Restaurants offering free dishes

Every historical epoch or age has its religion. It may be a religion par excellence with a god or gods and a devil or devils, with a belief in afterlife, final judgement, reincarnation and what not. Such is not the only form a creed may take. Religions also assume forms of ideologies: apart from the beliefs in the otherworldly reality, man has also believed and continues to believe in the set of assumptions – laws – principles of his own making. Man’s strict observance of them transforms ideologies into religions. Humanity has had a number of such non-religious religions. This are socialism or enlightenment, human rights or the rights of the citizen, ecologism or globalism, with the list being by no means exhausted. One of the tenets of the last mentioned religions is the belief in the advantageousness of open borders. The argument is that man ought not to be restricted in his movement around the globe, that we are all one human race and hence citizens of the world.

The argument is false on a number of counts. For one, there are many natural borders of which language and culture are the most powerful in separating and dividing groups of people. Language itself makes runaways from one nation to another or one cultural region to another feel very much ill at ease. Hence, geographical or administrative borders merely reflect reality. It is very often recklessly repeated that nationalities only came into existence in the 19th century, but that’s not true. When you consider the borders of the medieval kingdom of France or England or Bohemia or Sweden, they somehow more or less overlap with the territory inhabited by the French the English or the Czech. The many German dukedoms and principalities along with kingdoms were still… German rather than mixtures of German and Italian or French nations. Sure, occasionally each of those political entities contained some ethnic minorities, but these were ethnic minorities and if they were bog enough, they sooner or later separated. The managers of the world seem not to be aware of all it. Also, the managers and ideologues of the world let themselves be seduced by their wishful thinking. But then who are they? Geniuses? But we are diverging.

Be it as it may, the concept of having open borders has been preached by today’s intellectuals as a kind of new commandment that has been etched into stone. The concept, however – just like about anything that has been born in the brains of the ideologues – is false and its falsity is glaring to anybody with common sense. What do we mean?

The Western countries have not merely opened their borders – doors – wide for anyone to come. That in itself would not be all that bad. After all, we have shops and restaurants and offices open for anybody and there is no problem with it. The Western countries have made it obligatory on themselves to provide for anybody who turns up with food and clothing and medical care and what not. The Western countries have not merely turned themselves into restaurants – offices – cinemas where anybody can come in and order something… in return for money. The Western countries turned themselves into such a type of restaurants – offices – cinemas where anybody who turns up is given food and beverages without having to pay for them. That’s the glaring falsity of the open borders ideology. It is not – let us reiterate it – that the restaurants are open: those restaurants have been turned into troughs regularly replenished with free-of-charge food, and naturally they act as magnets. Tens and hundreds of thousands flock to those troughs because why shouldn’t they?

Another falsity of the open-borders ideology consists in the fact that the Western ideologues provide the incomers with all the life necessities redistributing the wealth that is produced by of the host countries. It is not that the residents or prime ministers or the enlightened intellectuals give supplies to the needy from outside the Western world: it is that they take it away from their own citizens and redirect it to the aliens. Yes, the citizens of the host countries being brain-washed by the decades-long propaganda are generally in favour of aiding the aliens but herein lies yet another falsity. The citizens pay taxes and their governments funnel some of the money to the arrivals. Imagine now that not a penny is taken away from the citizens for the aid for the arrivals, but each citizen is asked to share voluntarily some of his income with all those Afghans, Somalis, Nigerians and Moroccans. How many people do you think – even among those who have been brainwashed – would support day in, day out the perfect strangers and how much money would they assign to the needs of the newcomers? It is one thing to have your money spent by the government when you have no say, and quite another to regularly and voluntarily deplete your bank account and transfer the money to aliens, especially those you are afraid or scared of every time you pass them by in the street of your town or city. How many helpers would we have under such conditions?

In other words, imagine running a restaurant and… having its door open to anybody who pleases to enter and… serving them all the dishes they wish without being paid for it! I dare say you wouldn’t like to do it even if you had money to burn. Especially – let me repeat it – if you were afraid or scared of your “guests”.

The legal case of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidency

On May 20 Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential term expired, which poses a very interesting legal and political case. Russia does not recognize Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s authority any more. Which is not a malicious act on her part. The argument is that any agreement, accord, whatever signed by someone who simultaneously is not the head of a country entails grave political problems. Any next president of Ukraine may either feel bound by the agreement that Ukraine entered into with Russia under the presidency of Volodymyr Zelenskyy or may renege on it as signed by someone who did not have the legal authority to act as the country’s leader. Why should the Kremlin even bother to consider any talks with Zelenskyy if such is the case?

As of now, the West recognizes Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s power despite the expiry of his presidential term of office. Yet, the same legal case might be used by the diplomats in Washington, London, or Paris in any later development of events in Ukraine. They, too, might one of these days make a statement that they do not feel bound to honour any international settlement signed by Volodymyr Zelenskyy if only such a political move suits their purposes.

As is known, it is the interaction of the real military and economic factors that are at the disposal of the international players that matters. Diplomacy is merely a reflection of those real factors. Hence, if the West feels coerced to enter into an unfavourable settlement with Russia over Ukraine, it may intentionally make Volodymyr Zelenskyy sign it with the hindsight that the settlement is going to be revoked the moment the balance of powers tilts in the West’s favour. The fact that the legality of Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s presidential authority is questionable might be viewed as a wild card in any future diplomatic dealings between the West and Russia if the latter agrees to honour Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s signature.

At present, Ukrainian jurisprudence might recognize the current Ukrainian leader as the country’s legitimate president. That may change overnight. Particular legal provisions can be construed to mean whatever pleases the powerful. We all know that.

Do not sink in the quagmire of petty facts! Step back and set your sights on the broad picture!

I keep returning to the same topic again and again. Yes, reporters and journalists, analysts and politicians love dealing with petty problems of whatever is happening, has happened or is going to happen. They immerse themselves and their minds in what was said by whom and what significance is to be assigned to this or that gesture. They love discussing the legal questions like whether Volodymyr Zelenskyy is still Ukraine’s legitimate president – his term ran out on 20th of May – or how and when the war in Ukraine will end. They are currently speculating about the outcome of the elections that are planned in June for the European Union and – how otherwise! – are afraid (who told them to be afraid?) of the “far right” winning too much of the vote. They set their sights on Trump and Biden and indulge in the same speculation about the outcome of American presidential election that is to take place later this year. Lots and lots of items of petty information. The term information noise is just the right one here. But why listen to all this petty news and these petty analyses every single day? All we need to do is to step back and see the broad picture. All we need to do is to understand the whole, the overriding trends, the phenomena as such. What are these phenomena? What are these general trends? What does the big picture look like?

We are having a big war in the territory that once was a part of the Soviet Union: in Ukraine. We have been having a number of local wars in the Caucasus, that is to say, also in the territory that once belonged to the Soviet Union. We have had successful or attempted coups d’état in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Georgia and elsewhere, also in the territories that were once parts of the Soviet Union. We have been told that hundreds of people have been killed as a result, still more have been maimed, displaced, driven into poverty. We have been witnessing heightened tensions between the West and Russia, with frequent military exercises and an increasingly frequent talk about the use of nuclear weapons. Now, these are the big, hard facts. What do we do with them?

If we view them as subsequent pages of the history book that is being written and has been written since the dawn of mankind, if we – as said above – let the petty facts and data capture our attention, if we – what’s even worse – assimilate and internalize the data for the sake of assimilating and internalizing them without drawing inferences, then we are wasting our time and life energy. We behave like students who attend lectures and classes and even try to memorize and practise things but who fail to grasp the overall picture, the workings of the mechanism; students who never really let the message of the overall body of lectures, classes and handbooks sink in and work its way into their awareness.

Take a step back, rid yourself of all the petty data and useless comments of the analysts or experts. Instead, ask yourselves a few questions and try answering them.

One. Would all those wars have taken place if the Soviet Union still existed? Would all those hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, maimed or driven into poverty if the Soviet Union continued to exist today?

Two. Would the West have ever dreamed about sending troops – mercenaries – military equipment inside the Soviet Union? Would the West have interfered so rabidly with the Soviet Union if it had existed till the present day?

Would Ukraine have lost at least 50% of its population, most of its industry; would Ukraine lost (sold) much of its fertile land to Western companies had the Soviet Union existed till this day? Would the Baltic States have become depopulated as they are (being) depopulated now, had the Soviet Union existed till this day?

Three. Would the still existing Soviet Union be a communist country or, rather, would it have gone the way of China, where capitalism is the base while communism is its ideological superstructure? In other words, is it not true that the Soviet Union, if it continued to exist today, would be communist but in name?

Four. Somehow anachronistically, but still: drawing a lesson from the fate of the post-Soviet area and era, if you have had decisive power before 1991 in the Soviet Union, would you have ever, EVER surrendered to the West? Would you have ever, EVER trusted the West? Would you have ever, EVER laid down your arms to the West?

Five. Again, having done your homework concerning the years 1991-2021, having been attentive during the classes and lectures delivered within the said period, would you ever want to become a part of the global market and manufacturing, doing away with some of your industries? Or, rather, you’d cling to autarchy as much is it is feasible and never relied on one global system of makings payments? As we know it has transpired that by letting your country become a part of the global system, you render your nation very much vulnerable: they – THEY – can cut you off from your own money and they – THEY – can try to starve you out in case you displease THEM.

Six. Do you still believe in free market economy, learning now and again that the United States – an alleged paragon of free market economy, of free economic competition and all those liberties – is going berserk imposing tariffs on Chinese products because they happen to be… better and cheaper? Hey, where do we have this lauded free market economy? Ah yes, we can have it so long as it serves the West’s purposes! The moment it dos not, we cannot have it. But of course, Chinese products are not blocked because they are better or cheaper – far be it from it! Chinese products are blocked because they have been manufactured under the conditions violating the human rights, and the like clap-trap!

By the way, if tariffs are imposed by the United States and the European Union because they protect respectively the American and European markets, why then tariffs among particular European states are viewed as detrimental? Would they not protect national economies? Or national economies are not worth protecting?

Seven. Being a responsible leader of any country, a patriot of your nation, or simply a good steward of the national economy and the territory that has been entrusted to you, and the security of your people, with the knowledge of the last thirty or so years, would you have ever, EVER signed those migration pacts? As can be seen, they only serve the purpose of diluting the local populations and ultimately destroying nations and states. Why talk about yet another batch of boats reaching this or that part of the European coast? They are coming here EVERY DAY. Why getting excited about it? It’s the huge problem that is important and this is: European and national politics have been hijacked by the powers that be and if you don’t like what is happening to your country – nation – you need to strike at the decision centre. Why in heaven’s name do they do it to us?

Eight. I know, this argument is repeated here and there, but I cannot refrain from rolling it out here again: war in Ukraine erupted because Russia could not tolerate Ukraine as a member of NATO or as a country used by NATO against Russia. Now Russia is of course to blame for the unprovoked aggression, is it not? But hey, if Mexico or Canada were to join a military alliance with Russia or China, if Mexico or Canada held joint military exercises with Russia or China, wouldn’t the United States invade Mexico? Would this invasion – aggression – be unprovoked?

Nine.

[a] Why are im-migrants to the Western world stubbornly referred to as _migrants as if they were to leave the West one of these days like migratory birds? Why is this misnomer applied and why do you – yes, you, my reader – recklessly, thoughtlessly repeat this term while talking about people who have arrived in the Old Continent or the United States to stay?

[b] The powers that be keep telling us that immigrants enrich each European country or the United States or Canada. Hang on for a moment: if the immigrants enrich us, by the same token they impoverish the countries they have left! Have you ever thought about it? So, we keep helping the poor countries by… impoverishing them! Wow!

[c] The powers that be reassure us that immigrants will assimilate and integrate and in the same breath they sermonize about the many human rights some of which guarantee anybody and everybody that his ethnicity, religion, customs and language be inviolable, inalienable, sacrosanct! How then are they going to assimilate and integrate?

[d] The immigrants keep coming to the Western world because of economic reasons, sometimes political ones. They are supposed to be loyal, good, law-abiding citizens in their adoptive countries. Hang on, again! Once such individuals left their own countries – nations – in search of a better life, they will not give two hoots about leaving the adoptive country the moment they figure out there is a better life somewhere else. What kind of loyalty is that? What civic virtues are these? How valuable are they?

Ten. If uniting nations – countries – is a good thing, why then most people approve of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia? Why did the nations of the three political entities mentioned in the foregoing sentence seek to separate themselves from the union on day one only to apply for membership in another union on day two? Consider, Czechs and Slovaks did not want to live within the same political structure known as Czechoslovakia, but they BOTH entered the European Union and so ARE members of THE SAME political structure. Where’s the sense? The same is true of the nations of former Yugoslavia: they divorced in order to… marry again within a broader family. Why didn’t German Lands divorce prior to collectively joining the European Union?

Eleven. So long as the Soviet Union existed, its citizens were presented to the world as homogeneous people who may have spoken different languages or observed different traditions but who basically were Soviet people. The same was true of Yugoslavia. The country may have been made up of Slovenes, Croats, Serbs; of Catholics, Orthodox Christians and Muslims, but all in all they were known as Yugoslavians. Now it took just a few minutes (from a historical perspective) for the many nations who allegedly were not all that important to be reborn with intense national sentiments and to be at each other’s throat. The BIG question is: why does it not occur to the EU commissioners that precisely the same fate awaits this political superstructure? Why does it not occur to them that by importing Third World people by the millions they add fuel to the fire of the future civil war rampaging across the continent? Whence this hubris? The feuds between particular ex-Soviet republics and the hostilities between ex-Yugoslavian republics are within human memory! What amount of hubris does it take to make the managers of the world and to make common people think that this time things are going to be different? We have assigned ourselves the scientific description of being homines sapientes – reasonable men. Where is our reason? Where is our reasoning?

Twelve. If Ukraine had not flirted with the Western military, if it had not provoked Russia, wouldn’t it have now ALL its 1991 territory INTACT? Even more interesting: if Ukraine had had a “dictator” like Belarus has had and continues to have, would Ukraine have experienced [a] war, [b] loss of territory, [c] loss of lives, [d] massive emigration (read depopulation), and [e] destruction of its infrastructure? Answer the following question with all sincerity you can muster: would you rather have been a citizen of Ukraine or Belarus for the last twenty or so years? Would you rather have a string of “democratic” presidents and war or a “dictator” and peace? I dare you to answer!

Assassination attempt on Robert Fico

The assassination in Slovakia – a shock for the public. The assassin from Slovakia – rather something familiar. A poet who used to give speeches at meetings of radical right-wing “Slovakian recruits”, only to take part in pro-Ukrainian demonstrations a few years later. A man makes sweeping changes in his political views, which is typical of secret agents who have to penetrate certain milieus, sometimes this one, sometimes that one, by presenting themselves as their own kind and telling fairy tales (a child’s play for poets). Such assassins are portrayed as madmen, as mavericks who often go berserk – all to justify the inadequacy of the secret services. No, no, the assassins never belonged, do not belong or will ever belong to the services themselves nor are they controlled by them, God forbid! To say so would be a conspiracy theory! And yet such acts are almost never committed by genuine extremists who have long been under the radar of the secret services: they are almost always people from nowhere who could not be located.

December 2009: Berlusconi is giving a speech in Piazza del Duomo in Milan. Suddenly a man throws a heavy figure from the cathedral right into his face. Serious wounds. Security officers react unprofessionally here too. It was a man with mental disorders who recently had his driver’s license revoked. Oh dear! How were we, secret service agents, supposed to suspect someone like that!

July 8, 2022: at an election rally, a former soldier easily threads his way to the immediate vicinity of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. To top it all, he does so with a 40 cm shotgun. Abe doesn’t survive while the body guard reacts as quickly as an old chaperon. Motives? Supposedly Abe supported the Myung cult, a cult that allegedly drove the assassin’s family to ruin. What?

The assassinations of Kennedy, Reagan, you name them. Very good shooters, indeed, snipers. Madmen who kill themselves or… are killed by other madmen. History does not happen on its own: rather, it is written, written with ruthless invisible hands.

Gefira 84: Between buying and selling sin is wedged

Amid the hostilities between the Western world and Russia, only the lazy or the unwilling cannot discern the signs of the impending fall of the former. It looks like the proxy war with its battleground in Ukraine is about to end soon, while the West stands no chance of reporting a victory. The defeat at the hands of the Russians is not merely the West’s military failure: there is more at stake. At stake is an enormous loss of face or prestige, the clear signal to the third parties that both NATO and the European Union are no more than talking heads, that reliance on Western leaders – promises – support is worthless, not to say dangerous, that the power of the West – including that of the United States – is declining and that perhaps it is about time to look to China or Russia for protection and guidance and economic aid.

As is known, in Moscow Russians have just made a display of the various pieces of destroyed Western armament for all to see: tanks, armoured vehicles, guns, you name it. Some of them were reputed to surpass anything Russians had ever had, some of them were sent to Ukraine almost like items of Wunderwaffe with which Ukrainians and the numerous multinational mercenaries in the Western pay were supposed to change the course of war. All the talk from merely two years ago that Russians were not properly equipped and that they dismantled washing machines in a desperate search for electronic parts for military use transpired either as inept propaganda or self-delusion. A bit more than thirty years earlier it was the Russians who suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of the West when they laid down their arms, thus bringing to an end the four-decade long Cold War. Today it seems to be the other way round.

What does all of this spell for that Western world? Will NATO continue as an alliance? Will the European Union survive this loss of prestige, especially when compounded by progressing de-industrialization, the ongoing massive influx of aliens and the economic weakening of Germany, its powerhouse? Will the United States still remain the world’s only superpower, the world’s policeman, the world’s bank and the world’s leader? These are legitimate questions.

In the meantime Anthony Blinken, the incumbent secretary of state, visited Kiev and – while patting his Ukrainian subordinates on the shoulders and encouraging them to further sacrifice their lives and limbs – having first tasted Kievan pizza, he grabbed the guitar from a member of a band that amused him during his stay in Ukraine’s capital and began strumming the strings, thus revealing his true nature. A disgusting picture.

The West has overreached itself. Its leaders had thought Russia was a weak sparring partner, someone to be swiftly dealt with and made to obey and serve. The endless waves of sanctions and the shameless grabbing of Russian financial assets have only shown the Western leaders’ incompetence and impotence when it turned out that despite all these measures Russia was alive and well. And yet, the Western leaders have been stubbornly taking similar similarly ineffective steps; the Western leaders – like spoilt children denied a toy or something sweet – cannot help throwing temper tantrums. One gets the impression that they are all obsessed with the figure of the Russian president. Listening to the Western leaders you can almost see the nails spat put of their mouths whenever they utter the name Putin. Oftentimes they seem to be ready to give up the whole of Ukraine to Russia if only in return for that they could get hold of Putin! Putin! Putin! and court-martial him. We may be dead certain that that’s the only prize they would request a good fairy to award them. They have invested so much hatred in the Russian leader that it has blinded them to reality, deprived them of common sense and incapacitated their mental faculties. Perhaps – who knows? – we are seeing Providence’s agency. After all, Quos Deus vult perdere, prius dementat or Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first drives into insanity.

Gefira Financial Bulletin #84 is available now

Free fall
Psychology of investing
Lithium and rare earths
Secrets of Bitcoin

Yes, one swallow does not make a summer, but what if there are more to follow?

My name is Tomasz Szmydt. I am a judge of the Second Department of the Provincial Administrative Court in Warsaw. Previously, I held various positions in the judiciary and administration of justice in Poland. I performed the functions of Director of the Legal Department in the Office of the National Council of the Judiciary.

Because of my disagreement with the policies and actions of the authorities, I was forced to leave my native country and am currently residing in Belarus. I was persecuted and intimidated for my independent political stance. I express my protest to the authorities in Poland, who, under the influence of the US and Britain, are leading the country to war. The Polish people stand for peace and good neighborly relations with Belarus and Russia. That is why I am in Minsk and ready to tell the truth.

These are the words (the highlighted sentences is in the original) posted by Tomasz Szmydt in his telegram channel. The text is concise and to the point, in Polish and in Russian. A sensational event in Poland. A few days ago a high-ranking official made his way to Belarus of all the places to seek political asylum there. Wow! For years it used to be quite otherwise: it was the Belorussian politicians and activists who used to flee to Poland (and other European countries) and request asylum. One Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, wife of Syarhey Tsikhanouski, once a candidate for president in Belarus, now under arrest, enjoys in Poland a status of an alternative head of state of Belarus. The Polish president, when he wants to talk to her, does not invite her to his presidential palace but travels to the villa given to her disposal by the Polish government out of gentlemanly courtesy, and to emphasize how important she is, the head of Belarus to be, a Belarus that is to be born and shaped in such a way as to suit the dreams of the European Union.

This time it is someone from the European Union who fled to Belarus. Tomasz Szmydt fled straight to Alexandr Lukashenko, the president of Belarus, to the man who is alternatively ridiculed and despised by all European leaders! Consider it for a moment. For decades the Belorussian president has been depicted in the Polish mass media as a dictator, Putin’s footstool, crypto-communist, a satrap – you name it. Belarus has been regarded as a backward country: any news about Poland’s eastern neighbour was always and invariably unfavourable. Common citizens of Poland have been made to believe – and they do believe – that Belorussians are living in squalid conditions and have absolutely no say in politics or social matters, that they suffer all kinds of shortages and so they all only dream about toppling the satrap and joining the European Union. Years ago – in 2007 – the Polish authorities launched Belsat TV – a TV channel broadcast from the territory of Poland to Belarus, a kind of revived Radio Free Europe, whose staff go out of their way to present Belarus to Belorussians as hell on earth in order to instigate them to radical political action. It is claimed that this TV channel is watched by a large segment of the Belorussian nation – with great interest – which is rather doubtful or else TV Belsat would not be on the verge of being liquidated. Its staff applies the same strategy of forcefully creating a separate Belorussian nation, a strategy that has been performed for three decades in Ukraine, a strategy that thrusts the Belorussian language down the throat of the Russian-speaking Belorussians (apart from chunks in Russian, just in case Belorussians are not quite at ease with their “mother tongue”). The Belsat staff is headed by a daughter of one of the former top political dissidents from the antediluvian times when Poland was ruled by the so called communists. It is some fun to watch Belsat or for that matter regular Polish TV channels as they paint Belarus in black and gray shades and compare with the programmes about Poland broadcast by Belorussian TV. As you might expect the two parties to the information war are mirror reflections of each other: Warsaw shows pictures of unrest in Minsk, Belarus’s capital, while Minsk shows shots of unrests in Warsaw, Poland’s capital; Polish TV correspondents interview angry Belorussians, while Belorussian TV corespondents interview angry Poles, and so on – you get the picture. With this as a backdrop, let us come back to the sensational event of the defection of the high ranking Polish official to Belarus.

Sure, Polish mass media began portraying him as an evil person or someone who was not quite in his rights senses or someone who violated the law and out of fear of being detected, arrested and punished created a legend about himself as a political dissident. The usual stuff in such cases. Warsaw claims he fled to avoid law and justice, Minsk claims he was fed up with democracy in Poland in particular and in the European Union in general. Be it as it may, it is his words that need scrutinizing. What Tomasz Szmydt wrote in his telegram message (and repeated during a press conference in Belarus) reads, among others: I express my protest to the authorities in Poland, who, under the influence of the US and Britain, are leading the country to war. Is it true or not true? That’s what matters. Is it true that Poland is under the influence of the United States and the United Kingdom? Is it true that Poland cannot act independently? Is it true that the West is trying to make Poland (and Romania, and the Baltic States) go to war with Russia? Irrespective of whether Tomasz Szmydt is a dissident or traitor, a crackpot or a hero, these are legitimate questions. Is it true that Tomasz Szmydt attempted to voice such opinions and was told to shut up or else? Since we cannot by any means verify it, it is legitimate to consider if you – any one of us – can voice a dissenting political opinion concerning the war in Ukraine in Poland or elsewhere in the West and get off scot-free. Another legitimate question is this: is it not so planned that after Ukraine has been unsuccessfully used as a proxy in the war against Russia, the job needs to be continued by Poland and Romania and the Baltic States? Are these countries not envisaged as battering rams against Russia? Tomasz Szmydt may be called names in the Polish mass media (and he is), yet the questions and their answers remain valid irrespective of who poses the questions and who responds to them. Tomasz Szmydt also said in his message that The Polish people stand for peace and good neighborly relations with Belarus and Russia. Though most of Poles are intensely anti Russian, barely anyone wishes to fight a war and to have his country ravished by missiles. There have been held anti-war marches in Warsaw and elsewhere while support for Ukrainians – so fervent two years ago – has significantly waned in Poland. We do not need to talk about the Polish nation alone: is there anybody in the collective West – apart from a few trigger-happy crackpots who volunteer for the fight in Ukraine to get a shot at a Russky – who is willing to join the combat and have a hand or a leg torn away from his body in defence of Ukrainian “democracy” and Ukrainian followers of Stepan Bandera, an ideologue of ethnic cleansing of non-Ukrainians?

Yes, one swallow doesn’t make a summer, but maybe we are in for more and more of cases like that with Tomasz Szmydt – more Poles, Lithuanians, Romanians, maybe Frenchmen or Germans – fleeing the European Union and voicing their political dissent in an attempt to stop this craziness of escalating the war that is waged for the purpose of having NATO firmly established in Russia’s underbelly.

Nawalny the Saviour

Yes, it happened some time ago now, but it is symptomatic of our times, of what we can observe on a political stage, hence worth taking a look. It was Easter Friday this year when German Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck had a sermon that attracted the attention of the media, which are otherwise not interested in what the clergy say (unless some of them dare to challenge new morality, which they usually don’t). Why did the sermon attract the media’s attention? Well, in a long, longish text about truth and notions that are allegedly connected with truth, Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck compared the imprisonment and death of Alexej Nawalny to the trial and execution of no less a person than Jesus Christ. A breath-taking statement.

In his homily Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck used the word truth a hundred times or so, and intertwined it with – how otherwise? – love and freedom, not forgetting about democracy and ecology. He also drew a comparison between Alexei Nawalny with the assassins of July 20th, 1944, the White Rose circle, and the fate of protestant theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. One more time to let it sink in: Alexej Nawalny was made to appear as a historical figure of immense dimensions and biblical proportions. He is the man who – Christ-like – represents or even embodies the truth, and who courageously stands up to his prosecutors – to his Pilate (read Putin). The listeners could read into the sermon also the comparison between the Russian Gulag (mentioned in the sermon), where Nawalny was imprisoned and the place of Golgotha (not mentioned).

What can you make of it? Why Nawalny found himself in jail – no word. He was incarcerated because… he defended the truth and was the embodiment of truth. He found himself behind the bars, and was later murdered just like the Scholls or Bonhoeffer or Stauffenberg the resistance fighters in Hitler’s Germany. In other words, he faced another Hitler and paid the ultimate price just like the German historical figures mentioned in the sermon. That was – as far as the mass media are concerned – the most thrilling part of the Easter Friday message delivered by German Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck.

As said above, the whole text is peppered with the word truth that occurs in a myriad of collocations which are made to put across meanings whose only purpose is to please the expectations of the listeners without regard for logical connectivity. Take one example from the very end of the bishop’s sermon, which reads: Truth is this power that comes from love and enables us to be friends with all people [Wahrheit ist jene Macht, die außer Liebe stammt und uns zur Freundschaft mit allen Menschen befähigt]. It certainly sounds nice to a casual ear of an average listener. But hang on for a moment and consider the sentence. The statement puts together and connects truth, love and friendship. Let us have a closer look at the trio. Truth comes from love? How can one say that truth comes from love? Truth is truth and love is love. Truth is about the correspondence between statements and facts, love is an emotion or also – especially as theologians and some psychologists want it – an act of will. Yes, Bishop Franz-Joseph Overbeck saying love, may have meant Christ himself, but Christ said about himself that he is the way and the truth and the life (not love), but with preachers you can never tell. Then we hear that truth enables us to be friends with all people [emphasis mine]. Really? Does it enable us to be friends with – dare we say it – Putin or Hitler himself? Judging by the contents of the sermon, it certainly does not! Hey, your excellency, has your argumentation just fallen apart in the last sentence of your homily?

Truth is truth, it has nothing to do with love and still less to do with enabling us to befriend all people. Everyday experience tells us that we are incapable of making friends with all people, and only hypocrites can say they respect each human. The truth which uncovers shameful or evil acts performed by certain individuals may just as well make us dislike (to put it mildly) those individuals in the name of… the truth about them.

Making use of such logic, a logic that combines the uncombinable, his excellency can “prove” whatever he pleases (in fact, whatever is politically expected of him because, somehow, the message overlaps with the political demand, does it not?), also a thesis that Alexej Nawalny is an embodiment of Christ while Pontius Pilate has reincarnated in Vladimir Putin.

This comparison between Jesus Christ and Alexej Nawalny is faulty at least in one respect. You see, Alexej Nawalny had the financial, political, psychological support of the whole West in his subversive activities against his motherland. At present this support has been transferred to Nawalny’s wife: Yulia Nawalna receives the same applause and lets herself be used as a battering ram against Putin just as her husband did. Did Jesus Christ enjoy support from a worldly power? Was his orphaned mother on anybody’s payroll? Were his disciples protected by any political entity? Why, no. It took some time and a lot of suffering along with personal sacrifice for their truth to be recognized as such. Alexei Nawalny and his adherents have all the acknowledgment, assistance and finances of the powers that be. They have even more than this: they have constant positive presence in the Western mass media. No need for them to travel long distances on donkey’s back, no need to fear persecution. Even in “scary” Russia they are not going to be crucified, are they? Really, his excellency should have known better while preparing the sermon. Even the Scholls, Bonhoeffer and Stauffenberg did not enjoy the West’s support. Worse, the world learnt about the Scholls and Bonhoeffer relatively late after the war. Your excellency, even your comparison drawn between Nawalny and the figures of the German resistance during the Second World War does not stand! Alexej Nawalny is not another Saviour (or Scholl, or Bonhoeffer, or Stauffenberg), as you would like him to appear, not by any measure.