Farmers set fire to tyres in Brussels as EU officials meet to address concerns – video
Farmers have clashed violently with police in the European quarter of Brussels, spraying officers with liquid manure and setting fire to mounds of tyres, while the EU’s agriculture ministers met to discuss the crisis in their sector.
As farmers also protested in Madrid and on the Polish-German border, at least 900 tractors jammed streets in the centre of the Belgian capital, police said, with protesters throwing bottles and eggs and setting off fireworks while riot police fired water cannon.
Farmers from Spain, Portugal and Italy joined their Belgian counterparts for the latest show of force by a months-long, Europe-wide movement demanding action on high costs, low product prices, cheap non-EU imports and strict EU environmental rules.
Farmers blocked the streets of central Brussels by bringing at least 900 tractors into the city. Photograph: John Thys/AFP/Getty Images
The rolling protests, which on Saturday led to the French president, Emmanuel Macron, being heckled by furious farmers at the Paris agricultural fair, have unnerved leaders before European elections in June that are likely to produce major gains for far-right populist parties.
Ministers were meeting to debate European Commission proposals to ease the pressure on farmers, including simplifying the bloc’s common agricultural policy (CAP) by reducing farm inspections and exempting small farms from some green rules.
“We need something practical, something operational,” said the French agriculture minister, Marc Fesneau, adding that while there was room for “adjustments within the current rules,” meeting some demands “would require changing the legislation”.
Some protesters in Brussels threw bottles and eggs at riot police, who responded by firing water cannon. Photograph: Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images
Fesneau said it did not matter whether the changes were made before or after the European parliament elections, but “what matters now is moving forward. We need to set a goal, lay the foundations of a CAP that reassures people.”
Germany’s agriculture minister, Cem Özdemir, said the EU needed to ensure farmers could make a fair living if they opted for biodiversity and environmental measures. He said the average farmer “spends a quarter of their time at their desks” because of the EU’s “bureaucracy monster”.
David Clarinval, the Belgian agriculture minister, said farmers’ complaints had been “clearly heard” but urged them to refrain from violence, while the Irish agriculture minister, Charlie McConalogue said the priority must be to slash red tape.
A farmer spraying manure at riot police in Brussels on Monday. Photograph: Harry Nakos/AP
The EU should ensure that policies were “straightforward, that they’re proportionate and they’re as simple as possible for farmers to implement”, he said, underlining that “we do respect the massively important work that farmers carry out every day in terms of producing food”.
The EU has already rowed back on several parts of its flagship green deal plan in an effort to appease farmers, scrapping references to farming emissions from its 2040 climate roadmap, withdrawing a law to cut pesticide use and delaying a target for farmers to leave some land fallow to improve biodiversity.
The bloc has also introduced safeguards to stop Ukrainian imports flooding the market under a tariff-free scheme introduced after Russia’s 2022 invasion.
Riot police out in force at an agricultural show in France on Saturday where the president, Emmanuel Macron, was heckled. Photograph: Chesnot/Getty Images
The protest was farmers’ second in Brussels in recent weeks.
“We are getting ignored,” said Marieke Van De Vivere, a farmer from Belgium’s Ghent region. She said ministers should “be reasonable to us, come with us on a day to work on the field, or with the horses or with the animals, to see that it is not very easy … because of the rules they put on us”.
Morgan Ody, from La Via Campesina small farmers’ organisation, said that for most farmers it was “about income. It’s about the fact that we are poor, and that we want to make a decent living,” Ody said.
She called on the EU to set up minimum support prices and exit free trade agreements that enable the import of cheaper foreign produce. “We are not against climate policies. But we know that in order to do the transition, we need higher prices for products because it costs more to produce in an ecological way,” she said.
Spanish farmers protested in Madrid on Monday. Photograph: JJ Guillen/EPA
Farmers also protested on Monday in Madrid, blowing whistles, ringing cowbells and beating drums as they demanded that the EU cut red tape and drop some of the CAP. “The new CAP is ruining our lives,” said Juan Pedro Laguna, 46.
Roberto Rodriguez, who grows cereal and beetroots in the central province of Avila, said it was “impossible to stand these rules, they want us to work on the field during the day and deal with paperwork at night – we’re sick of the bureaucracy”.
Polish farmers protesting against EU regulations and cheap food imports from Ukraine blocked a motorway at a busy border crossing with Germany on Monday and plan to protest in the Polish capital, Warsaw, on Tuesday.
Polish farmers blocked a busy motorway crossing at the border with Germany on Monday. Photograph: John MacDougall/AFP/Getty Images
Adrian Wawrzyniak, a spokesperson for the Solidarity farmers’ union, said that as far as he knew “there are also German farmers on the German side – the crossing is blocked from both sides. This is a show of joint solidarity.”
Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, said on Monday that farmers’ problems needed fixing at an EU level. “Poland is the first EU country [on the border with Ukraine], but in fact it is a problem of the EU as a whole, of EU agriculture as a whole, and it should be considered in this context,” he told a press conference.
Niger gained independence from French colonialism back in 1960, however, it has remained ensnared with the yoke of neo-colonialism; which is evidenced by the persistent colonial-type practices of resource exploitation, financial hegemony, and military presence.
Colonialism and imperialism have not settled their debt to us once they have withdrawn their flag and their police force from our territories.
-Frantz Fanon “The Wretched of the Earth”
The recent events in Niger and the consequent regional implications in West Africa at large had brought back to the forefront of popular discourse the prospects of decolonization and liberation. The coup in Niger, and those in Mali and Burkina Faso prior, exposed France’s persistent relations of colonial-type exploitation to the international public. The military coups all follow the same pattern of rejecting French neo-colonialism in favor of national sovereignty.
Neo-colonialism refers to the systematic exploitation which outlived colonialism. It is traced back to the prospect of Françafrique as introduced by Charles De Gaule. This system which was legitimized under the guise of “decolonization” allowed France to exploit its former colonies while granting them symbolic sovereignty.
Niger gained independence from French colonialism back in 1960, however, it has remained ensnared with the yoke of neo-colonialism; which is evidenced by the persistent colonial-type practices of resource exploitation, financial hegemony, and military presence/intervention.
The Asymmetric Benefits of Uranium Extraction
While ranking as the eighth poorest country in the world, according to GDP, Niger is the world’s seventh largest producer of Uranium. Niger produces 5% of the world’s output of uranium, according to the World Nuclear Association. Orano, the French state-owned nuclear energy company formerly known as Areva, has been operating the nuclear mines in Niger for the past 50 years: extracting Nigerien uranium mainly for the French nuclear industry. In 2023, Politico reported that Niger produced 15% of France’s Uranium imports and 20% of Europe’s. Back in 2013, it was assessed that one out of every three light bulbs in France is lit by Nigerien uranium while 83% of Nigeriens have no access to electricity, according to ROTAB (Transparency and Budgetary Analysis Organization).
The Currency Scheme of Wealth Expropriation
Another characteristic feature of neo-colonialism in Niger is the financial hegemony that France maintained by enforcing the CFA (African Financial Community) franc as a formal currency in Niger. The CFA franc was introduced by France in most of its former colonies in West and Central Africa. According to the IMF, the CFA franc accounts for 14% of Africa’s population and 12% of its GDP. The CFA franc, which is minted by the Bank of France, was formerly pegged to the French Franc, and now to the Euro. In exchange for guaranteeing their currency in Euros (currently, 656 CFA francs= 1 Euro), 50% of the CFA countries’ possessions of foreign currencies are to be deposited in the Bank of France in addition to another 20% for financial liabilities: leaving the African countries with barely any liquidity and no monetary/fiscal sovereignty on the little liquidity they have while the french government prospers through capitalizing on the surplus deposits in its banks.
Through the CFA franc zone, France maintains the capability to exercise authority over the money supply, monetary and financial regulations, banking operations, credit distribution, and fiscal as well as economic strategies of African countries. This is best summed up in a famous speech of former French president Jacques Chirac in which he says “We forget one thing: that is, a large part of the money that is in our wallet comes precisely from the exploitation of Africa”.
Western Military Outpost in West Africa
The ousted Bazoum regime had long been a loyal partner of France (and the West generally) in the latter’s alleged war on terrorism in the Sahel region. Niger hosts 15,000 French soldiers and 1,100 American soldiers in addition to US Airbase 201 which acted as an outpost to US military interventions in the region at large. While making Niger into a safe haven for Western forces in West Africa under the pretext of fighting terrorist groups, Bazzoum long criticized Mali and Burkina Faso for coordinating with Russia and Wagner PMC in their battle against terrorism, despite being more successful than the former. In a piece written for The Washinton Post shortly after being ousted, Bazzoum warned his Western partners, in an attempt to evoke an intervention to restore his ousted regime, that “the entire central Sahel region could fall to Russian influence” if his regime is not restored: emphasizing the geopolitical shift which the country underwent through the coup.
On July 26, Abdourahamane Tchiani overthrew the pro-West incumbent president Mohamed Bazzoum in a military coup led by the presidential guard. The coup came as a sort of poetic justice against imperialism not only neutralizing a Western comprador government but also replacing it with a staunchly anti-imperialist government.
France was quick to condemn the coup. President Macron warned the military junta of a swift and firm retaliation if their interests were threatened in the country. The US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken similarly affirmed his support for the ousted president and expressed his commitment to restore his government. The collective West (EU, US, and Canada) subsequently suspended all aid to the country in an effort to pressure the military junta into giving in.
On July 30th, ECOWAS (the Economic Community of West African States) froze Niger’s assets, imposed sanctions on the junta officials, and gave a stern warning of military intervention if the former government is not restored within a week’s deadline.
Correspondingly, the junta took a set of measures to consolidate its authority and fortify its anti-imperialist stance: halting uranium and gold exports to Europe, revoking all military deals with France, and blocking French media platforms France24 and RFI. Additionally, the military leaders warned France and ECOWAS against any military intervention: stressing that they will “resolutely defend their homeland.”
Regional countries have also taken opposing stances on Niger. Original members of the Western-backed ECOWAS bloc such as Senegal have affirmed their commitment to partake in the military intervention.
Mali and Burkina Faso who had also defected from the Western bloc vehemently opposed the threat of military intervention against Niger saying they would consider it a declaration of war against their respective nations if the ECOWAS bloc went through with the threatened military intervention.
At the individual level, violence is a cleansing force. It rids the colonized of their inferiority complex, of their passive and despairing attitude. It emboldens them, and restores their self-confidence.
– Frantz Fanon “The Wretched of the Earth”
Decolonization: Negative Freedom and Autonomy
In the context of liberation from colonial-type hegemony, a notable nuance to register in the strive for self-determination is that between negative freedom and autonomy. Negative freedom is defined through the absence of externally imposed oppressive structures. Meanwhile, autonomy is realized through developing the capacity to achieve the aspired interests.
In Niger, negative freedom triumphed through the coup: by eradicating the oppressive structures enforced by France such as the imposed comprador government and the systematic exploitation of resources. It focuses on dismantling the barriers that inhibit a nation’s ability to make choices according to its own values and interests. However, negative freedom as the absence of external restraints does not guarantee holistic liberation.
The military leaders in Niger have decisively strived to neutralize the French-imposed oppressive structures: from organizing the overthrow of the comprador government to halting the exports of uranium and gold. However, their deliberations, revolutionary as they are, fall short of liberation. They created favorable conditions for achieving self-determination through autonomy, but it remains necessary to acquire the capacity to achieve their national interests. Autonomy is realized through the accumulation of capital and consolidation of infrastructure.
US presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr criticizes all walks of life within the US, underlining his opposition to how it conducts its foreign policy.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks during a campaign event on April 19, 2023, in Boston (AP)
US Democratic Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vehemently and extensively criticized the United States on Monday during a speech before the Free State Project, where he touched on numerous issues, from the war in Ukraine to bioweapons, US bases on foreign soil, and the cases of Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.
Operation Paperclip, the CIA’s first project, aimed to bring Nazi scientists to the United States after World War II. These scientists were employed to work on developing missiles, nuclear weapons, and bioweapons at high-security labs such as Fort Dietrich, as well as other facilities across the nation, the Democratic candidate revealed.
He also revealed that the CIA sought to enlist Japanese scientists, known for their use of bioweapons during World War II, to participate in the development of a pilot weapons program.
“It’s to begin developing a pilot weapons program and to get the Japanese scientists who are the only ones who would ever use actually use bioweapons against the Chinese and kill many, many tens, hundreds of thousands of Chinese before and during World War II with bioweapons,” he underlined.
Kennedy also highlighted how then-US President Richard Nixon unilaterally announced the end of the bio-weapons program in 1969, when he went to Fort Dietrich and announced the program’s end.
“The American government was going to stop developing bioweapons no matter what anybody else in the world did […] Nixon closed the Fort Dietrich. They turned it over to NIH (National Institutes of Health) right before that, and they destroyed all the bioweapons before they went destroyed it. The CIA went in and got cultures of all of them and moved them to warehouses in New York and elsewhere,” he revealed.
Biolabs and biological weapons are of utmost importance in the current state of affairs, as it was discovered that the United States has been helping with the construction of biolabs in Ukraine. Initially, Washington refused to admit the existence of US Biolabs in Ukraine, however, later in time Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland did.
“Russian troops have secured over 20,000 documents, reference, and analytical materials, and interviewed eyewitnesses and participants in American military-biological programs,” since the start of the Ukraine war, Russian Radiological, Chemical, and Biological Defense chief Igor Kirillov said earlier this year.
US provocations to blame for Ukraine war
Turning to the conflict in Ukraine, he said recent revelations indicate that President Putin and President Zelensky signed an agreement in April 2022, which outlined the withdrawal of Russian troops from around Kiev, adding that they were complying with the agreement’s stipulations. However, he alleged that then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, acting on behalf of the White House, attempted to undermine the accord in question.
“That’s not the first time we’ve we’ve done that […] all the nations like France, Germany, and Russia all agreed to the Minsk accords earlier on,” he underlined.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky admitted in February that he had previously told German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron that the Minsk agreements were “impossible”, and he did not plan on implementing them.
Weeks before the Ukraine war broke out, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia was yet to hear Ukraine’s words about readiness to swiftly start the implementation of the Minsk agreements during the meeting between Macron and Zelensky.
Ex-German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was in office from 2005 to 2021 said in an interview published in early December that the Minsk Accords were signed to “give Ukraine time” to strengthen itself.
Merkel said “The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give time to Ukraine. It also used this time to become stronger as can be seen today. The Ukraine of 2014-2015 is not the modern Ukraine.”
Man of peace
The Ukrainian people, yearning for peace, elected President Zelensky, a comedian and actor, based on his promise to sign the Minsk Accords, Kennedy underlined, highlighting that Zelensky broke his promise to the people of Ukraine. Yet, pressure from individuals like Victoria Nuland, in tandem with ultranationalist factions within Ukraine, pushed the government to pivot away from these agreements, he divulged.
The war in Ukraine has claimed the lives of an estimated 350,000 young men. While acknowledging the brutality and illegality of the conflict, the role of external provocations, including those by the United States since 1997, should also be looked into as a reason for the outbreak of the brutal war, Kennedy said.
“He ran as the peace candidate. You guys, this is a guy who is a comedian and an actor […] he was not a politician, a veteran politician. Why did people vote for him? They voted for him because he was the peace candidate, and the Ukrainian people wanted peace,” he said.
“I think it’s going to be quite easy to get out of the war in Ukraine,” the Democrat candidate added.
US military presence abroad
Another significant aspect he touched on was the excessive military expenditures of the United States. Despite promises of a peace dividend following the end of the Cold War, the country currently maintains approximately 800 military bases worldwide, surpassing other nations by a significant margin.
The exorbitant defense budget, now reaching $1.3 trillion dollars, far exceeding the original projection of $200 billion dollars, has impacted the economy, national strength, and the well-being of the middle class.
“The Chinese have one and a half bases. I don’t know if the Russians have any now, you know, outside of the Ukraine. I don’t know if they have any. And we have each one of those bases as a platform for a future war,” the presidential candidate highlighted.
“We were told we were going to get a peace dividend [after the collapse of the Soviet Union]. We were told that we would stop investing billion of dollars in bombers that can’t fly in the rain. And then we would bring that money home to build schools and roads and infrastructure and help it lower taxes and help, you know, help farmers convert to regenerative agriculture […] But none of that happened,” the nephew of former US President John Kennedy said.
RFK had previously explained that Russia made it clear what its demands were before the war began and that the US should have given in to its demands. He explained that the US and NATO continued to move eastward after agreeing with the dismantled Soviet Union in 1991 that they would not do so.
“We spend three times what China spends. It’s not good for our economy. It’s not good for our national strength. And it has not helped American security or safety,” he added, arguing that the US, instead, was in “much more danger” due to its military “adventures” abroad.
He proposed winding down military ventures and redirecting resources towards rebuilding the country’s industrial base and fostering entrepreneurial opportunities for Americans. This, he argues, would allow for a more secure and prosperous future.
Furthermore, he pledged that if he were to become president, he would wind down the country’s military spending and start instead rebuilding its industrial base.
Assange, Snowden to be pardoned
Finally, in a bold and shocking statement, Kennedy pledged to pardon both Julian Assange and Edward Snowden if he were to be elected as president, highlighting the lack of support from the American press and publishers for Assange’s release. Kennedy emphasized the importance of recognizing Assange’s role as a publisher and stressed the significance of his actions in exposing classified information to the public.
Moreover, he turned his attention to Edward Snowden, asserting that Congress has effectively made a case for his pardon. He referred to the revelations Snowden brought to light, revealing extensive surveillance practices by the intelligence apparatus. Kennedy highlighted the unlawful collection and archiving of personal data, which came as a shock to both the public and Congress itself. Subsequently, Congress passed legislation aimed at safeguarding citizens against such encroachments on privacy.
Kennedy maintained that Snowden’s actions aligned with deeply held American values, including the pursuit of personal courage and the defense of democratic ideals. By exposing the mass surveillance programs, Snowden contributed to the ongoing debate surrounding privacy rights and government transparency.
His public support for pardoning both Assange and Snowden underscores the growing recognition of their impact on public awareness and the need to reassess the treatment of whistleblowers in the United States.
Assange has been at the Belmarsh prison in London for more than 1,500 days. He was unlawfully charged in the US with 17 counts of “espionage” and one count of computer misuse, connected to him leaking tens of thousands of military and diplomatic documents that exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Assange is currently facing prosecution in the United States under the Espionage Act, which marks a new precedent, as the legislation was never utilized against classified information being made public.
In Assange’s case, he’s been unlawfully charged in the US with 17 counts of “espionage” and one count of computer misuse, connected to him leaking tens of thousands of military and diplomatic documents that exposed US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The journalist faces a 175-year prison sentence following the approval of extradition to the US by the UK High Court in December 2021.
Kennedy has long been vocal against the Ukraine war and the way the US government handles domestic issues and its foreign policy, and he is making a bid for the presidency on a democratic platform.
Following Wagner’s ‘rebellion’ – which was nothing more than a blatant coup attempt, and a PR stunt demonstrated by Prighozin’s top-notch theatrics – NATO and the Collective West’s excitement over the possibility of Russia descending into chaos and civil war were quickly turned into utter disappointment.
The first draft of the extraordinary events that took place in Russia on The Longest Day – Saturday, June 24 – leads us to a whole new can of worms.
The Global Majority badly wants to know what happens next. Let’s examine the key pieces in the chessboard.
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov is cutting to the chase: he has reminded everyone that the Hegemon’s modus operandi is to back coup attempts whenever it can benefit. This dovetails with the fact that the FSB is actively investigating whether and how Western intel was involved in The Longest Day.
President Putin could not have been more unequivocal:
“They [the West and Ukraine] wanted Russian soldiers to kill each other, so that soldiers and civilians would die, so that in the end Russia would lose, and our society would break apart and choke on bloody civil strife (…) They rubbed their hands, dreaming of getting revenge for their failures at the front and during the so-called counter-offensive, but they miscalculated.”
Cue to the collective West – from Secretary of State Anthony Blinken on down – frantically trying to distance itself even as the CIA leaked, via its trademark mouthpiece, the Washington Post, that they knew about “the rebellion.”
The agenda was painfully obvious: Kiev losing on all fronts would be ritually buried by wall-to-wall coverage of the fake Russian “civil war.”
There’s no smoking gun – yet. But the FSB is following several leads to demonstrate how the “the rebellion” was set up by CIA/NATO. The spectacular failure makes the upcoming NATO July 11 summit in Vilnius even more incandescent.
The Chinese, much like Lavrov, also cut to the chase: the Global Times asserted that the idea of “Wagner’s revolt weakening Putin’s authority is wishful thinking of the West,” with the Kremlin’s “strong capacity of deterrence” further increasing its authority. That’s exactly the reading of the Russian street.
The Chinese reached their conclusion after a crucial visit by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrei Rudenko, who promptly flew to Beijing on Sunday, June 25. This is how the iron-clad strategic partnership works in practice.
“The rebellion” as a P.R. stunt
Arguably the best explanation so far of the nuts and bolts of The Longest Day has been offered by Rostislav Ischenko.
The Global Majority will rejoice that Prighozin’s theatrics, in the end, left the collective West dazed, confused, and shattered: wasn’t the whole thing supposed to unleash total chaos inside Russian society and the army?
Even as the fake, lightning-quick “mutiny” was in progress, Russia continued to pound Kiev’s forces – which, by the way, were spinning that the main phase of the “counter-offensive” was being launched exactly on June 24 at night. That was, predictably, yet another bluff.
Back to the Russian street. “The rebellion” – inbuilt in a very convoluted plot – in the end was widely interpreted as just another military demonstration (by master of ceremonies Prighozin, not by the overwhelming majority of Wagner soldiers). “The rebellion” turned out to be a Western P.R. stunt, a series of (ultimately faded) pictures for global consumption.
But now things are bound to get way more serious.
Lavrov, once again, pointed to the role being played by the ever-self-aggrandized Le Petit Roi, Emmanuel Macron, right up there with the United States: “Macron clearly saw in the developments an opportunity to realize the threat of Ukraine dealing Russia a strategic blow, a mantra NATO leaders have been holding onto.”
So just like Kiev and the collective Western media, Lavrov added, Macron remains part of a single “machine” working against Moscow. That ties up with Putin, who stated of Macron’s Sunday intervention that “the entire Western military, economic and information machine has been set in motion against us.”
And that’s a fact.
Betting on a “long-term economic blockade”
Another fact adds to the more ominous clouds on the horizon.
While no one was paying attention, a mini-Congress of national security officials took place in Copenhagen exactly on the fateful 24 and 25 of June.
They were arguably discussing “peace in Ukraine.” The chairman was none other than US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan.
Present at the meeting were Brazil, Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Denmark, India, Canada, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, South Africa, Japan, Ukraine – and the proverbial Eurocrat of the non-sovereign EU.
Note the G7 majority, side by side with three BRICS and two aspiring BRICS+ members.
“Peace in Ukraine” means, in this context, the so-called 10-point “Zelensky peace plan,” which implies a total Russian strategic defeat – complete with the restoration of Ukraine within the borders of 1991 and payment of colossal “reparations” by Moscow.
No wonder China was not part of it. Yet three BRICS – call them the weakest nodes – were there. BRICS and BRICS+ prospective members compose the six “swing states” which will be relentlessly courted and/or submitted to hardcore Hybrid Wars by the Hegemon to “behave” when it comes to Ukraine: Brazil, India, South Africa, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia.
Then there’s the 11th EU sanctions package, which is taking the economic war against Russia to a whole new level, as attested by Acting Permanent Representative to the EU, Kirill Logvinov.
Logvinov explained how “Brussels intends to drag as many countries as possible into this war (…) There is a clear shift from a failed blitzkrieg, which was said to be aimed at causing irreparable damage to Russia, to a multi-move game with the goal of establishing a kind of long-term economic blockade against our country.”
That’s undiluted Hybrid War territory – and the key targets are the six “swing states.”
Logvinov remarked how “the EU always prefers to use blackmail and coercion. Since the EU remains the biggest economic partner for many countries, as well as a source of investment and a financial donor, Brussels clearly has enough leverage to exert pressure. So, the EU’s fight against the bypassing of sanctions is expected to be lengthy and uncompromising.”
So welcome to extraterritorial sanctions, EU-style, blacklisting companies from third countries “suspected” of re-exporting banned goods to Russia or engaged in oil trade without taking the so-called Russian oil price cap into account.
Fun in the Belarussian sun
Among so many cheap thrills, what will be the next role of the main actor in The Longest Day (and even before)? And does it matter?
Chinese scholars are fond of reminding us that during China’s periods of turmoil – for instance, at the end of the Han and Tang dynasties – the reason was always warlords not following orders from the Emperor.
The Ottoman Empire’s Janissaries – their Wagner at the time – were meant to protect the Sultan and fight his wars. They ended up deciding who could be Sultan – as much as Roman Empire legionaries ended up deciding who would be Emperor.
Chinese advice is always prescient: Beware of how you use your soldiers. Make sure they believe in what they’re fighting for. Otherwise, they’ll turn around to bite you.
And that leads us to Prighozin once again changing his story (he’s a specialist on the matter).
He’s now saying that June 23-24 was just a mere “demonstration” to express his discontent. The main objective was to prove the superiority of Wagner over the Russian Army.
Well, everybody knew about that: Wagner soldiers have been in combat day in, day out for over 10 years now in Libya, Syria, the Central African Republic, and Ukraine.
And that’s why he could boast that “Wagner advanced for 700 km without meeting any resistance. If Russia had asked them to be in charge of the war from the beginning, that would have been over by the night of February 24, 2022.”
Prighozin is also alluding to a deal with Belarus – laying extra fog of war around a possible transfer of Wagner under Belarus jurisdiction. NATO is already terrified in advance. Expect more ballooning military budgets – to be imposed at the Vilnius summit next month.
Camps to accommodate at least 8,000 Wagner fighters are already being built in Belarus, in the Mogilev region – according to “Vyorstka” (“Layout”).
The real story behind it is that Belarus, for quite a while, has been expecting a possible attack from rabid Poland. In parallel, as much as sending NATO into extra freakout mode, Moscow could be contemplating the opening of a new front between Lviv and Kiev.
Wagner in Belarus makes total sense. The Belarussian Army is not exactly strong. Wagner secures Russia’s western front. That will raise major hell on NATO – even figuratively, and force them to spend even more astronomical sums. And Wagner can merrily use airports in Belarus to pursue its – rebranded – activities in West Asia and Africa.
Everything that happened since The Longest Day is part of a new dramatic plot twist in a running series – way more gripping than whatever Netflix could offer.
Yet what the majority of Russian public opinion really seems to expect is not another farcical Ride of the Valkyrie. They expect a serious draining of the Soviet-style bureaucratic swamp, and a real commitment to get this “almost war” to its logical conclusion as quickly as possible.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Israeli media suggest that the Saudi decision could be a response to the Israeli occupation escalation in the occupied West Bank this week.
Israeli media reported on Friday a “diplomatic embarrassment” in the French capital, Paris, after Saudi Arabia prevented two Israeli diplomats from entering an event attended by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MBS).
According to the Israeli news website Walla!, two Israeli occupation Foreign Ministry officials who were invited to the welcome event held by MBS as part of the presentation of Saudi Arabia’s candidacy to host the Expo 2030 conference discovered that their names had been removed from the list of invitees at the last minute and were not allowed to enter it, as per senior officials at the Israeli Foreign Ministry.
The Israeli website suggested that the Saudi decision to prevent the Israeli diplomats’ entry, even though they were officially invited a few days earlier, could be a response by Riyadh to the Israeli occupation government’s policy on the Palestinian issue and the escalation in the occupied West Bank this week.
It also added that the incident, even if it is only symbolic, indicates that the Saudis are still very sensitive to any gesture of normalization with the Israeli occupation.
This comes as French President Emmanuel Macron received on Friday MBS at the Elysee Palace on the sidelines of a two-day climate summit and the two sides exchanged views on international and regional developments.
Macron and MBS confirmed their joint adherence to security and stability in the Middle and Near East and expressed their intention to continue their joint efforts for a permanent de-escalation of tensions.
Paris also expressed its willingness to keep pace with Riyadh in strengthening its defense capabilities, and Macron reminded of the intention of French companies to continue to keep pace with Saudi Arabia in implementing its 2030 Vision.
At the end of the summit attended by some 40 leaders, Macron hailed a “complete consensus” to reform global financial institutions and make them “more efficient, fairer and better suited to the world of today.”
“We must start working now,” Macron said, announcing that Paris will host a follow-up meeting two years later on this “consensus” for better financial weapons to combat poverty and global warming.
The summit indicated that the nearly 80-year-old financial system is no longer suitable for facing 21st-century challenges.
In a speech, leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva slammed international institutions, saying, “With this mechanism, the rich are always rich and the poor are always poor.”
Steven Sahiounie Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on June 16. One of the items on their agenda was Lebanon, which has close historical and language ties to France. The tiny Mediterranean country has been in financial collapse for several years, and has been without a president at its helm since October 31, 2022.
Lebanon suffers from financial problems linked to fraud accusations against the Central Bank chief, the military occupation of Shebaa Farms by Israel, and further suffers from a sectarian ruled political system that prevents a solution to the nation’s woe.
Steven Sahiounie of MidEastDiscourse interviewed Maher Al-Dana, a Beirut based journalist who has contributed to multiple news agencies, and has covered the war in Syria. He is now the Information Director for the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP).
Steven Sahiounie (SS): The SSNP published a video on their official Facebook page, which showed the SSNP military wing taking positions in the South of Lebanon on the border with Occupied Palestine.
The video published was the same time as Hezbollah’s training with live ammunition in the South of Lebanon. From what you know, could there be a possible operation in the near future?
Maher Al-Dana (MA): First, what happened was the announcement of activating the military and resistance action in the SSNP and announcing that this party, which withdrew from its role of resistance as a result of the wrong previous decisions and calculations of previous leaders, has today reactivated its work in its natural arena, although the nationalist have never backed down from this work. Neither in the Jewish occupation of the south, nor later in the July War, they also had a major, important and pivotal presence in the global war on Damascus.
As for today, in what is said about operation, this matter is determined by the requirements of the battle with the enemy and the requirements of confrontation, and we are present within a unified operations room of the resistance effort, which takes this decision and directs the resistance factions as needed.
SS: Interpol has issued a red notice arrest warrant for Riad Salameh of the Lebanese Central Bank on accusations of fraud, embezzlement and money laundering of the Lebanese people’s money. In your opinion, will the corrupted Lebanese politicians prevent his arrest?
MA: Politicians in Lebanon and no one can protect Riad Salameh after today, but on the issue of Interpol, on the issue of international justice, this is something that needs discussion. No one can cover Riad Salameh, but the most important thing is that the political pressures on the Lebanese judiciary be lifted in order for it to move towards Riad Salameh first, towards all those who participated in wasting and stealing the money of the Lebanese, and towards everyone who smuggled money and deposits abroad, and this is a matter of priority. The battle today in corruption is not a battle against individuals, it is a battle against a system, Riad Salameh is one of its heads.
SS:Lebanon has been without a president for over seven months. The parliament should be meeting soon to elect a president, between Sulaiman Franjieh and Jihad Azour. In your opinion, will the politicians agree on a choice, or will they wait for foreign influence to make their choice?
MA: After the election session that was held on June 14, in the parliament, we can say that we are facing the reality that there are two candidates: a candidate whose team has burned him, and a candidate whose team continues to nominate him. Jihad Azour ended, it ended for several reasons.
First, whoever nominated him is not convinced of him, and he nominated him on the basis of the principle of conspiracy. As for Franjieh, he is a candidate on the basis principle and criteria that this team still believes in, and he will continue to nominate him for an indefinite period now, either by bringing him to the presidency of the republic or by changing circumstances. Therefore, whoever nominated Jihad Azour did not respect him, and he did not respect himself when he accepted that he be nominated by a team to manipulate him, and this matter requires scrutiny by those who nominated him, I mean, there is Minister Gebran Bassil who nominated him to maneuver, to say to the other team, come and talk to me, I am the helmsman’s egg, while the other nominated him to overthrow Franjieh, and because he brings economic policies that this team has always pursued since the year 90, and this matter will not pass, and these people, if we remove Gebran Bassil aside, will not have any influence on the decision in the light of Lebanon’s presence in this environment and in these circumstances, and therefore let us look at who can protect him and who can preserve the role that Lebanon plays within its surroundings.
SS: The SSNP foundation is based on secularism, while Lebanon is being divided and weakened by sectarianism. In your view, will the new agreement between Iran and Saudi Arabia have a positive effect on Lebanon, and what is the role of the SSNP in decreasing sectarianism in the region?
MA: The role of the SSNP has always been, and since its establishment, to fight the occupation of Palestine, the project for the establishment of a Jewish state that we consider an entity and it will disappear, as well as the project of sectarianism and fragmentation in our country, which only serves the occupation project.
We are fighting sectarianism with slogans, and indeed, we are always striving for the establishment of a civil state, and our project today at this stage is entitled the state of resistance and citizenship, and therefore it is unacceptable in the year 2023 for the sects to remain the ones that control the fate of the country.
Towards a citizen state, and towards a state of resistance, and these two things are interrelated, and the first factor does not deviate from the second factor completely.
SS: The resistance movements in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank have grown stronger and tensions have been increasing there. In your opinion, are we entering a new phase of resistance to the brutal military occupation of 6 million people?
MA: The resistance has never retreated. Rather, it has always accumulated its strength and accumulated its experiences and performance in order to make a difference and in order to reach the main goal, which is the liberation of the occupied territories. Within the context of the forties until today, we have seen where the resistance has become.
As for what is happening today in the West Bank, and what is happening in the Palestinian interior, it is the biggest blow to the Jewish project, which I believe is that by subjugating some leaders and some regimes, it can go towards subjugating the people, and this is something of course that has not happened and will not happen. Today, the security coordination officers who work with the Palestinian authority and coordinate with the enemy and the Shin Bet and Mossad agencies in order to pressure the resistance fighters, the sons of these people leave their homes to carry out stabbing and run-over operations against settlers and against members of the occupation army, and thus they dropped the idea of volunteering and dropped the idea of security coordination.
Our people are a living people that cannot, under any circumstances, give up their natural right to confront and liberate the land.
Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist
قال نائب «مستقل» إنه رفض عرضاً بنصف مليون دولار ثمناً لصوته في جلسة أمس، وقال لمحدّثه: «ولو، نصف مليون؟ شو عم ننتخب مختار؟»
رئيس حزب «بارز»، وهو ليس جبران باسيل، واثق من التزام جميع نوابه بقرار التصويت لجهاد أزعور سارع إلى القول قبل أن يسأله أحد: ابحثوا عند غيرنا عمّن غدر وخان؟
قال رئيس جهاز أمني «فاعل» إنه عمل طوال الأيام الماضية على مراقبة النواب و«أصدقاء» المرشحين، وهو مستعدّ لأسئلة بدأت ترده، بعد الجلسة، عما إذا كان يملك أدلة تحدّد من أعطى سليمان فرنجية أصواتاً غير محسوبة؟ يمكن الاسترسال في عرض أخبار من سوق الأربعاء في ساحة النجمة. لكنّ حقيقة الأمر أن الجمع انفضّ، وعاد الصمت ليلفّ المكان، مرافقاً الفراغ إلى ما شاء الله!
من الطبيعي أن لا يهدأ بال أحد لمعرفة حقيقة التصويت، وستكون الخلافات على تقدير الوضع أكبر من الخلاف على المرشحين. لكنّ استعراضاً سريعاً لمسار التصويت يدلّ على فشل الحشد الهائل الذي قام به فريق أزعور. بينما يمكن لفريق فرنجية القول إن ما جرى ينفي صفة المرشح المفروض عنه، وإن «التقاطع» لم ينجح في فرض مرشحه على الآخرين. وتكفي مراجعة هادئة للقول إن فريق فرنجية يمكنه جذب عدد أكبر من العدد الذي يمكن للفريق الآخر تحصيله. لكنّ المشترك بين الفريقين أن دفعاً خارجياً من شأنه قلب النتائج بصورة كاملة،
وهو ما أعاد الجميع إلى السؤال عن الاتصالات الخارجية، وانتظار نتائج الاجتماع المرتقب بين الرئيس الفرنسي إيمانويل ماكرون وولي العهد السعودي محمد بن سلمان.
وفي حال ركن الجميع إلى هذا العامل، فإن المشكلة الأساسية لن تُحلّ. وسيبقى هناك من لا يمكن للخارج أن يفرض عليه قراراً بدعم أحد المرشحين. وهؤلاء في موقع مستقل فعلاً (طبعاً لا أحد يفكر لا بـ«التغييريين» – اقرأ التقليديين – ولا في نواب الصدفة الذين حملهم قانون الانتخاب لا التصويت إلى البرلمان)، ويملكون حيثية قادرة على التعامل مع الأحداث الكبرى، وهم يملكون كتلاً نيابية وازنة، من شأنها حسم النتيجة. وبما أن الكل يعرف الكل، فلا حاجة إلى شروحات أو وسطاء، وعدنا إلى السؤال نفسه: هل يمكن فتح الأبواب الموصدة أمام حوار ينتج رئيساً؟
والحديث هنا يدور عن جبهتين، إحداهما تخصّ حزب الله والتيار الوطني الحر، وثانية تخصّ حركة أمل والحزب التقدمي الاشتراكي، لأن الخلافات بين بقية القوى وهذه المكوّنات كبيرة جداً. وبات بمقدور القوات اللبنانية تثبيت التقاطعات التي جرت مع أبناء جلدتها، وتحويلها إلى تحالفات، وأن تتزعّم حالة سياسية تجمع غالبية من وقّعوا على عريضة الـ32 نائباً الذين أعلنوا دعمهم لأزعور من منزل المرشح السابق ميشال معوض، وإضافة بعض المستقلين ممن يعانون عوارض «حساسية البيئة»، أو بعض المنافقين من جماعة 17 تشرين. ولا يحتاج سمير جعجع إلى محاضرات ليقنع كل هؤلاء بأن هناك «خصماً مشتركاً لنا جميعاً هو حزب الله، وما علينا سوى التعاضد والتعاون لنعرف كيف نواجهه». وفي موقع آخر، لا حاجة إلى وسيط بين الرئيس نبيه بري وحليفه الدائم وليد جنبلاط، ويمكن للرجلين تبسيط النقاش للبحث في آلية إنعاش الصيغة القائمة للحكم في لبنان، واحترام الخطوط الحمر لكل منهما. وإذا كان جنبلاط يربط موقفه المتشدّد من فرنجية بعلاقة الأخير مع الرئيس السوري بشار الأسد، فإنه يدرك أن للرئيس بري أيضاً مشكلة مع الرئيس الأسد. وبالتالي، يمكن للاثنين البحث معاً في كيفية الخروج من هذا المأزق، ولديهما خبرة هائلة في تدوير الزوايا والوصول إلى تفاهمات.
لكنّ النقاش الفعلي يعود، مرة جديدة، إلى الملعب الخاص بالحزب والتيار. وما الجروح الكبيرة التي أصابت جسد التفاهم بينهما سوى مدعاة للتيقّن من وجود حقائق تم تجاهلها سابقاً لأسباب غير مقنعة. وصار لزاماً التوجّه مباشرة صوب مشكلة «المسألة اللبنانية»، حتى لو كان مدخلها الآن هو الملف الرئاسي. وبعد أن صار لكل منهما مرشحه الواضح، فإن الاستعداد للتسويات رهن عمليات الإقناع وتبادل المصالح. وهو أمر يرتبط من جهة المقاومة بما تراه حاسماً حيال موقعها في المعادلة داخلياً وخارجياً، ويرتبط من جهة التيار، بما يساعده على كبح جماح «الميل الانعزالي» الذي عاد لينشط داخل بيئته كما لدى قسم كبير من المسيحيين، بمن فيهم الكنيسة والمؤسسات التربوية والاجتماعية والأحزاب والجمعيات غير الحكومية… وحدهم أهل التجارة في هذا الوسط يقفون في وجه التقسيم، خشية أن يؤثّر على مصالحهم، لأن احتكار الصنف انتهى إلى غير رجعة.
العلاجات الداخلية تتطلّب حوارات مباشرة بين التيار والحزب وكذلك بين بري وجنبلاط، بينما يمكن للقوات تثبيت زعامتها على خصوم المقاومة
وفي تقديم لحوار يفترض أنه مدخل لترميم الثقة الشخصية والعملانية بين الفريقين، يجب عدم توسيع جدول الأعمال، وحصر بنوده بما يخصّ الهواجس الرئيسية لكل منهما. ولا حاجة، بعد كل ما جرى، أن يشرح أحد للآخر، بأن فرصة إسقاط «النموذج القائم» غير متاحة الآن. لكنّ الوقت داهم لمواجهة عناصر مركزية في الأزمة اللبنانية، سياسياً ودستورياً واقتصادياً ومالياً وإدارياً.
وفي حال لم يكن كل طرف مستعداً مسبقاً لأن يعيد ترتيب أوراقه بصورة جيدة، ويتم التخلي عن المكابرة والإنكار وخلافهما من صفات العناد والتصلب، وهي صفات موجودة عند الطرفين، فإن النقاش لن ينتج إلا الأسوأ، وعندها من الأفضل عدم الإقدام عليه. أما في حالة التصرف وفق مبدأ «الحوار غير المشروط» بقصد تحقيق «نتائج منطقية»، فإن الأبواب لم توصد بعد، ولا تحتاج إلى من يفتحها.
Europe must accept the fact that the world today is no longer the Western playground and that the growing anti-hegemonic sentiment among nations is irreversible.
It’s important to emphasize that Europe was not a victim in the current world order run by Washington, but rather a participant. Its contributions were destructive, filled with colonialism, theft, dismantling, and murder of nations that directly led to corruption, poverty, and injustice worldwide.
Europe’s bloody history
Despite Europe joining the global financial systems established by the US in the 20th century, such as the IMF and World Bank, the continent has used these tools to deepen its colonialism and expansion policies towards countries worldwide. It has even leveraged its position with bodies like the UN and UNSC to exploit weaker states and enforce its hegemonic agendas, including wealth looting and proxy wars against rivals politically and economically.
However, the rise of the Global South in recent years has allowed its nations to counter the hegemonic exploitation of international bodies by funneling their resources into their economies to advance in the new world order. By engaging with the Western coalition while shielding themselves from their malicious agendas, these nations can benefit in the long run.
Post-WW2 world order
After World War II, the United States emerged as an unrivaled superpower, untouched by the catastrophic destruction of the war and claiming a barely earned victory. Between 1944 and 1949, milestone events secured the unipolar order under the US and placed the EU under Washington’s direct influence for decades to come.
Bretton Woods in 1944 established the USD as the global reserve and trade currency, while the Marshall Plan in 1945 provided funding to Western European countries that agreed to follow America’s dictates to rehabilitate and rebuild their infrastructure and industrial capabilities (note that the plan’s funds were used to purchase American goods).
The establishment of the IMF and World Bank enforced the new world monetary and financial system crafted by Washington. The Truman Doctrine finally ensured that Western Europe became a follower of Washington’s foreign policies.
Establishing NATO, a war coalition under Washington’s direct control, was the highlight of that period. It served the interests of the United States and ensured that Europe did not attempt to create a sovereign military power but rather relied on the US for protection.
The final blows to Europe’s industrial complex in the 20th century were the Nixon Shock in 1971, where the bloc’s member states found themselves stuck with paper notes whose value was solely determined by Washington, and in 1974 when the United States and Saudi Arabia agreed to peg oil to the USD – establishing the petrodollar. This meant that Europe’s access to the world’s largest energy reserve was now controlled by Washington.
The petrodollar required Europe to maintain an abundance of USD reserves for oil purchases, resulting in increased investment in American treasury bonds and currency inflow to US markets. Despite partnering with the US in its bloody crusades over the past decades, the EU’s interests were not taken into consideration by Washington.
The US has used its European allies as tools in the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, the destruction of Libya and Syria, and relations with the Arab world (the world’s richest energy region). Although Europe faced similar political and public backlash, it was the US that acquired the real strategic interests.
Disregarding the changed world we live in, the EU continues to live under a WW2 mentality.
Despite warnings against militarily provoking Russia, the EU doubled down on the American-NATO illusion that being the strongest military coalition worldwide guarantees inevitable victory, and using force to impose the West’s worldview remains a viable option.
Self-destructive tendencies
After years of Russia sending signals and after many world vocal warnings, including from prominent Western figures like Kissinger, regarding NATO’s eastward expansion, European member states made the same mistake and adopted Washington’s doctrine on Moscow, leading to a conflict with Russia. Despite the historic failure of this approach, EU leaders repeatedly attempted to humiliate Russia and publicly claimed that the West aimed to bring Moscow to its knees since the beginning of the war in Ukraine until recently.
The conflict with Russia has deeper repercussions on the EU than just preventing mutually beneficial trade ties that would put both economies on a trajectory of development and growth. The United States aims to fight against the growing Global South, with China at the top, and to cut off any attempts by its European allies to further integrate with Asia’s rising powers.
Following the start of the war in Ukraine, Europe not only faced energy shortages, while US energy companies continued to extract oil from Iraq, Syria, and Libya but also realized how Washington was profiting from the very war they had incited. They were overcharged for LNG at three to four times the price sold within the domestic US market, which itself impacted their major industry’s capabilities to continue production.
On the other hand, the US led an international campaign to force its European allies mainly to adopt a price cap on Russian oil. But despite Washington’s push for this bill, Americans themselves were not affected nor were they directly part of the pressure campaign in Moscow, mainly since they did not rely on Russian oil, and with the petrodollar in place, it did not matter how much the EU paid for oil, as the currency used would go back to US banks.
Soon, Europe, left alone after countries such as Japan did not abide by the price cap, found that it still had to buy Russian Urals but with additional middlemen fees through countries such as India.
The EU witnessed firsthand the US tearing down their economies, which are under increased levels of deindustrialization, with industry giants moving to the US for lower energy prices and a more business-friendly environment crafted by Washington to lure companies mainly from its European allies.
As a result, Europe found itself seeking energy from African nations that it had previously colonized and destroyed. EU officials scrambled through countries like Algeria and Libya to secure gas and oil.
As the world order shifts towards a more multipolar one with a center of gravity shifting towards China, Europe has begun to become aware that the US-led model that has dominated the world order for decades has not brought the desired outcome for the bloc. Despite benefiting immorally from genocidal campaigns and being America’s partner in crime, Europe’s gains were short-lived.
With a history of self-destructive tendencies and after years of psycho-preparation and media propaganda, Europe was politically and economically prepared to repeat its historic mistakes in its approach to Russia and later to China.
The West quickly convinced its public that the rivalry with Russia was ideological and existential, that joining NATO and dropping neutrality (as with Finland and Sweden) was the only secure way to protect against the demons of the East, and that China is at the core of everything against the neoliberal values of the West.
Inevitable Multipolar world order
During a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York on April 18, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde noted that the world is becoming more multipolar, with a fragmentation of the global economy into competing blocs.
Lagarde stated that this new “global map” would have “first-order implications,” with the possibility of two blocs emerging, led by China and the US.
On many levels, Lagarde’s statement hits the core of the current world state of affairs.
The US reintroduced the political bloc mentality on a wider scale through the proxy war in Ukraine, pulling all its strings and employing all its accumulated influence to focus its power on obstructing a Eurasian uprising and realigning Europe’s foreign policy towards dismantling connections with China and Russia.
The post-WW2 era, characterized by bloc politics pushed by the US, is no longer feasible in the current period of deep integration, interest overlaps, and political complexity established by globalization, advanced trading networks, financial intertwining, and complementary production needs.
The West’s expansion of NATO forces to Russia’s border, followed by Moscow’s campaign to protect its national security, has put the global change on a pedestal.
The fallout of the Western-Russian war in Ukraine and the historic barrage of sanctions against Moscow has led to the fracturing of the financial system, and exposed the fragility of the West’s proclaimed “rules-based international world order”.
During an event hosted at Renmin University’s Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies last January to discuss the current state of world powers, the editor-in-chief of the Beijing Cultural Review (BCR) said that the fallout of the Western-Russian war in Ukraine led to events that could have never been imagined earlier.
“These [events] include the fracturing of the financial system, the expropriation and seizure of Russian private assets, and the freezing of Russian foreign exchange reserves. These are all abominable and unimaginable forms of confrontation,” Yang Ping said in his speech.
“The world is moving inexorably in the direction of decoupling. The phenomenon of politics affecting the economy and the capitalist political order no longer upholding the capitalist economic order is extremely striking.”
If not for the war in Ukraine, Ping’s statement regarding the world taking shape would have been shunned by Western experts as an illusion or merely a forecast, but now, and thanks to the West’s undivided efforts, the world is moving inexorably towards decoupling, and the phenomenon of politics affecting the economy is becoming strikingly apparent; a world with limited Western hegemony is on track to becoming an irreversible reality.
Europe’s amputated foreign policy
In recent months, top EU leaders including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, French President Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock have visited China amid rising global tensions.
Their visits aimed to balance relations between the US and China as Washington’s hostility towards Beijing escalated, its sanctions against the Asian giant increased, and its provocative actions in the South China Sea intensified.
Macron’s visit, in particular, was noteworthy, as it seemed to reassure China of Europe’s distinct position from Washington’s policies against Asian giants. Despite announcing that the main reason for his visit was to push Beijing against arming Russia and push Moscow to end the war, behind the scenes, Macron’s visit aimed to assert Europe’s position.
He stated that Europe should not be caught up in a disordering of the world and crises that aren’t ours and that the government must build a “third pole.”
“We must be clear where our views overlap with the US, but whether it’s about Ukraine, relations with China, or sanctions, we have a European strategy,” the French leader said then.
“We don’t want to get into a bloc versus bloc logic.”
At first, many European leaders publicly announced or hinted at their support for Macron’s move, considering it a positive approach to their largest trading partner.
But later, some European leaders expressed their rejection of his statements, the most blatant of which was the finance minister in Scholz’s government, Christian Lindner, who said that Macron’s “Idea of strategic autonomy of the European Union,” is “naïve.” Of course, the statement was not objected to by the German Chancellor, signaling that the minister has also voiced Scholz’s opinion.
Following Lindner’s remarks, and after von der Leyen reaffirmed the bloc’s neutral position on the Taiwan Strait issue provoked by the US during an EU parliamentary hearing on April 18, Manfred Weber, who helms the Parliament’s largest group, the center-right European People’s Party (EPP), accused Macron of “destroying” European unity with his trip to China, and that the French president “weakened the EU” and “made clear the great rift within the European Union in defining a common strategic plan against Beijing.”
To counter Macron’s position that the Taiwan issue is not a European concern, Weber also compared the matter to the war going on in Ukraine from Washington’s perspective.
“We shouldn’t be surprised if Washington starts asking whether Ukraine is a European issue,” Weber said. The question they may ask, he warned: “Why should American taxpayers do so much to defend Ukraine?”
His comments, of course, are nothing but shortsighted and delusional, given that the war in Ukraine was created and pushed forward by the US’ decades-long policies on NATO’s take against Russia.
From an outside observer, the contradicting statements – while also taking into account that the bloc members are dividing roles – can only be described as a political mess, a loss of strategic planning, and entails that the union is currently lacking the tools to form a united framework to establish a basis to approach the Global South as a whole, and especially China.
Is the EU’s policy being molded by an actual comprehensive overview of the world’s geopolitical shifts, or is it being dictated by a handful of US pawns that have served nothing but American hawks since they took office?
Blind Economic outlook as bloc
The disunity in Europe extends beyond just their political approach to China, as trade policies with their largest business partner also show division.
In 2020, China and the EU agreed on a trade framework, eliminating Chinese restrictions on European companies and investments in China. However, the deal was put on hold after the bloc sanctioned Beijing for alleged human rights abuses and China responded with sanctions of its own.
Just under two weeks after Macron’s and von der Leyen’s trip to China, the EU leaders said that they consider the deal with China as not applicable anymore, following the events since it was reached in 2020.
“We started negotiations around about 10 years ago and concluded the comprehensive agreement on investment two years ago. A lot has happened since then,” she said, adding that Europe’s “position is that we do have to reassess the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment,” she said earlier in April.
On his part, Macron considered that the agreement today is “less urgent,” and “just not practicable”.
On the other hand, Germany’s Chancellor Olaf Scholz lately has been pushing for “reactivating” the agreement and considered it was time to reinstate the deal and put it back on track.
It is understandable that this dynamic is not unusual between world powers, especially at a time when the globe is witnessing historic geopolitical shifts, and it is definitely not unusual considering that the American influence across Europe and its leaders is still very significant, and Washington’s sanctions sword is constantly raised against its allies.
However, the lack of a united foreign policy within the bloc may negatively impact its position in the emerging multipolar world order and lead to the weakening or collapse of the union. Europe’s incomplete and fragile relations with growing global pillars, especially China and the emerging Global South, may also be observed from Beijing’s perspective.
Losing post-WW2 against Global South
Europe’s lack of clear foreign policy extends beyond its position on China, as it also pertains to the US’s declared soft war on the Asian giant.
For decades, Brussels relied on the assumption of a long-term realm by Washington as the unipolar power, which led the bloc to neglect sustainable and strong relations with the Global South.
Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the Global South has made unexpected, unprecedented moves, guided by the goal of forming sovereign policies that are far from Western hegemony led by Washington. They declared historic political shifts, leading to the formation of a new and influential world pillar in the multipolar era.
Protectionist economic policies, accompanied by subsidization, act for vital sectors like electric vehicles and batteries.
More systems (such as BRICS and SCO) and countries are growing monetary bodies and alternative trade frameworks to those dominated and influenced directly by the United States. It has become clear that political global organizations such as the UNSC and the UN, which were long exploited by Washington and its European allies to extend their hegemony and colonialism, are slowly losing more relevance and impact on the global arena.
On April 16, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, in an interview with CNN, said that the United States economic sanctions imposed on Russia and other nations have put the dollar’s hegemony at risk as targeted countries seek out an alternative.
“There is a risk when we use financial sanctions that are linked to the role of the dollar that over time it could undermine the hegemony of the dollar,” she said then.
Financial global institutions and systems such as the IMF, World Bank, and SWIFT, are gradually declining as de-dollarization proceeds and countries are finding alternatives to bypass the West’s complete influence, including mutual lending and local currency trade, sovereign projects, in addition to domestic SWIFT alternatives such as China’s CIPS, Russia’s SFPS, and Iran’s SEPAM, to name some.
The movement today is driven by Beijing along with other powers including Brazil, India, Russia, Iran, and South Africa, among others.
Despite all signs in previous years of the emergence of the new geopolitical reality, Europe failed to form appropriate policies and outline a vision to engage and adapt to these drastic global shifts, nor did it take advantage of some of the outcomes that fall into its interest, such as de-dollarization and the end of the petrodollar. Instead, Europe insisted on following Washington’s agenda, further sidelining its world influence.
Sidelined
On March 10, Iran and Saudi Arabia agreed to restore diplomatic relations and reopen missions after seven years of strained ties.
Talks were brokered in Beijing under the auspices of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The Western role, especially that of Washington, in inciting dispute and rift between the two nations was criminal, leading to tens of thousands of deaths, mass destruction, displacement of hundreds of thousands, and feelings of hate among the people of the region.
China managed in just a few months to achieve what the United Nations and other international political bodies failed to do, marking Beijing’s first public political approach to the Middle East. The Beijing-brokered rapprochement between Tehran and Riyadh reveals Europe’s falling influence in the region and the growing tendency of countries to sideline the West in bilateral issues. It also highlights China’s rise as a peace-bringing and key power in the region.
Oppressed nations rejoice
Europe’s centuries-long history of producing global superpowers makes it a hybrid bloc with a combined cultural, political, social, economic, and institutional maturity that can quickly adapt to world geopolitical shifts and overcome emerging challenges.
However, it can be argued that the current world challenges are unprecedented, especially with the concept of globalization and the world’s interconnectedness.
Europe today has limited options that require a new approach and view of the world, with a humble and realistic policy that acknowledges the end of its hegemony and the adoption of sovereignty and mutual respect in bilateral relations.
The EU must also accept that the world is no longer a Western playground and that anti-hegemonic sentiment among nations is irreversible in a multipolar world. Regardless of Europe’s decisions, oppressed nations are watching the declining global influence of the colonial bloc with joy.
Chinese allies control 40 percent of OPEC+ oil reserves, and the GCC controls another 40 percent. With this China-UAE gas trade settled in yuan, the petrodollar today is under serious threat.
On 28 March, the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange (SHPGX) made history by announcing the first-ever deal on importing 65,000 tons of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the UAE, settled in the Chinese yuan currency. China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) and French TotalEnergies finalized the transaction, and TotalEnergies confirmed that the LNG imported was from the Persian Gulf state.
China’s Global Times in a report the following day, cited the chairman of the SHPGX, Guo Xu as saying that the deal is:
“A meaningful attempt to promote multi-currency pricing, settlement and cross-border payment in international LNG trading. It also provides a new channel for international players to participate in the Chinese market, helping to build a new pattern of dual circulation in China.”
Beijing pushes yuan for energy trade
The yuan settlement of international LNG trading is a “major event in China’s market-oriented oil and gas reform, which will help promote the docking of international and domestic markets,” the report quoted experts as saying.
The development comes after Chinese President Xi Jinping announced in December 2022, during a landmark visit to Riyadh, that his country should make “full use” of the SHPGX as a platform to carry out yuan settlement of oil and gas trade.
This deal represents a departure from the decades-long practice of conducting global oil sales exclusively in US dollars. A prominent economist, who spoke to The Cradle, speculated that “the French either resorted to the yuan due to the acute shortage of Russian gas supplies to the European continent, or they have reserves in the Chinese currency that they want to use.”
The deal came as a surprise, as French President Emmanuel Macron typically does not take such steps without the approval of the US. As for the UAE, the move is part of a larger trend of Persian Gulf countries opening up to China in the aftermath of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan and the Biden administration’s shift in regional policies.
The yuan payment also follows the global polarization taking place over the Ukraine war and further demonstrates the reluctance of Persian Gulf states to align with western hostility toward Russia, China, and other US adversaries. According to the same economist, “The Emirati move cannot be separated from the changes taking place in the world. Abu Dhabi and Riyadh sense the global imbalance of power, and decided to expand the margins of their international relations.”
Yuan’s growing acceptance
Given the current global geopolitical shifts, the yuan is gaining increased acceptance as an international currency. Since President Xi Jinping assumed office, China has settled agreements with several countries in its local currency in an attempt to challenge the dominance of the US dollar in global trade.
As a result, the yuan has become the world’s fifth-largest payment currency, the third-largest currency in trade settlement, and the fifth-largest reserve currency. According to the Global Times, the yuan today accounts for 7 percent of all foreign exchange trades worldwide and has experienced the most significant expansion in currency market share over the past three years.
Experts have noted that “with the recovery of the momentum of China’s economic growth and the further opening of the financial market, the investment and hedging function of the yuan has gradually increased.”
In an article earlier this year for The Cradle, Pakistani analyst F. M. Shakil cited the Currency Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves (COFER) report by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which shows that:
“The percentage of US dollars in central bank reserves has decreased by 12 percent since 1999, while the percentage of other currencies, particularly the Chinese yuan, have shown an increasing trend with a 9 percent rise during this period.”
Shakil also noted that the “cumulative cross-border yuan settlement handled in Xinjiang (western China), the financial hub between China and Central Asia, exceeded 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) as early as 2013 and reached 260 billion yuan in 2018.”
He concluded that “dollar reserves are dwindling and the influence of the United States of America is receding in the global economy, which represents an opportunity for regional powers’ currencies and alternative payment systems.”
Rise of the petroyuan
Since 2009, Beijing has implemented a policy to reduce its reliance on the US dollar in commercial transactions. This policy includes settling the majority of its goods in foreign markets in its local currency, establishing mutual lines of credit with several central banks worldwide, and negotiating with West Asian and North African countries to conduct trade using the yuan. These efforts have started to show results recently, with a number of Asian governments partially adopting the Chinese currency.
Iraq is one of the countries that have partially adopted the yuan in trade. In February, the Iraqi Central Bank announced plans to allow direct settlement of trade from China in yuan to improve access to foreign currency and compensate for the dollar shortage in local markets, largely due to measures imposed by the Federal Reserve on money transfers leaving Iraq to prevent them from reaching Tehran and Damascus. Egypt also announced its intention to issue yuan bonds last August.
Russia has played a significant role in changing the course of the yuan by signing the Eastern Natural Gas Pipeline Agreement from Russia to China and converting the currencies of gas payments from the US dollar to the Chinese yuan and the Russian ruble.
According to the latest data from the Russian Central Bank, the yuan has become a major player in Russia’s foreign trade, with its share of import settlements increasing from just 4 percent in January 2022 to 23 percent by the end of the year. The yuan’s share of exports rose from 0.5 percent to 16 percent in the same period.
During his trip to Saudi Arabia, the Chinese president encouraged Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries to use the SHPGX for yuan-based energy deals. The visit also saw China and Saudi Arabia sign over $30 billion in trade deals, which some analysts believe marks the rise of the petroyuan.
According to US-based Credit Suisse analyst Zoltan Pozsar, Russia, Iran, and Venezuela – all allies of China – account for 40 percent of OPEC+’s proven oil reserves, with the GCC making up another 40 percent. If these three states alone settle their energy exports in yuan, the petroyuan is here to stay.
A response to US policy
In a January interview with Bloomberg, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed al-Jadaan said that “the kingdom is open to trading in currencies other than the US dollar in order to improve trade.”
Interestingly, despite being a stalwart US ally for decades, Riyadh is deepening its ties with key trading partners, including Beijing, as China imported over 500 million tons of crude oil and over 100 million tons of natural gas, including 63.44 million tons of LNG, in 2022.
Middle East Briefing suggests that this shift towards national currencies in global trade “is partly due to Washington’s sanctions policy against Russia.” Riyadh is now “following an increasing trend of hedging against US dollar use in trade” amid concerns that the US may use its currency as a weapon for trade and sanctions.
The trend towards using national currencies in global trade chains has continued to mature, with recent developments, including the announcement of two large-scale investment plans in China by Saudi oil giant Aramco.
The first plan involves building an integrated refining and chemicals plant in Liaoning Province, while the second plan involves Aramco’s acquisition of 10 percent of the shares of Rongsheng Petrochemical Company.
Meanwhile, the emirate of Dubai has opened its door to dealing in the Chinese currency in its global financial center, and Brazil and China have agreed to ditch the dollar and use their local currencies in their commercial dealings. In addition, Brazil and Argentina have announced the start of work on launching a common currency in their commercial dealings, dubbed “Sur.”
The petrodollar under threat
Petrodollars refer to US dollars used to purchase crude oil following a 1974 deal struck between Washington and Riyadh. The agreement not only ensured the military defense of the kingdom through US guarantees but also secured a steady stream of foreign purchases of US Treasury bonds and debt, which is a strategy of recycling the petrodollars back to Washington through Saudi Arabia’s reserves.
This transformed the ability of oil-rich Arab states to weaponize their vast energy resources against malign western policies – into a powerful economic weapon for the Americans, who, overnight, became the masters of the oil market. Today, however, with China’s rapid steps to challenge this entrenched system, there is a global spotlight on the rise of the Petroyuan versus the decline of the Petrodollar.
Asia Financial describes China’s deal with TotalEnergies as a “step forward in China’s long-term battle to reduce the power and reach of US dollar hegemony,” adding that “further such moves appear to be in the winds.” Importantly, according to Viktor Katona, lead crude analyst at Kpler:
“While the dollar will likely remain the dominant global currency in the near future, the rise of a so-called petroyuan will gain momentum as China leverages its status as the world’s largest oil importer.”
Saudi Arabia is reportedly considering accepting payment for its oil exports to China in yuan. However, any such shift is likely to be marginal, as most West Asian currencies are pegged to the US dollar, and accepting payments in other currencies increases foreign exchange risk.
Researcher P.S. Srinivas opined last year that oil deals with countries in West Asia “do not constitute a threat to the US dollar,” and the likelihood of the yuan replacing the US dollar as the benchmark currency for pricing is even more remote due to China’s capital controls and the yuan’s lack of convertibility.
While the possibility of the yuan gaining greater prominence in the global oil trade cannot be ruled out, it is unlikely to replace the US dollar as the primary currency for pricing in the oil and gas industry in the short term.
Most West Asian nations continue to maintain a vested interest in preserving the strength of the dollar, and any shift towards accepting payments in other currencies is likely to be minimal, at first. In the next few years, it will be important to keep an eye on China’s slow but steady ascent to global economic dominance and the growing usage of the yuan in international trade.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
تسبّبت زيارة رئيس تيار «المردة» سليمان فرنجية لباريس ولقاؤه المستشار الرئاسي باتريك دوريل، بناءً على طلبٍ فرنسي، في ما يُشبِه الوجوم من إمكان إعلان تسوية محتملة، أو احتمال إبلاغ باريس الزعيم الزغرتاوي استسلامها وعدم المضي في تسويق اسمه بسبب تصلّب الموقف السعودي. لذا، ساد الحذر لدى كل الأطراف السياسية، فلا حلفاء فرنجية انبروا لتصوير الدعوة بمثابة نقطة لمصلحته، ولا بدا خصومه راغبين في الإدلاء بدلوهم سلباً. التهيّب طغى على الجانبين حيال تسارع التطورات في المنطقة وعدم اتضاح التوجهات في ما يتعلق بها، وتحديداً مدى انعكاسها على الملف اللبناني.
مساء أول من أمس، حطّ فرنجية في بيروت، بعدَ يوميْن من التوقعات. صحيح أنه بدا لمن تحدث إليه بعدَ عودته مرتاحاً جداً، لكنه كان أيضاً واقعياً. فلا هو عادَ والرئاسة في جيبه، ولا عادَ من دونها «الأمور لا تزال على حالها وتحتاج إلى وقت». والأهم في ما نقل عن فرنجية بعد عودته أن الفرنسيين جزموا له «بأن النقاش حول ترشيحك مع الآخرين لم يقفل بتاتاً» كما يقول مقربون منه، أشاروا إلى ضرورة عدم المبالغة في التقديرات، وإن كان فرنجية «بالنسبة إلى الفرنسيين على رأس قائمة المرشحين، لكنهم يتحدثون إلى آخرين أيضاً». مع ذلك اكتسبت الزيارة أهمية لكونها أتَت في أعقاب تطورات عدة، من بينها:
الاتصال الذي احتلّ الملف اللبناني حيّزاً منه بين الرئيس ايمانويل ماكرون وولي العهد السعودي الأمير محمد بن سلمان. زيارة رئيس الحزب التقدمي الاشتراكي وليد جنبلاط إلى باريس للقاء مدير الاستخبارات الفرنسية برنارد إيميه وإقناع الفرنسيين بأن تسوية فرنجية غير قابلة للنجاح بسبب الموقف السعودي والموقف المسيحي الداخلي.
السجال الطائفي الخطير على خلفية «معركة الساعة»، فضلاً عن الإشكال الكبير الذي وقعَ في مجلس النواب خلال اجتماع اللجان المشتركة.
الحراك الأميركي الذي تولته مساعِدة وزير الخارجية لشؤون الشرق الأدنى باربرا ليف التي جالت على عدد من عواصم المنطقة، من بينها بيروت حيث شدّدت على إتمام الاستحقاق الرئاسي كمدخل لإطلاق عجلة الإصلاحات عبر حكومةٍ مكتملة الصلاحيات، وتقاطع كلامها مع معلومات نُقلت عن السفيرة الأميركية في بيروت دوروثي شيا بأن بلادها لا تدعم مرشحاً رئاسياً على آخر، وستتعامل مع أي رئيس يُنتخب.
وفيما لا يزال اللاعبون في الداخل، تحديداً خصوم فرنجية، يسعون إلى الاجتهاد في تفسير ما حمله الرجل معه، أكدت مصادر سياسية بارزة أن «ما تأكد من الزيارة حتى الآن هو إبلاغ فرنجية بأن اسمه كمرشح لا يزال متصدراً في قائمة الفرنسيين، من دون إيهامه بأن التطورات الإقليمية قد تبدّلت لمصلحته». وهو سمِع من الفرنسيين أنهم لم يتمكنوا بعد من كسر الطوق السعودي حوله، وأن موقف الرياض منه لم يتبدل، لكنهم مستمرون في دعمه بالتزامن مع:
أولاً، مبادرة مصرية تطرح تشكيل مجموعة 5+1، تهدف إلى ضمّ إيران إلى المجموعة الخماسية التي تتولى البحث في الملف اللبناني (أميركا، فرنسا، قطر، مصر، السعودية)، على أن تنتقِل الاجتماعات إلى الرياض، كخطوة إيجابية مُطمئِنة للمملكة.
ثانياً، إبلاغ إيميه جنبلاط خلال وجوده في باريس الإصرار على التمسك بفرنجية، رغمَ محاولة الأخير إقناعه بصعوبة وصوله.
ثالثاً، التنسيق الذي تقوم به باريس مع قوى لبنانية داخلية تدعم ترشيح فرنجية، والاتفاق على أن يعلن الأخير ترشيحه بشكل رسمي بعدَ تحضير برنامجه بشكل يجيب من خلاله الداخل والخارج على كل الأسئلة المتعلقة بعدد من الملفات ويكون مُطمئناً، بدءاً من التعامل مع رئيس الحكومة وملفات اللاجئين السوريين وضبط الحدود والأجندة الإصلاحية سياسياً واقتصادياً ومالياً. علماً أن فرنجية لا يزال يربط هذا الترشيح بالحصول على إشارة سعودية إيجابية.
رابعاً، حراك قطري سيبدأه وزير الدولة في وزارة الخارجية محمد بن عبدالعزيز بن صالح الخليفي، الذي وصل إلى بيروت ليل امس، لإبقاء التواصل مع كل القوى السياسية واستكشاف آفاق تسوية محتملة حول اسم المرشح الرئاسي. علماً أن القطريين، بحسب ما تقول مصادر مطلعة، أكثر براغماتية وواقعية في تعاملهم مع الملف الرئاسي.
تصعيد قواتي بطلب سعودي: نسف التسوية أو تحسين شروط؟
يأتي هذا كلّه على وقع التصعيد الداخلي الرافض لفرنجية، كما جاء على لسان رئيس حزب القوات اللبنانية سمير جعجع خلال الذّبيحة الإلهيّة لراحة أنفس «شهداء زحلة»، إذ توجه إلى «من يبتزّنا ككل مرة، ويخيّرنا بين المرشّح التابع له أو الفراغ»، بأن «روح بلّط البحر، لأن أي مرشّح من محور الممانعة، مهما كان اسمه أو هويته هو الفراغ بحد ذاته، ولن يكون عهده إلا تتمة للجزء الأول من العهد السابق».
وأكدت مصادر بارزة لـ «الأخبار» أن «التصعيد الكبير من جانب جعجع أتى بطلب من السفير السعودي في بيروت وليد البخاري، وهو تصعيد يترجم أيضاً بحملات إعلامية وسياسية ضد الدور الفرنسي. بحجة أن الموقف المسيحي يُدعّم موقف المملكة المتصلب ويقوي حجتها لعدم التراجع عن رفض فرنجية مقابل إصرار الفريق الآخر عليه، على قاعدة أن موقف الثنائي الشيعي الداعم يقابله موقف من الثنائي المسيحي الرافض ما يصعّب الوصول إلى تسوية تتيح انتخابه». واعتبرت المصادر أن «الطلب السعودي يدخل في إطار الاستثمار في الموقف المسيحي، خصوصاً أن التصعيد مطلوب في لحظة تقدّم المفاوضات، إذ تلمس المملكة بأن إيران لن تضغط على حزب الله في الملف الرئاسي كما أن الحزب ليس في صدد التراجع عن فرنجية».
Martin Jay is an award-winning British journalist based in Morocco where he is a correspondent for The Daily Mail (UK) who previously reported on the Arab Spring there for CNN, as well as Euronews. From 2012 to 2019 he was based in Beirut where he worked for a number of international media titles including BBC, Al Jazeera, RT, DW, as well as reporting on a freelance basis for the UK’s Daily Mail, The Sunday Times plus TRT World. His career has led him to work in almost 50 countries in Africa, The Middle East and Europe for a host of major media titles. He has lived and worked in Morocco, Belgium, Kenya and Lebanon.
Viewing Africa with double standards is part of why Africans are breaking their ties with Europe, Martin Jay writes.
The paternalism isn’t uniquely France’s. It’s a malaise of western elites and viewing Africa with double standards is part of why Africans are breaking their ties with Europe.
The row in front of the cameras was thrilling as it was unprecedented. The president of Congo made the point in front of the journalists that France’s foreign minister’s comments about the president’s election being some kind of compromise of democracy was unacceptable as France itself is guilty of election irregularities. But they are not reported with the same zealous paternalism and are not even presented the same way as they are in reality, but distorted by media. Macron responded that the foreign minister’s comments were distorted and that the French media doesn’t represent France, a point which Felix Tshisekedi did not accept at all, which raised a round of applause from the journalists present in Kinshasa.
It was Macron’s last day of his Africa tour and one which he will remember as being a PR disaster. The point of the tour was to shore up support from old allies on the continent but, in this context, it could hardly be a success when you look at the YouTube footage of the DRC press conference.
In so many ways, the speech of Tshisekedi was so pertinent though. It felt like he was trying to avert another catastrophe to prevent his own country going down the same road as Mali, Burkina Faso and probably Chad soon. France is losing its former colonies in Africa faster than Macron can say “FrancAfrique” and Tshisekedi is clearly conscious of this historic time for France.
“Look at us differently by respecting us, by considering us as true partners and not always with a paternalistic look with the idea of always knowing what is necessary for us” Tshisekedi said, wagging his finger at Macron.
“Francafrique no longer exists. We must establish a policy of equals.”
He urged for an equitable relationship between the two nations and pushed France to impose sanctions on Rwanda for the ongoing violent conflict in the country’s Goma area.
But what happened next was both shocking and ominous in how Macron reacted to the problem of militias in Rwanda controlling parts of the Congo’s border region and sums up so perfectly what is wrong with France’s delusional views about itself and even its contemporary history in Africa.
Macron denies all responsibility and waves the finger.
“Since 1994, and it is not France’s fault, I’m sorry to say it in such blunt terms, you have not been able to restore the sovereignty, neither military, nor security, nor administrative, of your country. This is also a reality. We must not look for culprits outside this affair,” said the French President.
The DRC government has accused Rwanda of backing the militia group M23, which re-emerged from dormancy in late 2021, subsequently occupying swathes of territory in North Kivu.
If only Macron’s statement was even half true, perhaps it could garner a shred of ephemeral credibility at the press conference. In fact, it was a bare-faced lie and Macron knew perfectly what he was saying and how he was papering over a genocide in Rwanda which is entirely the fault of France and the government of Mitternand who ordained his son to run an information terror campaign called “Network Zero” which installed so much fear in uneducated Hutus that they took the responsibility of butchering the Tutsis themselves. France set it up, ran it and then washed its hands of it when the then president of Rwanda, an Elysee puppet and a Hutu moderate, was murdered when his plane was shot down in April 1994 on its way back from a peace conference which agreed to re-integrate Tutsis back into Rwanda, an event which sparked the Rwandan genocide itself.
For Macron, he and France had nothing to do with the problems or Rwanda and its militias is like saying that Adolf Hitler was only a bystander in the second world war. Perhaps it is this kind of bare-faced lying which African elites are so tired of when they deal with French leaders?
It is preposterous for Macron to attempt to play such a role at a press conference. This extraordinary French shoulder shrug of abandonment of responsibility, combined with the outdated moral tutelage which most French leaders revel in when dealing with African leaders is appalling on so many levels.
The Rwanda question and who bears responsibility is an important one though as the DRC president firmly points the finger at Macron. Despite Macron himself even admitting that the days of Francafrique being over, few people in Africa itself believe this is a genuine statement and are convinced that France still has strategic interests in the Rwandan regime, despite it being English-speaking and created from a geopolitical shift of a CIA-backed coup in 1994 where the Elysee lost a satellite. Rwanda 1994 was actually the beginning of the end for France’s big role in the continent and yet Macron is still trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the Congolese when he pulls such a shameful stunt as the one at the press conference.
تحوّل مؤتمر ميونيخ للأمن إلى منبر تحريضي لتصعيد الحرب ضدّ روسيا في أوكرانيا. فمن يستمع إلى خطاب نائبة رئيس الولايات المتحدة كامالا هاريس في المؤتمر، يلمس استمرار التصميم الأميركي على الحرب في أوكرانيا، حتى الإطاحة ببوتين وروسيا كلها، وفي آن واحد. فقد أعادت هاريس نغمة التهديد باعتبار بوتين مجرم حرب، أو مسؤولاً عن إبادة بشرية، الأمر الذي يعني إغلاق الباب في وجه السياسة والتفاوض، وتسعير الحرب حتى إنزال الهزيمة التامة بروسيا.
واتجهت الخُطب الأوروبية نحو المطالبة بالمزيد من تسليح أوكرانيا، وتشجيعها على الحرب حتى النصر. ولا يمثل الرئيس الفرنسي ماكرون تمايزاً حين يؤكد على المزيد من تسليح أوكرانيا، مع تلميح للبحث عن وساطة تفاوضية، لأنّ السياسة تُقرأ انطلاقاً مما تمارَس، وليس مما تقول.
وبهذا يمكن القول بحكم قاطع إنّ مؤتمر ميونيخ للأمن، قد تحوّل إلى مؤتمر للحرب، ويصبّ الزيت على الحرب في أوكرانيا، الأمر الذي يعني أنّ الخطر الذي يتهدّد العالم نتيجة الحرب في أوكرانيا ما زال قائماً على أوجه.
أميركا وأوروبا وحلفاء أميركا الدوليون يريدون من الحرب أن تُحسَم بالنصر ضدّ روسيا، وهو احتمال في طريقه لانتقال روسيا إلى استخدام النووي، إذا لم تستطع كسب المواجهة الميدانية من خلال الأسلحة التقليدية، دون النووية، لأنّ بوتين وهيئة الأركان الروسية، وأغلبية الشعب الروسي بالطبع، لا يمكن أن يقبلوا بالهزيمة العسكرية من خلال الأسلحة التقليدية، وحرب ممتدّة دون أن يلجأوا إلى السلاح النووي المحدود، وهم يملكونه، ويملكون السلاح النووي الشامل الذي يجعل الحرب العالمية حالة إفناء عام ليس فيها من منتصر.
والسؤال هنا إذا كان هذا هو قانون المواجهة الراهنة، فكيف يفكر قادة الغرب، وفي مقدّمتهم الإدارة الأميركية برئاسة جو بايدن، وهم يصعّدون الحرب في أوكرانيا إلى مداها الأقصى، فيما هم في الآن نفسه لا يذهبون، ولا يحتملون حرباً نووية شاملة؟ ولهذا فإنّ الإجابة عن السؤال: هو الرهان على استسلام بوتين وروسيا من خلال الحرب التقليدية. ولكن ما العمل إذا لم يحدث هذا الاستسلام، وأصبحت الحرب في عامها الثاني وَبالاً عليهم، أو تدخل النووي «الصغير» من جانب روسيا؟
الجواب: سيُضطرون إلى التراجع (الهزيمة عملياً) من خلال تدخل وسطاء أو مفاوضات، أو بغضّ النظر عن الشكل الذي يتمّ فيه التراجع.
وبالمناسبة، إذا وصلت الأمور إلى النووي الشامل فإنّ «المُخاطِر» المستعدّ للذهاب إليه، هو الذي سينتصر بعدم التراجع أولاً.
أما المؤشرات الجديدة التي راحت تصاحب خطابات مؤتمر ميونيخ للأمن، فقد جاءت كلها من جانب الإدارة الأميركية ونتنياهو. وذلك من خلال تصعيد المواجهة مع إيران ومحور المقاومة، الأمر الذي أخذ مع الردود عليه يُدخل الوضع في منطقتنا إلى احتمال اندلاع حرب إقليمية، أوسع وأخطر من الحرب في أوكرانيا. وقد جاء العدوان العسكري على حي كفرسوسة في دمشق، ليشكل خرقاً لما كان سائداً من قواعد الاشتباك، كما يعلن الدخول في مرحلة جديدة ذاهبة لطرق أبواب الحرب الإقليمية. فعندما يصرّح نتنياهو، إثر ذلك العدوان، بأنه لن يسمح لإيران بامتلاك السلاح النووي (وليس في هذا من جديد غير ما نشأ من ظرف عام جديد)، كما لن يسمح «بالتموضع الإيراني في سورية»، فهذا يعني أنّ القصف الصهيوني في 19 شباط/ فبراير 2023 على سورية، دخل في مرحلة جديدة من استهداف المواقع والأشخاص، وهو ما سيشمل أفراداً من حزب الله كذلك. فنتنياهو أخذ يُغيّر في قواعد الاشتباك التي سادت في السابق، حيث كان القصف الصهيوني على الأرض السورية يجري تحت سقفها، وضمن قيود متفق عليها بين الكيان الصهيوني وروسيا. وهذا يفسّر شدة ردّ الفعل الروسي في التعليق على العدوان الذي تعرّض له حي كفرسوسة في دمشق، والقلعة وحي المزرعة أيضاً. هذا التصعيد جاء بعد تصعيد أميركي بزيادة العقوبات على إيران، وتغيير في الموقف الأميركي في لبنان. وقد ردّ عليه السيد حسن نصر الله في خطابه الأخير في 16 شباط/ فبراير. وقد اعتبر أنّ أميركا تهدّد بضرب الساعد الذي يوجع حزب الله في لبنان، وهو انتقال بالتدخل الأميركي في لبنان، وضدّ حزب الله، إلى مستوى جديد يحمل تغييراً نوعياً، يختلف عن قواعد المواجهة السابقة في لبنان (للتدخل الأميركي) حتى الآن. طبعاً هذا التطوّر في الاستراتيجية الأميركية ارتبط بزيارة وزير الخارجية الأميركي إلى فلسطين، ولقائه بالرئيس محمود عباس، وطلبه منه أن تقوم سلطة رام الله بالسيطرة على الضفة الغربية، وأساساً على مخيم جنين ومدينة نابلس، لحساب الاحتلال الصهيوني، فضلاً عما يقوم به من استيطان، واقتحامات للمسجد الأقصى، وتهويد للقدس. فأميركا هنا تخطت سياستها السابقة في الضفة الغربية، باتجاه إحداث فتنة فلسطينية داخلية، تتهدّد الوضع الفلسطيني القائم كله. فالمشروع الأميركي هنا، يلتقي من حيث التوقيت والجوهر والهدف، مع التصعيد الذي استهدف إيران وحزب الله، والذي أخذ يضع المنطقة على حدود حرب إقليمية شاملة. وهنا تدخل أيضاً المواجهة بالمُسيّرات التي جرت في كلّ من أصفهان ومياه الخليج، حيث استهدف الكيان الصهيوني مواقع في إيران، في حين هاجمت طائرة مُسيّرة سفينة «كابمو سكوير» النفطية التي يملكها متموّل «إسرائيلي» في الخليج، الأمر الذي يصبّ في الأجواء نفسها التي راحت تتجه نحو الحرب الإقليمية. ويبرز السؤال: كيف تفتح أميركا جبهة إيران ـ محور المقاومة باتجاه حرب إقليمية، في الوقت الذي تتخذ فيه الحرب في أوكرانيا، أولوية لها في هذه المرحلة؟ قد يقفز أول ما يقفز إلى الذهن الجواب: ما يواجهه الكيان الصهيوني من تراجع وضغوط، لأنّ الأرض الفلسطينية حيث المواجهة فيها، في غير مصلحة أميركا والكيان الصهيوني، مما يجعل الانتقال إلى إيران ومحور المقاومة يصيب عصفورين في آن، وذلك في جعلها حرباً إقليمية، هروباً من أن تكون حرباً فلسطينية فقط. وبهذا تحقق الهدف الصهيوني فلسطينياً، كما الهدف الأميركي ـ الصهيوني ضدّ إيران وسورية ولبنان. وقد عبّرت أميركا عن شديد غضبها من إيران حول المُسيّرات الإيرانية التي اشترتها روسيا من إيران، ولو قبل حرب أوكرانيا، لأنّ هذه المُسيّرات أثرت نسبياً في مجريات الحرب، فأعلنت إدارة بايدن عن زيادة العقوبات ضد إيران بسببها. وبكلمة، بغضّ النظر عن أنّ الأولوية الاستراتيجية الأميركية تتركز على الحرب في أوكرانيا، إلّا أنّ الوقائع والمؤشرات آنفة الذكر، تشير إلى أنّ أميركا تتبنّى سياسات، في هذه المرحلة، تطرق أبواب اندلاع حرب إقليمية. فما دام الواقع أهمّ مما يُعتبر منطقياً أو قانوناً في إدارة الصراع، فإنّ المؤشرات الواقعية التي أخذت تبرز، تقول إنّ ثمة توجهاً قوياً في احتمال اندلاع الحرب الإقليمية، مما يجعل الاستعداد لها وكسبها، هو ما يجب أن يكون الشغل الشاغل، خصوصاً فلسطينياً، لما يعنيه ذلك من تقرير لمصير القضية الفلسطينية، ومصير منطقتنا، لعشرات السنين المقبلة.
An anti-France protest in Burkina Faso. (Photo: video grab)
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website iswww.ramzybaroud.net
The moment that Lieutenant-Colonel Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba was ousted by his own former military colleague, Captain Ibrahim Traore, pro-coup crowds filled the streets. Some burned French flags, others carried Russian flags. This scene alone represents the current tussle underway throughout the African continent.
A few years ago, the discussion regarding the geopolitical shifts in Africa was not exactly concerned with France and Russia per se. It focused mostly on China’s growing economic role and political partnerships on the African continent. For example, Beijing’s decision to establish its first overseas military base in Djibouti in 2017 signaled China’s major geopolitical move, by translating its economic influence in the region to political influence, backed by military presence.
China remains committed to its Africa strategy. Beijing has been Africa’s largest trading partner for 12 years, consecutively, with total bilateral trade between China and Africa, in 2021, reaching $254.3 billion, according to recent data released by the General Administration of Customs of China.
The United States, along with its western allies, have been aware of, and warning against China’s growing clout in Africa. The establishment of US AFRICOM in 2007 was rightly understood to be a countering measure to China’s influence. Since then, and arguably before, talks of a new ‘Scramble for Africa’ abounded, with new players, including China, Russia, even Turkiye, entering the fray.
The Russia-Ukraine war, however, has altered geopolitical dynamics in Africa, as it highlighted the Russian-French rivalry on the continent, as opposed to the Chinese-American competition there.
Though Russia has been present in African politics for years, the war – thus the need for stable allies at the United Nations and elsewhere – accelerated Moscow’s charm offensive. In July, Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov visited Egypt, Ethiopia, Uganda, and the Republic of Congo, fortifying Russia’s diplomatic relations with African leaders.
“We know that the African colleagues do not approve of the undisguised attempts of the US and their European satellites .. to impose a unipolar world order to the international community,” Lavrov said. His words were met with agreement.
Russian efforts have been paying dividends, as early as the first votes to condemn Moscow at the United Nations General Assembly, in March and April. Many African nations remained either neutral or voted against measures targeting Russia at the UN.
South Africa’s position, in particular, was problematic from Washington’s perspective, not only because of the size of the country’s economy, but also because of Pretoria’s political influence and moral authority throughout Africa. Moreover, South Africa is the only African member of the G20.
In his visit to the US in September, South Africa’s President Cyril Ramaphosa defended his country’s neutrality and raised objections to a draft US bill – the Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act – that is set to monitor and punish African governments who do not conform to the American line in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The West fails to understand, however, that Africa’s slow, but determined shift toward Moscow is not haphazard or accidental.
The history of the continent’s past and current struggle against western colonialism and neocolonialism is well-known. While the West continues to define its relationship with Africa based on exploitation, Russia is constantly reminding African countries of the Soviet’s legacy on the continent. This is not only apparent in official political discourses by Russian leaders and diplomats, but also in Russian media coverage, which is prioritizing Africa and reminding African nations of their historic solidarity with Moscow.
Burning French flags and raising Russian ones, however, cannot simply be blamed on Russian supposed economic bribes, clever diplomacy or growing military influence. The readiness of African nations – Mali, Central African Republic and, now, possibly, Burkina Faso – has much more to do with mistrust and resentment of France’s self-serving legacy in Africa, West Africa in particular.
France has military bases in many parts of Africa and remains an active participant in various military conflicts, which has earned it the reputation of being the continent’s main destabilizing force. Equally important is Paris’s stronghold over the economies of 14 African countries, which are forced to use French currency, the CFA franc and, according to Frederic Ange Toure, writing in Le Journal de l’Afrique, to “centralize 50% of their reserves in the French public treasury”.
Though many African countries remain neutral in the case of the Russia-Ukraine war, a massive geopolitical shift is underway, especially in militarily fragile, impoverished and politically unstable countries that are eager to seek alternatives to French and other western powers. For a country like Mali, shifting allegiances from Paris to Moscow was not exactly a great gamble. Bamako had very little to lose, but much to gain. The same logic applies to other African countries that are fighting extreme poverty, political instability and the threat of militancy, all of which are intrinsically linked.
Though China remains a powerful newcomer to Africa – a reality that continues to frustrate US policymakers – the more urgent battle, for now, is between Russia and France – the latter experiencing a palpable retreat.
In a speech last July, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that he wanted a “rethink of all our (military) postures on the African continent.” France’s military and foreign policy shift in Africa, however, was not compelled by strategy or vision, but by changing realities over which France has little control.
When I discovered the Saker in 2014, I at once discovered his term of genius ‘Anglo-Zionism’. That, after all, is exactly what it is. It is Anglo-Zionism that has poisoned the European well for over 300 years. The bankers who left Venice for Amsterdam and then moved to London, having financed their agent, the bloodthirsty Anglo Cromwell and so brought the monarchy in England under merchant-banker (‘parliamentary’) control, founding the Bank of England in 1694 and bribing the Scots to union in 1707, were Zionists.
So began Anglo-Zionism. The Anglos were the traders of British Imperialism and the Zionists were the bankers of British Imperialism, of whatever nationality they might be. Of course, there was intermixing, as some Anglos became bankers and some Zionists became traders, for example even moving to the Caribbean for the slave-trade, from which the family of the former UK Prime Minister Cameron made its millions. And Mr Cameron’s great-great-grandfather was a German Jewish banker who became a British citizen in 1871. It is a small world.
Anglo-Zionism in Europe
From all this was born the Anglo political system. Generally speaking, the right-wing party (the Tories) were the Anglos, the left-wing party (today called Labour) were the Zionists, though again there were exceptions, for example, the Jewish Prime Minister Disraeli, was in the right-wing party. This system has continued in the UK to this day, where, unsurprisingly, they talk about their ‘Judeo-Christian’ civilisation. Thus, the supposedly Labour Blair regime ministers were almost all Scots, homosexuals and Jews.
When the ultra-Tory Blair, ‘son of Thatcher’, was despatched after doing his appointed duty, a man called Jeremy Corbyn eventually became the leader of the Labour Party. Unlike Blair, he actually was left-wing, a true-believing Socialist. As a result, he was naturally pro-Palestinian and so was immediately branded by the Anglo-Zionist British Press as an ‘Anti-Semite’. They got rid of him through intrigues, including inducing him to be anti-Brexit (two-thirds of his supporters, his working-class backbone, were pro-Brexit and so, unnaturally, but with no other choice, voted pro-Brexit Tory). Corbyn was replaced with an Establishment millionaire called Starmer, who looks like a cardboard cut-out of a Tory. How did he get the job? Simply because he is married to a Jew and his children are therefore Jews.
However, the same system was exported all over Europe. In the Soviet Union the ideologue of the Third International was Bronstein (Trotsky) who wanted World Revolution. In Romania, the man who replaced Ceausescu in 1989 was a Jew. The present Romanian leader is a German. The situation in the Ukraine is well-known from the billionaire arms-dealer Poroshenko (real name Walzman) to the millionaire actor Zelensky (his name probably a translation of Gruen). In France the Zionist lobby has been strong from the 19th century on. Although the current French President Macron is French, he is a Rothschild banker. Franco-Zionism. There are dozens of other examples throughout Europe over the last 300 years, especially since Napoleon.
Anglo-Zionism in the US
However, the main bastion of Anglo-Zionism is undoubtedly the USA, which the bankers from London seriously colonised during the First World War. specifically during the 1916 turning-point, when it became apparent to the Round Table organisation there would only be one winner, neither Germany, nor Great Britain, but the USA. As soon as Russia had been taken out of the equation through US bankers via their British agents and Russian traitors in Petrograd in early 1917, the first US troops appeared in France less than one month later. All had been pre-planned.
Today in the US, the Republican Party represents the Anglos and the Democratic Party the Zionists. The billionaire Trump, like Bush, is a typical White Anglo nationalist WASP: America first. On the other hand, Biden is a typical Zionist, just like Obama and Clinton before him, though quite unlike Kennedy. An electoral accident, he of course had to be eliminated. And he was.
For 250 years the Anglos and the Zionists have worked together in the US, they have had the same self-interested interests – money and power. However, there are now discussions between them regarding the Ukraine. Already half of the Anglo Republicans want out of the Ukraine (1). It is too costly and they want to save the US (and their own fortunes) from its multiple self-inflicted wounds just in case it goes under. But the Zionists are thinking along the same lines. There is only one solution.
The Ukraine
The Anglos wanted the Ukraine in order to defeat their traditional rival, Russia. However, for the Zionists the Ukraine had another purpose, it was to destroy White Europe, the same purpose they had in fomenting the First and Second World Wars, so ensuring Zionist domination of the world – ‘Globalism’. Not all neocons are Wolfowitzes, Kagans and Nulands. Many are Anglos. Today, we are already seeing that the Republicans are increasingly beginning to support Zaluzhny, the Kiev military commander, whereas the Democrats still stand behind the Jewish Zelensky, but are now wavering.
The Republicans originally wanted to weaken Russia. The Republicans are nationalists, so are the Russians. It is now just dawning on them that Russia does not want to recreate the Soviet Empire or any other sort of Empire, all they want is to protect Russians, not to invade other countries. In any case, they are not going to weaken Russia any more through the Ukraine. All that they have done so far is to strengthen Russia. The Ukraine has not served its purpose. As for the Zionists, they are happy to kill as many White Europeans, especially Russian and Ukrainians, as possible, but above all they want world power.
The interests of Anglos and Zionists coincide. For if the Russians do not want world power after all, then the real rival is China, which has real mercantile power. Therefore, the pivot to China, where there is real money. Once the US has lost in the Ukraine, and Kadyrov confidently predicts that it will be over by the end of 2023 (2), the US will turn its attention to China. But it is already happening. That is what the balloon show was all about. China is a much more interesting option for the money-grubbers, whether Anglos or Zionists. But where does that leave benighted Europe?
Europe’s Demons
A spectre has long been haunting Europe, or rather two spectres, or rather two Legions of Demons: Unionist Demons and Nationalist Demons, Centripetal and Centrifugal forces, who have both been issued with strict instructions never to allow Unity in Diversity.
The Unionists are represented by all the big, supranational, unaccountable and so violent, corrupt and bullying institutions, whose blood-soaked hands have tormented Europe for over 2,000 years: the pagan Roman Empire, the Frankish barbarian ‘Holy Roman Empire’, the ‘Reformed’ centralist Papacy with its ‘Crusades’ and tyrannical medieval ‘unity’, Napoleon, Hitler and the EU. These torments all come out of exactly the same Unionist cauldron, boiling with love of power, greed and hatred for the Nation-State and the little people. The demons dance around the cauldron, hellishly gloating at the immense suffering and bloodshed they have caused to the innocent for two millennia.
Always the same victims.
The Nationalists are represented by wars and massacres between the Germans and the Wends, the English and the Welsh and the Scots, the medieval Italian city-states, the principalities of medieval Rus, by the Anglo-French Hundred Years War, the Central European Wars of ‘Religion’, the Normans and the English, the Turks and the Greeks, the English and the Irish, the Russians, both before and after 1917, and the Poles, Finns, Latvians, Georgians and Ukrainians, the Swedes and the Finns, the Germans and the French, the French and the Bretons and Corsicans, the Danes and the Norwegians, the Greeks and the Bulgarians and Macedonians, the Austrians and the Serbs, the Serbs and the Bulgarians and Croats, the Spanish and the Basques and Catalans, the Czechs and the Slovaks, the Hungarians and the Romanians, the Ukrainians and the Carpatho-Russians, the EU and Brexit, Grexit, Nexit, Frexit etc, and by all those many other interminable bullying conflicts between big neighbours and little neighbours, between capitals and provinces. One such conflict is going on at this very moment in the Ukraine, with hundreds of thousands of dead already. These torments too all come out of exactly the same Nationalist cauldron, boiling with love of blood and hatred for Unity. The demons dance around the cauldron, hellishly gloating at the immense suffering and bloodshed they have caused to the innocent for two millennia.
Always the same victims.
Overcoming the Demons
The most dangerous thing in European history is not the suicidal stupidity of Europeans, but when outsiders make it even worse by interfering. For example, to some extent, to what extent exactly is still being debated, the British elite in their island were responsible for meddling in Continental Europe and so creating both the First and the Second World Wars. However, modern Europe is the invention of the US. Itself a Union, built on the blood of over 600,000 of its own, it wanted to create a similar Union in Europe. The result is the EU with its ring of captive stars: ‘One ring to rule them all, one ring to find them. One ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them; In the Land of Mordor where the shadows lie’.
More clearly, the latest conflict in the Ukraine has come about completely through the meddling of the world bully, which styles itself ‘the world’s policeman’, the US. As the US is now losing in this conflict, and losing very badly, what will happen once the US world bully is gone from the scene, not only from the Ukraine, but from Europe in general? After all, the US departure from Europe seems to be inevitable in the coming generation, maybe by the centenary of the US Occupation of Europe in 2045, if not well before that.
Will the present Unionist US-devised United States of Europe, the EU, which is about to collapse with its Demons of Unionism, fall back into petty nationalisms and intertribal massacres as before? Will Europeans once more have to obey the Demons of Nationalism? Could Europeans not at last learn to live in peace after two thousand years of interfering in the lives of other Europeans and, far worse, after a thousand years of interfering in the lives of Non-Europeans? What could replace Unionism and Nationalism?
Conclusion
There can be no peace in Europe, until the East and the West of Europe accept one another on an equal footing. And the only axis which can unite Europe is the Moscow-Berlin-Paris axis, the one which was disrupted before 1914. This axis is the only one that could also bring in Budapest, Bucharest, Belgrade, Athens, Warsaw, Stockholm, Rome, Madrid and even London, even if the latter has first to overturn its brutal Establishment by violence, even though the US will have dropped it. And we include Vilnius, Riga and Tallinn in this. The Balts may not like Russians because of the Soviet Occupation, but that was a long time ago and the Balts, unlike their puppet-elites, do not like the American Occupation that replaced it and being forced to exile themselves abroad just to live.
To ensure peace in Europe and to avoid both Unionism and Nationalism, there needs to be a Confederation of Europe from Moscow to Berlin to Paris to London. The rest will gather round them. If such a Confederation can be designed with care, it could achieve that long-elusive balance of Unity in Diversity which Europe needs. For far too long Europe has been on the wrong side of history, through its suicidal impulses of inviting its enemies in. It is time to stop sitting on the US fence and climb it. Co-operation with Moscow, rather than conflict, is to open the gateway to resources and all Eurasia and to cease that foolish isolationism, which for a thousand years has made Europe into a seat of ethnocentric pride and aggressive violence.
Europe’s reliance on Russian gas imports has been upended by sanctions against Moscow. With few options for practical alternatives, the continent will remain energy-dependent and financially-vulnerable regardless of who it imports from.
The 2022 outbreak of war between Russia and Ukraine revealed the importance of energy security in bolstering Moscow’s geopolitical power in Europe. The continent, which imported about 46 percent of its gas needs from Russia in 2021, found itself in a vulnerable position as it sought alternative sources.https://thecradle.co/Article/Analysis/20403
This presented an opportunity for the US to replace Russia and become the primary supplier of natural gas to Europe at significantly higher prices, resulting in large profits at the expense of its European allies. According France-based data and analytics firm, Kpler, in 2022 the EU imported 140 billion cubic meters (BCM) of liquefied natural gas (LNG), an increase of 55 BCM from the previous year.
Around 57.4 BCM of this amount (41 percent) now comes from the US, an increase of 31.8 BCM, 29 BCM from Africa (20.7 percent) – mainly from Egypt, Nigeria, Algeria and Angola – 22.3 BCM from Russia (16 percent), 19.8 BCM from Qatar (14 percent), 4.1 BCM from Latin America (2.92 percent) – mainly from Trinidad and Tobago – and 3.37 BCM from Norway (2.4 percent).
European gas imports 2022
In 2022, France was the leading importer of LNG in Europe, accounting for 26.23 percent of total imports. Other significant importers included Spain (22.3 percent), the Netherlands (12.65 percent), Italy (11 percent), and Belgium (10.42 percent).
These countries, along with Poland (4.7 percent), Greece (2.9 percent), and Lithuania (2.31 percent), imported over 90 percent of LNG exported to Europe at prices higher than Russian pipeline gas. It is worth noting that upon arrival, LNG is converted back to its gaseous state at receiving stations in Europe before being distributed to countries without such infrastructure, such as Germany.
Graph: 2020-2022 European gas imports, by month
Switching dependencies
Europe was able to reduce its reliance on Russian pipeline gas from 46 percent to 10 percent last year. This decrease, however, came at a high cost to the economy, as the price of gas rose to $70 per million British thermal units (Btu), up from $27 before the Ukraine war. By the end of the year, the price had fallen to $36, compared to $7.03 in the US.
This price disparity has been hard to stomach. French President Emmanuel Macron went public with his annoyance: “American gas is 3-4 times cheaper on the domestic market than the price at which they offer it to Europeans,” criticizing what he called “American double standards.”
High gas prices have made Europe an appealing destination for gas exporters from around the world, with increased interest from countries such as Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, UAE, Iran, Libya, Algeria, and those bordering the Mediterranean basin, as they either export gas, or possess gas but lack infrastructure.
To replace the cheaper Russian pipeline gas, European countries are being forced to seek out the more expensive LNG. The EU and Britain are working to increase LNG import capacity by 5.3 billion cubic feet (BCF) per day by the end of 2023, and by 34 percent, or 6.8 BCF per day, by 2024.
Can West Asia, North Africa meet Europe’s gas needs?
The West Asia and North Africa region has the potential to partially meet Europe’s gas needs due to its geographic proximity and the presence of countries with large gas reserves and export infrastructure, such as Palestine/Israel, Algeria, and Egypt. However, there are several obstacles that must be considered.
Map of natural gas pipelines to Europe
For example, Egypt’s high production costs and increasing domestic consumption limit its export capacity. Additionally, Europe would need to be willing to pay a higher price than the Asian market for Egyptian gas.
Israel, on the other hand, has seen an increase in gas exports to Europe in the first half of 2022 after the pipeline to Egypt via Jordan was restored in March, but it is unlikely to significantly increase exports in 2023 due to factors such as limited export capacity and high domestic consumption. Experts predict that Israel may export around 10 BCM of gas to Europe this year, similar to the amount exported in 2022.
Qatar is the only Persian Gulf emirate that has increased its gas exports to Europe for 2022. This is largely because Persian Gulf countries prefer to sell their gas to Asian markets, where they can garner higher profits due to lower shipping costs and longer-term contracts.
Last year, Qatar took advantage of the significant increase in gas prices to sell part of its shipments on the European spot market. According to the Qatari Minister of Energy, between 10 percent and 15 percent of Qatar’s production can be diverted to this market.
However, it may be difficult for Europe to attract Qatari gas away from the Asian market, especially as China is expected to recover its demand for gas in 2023. In a policy home-goal, western sanctions on Iran, which has the second-largest natural gas reserves in the world, impede the investment needed to increase Iranian production.
No real alternatives
Iran’s lack of infrastructure connecting it to Europe and high domestic consumption also affect its export capacity. According to a report by BP, Iran produced 257 BCM of gas in 2021, of which 241.1 BCM were consumed domestically.
With regards to Algeria, the main obstacle in increasing its gas exports to Europe is political tension with Morocco and Spain that led to the suspension of the Moroccan-European gas pipeline project, which can export 10.3 billion cubic meters of Algerian gas.
In the case of the UAE, despite having the seventh-largest proven natural gas reserves in the world, its production is not sufficient to meet the demands of the local market and it imports a third of its gas consumption from Qatar through an undersea pipeline. European countries are currently in talks with Abu Dhabi to accelerate work on gas projects and increase production.
As for Saudi Arabia, it consumes all of its gas production domestically and does not export any, with a total production of 117.3 BCM in 2021. There are also expectations for a significant increase in the demand for oil and coal in 2023. The World Bank reports that this is due to an increase in European countries’ reliance on these fossil fuels instead of natural gas. This increase in demand will keep oil prices high, allowing Saudi Arabia and other OPEC+ members to make large profits.
The dilemma of growing demand
The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) predicts that global demand for natural gas will increase to 394 BCM this year, driven in part by Europe’s need to diversify its sources of gas away from Russia. And West Asia, with its significant reserves, remains a key region for Europe to tap into for this purpose.
The challenge remains in finding cost-effective ways to transport the gas from the region to Europe, which will necessitate building a pipeline connecting the Mediterranean Basin to the Old Continent.
Failure to do so will result in Europe continuing to pay a high premium for its energy security without achieving true independence. The alternative for Europe is to rely on LNG from the US. This gives Europe almost complete independence from Russian gas, but keeps it weak, obedient, and dependent on American energy supplies.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
Senior officials from Iran, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Qatar, Kuwait, Egypt, and the EU launched the second Baghdad Conference for Cooperation and Partnership in the Jordanian capital Amman on 20 December.
Organized by France and Iraq, the summit stated aim is to “provide a forum for discussing the region’s problems.”
Ahead of the conference’s start, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian and nuclear negotiator Ali Bagheri Kani held a meeting with EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell and nuclear talks coordinator Enrique Mora to discuss the dormant process to revive the Iran nuclear deal.
Following the meeting, Borrell said in a tweet that he urged the Iranian diplomats to “immediately halt military support for Russia and internal repression.”
“Stressed need to immediately stop military support to Russia and internal repression in Iran. Agreed we must keep communication open and restore JCPOA on basis of Vienna negotiations,” the EU official said.
Necessary meeting w Iranian FM @Amirabdolahian in Jordan amidst deteriorating Iran-EU relations Stressed need to immediately stop military support to Russia and internal repression in Iran Agreed we must keep communication open and restore #JCPOA on basis of Vienna negotiations
For his part, the Iranian foreign minister condemned western countries for supporting “rioters” and imposing illegal unilateral sanctions against Iran under the pretext of protecting human rights.
Amir-Abdollahian also voiced readiness to resolve any misunderstanding in direct negotiations with Ukraine, and called on the remaining JCPOA signatories to avoid politicizing the talks further and to adopt a “constructive and realistic approach to make necessary decisions for an agreement.”
Talks to restore the 2015 nuclear deal have been at a stalemate since September, when anti-government protests took hold in Iran. At the time, western nations accused the Islamic Republic of raising “unreasonable demands” in relation to a UN investigation into Iranian nuclear sites.
In the days leading up to the summit, reports spoke about a new possible meeting between Iranian and Saudi officials. However, there has been no official word on whether Amir-Abdollahian will meet with Saudi Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al-Saud.
Since 2021, Iraq has hosted five meetings between Saudi and Iranian officials, the last of which was in April, but these contacts have not yielded any breakthroughs in relations.
Another notable leader attending the summit is French President Emmanuel Macron, who analysts believe is using the opportunity to keep a strong presence in West Asia, where western influence continues to wane.
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Northern Europe, as far south as northern Italy, is now in the grip of a wave of icy cold (no doubt, the result of global warming). As a result, observers are expecting the Russian winter offensive in the Ukraine to start all the sooner, though nobody knows when. This month or next? Maybe a dramatic entry from Belarus, cutting off NATO supplies? Nobody knows. For the moment, Allied forces are content to grind down the undersupplied and freezing Kiev regime conscripts and mercenaries in situ, hoping that perhaps they will simply surrender en masse, despite the regime’s guns poking in their backs. Conditions are such that this could happen with very few Russian losses. There is no hurry. Over 500,000 Allied soldiers and 500 winter camouflage tanks are waiting for their moment to move in and denazify the Ukraine. They will wait for the right moment.
Introduction: The Liberation of Europe
Russia could no longer allow a hostile, US-controlled, NATO-armed and soon-to-be-nuclear Ukraine to exist. Therefore, it is being liberated. It should have happened long before, but Russia was much too weak to do so before. When the Zelensky regime falls, billions of dollars of Western arms and supplies will fall into Russian hands. The Kiev regime’s Western-incurred indebtedness to the West for arms and supplies over the last nearly nine years will be cancelled. US-exploited Kiev regime territory, 40% of the whole, will be taken back without compensation. This will be a small measure of compensation for the destruction that the US and its European vassals, including the Minsk I and Minsk II liars of Germany and France, have caused in the Ukraine, especially in the much-tried Donbass.
Apart from completing the liberation of the four provinces that it has taken back so far, Russia may also take back four more Russian-speaking provinces, those of Kharkov, Dnepropetrovsk, Nikolaev and Odessa, so joining up with Russian Transdnestria. A coup in Kiev could take place, as the remnants of the Kiev Army collapse and the new Ukraine could then even become a Russian ally, like Belarus, part of the Union State. Whether the five far western provinces of the present Ukraine remain with the new Ukraine, or three of them return to Poland, and one each to Hungary and Romania, remains to be seen. It will all depend on what Russia allows. After this, the whole fragile Western European domino set, hastily stood up by the US-run NATO and its political wing the EU, could begin to tumble. Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria and Hungary, the last three liberated from NATO and the EU, could be offered cheap gas, like NATO-tormented Serbia, with Montenegro and Macedonia. With their US puppet elites removed by their peoples, all these countries could become allies of Russia, recovering their independence after EU serfdom and NATO oppression.
We recall that the old Soviet ‘Eastern bloc’ failed precisely because, like the EU, it took away the independence of such nations. However, the centralising straitjacket of the Soviet world has gone and it will not come back. The same alliance with Russia, but keeping independence, could eventually take place in NATO-, EU- and US-elite-freed Greece and Cyprus. Then the three Baltics and even Finland could also become Russian allies, like the new Ukraine, energy supplied by Russia, their Russian minorities at last granted basic human rights. After this, first Austria, Italy, Germany and then the other countries in Western Europe will have to take important decisions about their futures: survival by negotiation with Moscow, or slow national suicide? The choice may seem obvious, but it must be their choice. Let us look at the current tendencies in the three main countries of Western Europe, Germany, France and the UK, to gauge what direction we may well be heading in.
Germany: The Struggle to Restore Your Own Country
On 7 December the German media announced the arrest of twenty-five ‘far-right extremists’ for plotting to overthrow the Federal government. Translated, this means that the US-run German government arrested twenty-five patriots who wanted to restore freedom in Germany. Interestingly, these patriots included a member of German royalty and a former member of the German Parliament or Bundestag. In a statement, the German federal prosecutor’s office stated that an estimated fifty people were suspected of being a ‘violent’ part of a broad-based movement called ‘Citizens of the Empire’ (Reichsbürger), with a total membership of 12,000. In any other country, there would be no problem with the existence of patriotism. But in US-run Germany, any patriotic movement is instantly dubbed ‘Neo-Nazi’, ‘pro-Hitler’ or ‘anti-democratic’, which is just propaganda code for pro-sovereignty, pro-German and pro-freedom.
The arrested were intending to overthrow the Federal puppet government which must swear allegiance to the US, and replace it with an independent German government. The freedom-fighters reject the US-imposed institutions of Woke-Fascist Federal Germany (there is nothing so intolerant as liberalism). German prosecutors named Heinrich XIII, Prince Reuss, a descendant of the House of Reuss, former rulers of parts of eastern Germany, as one of the group’s leaders. Interestingly, it was said that Prince Heinrich had sought (but not obtained) the involvement of Russian representatives in the alleged scheme. Another suspect is Birgit Malsack-Winkemann, who was a member of the Bundestag, representing the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party, from 2017 to 2021. Since the beginning of this year, she had been working as a judge in the Berlin District court.
In 2017 the Alternative for Germany (AfD) Party became the first patriotic party to win seats in the Germany Parliament for nearly 60 years. This so upset the German serfs of the pyramid scheme run by the feudal US con-tricksters that in March 2021 the Party was placed under surveillance by the Germany secret service for trying to liberate Germany from American tutelage. Although the resistance movement has been defeated for now, we feel that though this is a lost battle, it is not a lost war. More battles will come, as German patriots struggling to decolonise their country and seek to find and eventually find freedom. Germany is Western Europe’s largest and strongest nation and also its barometer. When all is well there, all goes well elsewhere, all falls into place. Can Germany at last throw off the US yoke, expelling foreign troops, commemorating the 500,000 victims of the Anglo-American bomb genocide of German civilians of 1940-1945 and perhaps eventually become a Royal Confederation of Sovereign German States? It has to come. Freedom beckons.
France: The Revolt of the People
France was where Absolutism was invented with Louis XIV (+ 1715), ‘the Sun King’. He is alleged to have said, ‘l’Etat, c’est moi’ – ‘The State is me’, with the result that a bloody Revolution was born in France. For extremes always breed extremes and so the French Revolution bred the absolutist Emperor Napoleon. Since then, France has been ruled by absolutists, president-kings or president-emperors. Their slogan ‘the State is me’, although still true, has meant that each has only had the right to absolute power for a few years (the only fruit of the Revolution – a shortened and not a lifetime or hereditary period in power). Since 1944, after a long series of corrupt post-war governments, of which De Gaulle’s was by far the least noxious, because De Gaulle actually loved France more than money (just as Putin loves Russia more than money), it is now Macron, the Rothschild candidate, who is the current King of France. France is in effect ruled by a President by Divine right and Macron is known as ‘the Pharoah’. However, he is not the first Pharoah, as Mitterrand (1916-1996), who lived in the Presidential palace, his wife in one wing and his favourite mistress in the other, was the first. He even built a masonic pyramid of 666 panes of glass, providing the entry into the Temple of Knowledge, the Louvre Palace.
From last year I remember a conversation with a Paris taxi driver, when I had to get to the old Russian Cathedral quickly with heavy suitcases. The taxi-driver was a typical French African, from Cameroun. Seeing that I was a priest, in no uncertain terms he told me colourfully with his African-French accent how the hated Macron was either a fag, ‘un pédé’, or else he had a pretty young thing on the side. After all, how could a normal man go to bed with a woman twenty-five years older than himself? (Macron married one of his schoolteachers, nearly the same age as his mother; some say the ueber-botoxed lady in question should be tried for female pedophilia, since Macron is said to have been under age when they first conjoined). The African driver’s views on covid and French State compulsory vaccination were just as forthright as his views on gays. I quote him because his view of the world displays the very serious disconnect between the sophisticate Macron-style elite and the actual French grassroots. Actually, he sounded just like a Moscow taxi-driver.
Et justement (I don’t know how you say that in English), Macron is opposed by the people, protesting as the Yellow Vests, the popular but brutalised French Resistance. The French elite is fearful because the French people are revolt-prone (frondeurs). This is why the French State has a permanent special force of riot-police (the C.R.S., founded in 1944 and directly replacing the SS, for long retaining much the same management and much the same uniform) to suppress the revolts of ‘the peasants’. On top of that, the French State is fearful because at the last French election in April 2022 a nationalist government under Marine Le Pen could have got elected. This would have challenged not just the whole French State, but also the EU bureaucratic machine, which largely depends on the French model. If the French people defeat the French elite, the EU bureaucracy knows that the French people will come to power and that since the French are against the EU, then the whole Brussels fantasy will fall. (And the bureaucrats will lose their handsomely-paid jobs plus privileges and generous pensions). It is the whole top-down French and EU Establishment ideology which is being challenged in France. Who will win? I don’t know, but there is only one phrase to describe the situation: Fragile for the elite.
The UK: Disunity Before Freedom
The UK finds itself in a far more precarious position even than Germany and France. The latter have only been forced to support the US for three generations. Until that they were independent. However, the British elite was at the origin of the American evil, and consciously and forcefully cultivated it from 1914 on and still does so. The fact that the US/UK language is basically the same language means that the Americans have immense power in the UK, even to the extent that the modern English language is littered with unconscious Americanisms. A lot of British people are nearly as obese as a lot of Americans, dress like Americans and their children sing American songs with an American accent. The nearly 60 million people who live in the remnants of the real England are on the verge of losing their identity. The notorious Establishment BBC mouthpiece and the State-supporting British tabloids manipulate the uneducated minds of tens of millions. Many are so brainwashed that as a result there is no opposition movement to the British Establishment, no parallel to the French ‘Yellow Vests’.
The problem is that a majority of UK citizens, especially in England, have over the centuries been ‘Establishmentised’, that is, co-opted onto the anti-English British Establishment and made to feel the advantages (?) in terms of finance and prestige of being on the British side. With the British Establishment side become a poodle to the American elite, UK citizens are now being Americanised and made to feel the advantages (?) in terms of finance and prestige of being on the American side. They have been so passivised that many Continental Europeans ask if, instead of blood, the British have tea in their veins. However, in 2022 more and more have come to see that the ‘advantages’ of being on the British/American side are remarkably thin. All the more so, as the divisive Brexit did not bring the restoration of sovereignty and recovery of borders, as promised by the New-York born Johnson, but instead brought the UK the honorary feudal position of being the 51st State of the USA. A broad-based national resistance movement has yet to appear in England. However, there is hope on the Celtic fringe. Certainly, in Scotland, North Wales and parts of Ireland, there is resistance through their national parties, the Scottish National and Welsh National Parties and Sinn Fein in Ireland, though are all seriously undermined by Wokeism.
The British Establishment-invented United Kingdom is today a Disunited Kingdom (DK). Quite soon, probably within a generation, there will be four independent countries in the Isles of the North Atlantic (IONA): England, (a reunited) Ireland, Scotland and Wales. For it is precisely in untieing the sinister tangle of knots that form the present imposed ‘unity’ and the coming of disunity that real unity may come. This will not be a political unity, but a unity of interest. The Four to-be Sovereign Nations of the British Isles and Ireland have a great deal in common in terms of shared geography, history and culture. Sadly, all that they have in common has been overshadowed by the oppressive, centralised State Establishment. This has been fixed in the Norman-British capital of London with its all-powerful Zionist City, for nearly a thousand years. This oppression is symbolised by the foreign Royal Family. The English lost their own Royal Family and the rest of the national elite after the last English King of England, Edmund Ironside, was murdered in 1016. Since then the monarchs have all been foreigners – Danish, Norman, French, Welsh, Scottish, Dutch, German. None has had the interests of the Four Nations at heart, because all have been aliens, many of whom could not even speak English and whose hearts have been elsewhere. Nevertheless, the hope for a serious search for identity and then a real national awakening in England and the Three Nations remains.
Conclusion: The Long Walk to Freedom
The battles for freedom from oppression in the three most powerful and populous countries of Western Europe, two in Continental Europe, one an offshore archipelago, a bit like Americanised Japan on the other side of Northern Eurasia, are under way. For the moment the huge weight of centuries-old oppression, suppression and repression would seem to make the victory of their zombified peoples in any of those battles impossible. And yet it seems to us that, ironically, it is precisely that weight which oppresses the peoples in the three quite different contexts that will ensure victory. Too much is too much – the revolts of peoples whose national identities have been oppressed, suppressed and repressed so heavily and for so long are coming. The sovereignty of Germany, France and the Four Nations has to be restored and the minorities who have realised it in each of them are growing. More and more are realising that restoration can only come once they have freed themselves from the elites which feed off one another. And those elites depend entirely on the alien US elite, which stands behind them all and pulls all their strings.
Today the UK is strike-bound as a result of salaries not keeping up with record-high inflation, which has been almost wholly caused by the anti-Russian and anti-freedom ‘sanctions’ imposed by the Establishment elite. Some there say that the UK event of 2022, the death of Queen Elizabeth II at the age of 96, was the result of her meeting Liz Truss two days earlier and realising what her country had come to. (A popular UK joke says that there is now proof that nobody is brainless – Liz Truss is the exception that proves the rule). Elizabeth’s son, King Charles, has had eggs thrown at him. (Remember how he cheated on Diana?). No-one, even the most devoted Republican, would ever have contemplated throwing eggs at his mother. Then there is the scandalous Harry, Duke of California, completely besotted by and under the heel of his American actress wife, who apparently is ‘black’. (Are the wokeists who call this woman, who appears to be a sun-tanned white woman, ‘black’ perhaps simply colour-blind?). Perhaps, just as France declares a new Republic whenever it undergoes a serious crisis (it is now on its Fifth), the UK, or rather England, as that is what it is actually about, will yet declare that it has a new Dynasty, which is what happens there whenever it has a serious crisis. In any case, Queen Elizabeth II was definitely the end of something: Goodbye, House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Windsor? Hello, English Royal House – Ironside II?
The Franco-German tandem which has essentially been running Continental Western Europe since the Schumann Declaration in 1950 is in trouble too. Sovereignist Germany wants to be Germany again and Sovereignist France wants to be France again. It is the power-grasping US that will not allow either. However, once the US has been discredited by losing its war in the Ukraine, then all will become possible in Europe, just as all became possible in Asia, once the US had been thrown out of it. (There the US now holds on only to the occupied coastal strip of Palestine, the southern tip of the Korean peninsula and offshore Japan, Taiwan and Singapore). We are heading towards a new Western Europe, true, not in a straight line, but in the tortuous zigzags of lies of such grandchildren of Nazis as Ursula von der Luegen. What Germany and France end up doing will pattern and determine the actions of all Western Europe, that is of the EU 27 plus the UK, Switzerland, Norway and Iceland, the European 31. It is our contention that a settlement with Russia, forming the Moscow-Berlin-Paris-London axis, which is what should have happened in 1914, is the only thing that can save the European 31 from serfdom to US feudalism. Now, the Kiev regime has a political slogan: ‘The Ukraine is Europe’. This is meaningless, as Russia is also Europe and there is no Non-Russian Europe without Russian-speaking Europe. They are two halves of a whole, each with a similar area of some five million square kilometres. The European 31 has a choice to make: Live under the transatlantic jackboot, stamped on its face from 3,000 miles away, or choose liberation and sovereignty. The latter means living as good neighbours with local, Russian-speaking Europe and the rest of Eurasia, where geographically, historically and culturally Europe already is and always has been.
On December 1, 2018, the Yellow Vests announced themselves in France and the world, registering their name in history books with their revolutionary graffiti tagging of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the country’s most iconic monuments.
“The Yellow Vests will win” was a slogan that reverberated across the world, as the movement became the biggest, most organic, most devoted and truly revolutionary threat any Western country had faced for over half a century.
It was their third week of protest, and there was no going back now.
The world never expected a genuine resistance movement to sprout in France, a Western imperialist hub. The French were – many insisted – too self-righteous, too spoiled, too indoctrinated, and yet for the next six months every Saturday turned into a war zone across the country.
France was wholly gripped by the revolutionary frenzy at the time, and it was because the French way of life isn’t as extravagant as people may think.
The Yellow Vests didn’t bravely endure all this – at least 11,000 arrests, 1,000 political prisoners, 5,000 protesters seriously hurt, 1,000 critically injured, scores maimed for life and 11 deaths – because they have a luxurious lifestyle.
It is hard to say what was worse – the repression by the French regime, or the way Western media and NGOs slandered and ignored the weekly bloodletting, tear gas shelling and mass arrests.
The Yellow Vests are an immediate, permanent rejoinder to Westerners who claim that their governments are more protective of democracy and less brutal than those in non-Western countries. That’s one of the three great legacies of the Yellow Vests.
The key to understanding the Yellow Vests is this, and it’s implicitly understood by the average European, totally not understood in places like the United States, and has been intellectually mastered by the vanguard Yellow Vests.
Ever since the pan-European project was activated in 2009, it has failed to do anything. Prosperity, stability and democracy – none of these have been implemented. France is not really France anymore – not unless Brussels says so – and it’s becoming less like France with each passing day under a political system that is still new.
So the Yellow Vests were truly 10 years in the making. They even arrived after a decade full of major social movements, because the first war of the European Union wasn’t a proxy war against Russia but the social war it waged against its own citizens.
The problem was not just the Great Recession of 2008 but the fact that the European Union/Eurozone was the only macroeconomic bloc that implemented absolutely no major recovery plan.
Even worse, its response was to undemocratically ram through far-right austerity policies. The Yellow Vests were the “working-poor class” cemented by the changes in Brussels, and their opponents were the highly-unequal “bourgeois bloc” that only saw the pan-European project in a rainbow glow of total success.
The Yellow Vests disproved the insistence of the Anglosphere – whose cultures are politically conservative – that all populist groups in the West are necessarily on the far-right.
As soon as December 2018, it was clear in France that the Yellow Vests were steeped in left-wing economics, anti-imperialism and a non-Islamophobic, modern conception of healthy patriotism.
This explains the nearly 80 percent approval rate for the movement, and staggering popularity, especially in France which had grown extremely cynical due to undemocratic failures of the pan-European project.
If one word had to be given to describe the Yellow Vests, it would be “civic-minded”. Concern for fellow citizens and the downward spiral of non-elite masses is what basically propels such popular revolutions.
These simple, obvious and pro-community concepts are forbidden in the Western mainstream media. There is no “working-poor class” in France. There are only racist, backward, lazy, always-complaining Frenchmen. There is no “bourgeois bloc” but only an elite group of enlightened and deserving technocrats who decide for us what constitutes the “reality”.
These are truly the two classes of the 21st century West – forget “middle class”, because the pan-European project has dealt the final blow to what Reaganomics/Thatcherism began.
Fully understanding and opposing the West’s current social class reality is the second great achievement of the Yellow Vests, but of course, one cannot find class discussed in the English-speaking media.
However, there is another achievement that is even greater but less discussed, probably because it requires a complete overview of modern Western politics, which began in 1789 with the anti-monarchy/anti-aristocrat/anti-privilege French Revolution.
The arrival and the repression of the Yellow Vests remind us all of the undeniable failures of “liberalism”. The Yellow Vests aren’t actually new but are integral to French revolutionary history transported from 1848-71.
The struggle today is the same as it was back then. It’s a struggle against elitist liberalism and its attendants: oligarchical and anti-democratic parliamentarianism, free-market chaos, anti-government ideology encapsulated by austerity cuts to social services, and encouragement of a rat race to “become bourgeois”.
The Yellow Vests took France and Europe back to 1848 when the “Second Republic” re-ended the French monarchy and claimed the mantle of the French Revolutionary “First Republic”. Liberalism was installed for the first time and immediately proved that it was plagued by all the problems described above.
Liberalism has proved a failure since 1848, and the liberalist principles (“neoliberal” is more commonly used today to differentiate it from the discredited, original “liberalism”) that underpin the pan-European project have failed today. They always fail.
The arrival, desperate passion and durability of the Yellow Vests are proof of this, and showing the hypocrisy, brutality and ineffectiveness of always-unequal liberalism is the third and greatest and historical achievement of the Yellow Vests.
Liberalism, infamously, does not promise anyone the right to a decent existence. Back in 1848, Karl Marx and other socialists demonstrated these facts about Western liberal democracies. The Yellow Vests have brought us back to these inescapable political and social truths.
Why did the Yellow Vests “fail”? Quite simply because the French government scared people away from it through heavy-handed tactics such as violence, heavy fines, arrests and imprisonment. That’s why their protests slowly dwindled in scale and magnitude – owing to fear of state repression.
The fear has had dramatic, lasting consequences: the French have been reduced from the most politically-active nation in the West to being apathetic and uninvolved – typical of Western liberal democracies.
The apathy surrounding this year’s re-election of French President Emmanuel Macron was completely atypical for the country but it showed there was no stopping the will of the 1 percent and their fanatical “bourgeois bloc” toadies.
The Yellow Vests recently marched to commemorate their fourth anniversary, but you probably didn’t hear about it. You also likely haven’t heard that they’ve been marching every Saturday since “Season 2” began in October 2021, following a year-and-a-half coronavirus pause – which no world leader embraced with more joy and relief than Macron. However, the media blackout on them actually began way back in June 2020.
France is no longer gripped in revolutionary fervor, but the Yellow Vests haven’t gone anywhere. The average person has put their reflective yellow vest back where it belongs by law – in the car – but the network, relationships and experiences created by this extraordinary movement ensure that they will be back one day.
And they will be back. The history of Western liberalism has proven over and over again that the average person’s right to live decently will never be guaranteed.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
On December 1, 2018, the Yellow Vests announced themselves in France and the world, registering their name in history books with their revolutionary graffiti tagging of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the country’s most iconic monuments.
“The Yellow Vests will win” was a slogan that reverberated across the world, as the movement became the biggest, most organic, most devoted and truly revolutionary threat any Western country had faced for over half a century.
It was their third week of protest, and there was no going back now.
The world never expected a genuine resistance movement to sprout in France, a Western imperialist hub. The French were – many insisted – too self-righteous, too spoiled, too indoctrinated, and yet for the next six months every Saturday turned into a war zone across the country.
France was wholly gripped by the revolutionary frenzy at the time, and it was because the French way of life isn’t as extravagant as people may think.
The Yellow Vests didn’t bravely endure all this – at least 11,000 arrests, 1,000 political prisoners, 5,000 protesters seriously hurt, 1,000 critically injured, scores maimed for life and 11 deaths – because they have a luxurious lifestyle.
It is hard to say what was worse – the repression by the French regime, or the way Western media and NGOs slandered and ignored the weekly bloodletting, tear gas shelling and mass arrests.
The Yellow Vests are an immediate, permanent rejoinder to Westerners who claim that their governments are more protective of democracy and less brutal than those in non-Western countries. That’s one of the three great legacies of the Yellow Vests.
The key to understanding the Yellow Vests is this, and it’s implicitly understood by the average European, totally not understood in places like the United States, and has been intellectually mastered by the vanguard Yellow Vests.
Ever since the pan-European project was activated in 2009, it has failed to do anything. Prosperity, stability and democracy – none of these have been implemented. France is not really France anymore – not unless Brussels says so – and it’s becoming less like France with each passing day under a political system that is still new.
So the Yellow Vests were truly 10 years in the making. They even arrived after a decade full of major social movements, because the first war of the European Union wasn’t a proxy war against Russia but the social war it waged against its own citizens.
The problem was not just the Great Recession of 2008 but the fact that the European Union/Eurozone was the only macroeconomic bloc that implemented absolutely no major recovery plan.
Even worse, its response was to undemocratically ram through far-right austerity policies. The Yellow Vests were the “working-poor class” cemented by the changes in Brussels, and their opponents were the highly-unequal “bourgeois bloc” that only saw the pan-European project in a rainbow glow of total success.
The Yellow Vests disproved the insistence of the Anglosphere – whose cultures are politically conservative – that all populist groups in the West are necessarily on the far-right.
As soon as December 2018, it was clear in France that the Yellow Vests were steeped in left-wing economics, anti-imperialism and a non-Islamophobic, modern conception of healthy patriotism.
This explains the nearly 80 percent approval rate for the movement, and staggering popularity, especially in France which had grown extremely cynical due to undemocratic failures of the pan-European project.
If one word had to be given to describe the Yellow Vests, it would be “civic-minded”. Concern for fellow citizens and the downward spiral of non-elite masses is what basically propels such popular revolutions.
These simple, obvious and pro-community concepts are forbidden in the Western mainstream media. There is no “working-poor class” in France. There are only racist, backward, lazy, always-complaining Frenchmen. There is no “bourgeois bloc” but only an elite group of enlightened and deserving technocrats who decide for us what constitutes the “reality”.
These are truly the two classes of the 21st century West – forget “middle class”, because the pan-European project has dealt the final blow to what Reaganomics/Thatcherism began.
Fully understanding and opposing the West’s current social class reality is the second great achievement of the Yellow Vests, but of course, one cannot find class discussed in the English-speaking media.
However, there is another achievement that is even greater but less discussed, probably because it requires a complete overview of modern Western politics, which began in 1789 with the anti-monarchy/anti-aristocrat/anti-privilege French Revolution.
The arrival and the repression of the Yellow Vests remind us all of the undeniable failures of “liberalism”. The Yellow Vests aren’t actually new but are integral to French revolutionary history transported from 1848-71.
The struggle today is the same as it was back then. It’s a struggle against elitist liberalism and its attendants: oligarchical and anti-democratic parliamentarianism, free-market chaos, anti-government ideology encapsulated by austerity cuts to social services, and encouragement of a rat race to “become bourgeois”.
The Yellow Vests took France and Europe back to 1848 when the “Second Republic” re-ended the French monarchy and claimed the mantle of the French Revolutionary “First Republic”. Liberalism was installed for the first time and immediately proved that it was plagued by all the problems described above.
Liberalism has proved a failure since 1848, and the liberalist principles (“neoliberal” is more commonly used today to differentiate it from the discredited, original “liberalism”) that underpin the pan-European project have failed today. They always fail.
The arrival, desperate passion and durability of the Yellow Vests are proof of this, and showing the hypocrisy, brutality and ineffectiveness of always-unequal liberalism is the third and greatest and historical achievement of the Yellow Vests.
Liberalism, infamously, does not promise anyone the right to a decent existence. Back in 1848, Karl Marx and other socialists demonstrated these facts about Western liberal democracies. The Yellow Vests have brought us back to these inescapable political and social truths.
Why did the Yellow Vests “fail”? Quite simply because the French government scared people away from it through heavy-handed tactics such as violence, heavy fines, arrests and imprisonment. That’s why their protests slowly dwindled in scale and magnitude – owing to fear of state repression.
The fear has had dramatic, lasting consequences: the French have been reduced from the most politically-active nation in the West to being apathetic and uninvolved – typical of Western liberal democracies.
The apathy surrounding this year’s re-election of French President Emmanuel Macron was completely atypical for the country but it showed there was no stopping the will of the 1 percent and their fanatical “bourgeois bloc” toadies.
The Yellow Vests recently marched to commemorate their fourth anniversary, but you probably didn’t hear about it. You also likely haven’t heard that they’ve been marching every Saturday since “Season 2” began in October 2021, following a year-and-a-half coronavirus pause – which no world leader embraced with more joy and relief than Macron. However, the media blackout on them actually began way back in June 2020.
France is no longer gripped in revolutionary fervor, but the Yellow Vests haven’t gone anywhere. The average person has put their reflective yellow vest back where it belongs by law – in the car – but the network, relationships and experiences created by this extraordinary movement ensure that they will be back one day.
And they will be back. The history of Western liberalism has proven over and over again that the average person’s right to live decently will never be guaranteed.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
Ahead of the 2022 Qatar World Cup, calls to de-politicize sports seem ridiculous and senseless upon examining the inseparable historical connection between sports and politics.
Debunking the myth of ‘de-politicizing’ sports
A few days before the 2022 Qatar World Cup, French President Emmanuel said that sport should not be politicized.
“I think we must not politicize sport,” said Macron, whose national team is defending the title it won in Russia in 2018.
Macron, who will go to Qatar if the French team reaches the semifinals, said it was “a very bad idea to politicize sport,” noting that France will host the Olympic Games in 2024.
This comes amid a wave of criticism that Qatar is being subjected to over reports that many migrant workers — predominantly from South Asia and South-East Asia and Africa — have suffered from exploitation and widespread labor abuses while working on the Gulf country’s World Cup projects.
Doha is also accused of allegedly paying bribes to some football federations in exchange for winning the right to host the FIFA World Cup on its territory.
It seems that the French President is contradicting himself and has apparently “forgotten” his interference and role in ensuring that French player Kylian Mbappe remains in France with his current team Paris Saint-Germain (PSG), as well as forcing coach Didier Deschamps to call Real Madrid player Karim Benzema to the French national team and participate in the 2020 European Championship, as per investigative journalist Romain Molina.
It also seems that Macron has forgotten that his country’s football federation did politicize sport and was the first to call for the expulsion of the Russian national team from the 2022 World Cup following the start of the war in Ukraine, showing clear double standards and turning a blind eye on several other issues pertaining to human rights, such as Israeli occupation crimes against Palestinians for example.
Soon after the Ukraine war broke out, numerous sports governing bodies suspended Russia from international competitions. However, these bans coincided with unprecedented support for Ukraine despite these bodies banning any other form of political or religious expression on the field.
Solidarity with #Ukraine is being shown across stadiums worldwide, breaking the sports no-politics doctrine. On the other hand, athletes and football clubs were fined and even punished for showing support for #Palestine. Who's politicizing the matter? #Russiapic.twitter.com/GVZ6Sxjyfl
Aside from the French President’s shallow argument, let’s not forget that, historically, sports have always been intertwined with politics and used as a theater to promote political ideology, voice political messages and criticism, shift diplomatic feuds to sports arenas, and whitewash human rights violations by political regimes – also known as sportswashing.
Several sports clubs around the world were even established on the basis of politics, were influenced by their founders who are usually into politics, and their fans follow certain political ideologies.
Felix Jakens, head of Priority Campaigns and Individuals at Risk at Amnesty International UK, defines sportswashing as “a process or moment where a country with a bad human rights record attempts to use sport as a way to create positive PR to clean up its image and deflect attention away from its human rights record.”
For example, when Italy was awarded the right to host the second FIFA World Cup in 1934, Italian fascist Benito Mussolini saw it as an opportunity to whitewash his regime’s image in front of the international community, despite the heinous crimes committed at the time.
Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini awarding the 1934 World Cup to Italy’s players (AP)
Similarly, Adolph Hitler used the 1936 Olympics held in Germany in an attempt to promote Nazism and prove the superiority of the Aryan-race athletes.
Adolph Hitler during the Olympic Games in Berlin, Germany in August 1936 (AP)
The same can be said about Argentina organizing the 1978 World Cup under the dictatorship of General Jorge Videla, where matches would be played a few meters away from where thousands of dissidents were being tortured.
On the other hand, the sports arena was also used, by athletes and fans, to protest injustice and show support for rightful causes.
In fact, when late boxing champion Muhammed Ali was drafted into the US Army to take part in the Vietnam war in 1966, the African-American athlete expressed his rejection of the decision, saying, “I will say directly, no, I will not go 10,000 miles to help kill innocent people.”
As a result, Ali was stripped of his title and suspended from boxing before the Supreme Court ruled in his favor in June 1971.
Boxing Heavyweight champion Muhammed Ali 1965 (AP)
In a related context, after receiving the gold and bronze medals for the men’s 200-meter race at the 1968 Mexico City Olympics, African-American runners John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised a fist in a Black Power salute in protest of mistreatment and systematic racism in one of the most iconic images of 20th-century sports.
Despite being demonized by the press and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) later expelling the two from the Games, Smith said this act of activism “was a cry for freedom and for human rights” and that “we had to be seen because we couldn’t be heard.”
Tommie Smith and John Carlos (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)
Most recently, in continuation of Carlos and Smith’s activism in the sports arena, several athletes all over the world “take a knee” before the start of games in protest of police brutality and systematic racism and in support of their victims, and multiple sports federations and clubs have endorsed this cause, especially after the death of African American George Floyd, who was brutally killed by a white police officer in the US city of Minneapolis.
When it comes to fandom, in late 2018, fans of the Raja Athletic Club of Casablanca (RCA), known for their endless support for the Palestinian cause, impressed the world with a new chant called “Fbladi Dalmouni,” i.e. “In my country, I suffered from injustice.”
The lyrics of the chant recount the suffering of the Moroccan youths and blame the country’s government for corruption, the economic situation, and oppressing freedom of expression.
RCA fans are only one example of the political messages and numerous causes that sports fans express during events in order to grab attention and make their voices heard against injustice and oppression.
Another example is notably Celtic F.C. fans, who have always openly declared their support for the Palestinian cause by abundantly raising Palestinian flags in their stadium, all whilst chanting pro-Palestinian anthems. FIFA usually fines the Scottish Football Association over Celtic fans’ acts of solidarity with the Palestinian people, deeming it “not appropriate for a sports event.”
In stark contrast, FIFA, along with other major sports bodies, allow themselves to practice double standards and violate their rules by hailing acts of solidarity with Ukraine.
As such, it becomes clear that amid such political activism in sports, as well as other similar acts, a call such as Macron’s to de-politicize sports seems ridiculous and senseless upon examining the inseparable historical connection between sports and politics.
The French President’s call is also unjust and would deprive athletes and fans of a huge platform to voice their opinion and shed light on their causes in a world full of injustices.
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UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 