Migration as a weapon
Mass migration can destabilize both the countries of origin and the host societies - such developments are not always pure coincidence.
“Migration
as a weapon” - this was a headline in the Süddeutsche Zeitung on March
3, 2016. At the time, this was not yet sacrilege and the consequences of
massive immigration were not quite so obvious. Now, however, Samuel Huntington's “clash of civilizations” is a sad reality. And instead of the causes of this situation being purposefully investigated, pub slogans dominate the discourse. A civilizational tragedy - because neither the native nor the migrant population benefits from chaos.
[This
article posted on 8/17/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/migration-als-waffe.]
It's quite simple. Nevertheless,
and although I've said it several times elsewhere, I have to repeat it:
for me, there are only two kinds of people - good and bad. That's it! That's it.
Anyone
who creates other categories, who pigeonholes people, who judges them
according to ethnicity, religion, origin, skin color, property status,
eating habits, visual characteristics or sexual orientation, should
urgently question their own world view. Because it is medieval.
“Everyone has the right to believe what they want. And everyone else has the right to believe that those beliefs are fucking ridiculous” (Ricky Gervais, August 9, 2024).
It's exactly the same.
All people have the same rights and the same entitlement to freedom by birth. And freedom in this context does not mean that you can do what you want, but that you don't have to do what you don't want.
That is the basis of a voluntarist world view. I don't care what other people believe, say or do - as long as they don't try to impose their will on me.
But many contemporaries don't seem to think that far ahead. Especially the so-called conservative camp. In 1996, the US political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published his book “Clash of Civilizations”, a sequel to his article of the same name published in the summer of 1993 in Foreign Affairs, the in-house publication of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Subtitle: “The reshaping of world politics in the 21st century”. At
the time, Huntington argued that there would be conflicts between the
different cultural areas in the foreseeable future, as the Chinese and
Islamic cultural areas in particular did not identify with the values of
the West. These
conflicts would intensify due to the NATO powers' claim to hegemony,
enforced with brute force, and ultimately lead to a reorganization of
the world. On page 68 he writes at the time:
"The
West conquered the world not through the superiority of its ideas or
values or religion (to which few members of other cultures could be
converted), but rather through its superiority in the use of organized
force. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never forget it."
Huntington's book was heavily criticized at the time. His
prognosis that the power of the West would fade was not sufficiently
scientifically proven and ventilated a grossly simplistic world formula.
Almost twenty years later, however, it is clear that Huntington was right. His
excellent contacts with elite US universities, politicians and secret
services probably helped him to put a reliable prognosis on paper. After all, he began his career in the 1960s as an advisor to Pieter Willem Botha 's less than squeamish apartheid secret service (CCB) in South Africa and, according to the Frankfurter Rundschau, was considered “the most influential professor of politics in the USA after Henry Kissinger”. Huntington's death in December 2008 does not necessarily have to be seen as a loss.
He was not alone in his predictions. The United Nations (UN) has also been anticipating a “clash of civilizations” for some time. It is no coincidence that the supranational conglomerate has been organizing the World Population Conferences since 1954, where precisely this topic is centrally discussed and coordinated. A UN study published on March 21, 2000 illustrates which scenarios are being investigated and promoted in this regard. Title: “Replacement Migration: Is it A Solution to Declining and Ageing Populations?” Replacement migration: Is it a solution to declining and ageing populations? The
document proves that the massive migration movements of today are no
coincidence, but the result of a well-calculated strategy. See pages 31 to 33:
"Figure 1 shows a standardized comparison of immigration flows per million inhabitants (as of 2000). This
comparison shows that, in relation to the size of the country, the
number of immigrants required per year between 2000 and 2050 to maintain
the working-age population (Scenario IV) is highest in Italy, with
6,500 immigrants per million inhabitants, followed by Germany with 6,000
immigrants per year per million inhabitants.
Of
the countries and regions analyzed in this report, the United States,
with about 1,300 immigrants per million inhabitants, would need the
lowest number of immigrants to prevent a decline in its working-age
population. (...)
In Scenario IV, which aims to keep the working-age population (15 to 64
years) constant, the number of immigrants is even higher than in
Scenario III. In Germany, for example, the total number of immigrants
under Scenario IV would be 24 million (or 487,000 per year) compared to
17 million (or 344,000 per year) under Scenario III. (...)
The
number of immigrants needed to compensate for a decline in the
working-age population significantly exceeds the number that would
compensate for a decline in the total population. Whether
such higher immigration numbers are among the options available to
governments depends largely on the social, economic and political
circumstances of the country or region in question."
It
should be clear to anyone who has studied geopolitics that this is not
just about the social, economic and political conditions in the country
that is to receive the immigrants.
Accordingly,
destabilization wars and neo-colonialism of the Western values do not
only have the purpose of overthrowing unpopular governments in order to
get hold of a country's financial industry and raw materials - when
democracy is thrown off, it is always also about the strategic goals of
global population policy.
Eugenics
- nowadays touted under pseudo-progressive labels such as bioethics,
biosocial research, biodigital convergence, family planning or
development aid in the field of contraception.
“Germany
must be contained from the outside and heterogenized, 'diluted' as it
were, from the inside through an influx,” wrote Mariam Lau for DIE WELT on 7 February 2005, commenting on Joschka Fischer's book ‘Risiko Deutschland’. Since then, the quote has often been attributed to Fischer himself, although it does not appear in his book. However, Fischer does speak of the “dilution” of the German population in favour of transatlantic risk minimization. See the quotation marks placed by Lau.
It was not only the war-loving Fischer, who argued
in December 2023 that “the EU needs its own nuclear deterrent”, who was
concerned about how immigration affects the local population. The issue has always been a political tool thrown into the balance in the context of geopolitical shifts. See the book “The Transfer Agreement”,
published in 1984, which reports on the secret agreements between the
Third Reich and Zionists regarding the colonization of Palestine. Or the 360-page treatise
published in 2010 by Kelly M. Greenhill entitled “Weapons of Mass
Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion, and Foreign Policy”.
Even in the leading media, the topic was not taboo until a few years ago. See SPIEGEL of February 16, 2016, SZ of March 3, 2016 or Daily Mail of March 5, 2016. Everywhere they wrote about “migration as a weapon”. Of “refugees as a weapon”. Of the looming clash of civilizations and the marauding effect of non-integrative immigration.
It has achieved nothing.
Because federal policy, usurped by the UN's sustainability corporatism, had a different mandate. The borders remained open, the cost framework elastic and the incentives for new arrivals high. However, the insinuated paradise of tomorrow's colorful society was clearly not created.
Merkel's “welcome culture” soon became “Islam is not part of Germany”. “We can do it!” became ‘We need remigration’. As if religion were the core problem.
It seems that people in the West have forgotten that all monotheistic religions are conceptually different from the competition. Followers of the Jewish faith like to refer to non-Jews pejoratively as goyim. Christianity calls the dissenters heretics - and murdered up to 22 million of them in the bloodlust of the Crusades. And Buddhism, which is shrouded in the myth of absolute peacefulness, also knows violence.
It
is therefore more than naïve to demonize Islam - which has already been
used as a scapegoat for the “War on Terror” based on lies - with crude
generalisms. The
scriptures of all world religions can be interpreted absolutistically
in order to justify violence against those who think differently.
Consequently, all extremism must also be condemned - but without restricting the religious freedom of others.
Sub-complex
explanations and pub slogans such as “Islam is not part of Germany” are
therefore of little help in defusing what is undoubtedly an explosive
situation. What
is needed is interreligious dialog, integrative social structures and
an open, informed debate about the actual causes of refugee flows,
violence and parallel societies. After
all, if the refugees' home countries did not descend into chaos, war
and poverty, fewer people would probably make the long journey to
Europe.
So we can only demand: Stop the violence! Because
if the history of the last thousand years has taught us anything, it is
that only those who are completely indifferent to culture, morality and
human life benefit from a “clash of civilizations”.
Tom-Oliver Regenauer,
born in 1978, trained in business administration and has worked in
various sectors and roles, including as an operations manager, business
and management consultant and international project manager with
assignments in over 20 countries. Since the mid-1990s, he has also been active as a music producer and lyricist and runs an independent record label. The German-born author has lived in Switzerland since 2009. His
most recent publications are “Homo Demens - Texte zu Zeitenwende,
Technokratie und Korporatismus” (2023) and “Truman Show” (2024). Further information at regenauer.press.
Crime and punishment
A famous novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky can teach us a lot about the failure of the West in the Ukraine war.
Dostoyevsky has a hard time in these times. His
works are being canceled posthumously in some places because he is
accused of coming from the same country as Vladimir Putin, who was not
even born when the poet was alive. “Crime
and Punishment”, also known as ‘Crime and Punishment’, is a work whose
timeless significance is proven anew in every generation. Today,
the political West in particular resembles Dostoyevsky's anti-hero
Rodion Raskolnikov, who commits a terrible deed out of megalomania and
is inevitably caught up in its consequences. The “crime” consists of the attempt to involve the giant empire of Russia in a war and thus destroy it. The
“punishment” is now that this opponent has proven to be indestructible,
and that it is the West itself that is now floundering internationally.
Almost all countries outside the NATO area are turning away in horror from this policy driven by hypocrisy and greed for power. It is not Russia that is currently fighting for survival, but the West.
by Patrik Baab
[This
article posted on 8/17/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/verbrechen-und-strafe-2.]
Don't do it, Rodya! On the wall was written in paint: “Не убивай, Родя!” - “Rodja, don't kill!” It
was in the spring of 2002 when I stood in St. Petersburg for the first
time in front of the house where Rodion Raskolnikov probably lived:
Stoliarny Per No. 9. Whoever painted the graffiti shouted it after
Dostoyevsky's murderer, as if he could correct the novel from the past.
In Stoliarni Per No. 5 there is a passageway to the inner courtyard. Dostoyevsky must have had this place in mind when he has Raskolnikov find the hatchet in a street sweeper's store. The murderer continues on to Ulitza Kaznacheyskaya, where the writer wrote Crime and Punishment in house no. 7. He sends Raskolnikov in the direction of the Griboedeva Canal.
He stops on the Kokushkin Bridge and looks into the water, full of gloomy thoughts. Then
he turns right from Sadovaja Ulitza into Rimskogo Korsakova, crosses
Voznesensky Prospekt towards Ulitza Bolshaya Podiacheskaja and Sredniaja
Podiacheskaja. The
usurer's apartment is between the street and the canal, Kanala
Griboedeva 104, through the corridor to the inner courtyard, entrance
no. 5, 3rd floor. There he kills her with a hatchet and her sister Lisaveta, who appears at the same time. Rodya flees down the stairs through the corridor onto the street.
When I was 16, I read “Crime and Punishment” like a thriller. Decades
later, the novel was a guide for the flaneur, whose walks often ended
at Moika 86, in the restaurant “Idiot”, named after another novel by
Dostoyevsky, where we sometimes had filming meetings.
Today, “Crime and Punishment” is a warning sign for the war in Ukraine - especially for readers from the global South.
Like
the student from China to whom a friend rented an apartment on Nevsky
Prospekt, many intellectuals from Asia, Africa and South America are
familiar with Dostoyevsky. Many have studied in Russia. For this reason alone, they refuse to accept the propaganda of the West.
For
the academic class of the global South, the formula of an “unprovoked
war of aggression” is pure self-deception on the part of NATO; rather,
they see the Ukraine war as a defensive pre-emptive strike by Russia,
just like Nicolo Machiavelli:
“It is not he who first takes up arms who is the instigator of disaster, but he who compels it.”
You can also read this in Dostoyevsky: The bloody deed has a prehistory. The student Raskolnikov has a mixture of poverty and arrogance. He considers himself morally superior. This
gives rise to the idea of “permissible murder”, the notion of
“extraordinary” people who enjoy natural privileges in the sense of
general human progress,” which, however, does not correspond to the
actual situation in life. Observers in the global South also attest to NATO's delusions of grandeur and loss of reality. Intellectuals in the Global South hold the NATO states responsible for a whole series of the most serious political crimes.
They accuse the West of numerous wars of aggression in violation of international law: The
bombing of Serbia in 1999 to force the secession of Kosovo - a war of
aggression in violation of international law, according to former German
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder years later. The
war of aggression against Afghanistan in violation of international law
with hundreds of thousands of deaths, at the end of which the USA and
ISAF fled Kabul defeated and which ended with the situation that they
supposedly wanted to eliminate: the rule of the Taliban. The
war of aggression against Iraq in 2003, in violation of international
law, and the eradication of entire cities such as Raffa or Fallujah with
hundreds of thousands of deaths, especially among the civilian
population. The
US regime change operation in Syria from 2011 onwards, which violated
international law, because head of state Assad refused the plan to build
a gas pipeline from Qatar to Europe and thus compete with Gazprom. The bombing of Libya in 2011, which was orchestrated by the current US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. Together with Hillary Clinton, he had already planned the coup in Honduras in 2008.
The
statement by former top German diplomat Christian von Schulenburg that
NATO has been responsible for most political assassinations since 1991
has met with approval in Africa, South America and large parts of
Eurasia. His conclusion is shared in the global South: There is no more international law; NATO has destroyed it and replaced it with the law of the fist, called “rules-based order”. A megalomaniac hegemon; but a large part of the world no longer plays along.
Every
cab driver in New Delhi or Colombo understands that, contrary to
promises to the contrary, the eastward expansion of NATO and the advance
of the Western alliance to Russia's borders are perceived as a threat
in Moscow, just as Washington would not accept it if Canada or Mexico
joined a hostile military alliance.
The Monroe Doctrine alone stands in the way of this. Only
the children of the upper middle classes in German editorial offices do
not want to understand this because they have degenerated into
transatlantic satraps.
The
coup on the Maidan in Kiev in 2014, in which an elected president was
chased out of office with Western help and US support, and the fatal
shots that were demonstrably fired from Right Sector buildings, the use
of three Georgian snipers and a US instructor named Bryan Christopher
Boyenger, the close cooperation between the EU and the US and Ukrainian
fascists - all of this has not been forgotten in the global South,
despite the lies in the Western media.
The
civil war in the Donbass from 2014 to 2022 is also well remembered,
where fascist militias and the Ukrainian army, partly under US
direction, terrorized the Russian population with grenades, bombs, mines
and rockets - according to the OSCE, with more than 14,000 dead,
including 3,400 civilians; according to Russian figures, more than 6,000
civilians were killed and more than 13,500 wounded. This is a forgotten war only in Europe.
In
the BRICS+ countries, it has also not been forgotten that former German
Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Francois Hollande
declared that the Minsk II agreement was only intended to give Ukraine
time to rearm - thereby undermining an agreement valid under
international law through UN Resolution 2202 and misleading Moscow.
NATO
Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg's statement to the European
Parliament on September 7, 2023 was noted very closely in the global
South. Stoltenberg
said that Putin had proposed a deal to him in the fall of 2021, months
before the start of the attack in violation of international law: If NATO renounced the admission of Ukraine, he would renounce an invasion. However, according to Stoltenberg, this was not accepted. In passing, he mentioned that the war in Ukraine had already begun in 2014.
Like
the OSCE, Asia Times geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar has pointed out
that the Ukrainian army massed its troops on the demarcation line to the
Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republics in February 2022 and massively
increased shelling of the civilian population, apparently in preparation
for a military invasion. Observers
in the BRICS+ countries therefore see the Russian invasion as a
pre-emptive strike to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe. This is also how Putin justified the invasion: Protection of the ethnic Russian population in the Donbass; denazification of Ukraine and forcing a neutral status.
Even if NATO opinion-makers in editorial offices in Germany stubbornly deny this: Brookings
Institution senior fellow and advisor to three US presidents Fiona
Hill, the pro-government US magazine Foreign Affairs, former Israeli
Prime Minister Naftali Bennet, former German Chancellor Gerhard
Schröder, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, Selenskyj party
faction leader Davyd Arachamija, Russian President Vladimir Putin and
thus all those involved have confirmed that the West blocked the peace
negotiations in Istanbul in spring 2022.
On
April 9, the then British Prime Minister Boris Johnson traveled to Kiev
and urged the Ukrainian leadership on behalf of the USA to abandon the
advanced peace negotiations and continue fighting. The West torpedoed the Ukrainian leadership's peace efforts in February, March and August 2022. NATO is therefore partly responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Ukrainian war. All of this is well documented.
There is no scenario in which Ukraine wins this war. In
spring 2022, the already initialed negotiation results stipulated that
Ukraine would retain the Donbass, Kiev would declare its neutrality and
upper limits for the armed forces would be defined in detail. The Russian troops now have the advantage.
Putin's peace proposal from June 2024 sets much tougher conditions: The
regions of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhya are to become
part of the Russian Federation in their entirety; it demands Ukraine's
neutrality, a security zone and laws against right-wing extremism and
fascism. NATO did not respond to this. It is therefore once again responsible for prolonging the war. Anatol
Lieven, an analyst for Responsable Statecraft magazine, now assumes
that Ukraine will be divided and speaks of a “Cyprus status”.
In the global South, the West is being blamed for the destruction of Ukraine. There is a keen awareness of how the people of Ukraine are literally being burned to death.
Former Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador: “We supply the weapons, you supply the corpses. That is immoral.” The Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Oleksii Makeiev, also speaks of a “proxy war”. In this proxy war, the Ukrainians are merely cannon fodder for NATO. Military analyst Jacques Baud writes: “They are treated like sub-humans.”
For
Rodion Raskolnikov, the victim, the old pawnbroker Alyona Ivanovna, is
just a “louse”, just a worthless sub-human whose life does not matter
when it comes to showing one's own greatness and superiority. How hubris resembles itself!
The intellectuals of the BRICS+ states blame the West for all these crimes and hope for punishment. In
their eyes, the West will be punished in five areas in the future:
financially, economically, politically, socially and culturally.
Financially:
Russia's exclusion from the SWIFT financial transaction system has not brought the Russian financial system to its knees. With
the digital, cashless payment system MIR, Russia has created an
alternative in a very short space of time, which is also recognized in
Kazakhstan, for example. The Russian economy is turning away from Europe and towards Asia. As a result, China and India are becoming the most important customers for oil and gas. Russia will soon have five nuclear-powered icebreakers, making the northern route navigable for tanker convoys all year round.
Trade is increasingly being settled less in dollars and more in local currencies. The process of de-dollarization will also gain momentum through the Shanghai Development Bank. It
can be assumed that the global demand for dollars will fall and that
the USA will lose the ability to finance its wars via the printing
press. The costs of the war will ruin Europe financially.
The
attempt to illegally transfer frozen Russian foreign assets to Ukraine
will lead to the withdrawal of financial investments from third
countries and thus to the weakening of the Western banking system. The debt burden of the states will drive inflation. However, the problem of the downward trend in the rate of profit will not be solved. This
is because there is simply too much capital in the hands of large
financial investors such as BlackRock or Vanguard for it to be invested
profitably. In the meantime, BlackRock and JP Morgan have taken over Ukraine's debt management. This means that the country is falling into the hands of financial investors. But the collapse of the financial system is a matter of time.
Economically:
Just
a few months after the start of the war, Indian economists pointed out
that the West would lose the economic war with Russia. Further studies have since confirmed this. The Russian economy is proving surprisingly resilient, primarily for two reasons: It has had enough time to work towards self-sufficiency since the sanctions regime began in 2014.
The majority of countries in the Global South are not following the West's sanctions against Russia. These
include India, Brazil, China, Argentina, Indonesia, South Africa,
Mexico, Cuba, Venezuela, Chile, Uruguay, Guatemala, Panama, Puerto Rico,
the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Israel, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United
Arab Emirates, Oman, Turkey and the entire African continent. They represent more than three quarters of the world's population. The European Council on Foreign Relations came up with the formula: “United West, divided from the rest.” The West is isolated, not Russia.
The war in Ukraine is accelerating tectonic shifts in geopolitics in favor of the BRICS+ states. The West is fighting for survival, not Russia.
To the global South, the war in Ukraine appears to be a luxury problem for the North. From this perspective, Ukraine is not a country of liberation fighters, but another exploiter. The
open racism of European circles in the unequal treatment of Ukrainian,
white and African, black refugees is driving sympathy towards the
multi-ethnic state of Russia.
There are also tangible interests: Russia is becoming increasingly involved in Africa. Africa's food supply depends on Russia. African states obtain grain and fertilizer from there. The sanctions imposed by the West are affecting supply chains and making grain at least 30 percent more expensive. Hunger crises are inevitable as a result of these measures. The West wants to weaken Russia and is producing a mountain of African corpses.
Russia is a country that is self-sufficient in energy and resources. China needs African natural resources, Russia hardly needs them at all. What Russia needs are Western technologies for its industry, also in order to better exploit its resources. African countries are thus becoming middlemen in the circumvention of sanctions. China has become the main supplier of digital technology. The war in the North strengthens the South economically and in terms of power politics. However, the chances of democratization are not growing.
With
the terrorist attack on the Nordstream pipeline, which US President
Biden announced and for which former CIA employees also hold the USA
responsible, the transatlantic energy trap has snapped shut for Germany.
The sanctions mean that Europe has to spend many times the original amounts on raw materials. In
addition to gas, enriched uranium, titanium for aircraft construction,
rare earths and noble gases for semiconductor production are also
urgently needed in the USA. The
high costs of energy and raw materials are leading to a decline in
competitiveness, a shrinking industry and accelerating
de-industrialization. Companies are relocating to the USA, China, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Germany and Europe are turning from a preferred industrial location into an industrial museum.
Richard Sakwa was already talking about the “suicide of Europe” in 2015, before the war. The infrastructure - including the military infrastructure - will continue to disintegrate. Olaf Scholz is the chancellor of decline. His cabinet is a nightmare for employees. For the USA, on the other hand, this is a perfect war: it is far away and the arms industry is earning billions. Nevertheless, the country will break because none of these billions will reach the majority of Americans.
Politically:
We
are already dealing with a political class in decline: today we are led
in all western industrialized countries by transatlantic corrupted
elites. But there are reasonable doubts about President Biden's mental capacity. Top political personnel in Germany seem to be stuck at the level of childish language acquisition. The German ambassador in Kiev posts a selfie with a plush tank and writes: “My favorite toy!” Such
infantilization of politics and diplomacy is ridiculed worldwide and
leads to German politicians having to use the supplier entrance when
travelling abroad.
The latest election results and polls - across Europe - show that this political class is becoming increasingly unpopular. It
does not represent the interests of the people, but acts like the
representatives of an occupying power, in consensus with their American
friends, who have also helped them into the saddle.
This
elite will crumble and eventually be replaced by common demagogues like
Trump, who in turn will be replaced by charlatans, who will be replaced
by criminals and mafiosi and finally by monsters. Bourgeois post-democrats will pave the way for right-wing extremists and anarcho-capitalists.
Social:
The horrendous arms spending will lead to massive cuts in social benefits, especially in Germany. This will lead society into a test of strength. The
populations of the West are dividing further, into a majority that is
compensating for its existential fears by seeking protection from the
state and big brother USA, which is preparing to suppress reality and
lie away the facts, as it did during the coronavirus crisis, a majority
that is following the ever new lies of politicians and is no longer
willing to engage in Oedipal conflict, trusting authorities
unconditionally and thus destroying democracy in socio-psychological
terms - because democracy is based on criticism and control of political
power. And in a minority that can no longer stand the lies and rebels.
Social conflicts will increase. A subliminal civil war will periodically flare up into massive physical confrontations in streets, subways and soccer stadiums. This
will be overlaid by increasing distribution conflicts in disintegrating
welfare states that have long since turned into armaments and military
states. The appropriate dystopia is the movie “Mad Max”, the remake of which has reached the cinemas: Armed gangs roam through a destroyed industrial landscape and fight each other. In 2004, the article “Addressing State Failure” appeared in Foreign Affairs. Its conclusion: failed states make it easier for Washington to exert influence from outside.
Culturally:
Western
culture as a whole is seen as excessively individualistic,
transhumanist, perverse and unnatural from the perspective of the Global
South. Russian social philosophers such as Sergey Karaganov and Dimitri Trenin see this as degeneration and decay. Western culture is increasingly perceived as toxic and dangerous.
The southern hemisphere is turning to traditional points of orientation, “values”, such as family, community and state. This
is being promoted financially and propagandistically, particularly by
those states that want to distance themselves from the West, such as
Russia or China. Western
culture is facing an age of idiocy, the destruction of reason, in which
the ailing education system plays a decisive role. The ability to think is diminishing and being replaced by identitarian attitudes based on confession, not knowledge.
As Hegel says in Logic: identity is “the expression of empty tautology”. When
an author like Serhij Zhadan receives the Peace Prize of the German
Book Trade for calling Russians “animals” and “pigs”, when a NATO
propagandist named Florence Gaub is allowed to say unchallenged on Lanz
that Russians are “not Europeans, in the cultural sense”, who “have a
different relationship to violence, to death”, then this cultural nadir
has been reached. This is the racist language of fascism.
We have reached the stage of counter-enlightenment. Western culture will isolate itself worldwide and be seen as a decadent stage of decline.
Dostoyevsky publishes “Crime and Punishment” in 12 installments in the monthly Russki Westnik in 1866. Raskolnikov finds no peace after his murder. He fails because of his own megalomania. The investigating judge recognizes Raskolnikov as the murderer, but there is no proof. In the end, plagued by remorse and on the advice of the prostitute Sonja, he turns himself in. He is convicted and sent to a labor camp for eight years.
NATO and its commanders in Washington - as we saw again at the NATO summit in June 2024 - are not plagued by remorse. This is where reality diverges from Dostoyevsky's novel.
But those who cling to falling empires will be dragged down with them. This is the punishment for the crimes of the West.
Patrik Baab
is a political scientist and journalist at NDR and has worked on the
ARD films “The Death of Uwe Barschel” and “Uwe Barschel - The Enigma”,
among others. He
is a lecturer in practical journalism at the
Christian-Albrechts-Universität Kiel and at the Hochschule für Medien,
Kommunikation und Wirtschaft in Berlin.
Materialism on the brink
In
an exclusive Manova interview, Walter van Rossum discusses with
philosophers Matthias Burchardt, Gwendolin Kirchhoff, Raymond Unger and
pastor Jürgen Fliege why the 21st century will either be spiritual or
the last century.
The French writer André Malraux made this prophecy: “The 21st century will either be spiritual or it won't be.” And so it could be. So far, our century has made a rather frail impression, and the need for spirituality is growing. Occasionally people are even looking for a god. The gears of civilization are grinding violently. A
moment ago, we were dazzled by a reality that had an incredible amount
of resources at its disposal and in which man seemed to be the Almighty
himself - then reality spat us out and left us with nothing but
questions: What's all this hustling, bustling and banging about? Walter van Rossum, a competent philosophical quartet, explores such profound questions.
[This
article posted on 8/17/2024 is translated from the German on the
Internet, https://www.manova.news/artikel/materialismus-am-abgrund.]
Somehow we had overlooked the fact that the rationality of modernity was also just a language game. We can always do more and never know what we want. “Since God is dead, we have by no means become atheists,” diagnosed Jean-Paul Sartre. Modernity is characterized by an excess of means over ends. Instead of rational ends, we pay homage to fetishes: the supercar, world domination, the home. All
rational calculations end up in a sea of substitute myths, and
conversely, rationality is created by camouflaged devotional objects.
In
his essay novel “The Hero's Journey of the Citizen”, Raymond Unger has
constructed the epic of a possibly happy search for meaning. Jürgen
Fliege can tell of the consolations of a god - if you open yourself up
to him, while yoga teacher Gwendolin Kirchhoff finds whole worlds in
spiritual contemplation. But Matthias Burchard asks whether reality will improve if only individuals can share in the blessing of spirituality.
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