Quo vadis, Europa?

Is this the European Union that we have dreamt of? Is this the European Union that we have been tempted with? A united continent, with no borders, a continent blessed with peace and fraternity, with the well-being of its residents, blessed with the preservation of everything that singles the continent out from the rest of the world? As it is, European values transpired as the values that are not shared by the overwhelming majority of Europeans. These are same-sex marriages, gender mainstreaming, extirpation of all traditional values and mass immigration that increasingly changes the racial make-up of the European population and – what necessarily follows – the continent’s culture.

Up to very recently it was the Western part of Europe – the so-called old Union – that was subjected to the programmed and systematic influx of peoples from the Third World. The new members of the union – especially Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary – resisted the policy of mass immigration, running afoul of the Brussels’ commissioners and ruffling a few feathers among Western intellectuals. The year 2015 – that notorious year during which Germany is believed to have accepted between 800.000 and 1,200.000 arrivals – made the blood of Eastern Europeans run cold. They wanted to mingle with the French, the British, the Italians or the Germans, but were totally unprepared to regard the Afghanis or Somalis as new Europeans! The cultural, religious, mental gap was far too large to be bridged as was the pace with which those ethnic changes were effected! It did not go unnoticed either that Third World immigrants were clearly used as a weapon: a look at Turkey’s policy said it all. Also, the acceptance of tens of thousands of Third World immigrants was perceived by both Western and Eastern Europeans as mere virtue signalling and – in the case of the new member-states – as a sign of their submission the Brussels (Paris and Berlin). Add to this the indiscriminate procedure of letting foreigners into European countries: there was no way of screening the masses of arrivals whether they contained common criminals, mafiosi, terrorists and the like. Continue reading →

The ruble as an international currency

In retaliation for freezing Russian assets by the West, President Putin has signed a decree that enables Russian exporters of gas to demand rubles rather than dollars or euros. This is an interesting development in the war that is being waged between the West and Russia. The European Union depends to a very large extent on Russian gas. The efforts to create the green economy (they like to call it sustainable economy) are far from being completed. (To think of it: they have sought to put us on the green economy to spite Russia! Climate change was the bait for the gullible to join in.) Europe will need Russian gas (and oil). In order to buy it, it will need to have the Russian national currency. To acquire the Russian national currency, the West will be forced to trade dollars or euros for rubles at the Moscow stock exchange, thus raising international demand for the Russian currency and turning it into a means of international exchange. Sanctions work both ways.

On March 18, the Luzhniki Stadium gathered thousands of Russians in a patriotic rally, attended by various artists and the Russian president himself. Vladimir Putin delivered a speech in which – quoting the Gospel – he praised the efforts of the soldiers of the Russian Russian Federation fighting in Ukraine. A sea of waving Russia’s national white-blue-red flags dominated the scenery. The event was an eruption of patriotic feelings, something unknown in the West. If you think that the “regime” in Moscow is about to collapse or to be toppled, then think again.

Gefira 62: Warning Signs that Have Been Ignored

Ukraine is in the focal point of the Western world. War is being waged on its territory and the Western leaders and elites make believe they did not expect such a development. Are they frank? For years we have seen the ideological hostilities and observed cutting barbs being tossed at the Kremlin: Russia was kept busy bypassing the many sanctions, answering accusations levelled at Moscow with regard to the Boris Nemtsov, Sergei and Yulia Skripal or Alexei Navalny cases, handling the political upheavals in Belarus, Georgia, Kazakhstan, and especially Ukraine. The Russian president was habitually termed a dictator, the Russian government – a regime, though Vladimir Putin (indirectly called a killer! by President Biden) took great care to always refer to Western politicians as Russia’s partners. The way leading to the war that broke out on 24 February 2022 had been paved for many, many years. The Maidan revolt of the year 2013/2014, the ensuing annexation of Crimea and the Russia-induced uprising against Kiev in the Donbass region could have been viewed as a dress rehearsal for the current events. Syria was yet another scene where this dress rehearsal took place. With all the sanctions (NordStream 2), accusations, clashes by proxy, insinuations and what not, how can anybody say he did not expect the eruption?

Americans love the phrase red line. They impose certain requirements on their opponents and if they are not fulfilled, Washington strikes. Recall Syria. It was something like that: one day President Obama said the United States would launch missiles if the Syrian rebels used gas and on the following day they did use gas, most likely to please the Americans and provide them with the pretext to attack. The leaders on the Potomac drew the red line and, seeing it crossed, reacted as they had promised. Moscow, too, had no other choice as to set down its own red line which was: Ukraine must not become a member-state of NATO or else. When Ukraine’s NATO membership did not cease to be constantly on the table, and when – to top it all – it began to be discussed whether Kiev should not be allowed to have its own nukes, Russia struck. Such are the rules of the game. If you lay down your red lines and then sit idly by watching the red line being crossed again and again, you become a political nonentity that nobody reckons with. By the way, the same is true of individuals, not only states. Adhering to American political language in which all US interventions are termed peaceful operations or operations aimed at preventing a humanitarian disaster, so did Russia label its intervention in Ukraine as a military operation aimed at the demilitarization and denazification of the country. If you do not see the parallelism, then you are unfairly prejudiced against Moscow.

Gefira 62 does not deal with the unfolding war in Ukraine directly. Rather, it presents the reader with a psychological portrait of Russia, taking him on a journey from monument to monument dedicated to Russia’s past and from speech to speech occasioned by the unveiling of those monuments – insightful messages from the largest Slavic nation to the world outside, messages revealing the nation’s soul and ambitions. These messages should have been received, read and properly interpreted. Alas, the overwhelming majority of the Western world ignores everything Russian (also Ukrainian, Serb, Croat, Polish, Czech), has very little knowledge about those regions of the world and heavily relies on the mendacious and biased media for the information about the nations mentioned above. If Russian sources are sometimes studied, then they are hopelessly misunderstood. Compare the interpretation put on Leo Tolstoy’s “War and Peace” masterpiece in the 1958 American drama film with Audrey Hepburn, Henry Fonda and Mel Ferrer with that given by the 1966-67 movie featuring Sergei Bondarchuk, Ludmila Savelyeva and Vyacheslav Tikhonov. How many readers are familiar with the former rather than with the latter, if they are familiar with the book or the said motion pictures in the first place?

The original sin leading to the hostilities and the hate among nations is the inability to listen to the other side to the conflict, the inability (or even conscious unwillingness) to let the other side be heard. Cross your heart and say honestly: have you ever for the last several years listened to the Russian argumentation concerning Navalny, Syria, NordStream 2 or Ukraine? Have you ever tried to access Russian patriotic media outlets (we do not mean the Russian so-called dissidents who echo CNN or BBC) of which some are in English, and have you tried to adjudge the conflict between the West and Russia impartially? Gefira 62 with its accompanying website www.gefira.org are doing their best to help you hear the other side to the conflict.

Gefira Financial Bulletin #62 is available now

Warning Signs that Have Been Ignored
Monuments to the Future
How financiers infiltrate democracies and take over economies
What do Pope Francis and Friedrich Merz Have in Common

Much wants more and loses all

The collective post-West has been running amok for the last two weeks. The powers that be make believe that they did not expect that events would unfold the way they are unfolding now (though they did their best to make things happen as they are happening) and they make a show imposing sanctions on the aggressor and assuring the populace that the aggressor sooner or later will cave in. There is yet a third aspect to the phenomenon: the same powers that be want the people to forget that merely twenty years back they themselves assaulted Yugoslavia/Serbia, used missiles with depleted uranium, bombed cities and shot at civilians. Of course, that earlier event was a humanitarian action while the current one is a brutal act of aggression, but we digress.

Now there is a big misconception on the part of the post-West about Russia. If the Western media claim the Russian people are against the war or that the Russian people are about to rebel and overthrow President Putin, then they are either delusional or lying through their teeth. Reality is something that refuses to obey our wishes. The Russian people have rallied around their president and and their authorities; the Russian people – unlike citizens of the post-Western countries – are patriotic and ready to sacrifice themselves in defence of their fatherland. Western sanctions? The post-West may withdraw businesses and impose sanctions on Russian oligarchs, which is music to the ears of the Russian people. They resented Western dominance anyway and they will be more than happy to see the oligarchs mopped up from their society. Russians view the hostilities as a repeat of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945. Contrary to what has been done to the Western collective mentality, the Russian authorities under Vladimir Putin took great efforts to raise Russia’s citizens in patriotic values. Russians are going to win because they do not care about money so much as the West does. That’s one big misconception that Western people have about their opponents from the East.

It is the West that cannot imagine a life without money and the resultant luxuries. Sanctions or no sanctions, Western companies will sooner or later (I bet: sooner) resume business with Russia because – as everybody in the West knows – “money makes the world go round”. No less a person than Comrade Lenin famously said: capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will make a noose to hang them. And so they will, make no bones about it.

Yes, the West is ready to go to war with Russia so long as it has… Ukrainian, Polish, Romanian, Lithuanian, Latvian or Estonian soldiers at its disposal. The moment the West runs out of those soldiers, its leaders will go back to the negotiating table with the Kremlin. Do you want any evidence? Here you are. Continue reading →

Historical and political musings

The Soviet Union was made up of republics and so was Yugoslavia composed of republics. Each Soviet republic contained ethnic minorities as did each Yugoslavian republic. It is said that Russians – by sheer numbers – dominated – culturally, economically and politically the Soviet Union; it is equally claimed that Serbs had a cultural, economic and political edge. The two largest soviet republics – Russia and Ukraine – appear to be especially hostile to one another; the same is true of the two largest Yugoslavian republics, that of Serbia and Croatia. Russians and Ukrainians share the same Christian Orthodox faith, while Croats are Catholic and Serbs are Orthodox. Still, there is some similarity even here: though the Ukrainians are Orthodox Christians, they style themselves as westerners as compared to Russians. In both cases – that of Russia and Ukraine as well as that of Serbia and Croatia – we can see ethnically mixed populations and especially ethnically mixed marriages.

The dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia was more or less peaceful. Real trouble began on the following day. In either case Western powers did their best to take an advantage of the conflicts and bring about a further weakening of Russia and Serbia, as the case may be. Chechens in Russia and Albanians in Serbia are parallel examples. While Russia eventually managed to suppress the Chechen revolt, Serbia did not: the Western interference prevailed. In both cases the Western media continue to tout Russia and Serbia as the only culprits in the developing conflicts. Russian and Serbian leaders are called names with dictator being among the most polite. Ukrainians and Croats, but especially Chechens and Albanians (Kosovars) are invariably spoken of as innocent victims of the atrocious and dreadful persecutions that they suffer at the hands of, respectively, Russians and Serbs. In either case these dreadful atrocities compel the collective post-West to step in militarily to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe or else. Or else we are in for yet another Auschwitz and the rest of it, as it is frequently maintained. The appalling atrocities allegedly perpetrated by either Russians or Serbs (and never ever by Chechens, Ukrainians, Croats or Albanians/Kosovars)) turn Western sworn pacifists into bellicose hawks.

Sanctions once imposed on Serbia and for some time now on Russia are so numerous and multiple, so repetitive, that you lose count of them, and they really do not make any impression on anybody anymore (not to mention that despite all that sabre rattling on the part of the collective West, Russian gas is still pumped to Western Europe, certainly not free of charge). These declarations of sanctions are something like crying wolf again and again in that well-known Aesop’s fable.

In both geographical regions we can see self-hating Russians and self-hating Serbs who fall all over themselves to please their Western overseers. In both cases pictures of fleeing people, especially women and – yes! yes! – children are hammered home to tug at our heartstrings. Emotions are stirred up, reason is not appealed to. Similar events are evaluated entirely differently. The attack of the United States on Serbia is approved, the attack of Russia on Ukraine is not; the recognition of an independent Kosovo is OK’d, the recognition of independent Donbass republics is not. Russian or Serbian nationalisms (the word patriotism is never used) are condemned, whereas Croatian and Ukrainian, and especially Chechen and Albanian nationalisms are endorsed. Continue reading →

Where’s the difference?

Kosovo was a part of Serbia. It was (and continues to be) inhabited predominantly by Albanians. (They are frequently referred to as Kosovars for political reasons.) The United Nations once established the principle that nations ought to be allowed to determine their own destiny, that is to say, whether they want to have an independent state or join a state of their own choice. This principle led to the political action of Kosovo Albanians who rebelled against Serbia; the same principle was used as a pretext by the United States to bomb Serbia for 78 days because Serbs had been allegedly discriminating against Albanians and deserved to be taught a lesson. After Serbia had eventually caved in to American (and Albanian) demands, that is released its grip on the province, in due time Kosovo was recognised as an independent state by a large number of countries, especially those under American domination.

The Donbass (the republics of Luhansk and Donetsk) was a part of Ukraine. It was (and continues to be) inhabited predominantly by Russians. (They are frequently referred to as rebels for political reasons.) Since Kiev began ousting anything that smacked of Russian culture including the Russian language, Ukraine’s two easternmost departments of Luhansk and Donetsk made an act of secession and declared themselves to be independent republics in accordance with the aforesaid principle of the United Nations. A few days ago Russians recognised the independence of the aforementioned republics and began attacking Ukraine in defence of the Donbass inhabitants who had been suffering at the hands of Ukrainians for eight long years.

The attack of the United States on Serbia and the recognition of Kosovo’s independence is said to be good whereas the attack of Russia on Ukraine and the recognition of the independence of the Luhansk and Donetsk Republics is said to be bad.

Why?

Political reflections

Parties in democratic, western countries have a short sell-by date. Their members sometimes switch to another party or grouping so quickly that the attentive observer of one or the other political scene in the so-called Western world is easily confused as to whom he should actually entrust his future (and present?). As a voter, you buy into a plot, a product, and shortly afterwards you experience a disappointment, an intestinal spasm, sometimes an inner poisoning. Does the majority of humanity (China+India+Russia+most of the “emerging countries”) even know this problem which, here in the so-called West, this television and these media are constantly hammering home: Which politician might not be corrupt, which guy is okay, which one is not anymore and which party is passé because of him? Do you still vote? Really?

Parties in authoritarian-ruled countries stay in power for so long that they can only envy their Western counterparts. Putin has stayed in power for over 4 terms of a US president. While we cannot remember the name of once-important politicians after a few years, time passes more slowly in the “second” world. Yes, time is an overlooked and crucial factor. Time is money. In the West, money is made fast (e.g. printed out of thin air by a central bank), in the poor South, from where migrants have been smuggled on an industrial scale since 2014, the same money thrives on drought-stricken plantations kept afloat with aid money from Western societies.

Please think about it and stick to your first impression: Which seems safer to you – Chinese 5-year and 10-year plans or the current administrative chaos of the EU? The plans forged under the influence of the voter polls in every European party and bold announcements by its members that should not be realised for another 3 years, or the GDPs of Eastern, Central European and other “emerging economies”? Think for a moment and imagine: Groko in China? Two speeds in China’s development? Ha, ha, ha! And there, in the Middle Kingdom, almost all the parts for your brand new German Volkswagen are produced. Germany is only responsible for the final assembly and the made-in… sticker. Continue reading →