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The European Union’s top foreign-policy official, Josep Borrell, admitted that the new cold war that the West is waging on China and Russia is not a conflict of “democracies vs. authoritarians.”

“On our side, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes,” the EU’s de facto foreign minister conceded.

Borrell’s comments directly contradicted those of US President Joe Biden, who claimed in his first State of the Union address in March that the new cold war is a “battle between democracy and autocracies.”

 

By Ben Norton / Multipolarista

 

The top EU diplomat instead recognized that the new cold war is a struggle in which economic “systems are in rivalry,” and that most of the Global South “do not want to be forced to take sides in this geopolitical competition,” because “they feel that the global system does not deliver,” and “because they blame us.”

Borrell said the international political order is in a period of “messy multipolarity,” describing it as “a world of radical uncertainty,” where the “speed and scope of change is exceptional.”

He made these remarks in a speech on October 10, opening the 2022 Ambassadors Conference in Brussels. Borrell explained:

There are many crises around the world, which are the trends that move this world.

First, a messy multipolarity. There is the US-China competition. This is the most important “structuring force”. The world is being structured around this competition – like it or not. The two big powers – big, big, big, very big – are competing and this competition will restructure the world.

And this will coexist with a broader “democracies vs. authoritarians”, a big divide. I would not insist a lot on it because on our side, there are a lot of authoritarian regimes. We cannot say “we are the democracies”, and the ones which follow us are also democracies – that is not true. That is not true.

Yes, there is a fight between the democratic systems and the authoritarian systems. But authoritarianism is, unhappily, developing a lot. Not just China, not just Russia. There is an authoritarian trend. Sometimes, they are still wearing the democracy suit, but they are no longer democracies. There are some who are not democracies at all – they do not even take the pity to look like democracies.

So, this competition is a structuring force. The fight between democracies and authoritarians is there. But it is much more than that.

In this same speech, Borrell confessed, “Our prosperity was based on China and Russia.” He acknowledged that the West’s neoliberal economic model was “based on cheap energy coming from Russia,” “access to the big China market,” and low-paid Chinese workers.

 

World of ‘mess multipolarity’ where many large ‘swing states’ refuse to take a side

This world of “messy multipolarity” is “not purely bipolar,” Borrell explained. He said there are “middle powers” and “swing states” that don’t take a firm side in the new cold war:

The world is not purely bipolar. We have multiple players and poles, each one looking for their interest and values. Look at Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia. They are middle powers.

They are swing states – they vote on one side or the other according to their interests, not only their theoretical values.

But these people – I mention them again: Turkey, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia – are players and poles. This creates this messy multipolarity.

These people – and there are a lot of people inside – are there, and not always following us.

As an example of an independent leader of a “swing state,” Borrell said, “Look at Mexico’s President [Andrés Manuel López Obrador]’s recent speech.”

“You heard what the Mexican President said about us recently,” the top EU diplomat said with a touch of anger.

Borrell was referencing a letter in March in which López Obrador condemned the European Parliament as “flunkies of the reactionary and coup-plotting strategy of the corrupt” right-wing oligarchs in Mexico.

López Obrador told the EU to “evolve, leave behind your obsessive meddling disguised as good intentions,” emphasizing, “Don’t forget that we are no longer a colony of anyone. Mexico is a free, independent, and sovereign country.”

EU acknowledges most of Global South is neutral in new cold war

In his speech, Borrell went on to admit that much of the Global South is neutral in this new cold war between the US and EU on one side and China and Russia on the other:

And in the middle of that, we have the Global South. These people do not want to be forced to take sides in this geopolitical competition.

More [importantly], they feel that the global system does not deliver, and they are not receiving their part. They are not receiving enough recognition. They do not have the role they should have according to their population and their economic weight.

And when facing these multiple crises – these multipolar crises – financial, food and energy crises – it is clear that they are not there following us because they blame us, rightly or not.

Two prominent former US diplomats made similar observations in September, noting that the countries representing 87% of the world’s population have refused to join the West’s new cold war.

EU admits its ‘systemic rival’ China has improved the lives of its people

The EU’s top foreign-policy official went on to clarify that the West’s conflict with China is a clash of opposing economic systems.

Even while he referred to China as “our systemic rival,” Borrell acknowledged that average people’s lives have materially improved in China, and that is why Beijing has popular support.

Borrell insisted that Europe must defend its model as the world’s “best combination” of “political freedom, economic prosperity, and social cohesion.”

This foreshadowed explicitly neocolonialist remarks Borrell would make three days later on October 13, claiming “the world needs Europe” as a “beacon” and beautiful “garden” to civilize the barbarous “jungle” in “most of the rest of the world.”

Borrell concluded his October 10 speech imploring diplomats at the EU Ambassadors Conference to adopt a darker “Hobbesian” philosophy and to “bring the voice of Europe” to the rest of the world, in order to show their model’s supposed superiority over China’s:

When we say that China is our rival, systemic rival, systemic rival means that our systems are in rivalry. And the Chinese are trying to explain to the world that their system is much better.

Because, well, maybe you are not going to choose your head of government, but you will have food, and heat, and social services, you will improve your living conditions.

Many people in the world, yes, they go and vote and choose their government, but their material conditions are not being improved. And in the end, people want to live a better life.

We have to explain what are the links between political freedom and a better life. We, Europeans, we have this extraordinary chance. We live in the world, in this part of the world, where political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion are the best, the best combination of all of that. But the rest of the world is not like this.

Our fight is to try to explain that democracy, freedom, political freedom is not something that can be exchanged by economic prosperity or social cohesion. Both things have to go together. Otherwise, our model will perish, will not be able to survive in this world.

We are too much Kantians and not enough Hobbesians, as the philosopher says. Let’s try to understand the world the way it is and bring the voice of Europe.

 

Information war is a huge part of the new cold war

In order to try to convince the world that Europe’s economic model is superior, the top EU foreign-policy official stressed that information warfare is imperative, in a international “battle of narratives.”

Borrell described a “competitive world where everything is being weaponised. Everything is a weapon: energy, investments, information, migration flows, data, etc. There is a global fight about access to some strategic domains: cyber, maritime, or outer space.”

He told the EU diplomats, “I need you to be much more engaged in this battle of narratives. It is not something secondary. It is not just winning the wars by sending tanks, missiles, and troops. It is a big battle: who is going to win the spirits and the souls of people?”

“I need my delegations to step up on social media, on TV, in debates. Retweet our messages, our [European] External Action Service materials,” Borrell stressed.

 

 

READ MORE:

https://scheerpost.com/2022/10/28/eu-admits-new-cold-war-is-not-democracy-vs-autocracy-on-our-side-there-are-a-lot-of-authoritarian-regimes/

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW..........................

the info-war......

 

ON THE OTHER SIDE WE HAVE THE DISINFORMATION FROM RUSSIA WHICH TENDS TO BE TRUE....

 

WHILE JULIAN ASSANGE IS IN PRISON ONE CANNOT TRUST THE US EMPIRE ONE IOTA.....

lost in the EU jungle.....

 

By Ramzy Baroud / MintPress News

 

The European Union’s Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell is not particularly perceived by the EU’s political elite or mainstream media as a rightwing ideologue or warmonger. But seen through a different, non-western prism, it is hard not to mistake him for one.

Borrell’s recent comments that “Europe is a garden” and that “the rest of the world is a jungle” were duly condemned as ‘racist’ by many politicians around the world, but mostly in the Global South. Borrell’s remarks, however, must also be viewed as an expression of superiority, not only of Borell personally, but of Europe’s ruling classes as a whole.

Particularly interesting about the EU top diplomat’s words are these inaccurate depictions of Europe and its relationship with the rest of the world: “We have built a garden”, “everything works” and “the jungle could invade the garden”.

BECOME A SCHEERPOST PATRON

Without delving too deep into what is obviously an entrenched superiority complex, Borell speaks as if an advocate of the so-called ‘Replacement Theory’, a racist notion advocated by the West’s – Europe especially – rightwing intellectuals, which sees refugees, migrants and non-Europeans as parasites aiming to destroy the continent’s supposedly perfect demographic, religious and social harmony.

If stretched further into a historical dimension, one also feels compelled to remind the EU leadership of the central role that European colonialism, economical exploitation, political meddling and outright military intervention have played in turning much of the world into a supposed ‘jungle’. Would Libya, for example, have been reduced to the status of a failed state if the West did not wage a major war starting in March 2011?

The imagined ‘jungle’ aside, Europe’s past and present reality strongly negates Borell’s ethnocentric view. Sadly, Europe is the birthplace of the most horrible pages of history, from colonialism and slavery to the nationalistic, fascist and nihilistic movements that defined most of the last three centuries.

Despite the desperate attempt to rewrite or ignore history in favor of a more amiable narrative focused on great splendors, technological advancement and civilizational triumph, Europe’s true nature continues to smolder underneath the ashes, ready to resurface whenever the geopolitical and socioeconomic factors take a wrong turn. The Syrian and Libyan refugee crisis, the Covid pandemic and, more recently, the Russia-Ukraine war are all examples of the proverbial wrong turn.

In fact, Borrell’s words, aimed to reassure Europe of its moral superiority are but a foolhardy effort meant to conceal one of the most dramatic crises that Europe has experienced in nearly a century. The impact of this crisis on every aspect of European life cannot be overstated.

In an editorial published last September on the European Environment Agency (EEA) website, Hans Bruyninckx described the “state of multiple crises” that characterizes the European continent at the moment. “It seems as if we have been living through one crisis after another — a pandemic, extreme heatwaves and drought due to climate change, inflation, war and an energy crisis,” he wrote.

Instead of taking responsibility for this impending catastrophe, Europe’s ruling elites choose a different, though predictable route: blame others, especially the inhabitants of the non-European ‘jungle’.

Naturally, ordinary people throughout Europe who are already experiencing this harrowing reality hardly feel reassured by Borrell’s proclamation that “everything works”.

The risk of the resurgence of the far-right movements in Europe is now a real possibility. This danger was relatively mitigated by the setback of the extremist ‘Alternative for Germany’ and the victory of the Social Democrats in last year’s elections. Germany, however, is not the exception, as the European far-right is now back, virtually everywhere, and with a vengeance.

In France, Marine Le Pen’s far-right party gained a record 41% of the total vote (over 13 million) in April. True, Emmanuel Macron managed to hold off the advance of Le Pen’s National Rally, but his coalition has lost its parliamentary majority, and his leadership has been significantly weakened. Currently, the country is rocked by massive rallies and strikes, all protesting the soaring prices and deepening inflation.

Sweden is another example of the determined rise of the far-right. A right-wing coalition, which won the general elections last September now dominates the country’s parliament. On October 17, it elected a new prime minister, Ulf Kristersson, whose government was made possible because of the support of the Sweden Democrats, a party with neo-Nazi roots and a harsh anti-immigration agenda. SD was crucial in determining the victory of the coalition and it is now suited to play the role of the kingmaker in critical decisions.

In Italy, too, the situation is dire. A future government is expected to bring together Giorgia Meloni – the leader of Fratelli d’Italia (Brothers of Italy) – former right-wing Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s party, Forza Italia, and the extremist Matteo Salvini’s La Lega. Meloni’s party is rooted in the post-fascist tradition of the Italian Social Movement, which was formed in the aftermath of World War II by fascist politicians after their party was officially outlawed by the country’s progressive 1948 Constitution.

The shifting political grounds in Germany, France, Italy and Sweden have little to do with the ‘jungle’, and everything with the illusory European ‘garden.’ Europe’s extremism is a by-product of exclusively European historical experiences, ideologies and class struggles. Blaming Asians, Arabs or Africans for Europe’s “state of multiple crises” is not only self-deluding, indeed spiritless, but also obstructive to any healthy process of change.

Europe cannot fix its problems by blaming others, and the European ‘garden’, if it ever existed, is actually being ravaged by Europe’s own ruling elites – rich, detached and utterly dishonest.

Romana Rubeo, an Italian journalist, contributed to this article.

 

READ MORE:

https://scheerpost.com/2022/11/10/how-europe-is-destroying-its-own-garden/

 

READ FROM TOP.

 

 

 

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