When we look at the countries of the European Union we see some
disharmony, talk of Grexits and Brexits, complaints about excessive bureaucracy
and so on. But how are those discussions handled? Often with passion, sometimes
(as in the case of parties like UKIP and the Front National) with scare-mongering. But by and large the European Union is a place of peaceful
democratic discourse. It is also a place of relative prosperity with living
standards that are the envy of many. What needs standing up to here?
When we look at North America, what do we see? We see a United
States of America presided over by a man who has been steadfast in his resolve
to disengage his country from inherited conflicts. A buzzword of the Obama era
is de-escalation. The United States has renewed diplomatic ties with Cuba,
following a handshake with Raul Castro at Nelson Mandela’s funeral and behind
the scenes mediation from the Pope. What about this kind of behavior needs
standing up to?
Canada is in “the West” too. A new prime minister, 42 years
old, a former school teacher, has just been elected. Canada is a brilliant
example of multiculturalism because of their historical attitude towards
immigration and is today showing the world how refugees from conflicts should
be treated when that newly elected Prime Minister personally turns up at airports
to welcome people to newer and safer lives. This is a country that needs some
kind of global balance against their actions?
Expanding the definition, and looking at who or what needs
to be challenged by this apparently resurgent Russia, should Japan and
Australia be added to the list? Are they part of this “New World Order” that
Russia must bravely stand up to and in doing so prevent the “unipolar world”
they talk about from becoming a reality? Well, as both Japan and Australia are
part of the collective of countries that have adopted some kind of sanctions
against Russia, they must be. Right?
Japan has a high standard of living, with the highest life
expectancy age in the world and the third lowest infant mortality rate in the
world whereas Australia is such an advanced democracy that voting is mandatory
to ensure that the population educates themselves about and participates in
meaningful processes determining how their country is run. These two countries
require a counter balance? Russia offers that counter balance?
The unifying factor of the aforementioned countries and the
EU is that they have all applied sanctions against Russia in one form or
another. Therefore another country that Russia must weave into their “we are
standing up against them” narrative is Norway. Independent, not a member of the
EU, Norway has held the top spot in the Human Development Index for 12 out of
the last 15 years. I don’t want a counter weight to that kind of world
influence, I want to emulate what they have got going on, because they are
doing exceptionally well by all relevant measures.
So what, in
balance, does Russia offer?
Traditional family values? No. This phrase is used to
justify a level of homophobia and discrimination against gay people that any
reasonable person finds abhorrent.
Geopolitical leadership? No. Ignoring the sovereignty of
other countries isn’t geopolitical leadership. Ignoring historical commitments
and guarantees with childish excuses isn’t geopolitical leadership. Repeatedly
talking about possession of the most horrific killing machines man has ever
created is not geopolitical leadership. Denying that your military are
operating inside the internationally recognized borders of other countries, and
disgracing your war dead by denying their existence and bribing or bullying
their families into silence is not geopolitical leadership.
Being the only country in the world to militarily support
the brutal regime of Bassar Al Assad is not geopolitical leadership and
dishonestly pretending that the pro-Assad operation is about fighting ISIS is
also not geopolitical leadership.
Different trajectories
Before the Soviet Union broke up George Bush came to Kyiv
and urged Ukrainians not to vote for independence. Such was the worry about
what might come if the Soviet Union collapsed. Regardless, 92.3% of Ukrainians
voted for independence. 92.3% of all Ukrainians, whether they considered
themselves to be ethnically Russian or Ukrainian. And this included 83% of
residents of both Luhansk and Donetsk and also a majority of residents of Ukraine’s
Crimean peninsula.
From that point on the political situation in the former
Soviet states and in their former client states in central Europe took
different trajectories. In central Europe communism, and the oppressions and persecutions
that necessarily came with maintaining that system, were immediately and fully
rejected. Anyone who had been involved in maintaining that system was subjected
to lustration and any vestiges of the communist apparatus that had been forced
on those countries were purged. Yet Ukraine is now being criticized for
following the same path.
The central European states, now fully fledged democracies
and peaceful nations with good living standards and free media, they took this
journey together, albeit at different speeds and not without scandals, but they
collectively moved to throw off the shackles of communism. By contrast, in the
former Soviet States former Communists grabbed power and were primarily focused
on covering up the abuses and crimes of their communist comrades and the KGB
enforcers, and in some parts of the former Soviet Union they still are. This is
the source of and reason for the objections to Ukraine’s decommunisation path
now.
Today Ukraine is changing. Some will stand on the sidelines
and criticize those changes and try to impose demands on the kind of changes
Ukraine can or cannot make, or try to interfere with Ukraine’s path of
development because a free and prosperous Ukraine represents an obviously
dangerous precedent for the surrounding autocrats, but together with some good
advisors who have been through this process in the Baltic countries and in
Central Europe and in Georgia and together with some patriots from the
diaspora, we will make it. Ironically, those who criticize haven’t themselves
even begun to make the changes they need yet.
As for Standing Up to the West, it’s a baseless narrative
invented by people who have nothing else. Yet another bluff at the poker table. Putin isn’t sitting on a Royal Flush, he has an unsuited 2 and 7. There is
nothing in the Russian system that is appealing, no intelligent person would willfully
trade the freedoms and standard of life in the countries sanctioning Russia for
the repressions, stagnation, decay, corruption and pretense of democracy that
we see in Russia.
Putin isn’t standing up to anybody, he is creating fake
enemies abroad and silencing perceived enemies at home. We have seen this
script played out before. It didn’t end well.
