’s Orgone box, it is actually the authoritarian regime that encourages its citizens to emancipate themselves by means of their genitalia. In Allen’s prophetic movie, the orgasm, like consumerism is a reward from the oppressive regime that diverts the masses’ attention from their existential misery.
The ‘authoritarian’ Germans, both fascist and communist, quickly expelled Reich from their ranks. By 1934, even Freud didn’t want anything to do with Reich. The progressive Americans however, tolerated his ideas, at least for a while. Reich was eventually arrested and died in an American prison leaving behind some radical minds, still convinced that the Orgone box was acting as a greenhouse for cosmic, libidinal energy. Within the free-ranging pornographic realm in which we live, the universe has become an extended Orgone container: pornography is free to all; genital sex is deemed almost Victorian; heterosexuality, at a certain stage, was on the verge of becoming a marginal adventure. And yet authoritarianism hasn’t disappeared. Quite the opposite; to borrow Marx’s metaphor – it is sex and pornography rather than religion that have become the opium of the masses. And yet, this ‘progressive’ universe in which we live didn’t defeat the inclination towards violence. We are killing millions by proxy in the name of moral interventionism and Coca Cola.
A year ago I interviewed Yonatan Stern in a kosher pizzeria in Monticello, Catskills, New York. Yonatan is the man behind Cherev Gidon, an ‘Israeli Tactical Training Academy.’ Yonatan, an American who is also a former Israeli settler, correctly identified the demand for an Israeli-style military school to teach American Jews some of the IDF commando’s essentials for self-defense and the ability to fight back if necessary.
Yonatan was a perfect subject to interview: his views may be radical but they are based upon a sharp, coherent and consistent rationale. He was open in expressing his thoughts, which included some outrageous statements but which all left no doubt that he both meant what he said and said what he meant. I’ve observed that in America 2020, after half a century of the tyranny of correctness, very few Americans are brave enough to celebrate their constitutionally protected liberty to think and express themselves freely and authentically.
I heard from Yonatan, just before Christmas. “Things have been getting hot since we last met,” he wrote, referring to a string of attacks on Orthodox Jews in the NY area. He added, “Anyhow, all this antisemitism has brought me lots of clients so I’m keeping busy.”
This week Yonatan and I returned to the same kosher pizzeria in Monticello where we met before. Yonatan is very upset with Jewish Leftists. He believes that they are set to destroy the Jews, America and the whole world.
“My take on the current impeachment circus is that it is a typical display of subversive leftist Jewish attempts to undermine America from within.” In a manner of speech that is typical of so called ‘anti Semites’ Yonatan, a hard core ultra right wing Jew of the Rabbi Meir Kahane type, wrote to me that the “powerhouse behind this (impeachment) campaign are Jews, very visible Jews. And the worst part is that they are claiming it’s their “Jewish values” that are driving them to do this.”
I asked Yonatan who is a Jew, or rather what is a Jew and what are ‘Jewish values’? “The Jewish people is a nation, we are an ancient nation going back to the Biblical Israelites. But we are also a religion in a sense that we are guided by a religious dogma.” For Yonatan a Jew who is separated from the Torah can no more be called a Jew. Yonatan contends that Jewish liberals are engaged in a fraudulent exercise “pretending that multi cultural values and their misinterpretation of Tikun Olam are intrinsic to Judaism. [In fact] real Judaism of the Torah promotes things which Liberal Jews would consider brutality: such as slavery, polygamy, rape (at a time of a war), animal sacrifice, total prohibition on homosexuality etc.”
His answer surprised me and I asked Yonatan to elaborate on Judaism and slavery. Yonatan’s had no doubts. “Slavery is allowed in Judaism subject to rules of course.” I guess the take home message is that some Jews may oppose slavery however, the opposition to slavery is not a ‘Jewish value.’ They may even oppose slavery despite so-called ‘Jewish values.’
Like President Trump, Yonatan has harsh words on the Jewishness of the Jewish Left. “In reality these are assimilated, pork-eating, sabbath-desecrating fake Jews affiliated with the radical left wing Reform movement who ordain women as rabbis and conduct homosexual ‘marriages’ under a Chuppa. These Hellenist (Greek) frauds represent everything that is evil and ugly about American Judaism and they perpetuate the myth of the hook-nosed subversive Jew being behind every insidious attempt to undermine their host countries.”
It goes without saying that Yonatan doesn’t approve of the Jewish Left and its duplicitous mantra yet, I had to ask Yonatan whether he would be willing to militarily train a female rabbi or a gay cantor.
“The reality is this, these people caused the problem. It will come back to bite them in the end. Now should I come and save them from the trouble they caused me and all the Jews?”
“Their actions are endangering all of us, as many American gentiles see this rightly as an attempt to subvert our republic for which they fought and died, and identify the Jew as the subversive enemy behind it.” It is clear that in Yonatan’s universe, the Left Jew is by far the most dangerous element in Western society in general and in the USA in particular.
This fear of the assimilated and Leftist Jew may sound bizarre to those who are foreign to Jewish culture, history and tradition. The fear of Hellenist (Greek) Jews is as old as Judaism. There is nothing more frightening for rabbinical Jews than the thought that some of their brethren endorse the ethics of Goyim, subscribe to universalism, peace, harmony and equality. Zionism was born to stop assimilation; it promised to take the Diaspora Jews away to Palestine and to make them people like all other people. The anti Zionist Bund, an East European revolutionary Communist Jewish party that was literally born the same year as Zionism (1897), was also an attempt to prevent Jews from joining the ‘Hellenic’ route by offering Jews a tribal path within the context of a future Soviet revolution. Golda Meir thought the real threat to Jewish existence wasn’t the Arab-Israeli conflict but mixed marriages. Yonatan, like every observing Jew, knows that Hanukah is a celebration of the victory of traditional conservative Judaism over the Hellenic Jewish voices that threatened to liberate the Jews from themselves.
I asked Yonatan why Jews seem to be prone to subversive and revolutionary politics. For Yonatan, “there is a subversive and evil element within Judaism even before the Torah was given. There are numerous examples of the above in the Torah of Jews who are living in our midst and subverting our cause.” According to Yonatan Saul Alinsky is a perfect exemplar of such a revolutionary destructive Jew, as is Marx. I asked Yonatan whether Jesus should be added to the list of these subversive Jewish characters. Yonatan avoided the question probably because the wrong answering could jeopardise his wishful future alliance with the Christian Right.
Yonathan wrote to me that “it is usually the most identifiable (the Orthodox Jews ) who are the targets of the understandable antisemitic backlash.” It is people like himself, he wrote, who “are put into the position of having no choice but to fight right wing white Christian Conservatives, people who would be our natural allies under normal circumstances if these Hellenist Jews weren’t disgracing G-d’s name with their evil.”
I felt the need to correct Yonatan and pointed out to him that, at the moment, it isn’t ‘White nationalists’ who have targeted Orthodox Jews. It has been the Black communities in the NYC area who feel ethnically cleansed by the ever expanding Orthodox ghettos. I asked Yonatan what is at the core of this apparently emerging Jew/Black street war? Does it have something to do with Orthodox Jewish communities who may display some unethical tactics?
Yonatan is not impressed with Black Americans. For some reason he sees the clash between Jewish Orthodox and Black communities as a manifestation of a ‘Left’ revolutionary act. I pointed out to Yonatan that there is nothing remotely ‘lefty’ in recent attacks on orthodox communities. Yonatan then expressed some ardent racist views. I quote them not because they are true, as they are not, but to provide an accurate portrayal of Yonathan’s world view. He said that we are dealing with “wild people, they have been in America as long as Whites have been here. They are free of slavery for over 150 years. They enjoy the same freedom as whites, segregation ended 50 years ago… Despite that look where are they now, living on welfare, broken families, using crack, mayhem. Yet look at the Jews, we came over at the late 1800s and early 19th century. And look where we have come, we came poor, with rugs on our backs, we worked in sweatshops. We are now at the head of society. Trump’s son in law is Jewish, the Jews are the biggest bankers, we control the Fed, we control Hollywood, all those lawyers, the best attorneys, the best accountants, all the biggest doctors, we have wealth, we have power, yet this proportionate to our size we are only 2%of the population. Look at the Black man. He is 13% of the population, he for the most part, is living in poverty. They feel a tremendous sense of jealousy towards us which turns into a tremendous blood-thirsty hate.”
I pointed out to Yonatan that the recent attacks in NYC didn’t target Jewish bankers, doctors or lawyers but Orthodox Jews who tend to be poor and dependent on income support. Yonatan thinks this is simply because the Orthodox Jews are easily identifiable as Jews. I pointed to Yonatan that rabbinical communities have used some barbarian expansionist tactics to cleanse Blacks and others from areas they want to expand into such as Kiryas Joel, Crown Heights, New Jersey City etc. Yonatan admitted that this is true. The Jewish orthodox communities do indeed use some “unethical means” to accomplish their goal but, he said, they do not behave that way exclusively to Blacks but use such means against Whites as well. Yonatan seems to be saying that Orthodox Jews do not discriminate against Black people in particular, they are, in general, dismissive of others.
Yonatan believes that “Trump is the best friend the Jews have ever had and he has devoted so much effort to standing up for us and defending us…The least we owe him is to stand up for him against this evil leftist Jewish plot to overthrow the greatest hope America has had in many generations. It is our job to be a light onto the nations and that is exactly what we must do – by fighting our enemy from within, the leftist, multiculturalist, reform Jews.”
When I asked Yonatan whether we should expect an open battle between the so-called ‘real Jews’ and the ‘Leftist’ ones any time soon he said he thought so. Yonatan believes that the so-called Goyim do not have the ability to confront or even to address the symptoms of Left Jews: others don’t even begin to understand the depth of the problem. Only ‘real Jews’ can deal with the culturally invasive menace and eventually save the Jews, liberate America and the rest of the world. America is divided, he said, we are “digging in preparing for a boogaloo,” the coming all out civil war between American patriots who adhere to ‘Judeo-Christian values’ and the so called multi cultural left. In placing this future conflict within the context of the American southern/northern division Yonatan sees himself as a contemporary Confederate platoon.
I ended by asking Yonatan whether he can see that the situation in America in some ways resembles Germany in the 1930s. “Certainly,” he said.
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“Missing the forest for the trees” is an apt metaphor if we take a look at most commentary describing the past twenty years or so. This period has been remarkable in the number of genuinely tectonic changes the international system has undergone. It all began during what I think of as the “Kristallnacht of international law,” 30 August September 1995, when the Empire attacked the Bosnian-Serbs in a direct and total violation of all the most fundamental principles of international law. Then there was 9/11, which gave the Neocons the “right” (or so they claimed) to threaten, attack, bomb, kill, maim, kidnap, assassinate, torture, blackmail and otherwise mistreat any person, group or nation on the planet simply because “we are the indispensable nation” and “you either are with the terroristsor with us“. During these same years, we saw Europe become a third-rate US colony incapable of defending even fundamental European geopolitical interests while the USA became a third-rate colony of Israel equally incapable of defending even fundamental US geopolitical interests. Most interestingly looking back, while the US and the EU were collapsing under the weight of their own mistakes, Russia and China were clearly on the ascend; Russia mostly in military terms (see here and here) and China mostly economically. Most crucially, Russia and China gradually agreed to become symbionts which, I would argue, is even stronger and more meaningful than if these two countries were united by some kind of formal alliance: alliances can be broken (especially when a western nation is involved), but symbiotic relationships usually last forever (well, nothing lasts forever, of course, but when a lifespan is measured in decades, it is the functional equivalent of “forever”, at least in geostrategic analytical terms). The Chinese have now developed an official, special, and unique expression to characterize that relationship with Russia. They speak of a “Strategic, comprehensive partnership of coordination for the new era.”
This is the AngloZionists’ worst nightmare, and their legacy ziomedia goes to great lengths to conceal the fact that Russia and China are, for all practical purposes, strategic allies. They also try hard to convince the Russian people that China is a threat to Russia (using bogus arguments, but never-mind that). It won’t work, while some Russians have fears about China, the Kremlin knows the truth of the matter and will continue to deepen Russia’s symbiotic relationship with China further. Not only that, it now appears that Iran is gradually being let in to this alliance. We have the most official confirmation possible of that fact in words spoken by General Patrushev in Israel after his meeting with US and Israeli officials: “Iran has always been and remains our ally and partner.”
I could go on listing various signs of the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire along with signs that a new, parallel, international world order is in the process of being built before our eyes. I have done that many times in the past, and I will not repeat it all here (those interested can click here and here). I will submit that the AngloZionists have reached a terminal stage of decay in which the question of “if” is replaced by “when.” But even more interesting would be to look at the “what”:
what does the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire really mean?
I rarely see this issue discussed and when it is, it is usually to provide all sorts of reassurances that the Empire will not really collapse, that it is too powerful, too rich and too big to fail and that the current political crises in the USA and Europe will simply result in a reactive transformation of the Empire once the specific problems plaguing it have been addressed. That kind of delusional nonsense is entirely out of touch with reality. And the reality of what is taking place before our eyes is much, much more dramatic and seminal than just fixing a few problems here and there and merrily keep going on.
One of the factors which lures us into a sense of complacency is that we have seen so many other empires in history collapse only to be replaced pretty quickly by some other, that we can’t even imagine that what is taking place right now is a much more dramatic phenomenon: the passage into gradual irrelevance of an entire civilization!
But first, let’s define our terms. For all the self-aggrandizing nonsense taught in western schools, Western civilization does not have its roots in ancient Rome or, even less so, in ancient Greece. The reality is that the Western civilization was born from the Middle-Ages in general and, especially, the 11th century which, not coincidentally, saw the following succession of moves by the Papacy:
1054: Rome separates itself from the rest of the Christian world in the so-called Great Schism
These three closely related events are of absolutely crucial importance to the history of the West. The first step the West needed was to free itself from the influence and authority of the rest of the Christian world. Once the ties between Rome and the Christian world were severed, it was only logical for Rome to decree that the Pope now has the most extravagant super-powers no other bishop before him had ever dared contemplate. Finally, this new autonomy and desire for absolute control over our planet resulted in what could be called “the first European imperialist war”: the First Crusade.
To put it succinctly: the 11th century Franks were the real progenitors of modern “Western” Europe and the 11th century marked the first imperialist “foreign war” (to use a modern term). The name of the Empire of the Franks has changed over the centuries, but not its nature, essence, or purpose. Today the true heirs of the Franks are the AngloZionists (for a truly *superb* discussion of the Frankish role in destroying the true, ancient, Christian Roman civilization of the West, see here).
Over the next 900 years or more, many different empires replaced the Frankish Papacy, and most European countries had their “moment of glory” with colonies overseas and some kind of ideology which was, by definition and axiomatically, declared the only good (or even “the only Christian”) one, whereas the rest of the planet was living in uncivilized and generally terrible conditions which could only be mitigated by those who have *always* believed that they, their religion, their culture or their nation had some kind of messianic role in history (call it “manifest destiny” or “White man’s burden” or being a Kulturträger in quest of a richly deserved Lebensraum): the West Europeans.
It looks like most European nations had a try at being an empire and at imperialist wars. Even such modern mini-states like Holland, Portugal or Austria once were feared imperial powers. And each time one European Empire fell, there was always another one to take its place.
But today?
Who do you think could create an empire powerful enough to fill the void resulting from the collapse of the AngloZionist Empire?
The canonical answer is “China.” And I think that this is nonsense.
Empires cannot only trade. Trade alone is simply not enough to remain a viable empire. Empires also need military force, and not just any military force, but the kind of military force which makes resistance futile. The truth is that NO modern country has anywhere near the capabilities needed to replace the USA in the role of World Hegemon: not even uniting the Russian and Chinese militaries would achieve that result since these two countries do not have:
1) a worldwide network of bases (which the USA have, between 700-1000 depending on how you count)
2) a major strategic air-lift and sea-lift power projection capability
3) a network of so-called “allies” (colonial puppets, really) which will assist in any deployment of military force
But even more crucial is this: China and Russia have no desire whatsoever to become an empire again. These two countries have finally understood the eternal truth, which is that empires are like parasites who feed on the body which hosts them. Yes, not only are all empires always and inherently evil, but a good case can be made that the first victims of imperialism are always the nations which “host the empire” so to speak. Oh sure, the Chinese and the Russians want their countries to be truly free, powerful and sovereign, and they understand that this is only possible when you have a military which can deter an attack, but neither China nor Russia have any interests in policing the planet or imposing some regime change on other countries.
All they really want is to be safe from the USA, that’s it.
This new reality is particularly visible in the Middle-East where countries like the United States, Israel or Saudi Arabia (this is the so-called “Axis of Kindness”) are currently only capable of deploying a military capable of massacring civilians or destroy the infrastructure of a country, but which cannot be used effectively against the two real regional powers with a modern military: Iran and Turkey.
But the most revealing litmus test was the US attempt to bully Venezuela back into submission. For all the fire and brimstone threats coming out of DC, the entire “Bolton plan(s?)” for Venezuela has/have resulted in a truly embarrassing failure: if the Sole “Hyperpower” on the planet cannot even overpower a tremendously weakened country right in its backyard, a country undergoing a major crisis, then indeed the US military should stick to the invasion of small countries like Monaco, Micronesia or maybe the Vatican (assuming the Swiss guard will not want to take a shot at the armed reps of the “indispensable nation”). The fact is that an increasing number of medium-sized “average” countries are now gradually acquiring the means to resist a US attack.
So if the writing is on the wall for the AngloZionist Empire, and if no country can replace the USA as imperial world hegemon, what does that mean?
It means the following: 1000 years of European imperialism is coming to an end!
This time around, neither Spain nor the UK nor Austria will take the place of the USA and try to become a world hegemon. In fact, there is not a single European nation which has a military even remotely capable of engaging the kind of “colony pacification” operations needed to keep your colonies in a suitable state of despair and terror. The French had their very last hurray in Algeria, the UK in the Falklands, Spain can’t even get Gibraltar back, and Holland has no real navy worth speaking about. As for central European countries, they are too busy brown-nosing the current empire to even think of becoming an empire (well, except Poland, of course, which dreams of some kind of Polish Empire between the Baltic and the Black Sea; let them, they have been dreaming about it for centuries, and they will still dream about it for many centuries to come…).
Now compare European militaries with the kind of armed forces you can find in Latin America or Asia? There is such a knee-jerk assumption of superiority in most Anglos that they completely fail to realize that medium and even small-sized countries can develop militaries sufficient enough to make an outright US invasion impossible or, at least, any occupation prohibitively expensive in terms of human lives and money (see here, here and here). This new reality also makes the typical US missile/airstrike campaign pretty useless: they will destroy a lot of buildings and bridges, they will turn the local TV stations (“propaganda outlets” in imperial terminology) into giant piles of smoking rubble and dead bodies, and they kill plenty of innocents, but that won’t result in any kind of regime change. The striking fact is that if we accept that warfare is the continuation of politics by other means, then we also have to admit, that under that definition, the US armed forces are totally useless since they cannot help the USA achieve any meaningful political goals.
The truth is that in military and economic terms, the “West” has already lost. The fact that those who understand don’t talk, and that those who talk about this (denying it, of course) have no understanding of what is taking place, makes no difference at all.
In theory, we could imagine that some kind of strong leader would come to power in the USA (the other western countries are utterly irrelevant), crush the Neocons like Putin crushed them in Russia, and prevent the brutal and sudden collapse of the Empire, but that ain’t gonna happen. If there is one thing which the past couple of decades have proven beyond reasonable doubt is that the imperial system is entirely unable to reform itself in spite of people like Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Ross Perrot, Ron Paul, Mike Gravel or even Obama and Trump – all men who promised meaningful change and who were successfully prevented by the system of achieving anything meaningful. Thus the system is still 100% effective, at least inside the USA: it took the Neocons less than 30 days to crush Trump and all his promises of change, and now it even got Tulsi Gabbard to bow down and cave in to Neocons’ absolutely obligatory political orthodoxy and myths.
So what is likely to happen next?
Simply put, Asia will replace the Western World. But – crucially – this time around no empire will come to take the place of the AngloZionist one. Instead, a loose and informal coalition of mostly Asian countries will offer an alternative economic and civilizational model, which will be immensely attractive to the rest of the planet. As for the Empire, it will very effectively disband itself and slowly fade into irrelevance. Both US Americans and Europeans will, for the very first time in their history, have to behave like civilized people, which means that their traditional “model of development” (ransacking the entire planet and robbing everybody blind) will have to be replaced by one in which these US Americans and Europeans will have to work like everybody else to accumulate riches. This notion will absolutely horrify the current imperial ruling elites, but I wager that it will be welcomed by the majority of the people, especially when this “new” (for them) model will yield more peace and prosperity than the previous one!
Indeed, if the Neocons don’t blow up the entire planet in a nuclear holocaust, the USA and Europe will survive, but only after a painful transition period which could last for a decade or more. One of the factors which will immensely complicate the transition from Empire to “regular” country will be the profound and deep influence 1000 years of imperialism have had on the western cultures, especially in the completely megalomaniac United States (Professor John Marciano’s “Empire as a way of life” lecture series addresses this topic superbly – I highly recommend them!): One thousand years of brainwashing are not so easily overcome, especially on the subconscious (assumptions) level.
Finally, the current rather nasty reaction to the multi-culturalism imposed by the western ruling elites is no less pathological than this corrosive multi-culturalism in the first place. I am referring to the new theories “revisiting” WWII and finding inspiration in all things Third Reich, very much including a revival of racist/racialist theories. This is especially ridiculous (and offensive) when coming from people who try to impersonate Christians but who instead of prayers on their lips just spew 1488-like nonsense. These folks all represent precisely the kind of “opposition” the Neocons love to deal with and which they always (and I really mean *always*) end up defeating. This (pretend) opposition (useful idiots, really) will remain strong as long as it remains well funded (which it currently is). But as soon as the current megalomania (“We are the White Race! We built Athens and Rome! We are Evropa!!!”) ends with an inevitable faceplant, folks will eventually return to sanity and realize that no external scapegoat is responsible for the current state of the West. The sad truth is that the West did all this to itself (mainly due to arrogance and pride!), and the current waves of immigrants are nothing more than a 1000 years of really bad karma returning to where it came from initially. I don’t mean to suggest that folks in the West are all individually responsible for what is happening now. But I do say that all the folks in the West now live with the consequences of 1000 years of unrestrained imperialism. It will be hard, very hard, to change ways, but since that is also the only viable option, it will happen, sooner or later.
But still – there is hope. IF the Neocons don’t blow up the planet, and IF mankind is given enough time to study its history and understand where it took the wrong turn, then maybe, just maybe, there is hope.
I think that we can all find solace in the fact that no matter how ugly, stupid and evil the AngloZionist Empire is, no other empire will ever come to replace it.
In other words, should we survive the current empire (which is by no means certain!) then at least we can look forward to a planet with no empires left, only sovereign countries.
I submit that this is a future worth struggling for.
Let’s start with the essential background for the meeting in Paris on Tuesday between Chinese President Xi Jinping and three EU heavyweights – French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President of the European Commission (EC) Jean-Claude Juncker.
As imperfect as these figures may be, economic growth for the past 10 years after the 2008 financial crisis – which was a made in the West phenomenon – do tell an enlightening story.
China’s growth: 139%. India’s growth: 96%. the US’ growth: 34%. EU growth: a negative 2%.
French mainstream media, controlled by a rarified group of oligarchs, spun a risible narrative that Macron “imposed” this four-way meeting on Xi to press on him the new EC strategy aiming to “clarify” Chinese ambiguity in relation to the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
As I previously reported, the EC now brands China a “systemic rival,” and seems to have realized that Beijing is an “economic competitor in search of technological leadership.” And that may translate as a threat to European values and norms.
Xi had just come from Rome – where the populist, eurosceptic Lega, Five Stars coalition government became the first G7 nation to sign a partnership with the BRI, igniting massive sparks of Atlanticist fear.
So in the end, what did we get from Chancellor Angela Merkel as the EU faced a process French elites describe as Sino-globalization?
We had realpolitik. Merkel stressed the BRI was an “important” project: “We, as Europeans, want to play an active part and that must lead to certain reciprocity and we are still wrangling over that a bit.” She added: “We are seeing the project as a good visualization of interaction, interrelation and interdependence.”
Merkel was essentially relaying the position of German business elites – as a trade powerhouse, the future of Germany lies in turbo-charging business with Asia, especially China.
So, instead of demonizing Rome, in practice Berlin will eventually embark on the same path. After all, Duisburg, in the Ruhr valley, is already the de facto top BRI terminal in northern Europe.
Xi and his EU partners did not fail to emphasize multilateralism. There could not be a more glaring contrast to the Trump administration’s narrative that China is a threat and the BRI is all about Chinese “vanity.” Juncker even tried to defuse the “systemic” tension: “We understand that China does not like the expression ‘rivals,’ but it is a compliment describing our shared ambitions.”
Add to it that Xi also felt the need to remind the EU leadership of the obvious. China will continue to “open up,” as it managed in only 40 years to accomplish what Europe did over the course of the entire industrial revolution.
New Silk Air, anyone?
On the – embattled – Macron front, more than New Silk Roads a de facto New Silk Air seems to be in effect.
No one – apart from Boeing – argues about a 30 billion euro-plus Chinese order to buy 300 Airbuses. And that’s only the beginning. The fact that Beijing will use Airbus technology to enhance its aviation prowess under the framework of Made in China 2025 is another matter entirely.
So Paris may not have turned, like Rome, into an official partner to the New Silk Roads – at least not yet. But the promises are quite telling – on three fronts.
1) The emphasis on multilateralism – “strong and efficient.” That’s not exactly Trumpian rhetoric.
2) Common action with Beijing on climate change and biodiversity.
3) An economic-trade partnership that respects mutual interests. That is, in fact, New Silk Roads-BRI official policy since the beginning, in 2013.
So when we compare the different strategies by Rome and Paris, Xi has, in fact, come out with a win-win.
Merkel, predictably, was careful to hedge to the hilt: “The triangle between EU, China and US is very important. Without the US, we will not be able to have multilateralism.”
At the same time, she stressed, the US-China trade war was “hitting our German economy.”
As for Team Macron, with the leader obsessed with posing as the savior of the EU ahead of the European Parliament elections in May, they could not help but go after the administration in Rome.
According to a Macron acolyte: “There is this bad European habit to have 28 different policies, with countries competing against each other to attract investment. We need to speak with a common voice if we want to exist. We have the same approach on the 5G issue: avoiding 28 different decisions.”
The 5G Monaco Grand Prix
Which brings us to the case of Monaco, not exactly a shabby prize – and duly visited by Xi, who was received, literally, as royalty.
The principality is absolutely avid to gobble up the fast-growing Chinese luxury tourism market. And that explains why Monaco has already signed a deal with Huawei to be the first country to be entirely covered by 5G before the end of 2019.
Paris, by the way, has not ruled out using Huawei equipment. And as a cherry on the cake, guess which city Huawei chose to globally unveil its spectacular new P30 series of smartphones? Paris.
Make no mistake, for Beijing, in terms of trade and economic relations, Berlin is way more relevant than Paris. But these big three – Berlin, Paris and Rome – all have major roles to play.
The New Silk Roads being re-connected to Italy after half a millennium will accelerate Euro-Asia integration, and even, in the long run, more influence for both the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
EU businesses, if not political Eurocrats, are starting to realize that Europe cannot afford to become a battlefield in Cold War 2.0 between the US and Russia, cannot afford to become a hostage of Washington tearing up international law – see, for instance, the destruction of the Iran nuclear deal and recognizing the occupied Golan Heights as part of Israel – and cannot afford to become a victim of Washington’s trade whims.
It’s no wonder that slowly but surely, the EU is shifting its priorities to the East – including to its “systemic rival.”
I am continuing to try to understand what is really happening in Venezuela by talking to those who actually know that and, following my interview with Michael Hudson, it is today it is my immense privilege and honor to present you with a full interview I made with His Excellency Mr. Jorge Valero, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary. Permanent Representative of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva.
I am immensely grateful to Ambassador Valero for taking the time to answer my questions in extenso just a few days away from what might well turn out to be a US false flag or even invasion of Venezuela (promised to all by Trump and Guaido for the 23rd of February). May God grant him and the Venezuelan people the wisdom, courage and strength to defeat the Empire!
The Saker
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The Saker: My first question is about you personally. There is a Wikipedia entry under your name (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jorge_Valero) but since Wikipedia is, at best, a hit-and-miss kind of source, what could you tell our readers about yourself which they ought to know before we turn to the issue of the current situation in Venezuela?
Ambassador Valero: I was born in Valera, State of Trujillo, Venezuela on November 8th, 1946. I graduated from the University of Los Andes (ULA, for its acronym in Spanish) as a historian. I did my graduate studies at the University College London, in Latin American Studies. I am an expert in diplomatic archives. I was an undergraduate professor and the University of Los Andes and a graduate professor at the Central University of Venezuela (UCV, for its acronym in Spanish). I was elected as a Congressman to the Legislative Assembly of the State of Trujillo, and later Congressman to the National Congress. I was Venezuela’s Ambassador to the Korean Republic. When, President Chávez, was elected in 1998; he appointed me as Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. I presided the Presidential Commission appointed by President Chávez, which was in charge of organizing the II OPEC Summit, in Caracas on September 2000. I have been Ambassador – Permanent Representative of Venezuela to the OAS; the UN – New York and currently to the UNOG. I have written a literary work in various genres. More than 20 essays; poetry; diplomacy and social-political analysis. Dozens of national and international conferences.
The Saker: One of the major efforts of Hugo Chavez was to establish a number of multi-lateral frameworks and agreements like the ALBA, CELAC, UNASUR, and projects like the SUCRE, the Petrocaribe, TeleSUR or PetroSUR. How effective have these frameworks and projects been in supporting the Venezuelan struggle against US imperialism? Do you feel that these entities are playing a helpful role or not?
Ambassador Valero: Hugo Chávez was a paradigm of Latin American and Caribbean integration. In this regard, he was a key factor in the creation of ALBA, UNASUR, CELAC, PETROCARIBE, and TELESUR. Chávez reclaimed the integrationist ideology of our Liberator Simón Bolívar, who prosed the creation of “La Patria Grande,Nuestroamericana” (Great Our American Homeland), to defend the interests of our peoples and face any foreign threat raising the flags of unity, peace, sovereignty and self-determination of the peoples. PETROCARIBE is a solidary initiative in favor of developing countries, notably, the countries of our Caribbean surroundings that benefit from an oil bill with discounts and with long payment terms. Chávez has also been a paradigm in the promotion of a multi-polar world, where foreign affairs are founded by sovereign equality of States, overcoming the decaying North American Empire unilateralism. Thus, the Empire’s fury has been unleashed against the Bolivarian Revolution: coups d’état, oil sabotage, the promotion of violence and terrorism against the Venezuelan people. Henceforth, the continuous coup d’état promoted by the supremacist-racist-xenophobic and war-mongering government of Donald Trump that aims to impose a governing puppet and the threats of a military invasion in our homeland, which are part of the above-described context.
Hugo Chávez advocated for a new type and renewed multilateralism. Respect for the founding principles of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. Multilateralism is disrupted by Trump’s government, which has disregarded universal agreements on climate change; withdrawn from both UNESCO and the Human Rights Council; disregarded the agreement on the peaceful use of atomic energy with Iran, signed by USA, Germany, France, United Kingdom, China and the European Union; retraced the path to normalizing the bilateral relations with Cuba; unleashes a commercial war against China, and threatens the Russian Federation with an atomic war in his dispute to control outer space. Vis-à-vis those reckless and aggressive policies that threaten human existence it is necessary to raise the flags of multilateralism even higher.
The Saker: The Empire has created the so-called “Lima Group” which is just a typical trick to bypass the UN or legitimate regional organizations. This is exactly what the USA did with the so-called “friends of Syria,” and the goal is the same: to overthrow a democratically elected legitimate government and replace it with a vassal puppet regime. Yet countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras, Panama, Paraguay, and Peru all agreed to participate in this anti-Venezuelan farce. How do you explain such a betrayal by so many of these Latin American countries? Does their agreement to betray Venezuela and serve the Empire’s interest not show that these states have no real sovereignty or foreign policy and that they are all de-facto US colonies?
Ambassador Valero: Certainly, the self-proclaimed “Lima Group” is a cartel made up of satellite governments of the imperial government to break Latin American and Caribbean unity, and, due to the failure of using the Ministry of the Colonies, which is the OAS to isolate Venezuela in this organization. The empire and its minions couldn’t approve Article 20 of Inter-American Democratic Charter of the Permanent Council of the OAS and resort to the United Nations Security Council, where they also failed. The creation of puppet governments by the US is not new. It has happened in Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Syria. The puppets imposed in those countries where supported by armed terrorist groups, including, mercenary armies trained and financed from abroad.
Nevertheless, in Venezuela, the puppet has no support from the people nor the military, since in our country there is a consistent and patriotic civilian-military alliance, which guarantees and will guarantee -come what may- the defense of the sovereign and sacred jurisdiction of Simon Bolivar’s homeland. The US satellite governments against Venezuela are a minority even in Latin America and the Caribbean. Of the 193 countries that make up the United Nations only 34 support the puppet, which translates into 17.6%. For example, a single country in Africa and there are 54. One in Oceania and there are 15. One in the Middle East and there are 16. 15 countries in Europe, and there are 50. And 16 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean and there are 35. You are right, the satellite countries that follow the Empire’s orders have no autonomous and sovereign foreign policy. Some of these governments, particularly, in Latin America are presided by people that have a criminal background: drug trafficking, corruption, genocide, paramilitarism, sexual offenses. Some are the result of a coup d’état.
The Saker: Another interesting initiative was the creation of Petro-cryptocurrency. Now with the inflation making the Bolivar almost useless, how effective do you believe this alternative currency is to 1) bypass US sanctions, and sabotage and 2) serve as an alternative currency to help the Venezuelan economy recover from its current plight?
Ambassador Valero: The Petro-cryptocurrency was created to free us from the tyranny of the US dollar in the international financial market. Therefore, Trump’s government has established Draconian measures to block the flow of this cryptocurrency. Incidentally, the economic war and the unilateral coercive measures bring about galloping inflation, migration and relocation of people abroad. We are blocked from accessing the capital markets. They rob the Venezuelan State’s property in the US. They kidnap the Venezuelan State’s bank accounts in that country. The unilateral coercive measures and the sanctions cause, as expressed by the former UN Independent Expert, Alfred de Zayas, death and suffering. Measures against international law and the Charter of the United Nations and deny the Venezuelan people their human rights. The United Nations Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, Idriss Jazairy acknowledged this.
The Saker: Russia and China have been working on an alternative to the SWIFT. Is that something the Venezuelan government is also looking into?
Ambassador Valero: Experts from China and Russia provide expert advice to the Venezuelan State to successfully overcome the financial blockage and criminal sanctions of Trump’s government.
The Saker: What can you tell us about the current state of the Venezuelan petrochemicals industry? Now that the US has stolen 7 BILLION dollars belonging to PDVSA, how can the PDVSA continue to operate after being robbed from such a huge sum of money? At what levels is Venezuela currently producing and refining oil?
Ambassador Valero: The damage caused to the Venezuelan economy surpasses 35 billion dollars in the blockade of assets and accounts. They try to rob the Venezuelan peoples from the company CITGO that operates in Dallas, Texas that distributes gasoline and fuels to thousands of gas stations in the US East Coast. The Bolivarian government will undertake all the necessary legal actions to avoid that the Trump government steals the national patrimony. PDVSA, our national oil company, is completely deployed to guarantee the production, distribution, and commercialization of our crude oil. We have found new partners in the hydrocarbon’s market in the world, mainly, China, Russia, India, and Turkey.
The Saker: Since the US-backed coup attempt by Guaido, there has been remarkably little actual violence in the streets of Venezuela, and all the signs point to the fact that Guaido does not have the support of a majority of the people. Yet he sure does have enough support within some sectors of the Venezuelan society (the kind of folks who go and protest against Nicolas Maduro while carrying US flags). How did the government succeed in preventing that minority from doing in Venezuela what was done in Libya and Syria: instigate enough violence to justify a “humanitarian” foreign intervention? In Kiev, there were snipers shooting at both the security forces and the protestors (which also happened in Caracas in 2002 I believe), and I was expecting that to happen in Caracas, but it did not (at least so far). How do you explain this?
Ambassador Valero: Since the National Constituent Assembly was elected peace reigns in the republic.
The puppet that the US aims to impose has neither the people nor the military’s support to disrupt public peace. In general, in Venezuela, there is peace and tranquility. The Venezuelan people love peace. Peace is an essential part of State policies. Nevertheless, terrorist and violent groups financed from abroad, especially, the USA and Colombia act in popular districts in some cities in the country. The puppet and the puppeteer, Trump’s government try to disrupt public peace. They call to destroy the democratic rule of law and justice in Venezuela. They refuse to dialogue and promote intolerance and violence. The puppet asks the puppeteer to send US troops to invade our homeland. Infertile calls since our people remain presto to defend our participatory and protagonist democracy, as well as, the democratic institutions.
Trump’s government tries to reproduce the format that the Empire used in Syria and Libya: a parallel transition government. Prepares mercenaries in neighboring countries to foray in the national territory. They aimed to use the OAS and the Human Rights Council. Remember that Libya was expelled from the Human Rights Council through a Resolution, which was later confirmed by the UN General Assembly immediately after a Resolution was approved in the Security Council, which approved the creation of a no-fly zone. What followed is well known: cask missiles against Libya that caused thousands of deaths and destruction in civilian and military infrastructure. Trump’s government wants to implement the same strategy against Venezuela. He has called upon the Security Council to validate his objective for a military invasion in Venezuela. Fortunately, for both world and regional peace, the governments of Russia and China declared that they would use their right to veto in the UN Security Council to block such criminal objective.
Peace in our region is crucial. CELAC proclaimed Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace. A military invasion from Trump’s government in Venezuela will have continental and worldwide consequences. President Nicolás Maduro affirmed that a Yankee invasion would create a new Vietnam.
The Saker: Does Venezuela feel sufficiently supported at the UN in general and at the UNSC specifically by Russia and China or do you feel that Venezuela needs more help from these countries?
Ambassador Valero: Russia and China are Venezuela’s strategic allies. With these two military, commercial, and technologic powers we have cooperation agreements in many fields. Likewise, Venezuela has abundant solidary backing and support from most of the countries in the world.
On January 26, 2019, Trump’s government indented to condemn Venezuela in the Security Council. They ran off with their tails between their legs, since no resolution was approved against our country. Most of the permanent and non-permanent members of this Council rejected the interventionist objective, and, contrarily approved to promote dialogue among Venezuelans. We are in a condition to overcome motu proprio our challenges. The dialogue between the government and the opposition, without preconditions, is the path to follow. Henceforth, our government has enthusiastically supported the “Montevideo Mechanism” proposed by the governments of Mexico, Uruguay, Bolivia and the member countries of CARICOM.
The Saker: It is pretty obvious that Mr. Guaido has committed a number of violations of the Venezuelan law ranging from calling for an illegal demonstration to being involved in an anti-constitutional coup attempt. In a normal situation, that man ought to be legally charged and prosecuted for his crimes (including, in my opinion, subversion and treason). Yet the USA threatened to go to war against Venezuela (aka “serious consequences“) if Guaido is arrested which, by itself, is a gross violation of international law and of the UN Charter. What can, in your opinion, the Venezuelan government do to do what any other government would do and restore law in order without risking providing a pretext for a US invasion?
Ambassador Valero: The puppet has continuously violated the Bolivarian Constitution. Likewise, he disregarded the fundamental tenets of international law and the Charter of the United Nations. The Venezuelan State is made up of five powers. If something has characterized, the Bolivarian government is being a devoted defender of the independence of each of those powers. It will be the National Constituent Assembly and the Public Ministry who will make the necessary decisions. And you are right: these are crimes of subversion and treason. Breaking democratic legality and wrongfully usurping functions should not be tolerated.
The puppet’s permanent calls for violence and destabilization, his self-proclamation in a street in Caracas, and his call for a foreign military intervention place him against all nation and international law. Makes him a criminal that should be punished with the force of the Venezuelan laws.
The Saker: Speaking of a possible US invasion – do you believe that these are just the usual empty threat of Donald Trump or do you think that there is actually a real risk of overt US military aggression against your country? How about the covert aggression already taking place? What can you tell us about US/Colombian (some say Israeli?) covert operations against Venezuela?
Ambassador Valero: Donald Trump’s threats are not empty. The aggression is in full swing. Trump is the bombastic spokesman of war and foreign intervention. His threats are part of the Empire’s recolonizing goals. The government of Uncle Sam’s nation and its allies and lackeys impose neoliberal policies on the peoples of the world. Trump dusted off the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary. Recruits and trains mercenaries in its military bases in Colombia. Prepares his arsenal to wage war against Venezuela. This is why we should turn a blind eye to provocations. The governments of the US and Colombia are experts creating false positives.
We insist: the threat of a military foray by the empire is a possibility that should not be ruled out. Both our people and our National Bolivarian Armed Forces (FANB, for its acronym in Spanish) are prepared to react with heroism and determination in case of such an event. Patriotism has rekindled as never before in history. We are ready to guarantee our definite independence.
Venezuela became the subject of discussion in the whole world. Our natural wealth, our geographic location in the American hemisphere, our political tenet of building a model of society where social justice prevails, our relations of solidarity and cooperation with the other countries of the world, our firm decision of being a free and sovereign country, emancipated from all sorts of domination make us –as people say- the crown jewel.
The Saker: It is pretty clear that the Israelis have never forgiven Hugo Chavez for speaking up for Palestinian rights and for openly denouncing Israeli policies. As far as you know, are the Israelis currently involved in anti-Venezuelan activities including economic sabotage, political subversion, covert operations, etc.? How relevant is Israel in what is going on today?
Ambassador Valero: The Israeli government has nothing to forgive us for. Our condition of sovereign country grants us the right to decide how we relate to other countries in the world. Defending the Palestinian cause is in the center of our foreign policy. We denounce in multilateral for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Demanded the cessation of the cessation of the occupation of the Gaza Strip, to end the extermination policy of Israel against Palestine and the Occupied Arab Territories. We recognize Palestine as a free and sovereign country with which we hold strong bonds of cooperation. There lies Israel’s hatred against the Bolivarian Revolution. It is no news that this government is involved in the interventionist plans against our country. The Israeli government bets on the overthrowing of President Nicolás Maduro, by Donald Trump’s government. It has recognized his puppet.
The Saker: Finally, what is your guess as to what will happen in the short-term to mid-term future? Do you believe that the Guiado coup has already failed or do you believe that this was only a temporary setback for the Empire and that now we will see more and further attempts at crushing the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela and the rest of Latin America?
Ambassador Valero: The civilian-military union is categorically defeating the coup d’état. Nevertheless, the empire will not stop in its destabilizing and coup-mongering pretentions against the Bolivarian Revolution. As it has been demonstrated our people are inspired by the legacy of our liberators and the supreme commander Hugo Chávez Frías. And at the avant-garde of the fight for our sovereignty and self-determination is President Nicolás Maduro. Chavismo is the new face of being Venezuelan.
The Venezuelan people will resist with heroism and patriotic spirit the constant siege of Trump’s government. The Bolivarian Revolution conceived a new nation project, which aims to obtain happiness, equality, equity, freedom, and brotherhood of all Venezuelans. These are inherent principles of our democracy and the Venezuelan way of socialism.
The Venezuelan people have resisted with dignity and stoicism the terrible conditions it has been subjected to due to the imperial pretensions of impeding the advance of our revolutionary process. No foreign power and its domestic pawns will be able to stop the triumphal march of the Bolivarian Revolution.
The Saker:Your Excellency, thank you for granting me this interview!
TEHRAN (FNA)- In the United States, large parts of the population are afraid of their government as it does not believe in democracy, equality, and liberty.
On this, a respected watchdog group on human rights has just sounded the alarm too: President Donald Trump poses an existential threat to American democracy, perhaps the greatest challenge it’s seen in modern history.
“Trump has assailed essential institutions and traditions including the separation of powers, a free press, an independent judiciary, the impartial delivery of justice, safeguards against corruption, and most disturbingly, the legitimacy of elections,” Freedom House president Mike Abramowitz writes in a special section of this year’s report, released on Tuesday. “We cannot take for granted that institutional bulwarks against abuse of power will retain their strength, or that our democracy will endure perpetually. Rarely has the need to defend its rules and norms been more urgent.”
Freedom House is a respected bipartisan watchdog group that compiles an annual report on the state of democracy and human rights around the world. This report, known as Freedom in the World, is widely cited by policymakers and academics who study democracy. It is a serious endeavor done by serious analysts – and this year, it is heavily focused on Trump and his administration.
That said, the report should be paired with Trump’s one-man foreign policy and unilateral approach to international affairs as well. In essence, the human rights group should pick a major fight with Trump in all spheres and more:
-This is an argument against the group’s own interest first. Roughly 85 percent of Freedom House’s annual revenue comes from federal grants, per a 2016 audit report. The fact that Abramovitz didn’t include Trump’s disastrous foreign policy practices in this year’s report is because he didn’t want to take the risk of inciting a vindictive Trump to go after the organization, the consequences of which could be dire.
-That Abramowitz took the risk on the domestic front illustrates just how worried the group is about the survival of American democracy. Thanks to Trump’s Muslim travel ban, anti-immigrant, anti-press and white supremacist policies, the US is no longer doing well on these metrics when compared to the rest of the world. This could also be due to things like the rise of hyperpartisan media, political polarization, and state-level restrictions on voting rights.
-Trump is following an established playbook to undermine international law and norms, including strategic agreements and treaties, like the INF with Russia, or the Iran nuclear deal, or the Paris climate accord. In doing so, he has isolated and subverted his country’s international standing and position beyond repair. Trump’s rhetorical and policy attacks happen to focus on America’s allies as well, through trade wars and imposition of tariffs or the fact that the European Union didn’t support his unilateral withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal – the practices that have destabilized international trade and politics.
-In making his pitch, Trump’s authoritarian inclinations, private power and attacks on the United Nations and its laws and resolutions, his resistance to the international system of multilateralism, and his unfounded claims – with sustained pressure from the Saudi-Zionist lobbies – that Iran poses a threat to the US and its allies in the Middle East are all familiar tactics to other autocrats and populist demagogues who seek to subvert checks on their antidemocratic leadership and power – even if that would require launching a new war of attrition and deceit elsewhere in the world.
Still a question remains: How come the United States, in which people are afraid of their government and its antidemocratic leadership, still insists on preaching other nations on democracy, and at times even invades and destabilizes them for that? No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Yet there can be no doubt that the US government is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood on both domestic and foreign policy fronts; a government that is afraid of its own people; afraid to entrust them with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. Any doubters should ask Freedom House and its new report Freedom in the World.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 