‘Fanatical colonialist’: The uneasy legacy of the French founder of modern Olympics

Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the controversial French founder of the modern Olympics, is proving to be a divisive figure for organisers of the Paris Games. Yet while some deplore his sexist and colonialist remarks, others have praised his dedication to using sport to promote peace, viewing him as a visionary and a humanist.

 

By:Stéphanie TROUILLARD

 

The Paris-born aristocrat who founded the International Olympic Committee (IOC) at the end of the 19th century is once again proving to be a divisive figure ahead of the Paris Olympics. While Baron Pierre de Coubertin has been slammed for his views on women and colonialism, others have praised his dedication to using sport to promote peace and see him as a visionary.

“The Olympic Games and the sporting model he created have stood the test of time. That's why France can be proud of Coubertin and his legacy,” said Thomas Bach, president of the IOC, at a June 23 conference at the Sorbonne.

Bach called for de Coubertin to be judged on the values of his era, describing him as a "peace activist" who had defied the rising tide of nationalism in Europe.

"Every human has the right to be judged only and uniquely in the context of his time," said Bach. "I would like our visionary founder to be judged in the same way."

His detractors point out that de Coubertin was – in his own words – a “fanatical colonialist” who believed the White race to be superior and who opposed women taking part in public sporting competitions.

Throughout the preparations for the Paris Games, which kick off on July 26, de Coubertin’s role as the founder of the modern Olympics has been greatly downplayed. He does not feature prominently in any of the official narrative around the Games, and is very rarely name-checked by Paris 2024 organisers.

‘We're not here to glorify the man, but to understand his character’

De Coubertin’s family is angry that the baron has been relegated to the shadows in the run-up to the Games.

His great-great-grandniece, Alexandra de Navacelle, is head of the Pierre de Coubertin Family Association, which promotes his legacy.

She wants to take advantage of the Paris Games to show a different side to de Coubertin.

"We're trying to make people understand where he came from, why he had this incredible idea and what he did to achieve it,” she says.

She is all too aware of the misgivings about his views.

“We're not here to glorify the man, but to understand his character. We have to put him in context to make sure we see all the facts and judge him on his actions,” she says.

Born in Paris in 1863, de Coubertin travelled widely during his youth, particularly to England and America, where he was impressed by the emphasis on sport in the education system.

De Coubertin was a keen sportsman himself and practised boxing, fencing, horse riding and rowing.

Upon his return to France, he set out to import the British and American models and promote physical exercise. He also set up the Comité pour la Propagation des Exercises Physiques, a committee to encourage physical exercise in education.

To make sport more popular, he also felt it needed to be internationalised.

Like many others before him, he wanted to revive the ancient Olympic Games, which began in Olympia, Greece, in 776 BC and were held every four years for 12 centuries before being abolished. On June 23, 1894, the baron founded the International Olympic Committee and, two years later, the first revived Olympic Games were symbolically held in Athens.

‘Even when you contextualise his views, they are reprehensible’

De Coubertin banned women from participating in these Games.

"The real Olympic hero is, in my eyes, the individual adult male,” de Coubertin said in a 1935 radio interview. “I personally do not approve of women taking part in public competitions, which does not mean that they should refrain from practising a large number of sports but without making a spectacle of themselves.

“At the Olympic Games, their role should be – above all, as at the old tournaments – to crown the winners."

But de Navacelle believes that de Coubertin “was not against women”. She feels that he “sought to protect them from the male gaze” at a time when “women were not ready to be seen in sportswear and bare calves”.

Louis Violette, a specialist in sport history at La Réunion University, says it’s important to put de Coubertin in context.

“If you look at Pierre de Coubertin through today's eyes, he comes across as a misogynist,” says Violette. “But at the time, at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, there were very few feminists, and even fewer in the upper echelons of power. It was a man's world, with very little room for women, and it was against women's sport.”

Julie Gaucher, a sport historian at Lyon 1 University, was more critical.

“Even when you contextualise his views, they are reprehensible,” she says.

“The women's sport movement already existed and he refused to take this into account with extremely misogynistic comments, in which women were ultimately supposed to remain in their place.”

De Coubertin also strongly objected to the efforts of Alice Milliat, an advocate for women's sports at the time. Milliat asked the IOC to include athletics events for women at the Olympic Games but without success.

Women were finally allowed to compete in athletics and gymnastics at the 1928 Games in Amsterdam. But they were only allowed to participate in five women's track and field events while men were allowed to compete in 22.  

For Milliat, this was not enough. But exhausted from years of lobbying for female athletes to be taken seriously, she retired from the sporting scene in 1935. Milliat died in total anonymity in Paris in 1957 and her name was quickly forgotten.

But Milliat’s pioneering role is now being remembered: Unlike de Coubertin, she is being celebrated with pride at the 2024 Games. Biographies have been published about her, exhibitions have been organised on her life, and stadiums and gymnasiums have been named after her.

But women were only allowed to participate in five women's track and field events while men were allowed to compete in 22.  For Milliat, this was not enough. Exhausted from years of lobbying for female athletes to be taken seriously, she retired from the sporting scene in 1935.

She died in total anonymity in Paris in 1957 and her name was quickly forgotten.

But Milliat’s pioneering role is now being remembered. For unlike de Coubertin, she is being celebrated with pride at the 2024 Games. Biographies have been published on her, exhibitions have been organised on her life and stadiums and gymnasiums have been named after her.

‘You have to look at things from a different angle’

France is finding it much easier to celebrate a fighter for women's sport than de Coubertin, whose legacy of racism is hard to ignore.

“From my early days, I was a fanatical colonialist ... The races are of different value, and to the white race, of superior essence, all the others must pledge allegiance,” de Coubertin wrote in his memoirs, which are preserved in the IOC archives.

Yet his great-great-grandniece believes that his comments are simply indicative of ideas that were widespread in the era in which he wrote them.                                                                                                                                                       

“There were abuses and unacceptable things, but they were all colonialists at the time. There were no other options,” de Navacelle says.

Violette, the sport historian, agrees, saying that this was “the thinking of the time”.

“He was an outspoken colonialist. He thought it was for people’s benefit, particularly for the local populations. At the time, there were very few members of the elite to refute and criticise colonisation,” adds Violette.

De Coubertin has also been criticised for having supported the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games organised by Nazi Germany. Even though he had already withdrawn from the IOC and did not attend in person despite an invitation from Adolf Hitler, he praised the Games in lavish terms.

“The grandiose success of the Berlin Games served the Olympic ideal magnificently. The French, who are almost alone with their Cassandra complex, are very wrong not to understand or not to want to understand,” he wrote in August 1936.

“In Berlin everything was done for propaganda purposes, but what he saw was the spectacle and the success of these Games beyond the political aspect,” says Gaucher. “He didn't want to see what was going on, whereas he could have kept quiet and not taken sides in defence of the Games.”

A few months later, in September 1937, de Coubertin died of a heart attack.

One hundred and thirty years after the creation of the IOC, the reputation of the father of the modern Olympic Games is significantly tarnished.

But even Gaucher believes it’s wrong to criticise Coubertin too vehemently. “I'm not in favour of slamming Coubertin, because there are also things that were interesting and that really need to be looked at in the context of a certain period.”

“You really need to take a nuanced view,” she says. “It's only when you've accepted the darker side of the character that you can recognise his contribution.”

Since de Coubertin’s controversial ideas the Games have also evolved considerably, now transformed into a huge commercial enterprise generating billions of euros.

De Navacelle says it’s a pity that the Games have become so commercialised. “The original spirit of the Games has been lost,” she says.

And despite the controversies, she chooses to focus on de Coubertin’s role in reviving the Games and the progress that has been made since.

“The Paris Games will be the first Olympic Games with parity between male and female athletes,” she points out. “There is also an identical logo for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, using the same competition venues.”

“It is this progressive dynamic that de Coubertin wanted to set in motion,” she says.

(With AFP) 

This article has been adapted from the original in French.

 

https://www.france24.com/en/france/20240718-fanatical-colonialist-uneasy-legacy-french-founder-of-modern-olympics-paris-games

 

 

 

“Russia cannot afford to lose, so we need a kind of a victory”: Sergey Karaganov on what Putin wants

The Kremlin adviser explains how Russia views the war in Ukraine and the fate of liberalism.

By Bruno Maçães

Editor’s note: Sergey Karaganov is a former adviser to Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin. Bruno Maçães interviewed him at the end of March 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Following reports on 6 May 2024 that Karaganov has been re-hired by the Kremlin to study ways in which to “deter the West”, we are repromoting the interview and revisiting the question of what Putin wants.

A former presidential adviser to both Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin, Sergey Karaganov is honorary chair of the Moscow think tank the Council for Foreign and Defence Policy. He is associated with a number of key ideas in Russian foreign policy, from the so-called Karaganov doctrine on the rights of ethnic Russians living abroad to the principle of “constructive destruction”, also known as the “Putin doctrine”. Karaganov is close to both Putin and his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and he formulated many of the ideas that led to the war in Ukraine – though he has also expressed disagreement with the idea of a long-term occupation of the country.

Karaganov has promoted the concept of “Greater Eurasia” and has defended a closer partnership with China. He is known as a foreign-policy hawk, and has argued that the long reign of the West in world politics is now at an end. On 28 March the New Statesman columnist Bruno Maçães interviewed Karaganov about his views on the war – including controversial statements on Ukrainian nationhood and denazification that would be disputed by those outside Russia – and the future of the liberal international order.

 

Bruno Maçães Why did Russia invade Ukraine?

Sergey Karaganov For 25 years, people like myself have been saying that if Nato and Western alliances expand beyond certain red lines, especially into Ukraine, there will be a war. I envisioned that scenario as far back as 1997. In 2008 President Putin said that if Ukraine’s membership of the alliance became a possibility then there will be no Ukraine. He was not listened to. So the first objective is to end Nato’s expansion. Two other objectives have been added: one is the demilitarisation of Ukraine; the other is denazification, because there are people in the Russian government concerned with the rise of ultra-nationalism in Ukraine to the extent that they think it is beginning to resemble Germany in the 1930s. There is also an aim to free the Donbas republics of eight years of constant bombardment.

There was also a strong belief that war with Ukraine was inevitable – maybe three or four years from now – which could well have taken place on Russian territory itself. So probably the Kremlin decided that if you have to fight, let’s fight on somebody else’s territory, the territory of a neighbour and a brother country, once a part of the Russian Empire. But the real war is against the Western expansion.

BM On 25 February Putin called on the Ukrainian army to overthrow President Volodymyr Zelensky. More recently, however, the Kremlin seems to be suggesting that it is interested in negotiating with Zelensky. Has the Kremlin changed its mind? Does it accept that Zelensky is the president of Ukraine and will remain the president of Ukraine?

SK It is a war, and we’re in the fog of war, so opinions change, aims change. At the start, maybe some thought that the Ukrainian military would arrange some kind of a coup so we would have a real power in Kyiv with whom we could negotiate – recent presidents, and especially Zelensky, are considered puppets.

BM You personally do not consider President Zelensky a Nazi, do you?

SK Of course not.

BM What do you think would be the final goal for the Kremlin at this point? What would be considered a successful outcome for the invasion?

SK I don’t know what the outcome of this war will be, but I think it will involve the partition of Ukraine, one way or another. Hopefully there would still be something called Ukraine left at the end. But Russia cannot afford to “lose”, so we need a kind of a victory. And if there is a sense that we are losing the war, then I think there is a definite possibility of escalation. This war is a kind of proxy war between the West and the rest – Russia being, as it has been in history, the pinnacle of “the rest” – for a future world order. The stakes of the Russian elite are very high – for them it is an existential war.

BM You talked about demilitarisation of Ukraine, but it seems that such a goal would not be achieved if the West continues to provide Ukraine with weapons. Do you think Russia will be tempted to stop that flow of arms, and does this risk a direct clash between Nato and Russia?

SK Absolutely! There is a growing probability of a direct clash. And we don’t know what the outcome of this would be. Maybe the Poles would fight; they are always willing. I know as a historian that Article 5 of the Nato treaty is worthless. Under Article 5 – which allows a state to call for support from other members of the alliance – nobody is obliged to actually fight on behalf of others, but nobody can be absolutely sure that there would be no such escalation. I also know from the history of American nuclear strategy that the US is unlikely to defend Europe with nuclear weapons. But there is still a chance of escalation here, so it is an abysmal scenario and I hope that some kind of a peace agreement between us and the US, and between us and Ukraine, can be reached before we go further into this unbelievably dangerous world.

BM If Putin asks for your advice, would you tell him that Article 5 is to be taken seriously or not? I understand from your words that it is not to be taken seriously in your view.

SK It might be that Article 5 works, and countries rally to the defence of another. But against a nuclear country like Russia… I wonder? Put it this way: if the US intervenes against a nuclear country, then the American president making that decision is mad, because it wouldn’t be 1914 or 1939; this is something bigger. So I don’t think America could possibly intervene, but we are already in a much more dangerous situation than several weeks ago. And Article 5 does not presume automatic obligations.

[See also: Russia and the new language of war]

On Ukraine’s right to exist

BM What was your reaction to President Biden’s comment that President Putin cannot stay in power?

SK Well, President Biden often makes all kind of comments. [Afterwards,] he was corrected by his colleagues, so nobody’s taking the statement seriously.

BM Putin has argued that Ukraine does not exist as a nation. I would imagine that the conclusion from the events of the past weeks is that Ukraine does exist as a nation, when you have the whole population, including civilians, willing to sacrifice their lives to preserve the sovereignty and independence of their country. Does Ukraine exist as a nation, or is Ukraine just a part of Russia?

SK I am not sure whether there is a massive civilian resistance as you suggest, rather than just young men joining the army. In any case, I don’t know whether Ukraine will survive, because it has a very limited, if any, history of statehood, and it doesn’t have a state-building elite. Maybe something will grow from below, but it’s an open question… We shall see… This war – or military operation; however you call it – will decide. Maybe the Ukrainian nation will be born: I will be happy if Ukrainians have an effective, viable government – unlike the situation during the last 30 years. They were the absolute losers after the Soviet Union, because of their lack of a state-building elite.

BM If there is a partition, would the Russia-controlled section of Ukraine preserve a nominal independence, or would it be absorbed by Russia?

SK If the operation is to turn Ukraine into a “friendly” state, then absorption is clearly not necessary. There might be some kind of absorption – which has happened, effectively – in the Donbas republics. Whether they will be independent or not – I think they might be. Certainly there are calls for referendums there, but how you could run referendums during a conflict I do not know. So my judgement would be that some of Ukraine will become a friendly state to Russia, other parts may be partitioned. Poland will gladly take back some of parts in the west, maybe Romanians and Hungarians will, too, because the Hungarian minority in Ukraine has been suppressed along with other minorities. But we are in a full-on war; it is too hard to predict. The war is an open-ended story.

BM One argument is that Russia will fall under Chinese control, and this war does not help – because by isolating Russia from the West, it turns Russia into easy prey for Chinese economic influence. Are you worried that this could be the beginning of a “Chinese century” for Russia?

SK There are two answers to your question. One is that China’s economic influence in Russia and over Russia will grow. China has most of the technologies we need, and it has a lot of capital, so there is no question about that. Whether Russia would become a kind of a satellite country, according to the Chinese tradition of their Middle Kingdom, I doubt it.

If you asked me how I would describe Russia in one word, it is “sovereignty”. We defeated those who sought to rule us, starting with the Mongols, and then Carl [Charles XII] of Sweden, then Napoleon and Hitler. Also, recently, we had years of Western domination here. It was almost overwhelming. And nevertheless, you see what has happened: Russia revolted against all that. So I am not afraid of Russia becoming a part of a great China. The other reason I’m not afraid is because Chinese civilisation is very different. We have our Asian traits in our genes, and we are in part an Asian country because of this. And Siberia is at the core of the Russian empire: without Siberia, Russia wouldn’t have become a great country. And the Tatar and Mongol yoke left many traits in our society. But culturally, we are different, so I don’t think it is possible that we will become a subsidiary country.

But I am very concerned about the overwhelming economic predominance of China over the next decade. People like me have been saying precisely [that] we have to solve the Ukraine problem, we have to solve the Nato problem, so that we can be in a strong position vis-à-vis China. Now it will be much more difficult for Russia to resist Chinese power.

On winners and losers

BM Do you think the US is benefiting from this war?

SK At this juncture, yes, because the big losers are, in addition to Ukraine, Europe, especially if it continues with this mysterious zest for independence from Russian energy. But China is clearly the victor of this whole affair… I think the biggest loser will be Ukraine; a loser will be Russia; a great loser will be Europe; the United States will lose somewhat, but still it could very well survive as a huge island over the ocean; and the big victor is China.

BM You have argued that in the future there could be some kind of alliance between Russia and Europe – or at least some European countries, if not others. Surely now you must think there is no possibility for Europe and Russia to come closer together.

SK If we could have solved the crisis peacefully there’s no question that parts of Europe would have orientated themselves not towards Russia itself but Greater Eurasia, of which Russia would be a key part. That scenario is now postponed, but Europe needs to develop a relationship with Greater Eurasia. We lived through world wars and cold wars, and then we rebuilt our relationship. I hope that we shall do that in ten years. I hope I shall see that before I pass.

[See also: Will China stop Russia going nuclear?]

BM Do you think this is a moment of supreme danger for Russia?

SK I would say yes, this is an existential war. If we do not win, somehow, then I think we will have all kinds of unforeseen political repercussions which are much worse than at the beginning of the 1990s. But I believe that we will avoid that, first, because Russia will win, whatever that victory means, and second, because we have a strong and tough regime, so in any event, or if the worst happens, it will not be the dissolution of the country or collapse. I think it will be closer to a harsh authoritarian regime than to the dissolution of the country. But still, defeat is unthinkable.

BM What would qualify as defeat?

SK I do not know. That is the question. We need victory. I don’t think that, even if we conquered all of Ukraine and all the military forces of Ukraine surrendered, it would be a victory, because then we will be left with the burden of a devastated country, one devastated by 30 years of inept elite rule, and then of course devastation from our military operation. So I think at one point we need a kind of a solution which would be called peace, and which would include de facto the creation of some kind of a viable, pro-Russian government on the territory of Ukraine, and real security for the Donbas republics.

BM If the current stalemate were to continue for years, would that be a defeat?

SK Stalemate means a huge military operation. No, I don’t think it is possible. I am afraid it would lead to escalation, because fighting endlessly on the territory of Ukraine – even now, is not viable.

BM It’s the second time you’ve mentioned that if there is no progress it would lead to an escalation. What does “escalation” mean in this context?

SK Well, escalation in this context means that in the face of an existential threat – and that means a non-victory, by the way, or an alleged defeat – Russia could escalate, and there are dozens of places in the world where it would have a direct confrontation with the United States.

BM So your suggestion is that, on the one hand, we could have an escalation towards the possible use of nuclear weapons – if there is an existential danger to Russia – and, on the other, an escalation towards conflict in other areas beyond Ukraine. Am I following you correctly?

SK I wouldn’t rule it out. We are living in absolutely a new strategic situation. Normal logic dictates what you have said.

BM How do you feel personally? Do you feel tormented by what is happening?

SK We all feel like we are part of a huge event in history, and it’s not just about war in Ukraine; it’s about the final crash of the international system that was created after the Second World War and then, in a different way, was recreated after the collapse of the Soviet Union. So, we are witnessing the collapse of an economic system – of the world economic system – globalisation in this form is finished. Whatever we have had in the past is gone. And out of this we have a build-up of many crises that, because of Covid-19, we pretended did not exist. For two years, the pandemic replaced decision-making. Covid was bad enough, but now everybody has forgotten about Covid and we can see that everything is collapsing. Personally, I’m tremendously saddened. I worked for the creation of a viable and fair system. But I am part of Russia, so I only wish that we win, whatever that means.

On the decline of European democracy

BM Do you sometimes fear this could be the rebirth of Western power and American power; that the Ukraine war could be a moment of renewal for the American empire?

SK I don’t think so. The problem is that during the last 500 years the foundation of Western power was the military preponderance of Europeans. This foundation started eroding from the 1950s and 1960s. Then the collapse of the Soviet Union made it seem for a while that Western predominance was back, but now it is done away with, because Russia will continue to be a major military power and China is becoming a first-class military power.

So the West will never recuperate, but it doesn’t matter if it dies: Western civilisation has brought all of us great benefits, but now people like myself and others are questioning the moral foundation of Western civilisation. I think geopolitically the West will experience ups and downs. Maybe the shocks we are experiencing could bring back the better qualities of Western civilisation, and we will again see people like Roosevelt, Churchill, Adenauer, de Gaulle and Brandt back in office. But continuous shocks will of course also mean that democracy in its present form in most European countries will not survive, because under circumstances of great tension, democracies always wither away or become autocratic. These changes are inevitable.

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/ukraine/2024/05/russia-cannot-afford-lose-need-victory-sergey-karaganov-what-putin-wants#:

 

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America’s national security community made its annual pilgrimage to the mountains of Aspen in Colorado this week for a gathering notable for a looming feeling of anxiety.

One reason is that the world is more dangerous and contested than in previous years with war in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as tensions in Asia. But the issues discussed at the Aspen Security Forum also were overshadowed by political events that may define much of what happens next.

With Donald Trump accepting the US presidential nomination during the Republican National Convention in Wisconsin and questions over whether President Biden will be forced to stand aside, there was a concern that time may be running out not just for the current administration, but for the wider approach to foreign policy, which has guided America in recent years.

Allies are looking toward November's election with ''angst'' about how much they can continue to count on American leadership, Douglas Lute, a former ambassador to NATO said at the forum.

Specifically, anxiety surrounded the question of whether America’s support for Ukraine would continue.

November’s presidential election comes at a moment when the war may be shifting so that it will less be about major gains on the battlefield and more a test of wills between Russia and Ukraine, and its allies as to who can keep going.

Trump has suggested he might push for a deal, which Ukraine and its allies fear may serve Russia’s interests more than their own. The selection of JD Vance as Trump’s running mate heightened concerns about the future of America’s commitment since Mr Vance has advocated for reducing spending on Ukraine, shifting America’s focus away from Europe, and focusing on confronting China.

British officials and ministers were absent from Aspen, but officials from other European countries stressed the importance of continued US engagement with Ukraine. 

“Our house is on fire in Europe. The war in Ukraine is existential," Jonatan Vseviov, from Estonia’s Foreign Ministry told the conference.

While US military officers were wary of being drawn into politics, some sounded almost as if they were already preparing a case to make to a possible Trump administration, knowing that it likely would pressure NATO allies to increase their spending and take up a greater burden on Ukraine.

General Christopher Cavoli, America’s top general in Europe, said continued US commitment to NATO was important because European partners had changed their behaviour in recent years. 

"This is a Europe that recognizes what the burden is and that it has got to be shared ... this is exactly the partner that we have been looking for for three decades,” he said. 

The moderator responded that they hoped someone was livestreaming his answer to the Republican convention.

There was recognition that the Republican Party’s foreign policy shift away from a more internationalist perspective went deeper than just Donald Trump. 

One reason discussed at the meeting, was that the international order America built through globalisation and free trade did not always deliver benefits for American workers. That sparked domestic backlash, undermining support for continued engagement, not just in Ukraine, but more broadly.

READ MORE: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cljy57r64jlo

 

GUS: PLEASE NOTE THAT THE WORLD HAS GONE MORE DANGEROUS UNDER THE LEADERSHIT OF JOE BIDEN....

 

GLOBALISATION ALLA AMERICAN EMPIRE WAS A CROCK... SEE ALSO: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/43171

 

 General Christopher Cavoli

 

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Protests threaten the opening of the Paris Olympic Games. The French Union of Performing Artists (SFA) announced this week its intention to call a strike in anticipation of the opening ceremony on 26 July, as well as for rehearsals associated with the Paralympics.

The group of actors, dancers, and acrobats hired for the spectacle is protesting low wages and labor inequalities by the organization. According to the union, their concerns have been repeatedly ignored after alerting Paname 24, the executive producer of the ceremonies, about contractual practices that do not comply with the collective agreement.

"We also highlight scandalous disparities in treatment, as well as the absence of social dialogue during the preparations and rehearsals," added the SFA, suggesting that around 300 professional dancers out of 3,000 registered for the Olympic Games have been hired under "shameful financial conditions."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1146767/artists-strike-threatens-the-paris#

 

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BY Phil Butler

 

Congratulations to all European Union citizens. With the re-election of Ursula von der Leyen, you can all expect more of the same. It should be of further comfort to Europeans within the bloc that 284 of 401 elected parliamentarians voted to put the Queen of vaccines and European militarism in charge once again. So, your leaders have matters well in hand.

The Poor Greeks

For the Greek people, who recently became the poorest people in Europe, Prime Minister Mitsotakis’ being one of the first to congratulate the former German Defense Minister is a potent reminder. Mitsotakis’ post on the social media platform “X” on election day means even poorer nations will soon wisk past Greece economically. In all seriousness, Mitsotakis and the EU presided over a Greek disaster in which the income gap between rich and poor grew ever wider. A key metric is that Greek wages have dropped at a rate three times that of Spain, or minus 30% of what they were before the financial crisis. By contrast, Queen Ursula’s country, Germany, has seen an over 12% increase in real wages, a difference of roughly 42%. But numbers do not tell the whole story. And neither does one country in the waffling EU.

Let’s look at what Ursula von der Leyen’s cronies are planning rather than what their propagandists tell the public. A good example is the discontinuance of the bloc’s massive post-pandemic recovery fund for poorer countries. The commission, led by some of von der Leyen’s German chums, is also looking at extending the “cohesion fund,” which blackmails poor EU nations to become more German. Cash for reforms (proposed €392 billion), but no emergency money to help poor EU people climb out of the gutter of bad policies. Here in Greece, a traditional culture is being destroyed to become “Europeanized.” Companies like TUI, Lidl, and others have accomplished what Hitler’s paratroopers could not. Germany took over Crete without a shot being fired.

A Dumber, More Deviant Europe

Another prideful accomplishment of EU commissars is the fact that one in four children in the block is at risk of severe poverty. A deeper dive into UNICEF figures shows that 13% of 12 to 16-year-olds in the EU have been subjected to unwanted sexual requests. Furthermore, the statistics reveal that 40% of 15-year-olds lack basic proficiency in reading and math. FORTY PERCENT!

Before we look at the disastrous foreign policy the EU has undertaken these last few years. I want to present the reader with a fact that is unbelievable. Get this. In Austria (not Albania), women are in what’s known as “period poverty.” In one of Europe’s wealthiest countries, sanitary products are too expensive for many women. In many EU countries, women are having to choose between food and buying menstrual products. Meanwhile, an innovative German start-up now makes biodegradable tampons from seaweed that don’t need an applicator! Three cheers for Ursula von der Leyen and German industrial ingenuity.

On the proxy war against Russia, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly has voted to expand Ukraine’s use of weapons inside Russia. According to Declaration 489 NATO allies:

[want] “to support Ukraine in its international right to defend itself by lifting some restrictions on the use of weapons provided by NATO Allies to strike legitimate targets in Russia.”

Stay Tuned for ThyssenKruppGate

In February, Ursula von der Leyen declared that the EU would “ensure it has the sufficient quantity of material and the technological superiority that we may need in the future.” She went on to say the bloc intended to turbocharge the EU’s military-industrial complex. The EU boss spelt out her plan in no uncertain terms:

“At the heart of this must be one simple principle: Europe must spend more, spend better, spend European.”

And spending more against enemies created by German, French, and the US conniving over the Euromaidan and the Minks agreements will not come from the Western elite’s pockets. The poor and middle class of the EU will pay for these new weapons. Russia became a convenient enemy for two reasons. First, to start a new and improved Cold War to fill BlackRock, Vanguard, and other behemoth investment funds’ coffers. Secondly, the mission has always been to hold Russia down and to create a fragmented region, just like Yugoslavia became. Divide and conquer, as Julius Caesar said.

So, we must offer our condolences (not congratulations) for EU parliamentarians re-electing the woman associated with Pfizer Gate and what may soon be the European Union’s version of Iran-Contra. God only knows the entirety of what these people have up their sleeves.

 

Phil Butler, is a policy investigator and analyst, a political scientist and expert on Eastern Europe, he’s an author of the recent bestseller “Putin’s Praetorians” and other books. He writes exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.

 

https://journal-neo.su/2024/07/20/von-der-leyen-wins-stay-tuned-for-thyssenkruppgate/