The Euro-Americans like all people have short memories. They cry over the destruction of the art relics of the Greco-Roman empire which laid the foundations for the western mentality and social structures, but forget to remember or tend to ignore that the Roman empire had prospered by exploitation of the resources of its near and distant provinces bordering the Mediterranean sea, which they looked upon as mare nostrum (our sea). It was not very different from more recent and more developed European colonial exploration or the present US stranglehold on world resources.
Obeying the American dictates, EU has been an extension of USA and unable to refuse the calls of the NATO leader across the Atlantic into joining time and again the so-called coalitions of the willing, bypassing UN approval to satisfy its itch for fomenting and sustaining civil wars in the Middle East and North Africa, always in the name of pursuing promotion of democratic values.
With a long history of supporting dictators around the world, USA-EU partnership has now to contend with rivals in the market of arms supplies, and is on a spree of replacing unpalatable “dictators” with pliable friends in power as potential victims of its blackmail. Unfortunately, such replacements have only resulted in chaos in every case of such interference into the affairs of sovereign countries.
Under false banner of democratic values, the USA-EU combine has been serving their own capitalist interests by exploiting the social-political problems of sovereign nations, many of them their former colonies with whom they have linguistic, NGO or church links. The human values that the West proclaims as its contribution to humanity appear dimmed over the pressure of accommodating the refugees manufactured by its own meddling into internal affairs of sovereign countries. Were their problems affecting the West or its allies in the past as much as they do now?
With the exception of Germany which seems to remember the havoc perpetrated by its Nazi past, France has only made some empty noises about welcoming the refugees. Most other European countries directly facing the onslaught of the refugee crisis are showing their true colours. The most vocal Hungary, which has freed itself from the Soviet Russia, is now imitating its detested example of the Berlin wall.
Portugal, on the furthest limit of the European continent (known as finisterra for this reason) can has shown a virtual generosity. But very revealing are the values reflected in the discourses of its political leadership, both in the government and in the opposition. While the vice-PM of Portugal, true to his name Portas has declared an “open door” policy, but qualified it as an opportunity to attract youthful refugees who could solve the crisis of the aging Portuguese society and its own youth migrating. The socialist leader of the opposition sees in the presumably less educated refugees (if there are many less educated Europeans than the Portuguese) an opportunity to gain hands to clean Portuguese forests so as to prevent seasonal fires. One wonders what is so dignifying in such self-serving values.
Someone wrote recently that UN is 70 this year and it is time for it to retire. It sounds sarcastic, but none-the-less reflects its helplessness when the interests of the big powers clash. This has become obvious following the US directed moves to contain Russia by expanding NATO on its borders. The intensity of the Russian response under Putin has come as no surprise and has put the US pretensions in check, despite its multiple sanctions against Russia and covert backing of Kiev nationalists. The western powers have yet to dislodge Russia from Crimea or neutralize its support for the East Ucranian separatists.
Russia has given up on Obama’s incoherent Middle Eastern ‘policy’ that veers between arming its pet jihadists and bombing those who counter its biddings. Having called for an international coalition to crush the ISIS threat but seen only chaos and folly, Russia is reportedly poised for a game changer with a major expeditionary force in Syria to help its government to defeat the head-cutting mass murderers and ensure the legitimate government of Syria, its strategic ally.
If Russia is really serious about using her air force as its current moves suggest to provide the Arab and Iranian ‘boots on the ground’ with high-tech intelligence and devastating air power, the situation in Syria and Iraq could be about to take a very dramatic turn for the better, unlike the Western coalition which made pots of money selling arms to Iraq and Afghanistan but with questionable success so far.
Meanwhile the global leadership role exercised by the USA since 1945 and squandered in a series of ill-judged and calamitous adventures at the behest of neocon and undemocratic lobbies on Capitol Hill, is sure to be undermined even further. It may be not be going too far to say that the combination of this move, together with the Russian-Chinese plans to provide an alternative to the Dollar for global trade, may herald the end of the ‘American Century’.
It may take somewhat longer than we could wish, but ordinary American taxpayers, like the rest of the world, can look to the future with some more confidence and optimism with a return to a balance of powers that could replace the prevailing unilateral arrogant dominance.
(Teotonio R. de Souza is the founder-director, Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979-1994).
