By Sergio Rodriguez Gelfenstein *
The world is degenarting. Barbarism is prevailing. A series of values, principles and behaviors that humanity had accepted as valid – despite the fact that they are an expression of antagonistic class societies – and that a large part of that same humanity considers “normal”, are being overwhelmed, mistreated and excluded from everyday life.
The news in this regard is overwhelming. It is only natural that the Ukrainian armed forces, with the support of NATO, bomb hospitals, kindergartens and amusement parks. The free press reports that one of the projectiles launched by the neo-Nazi army hit the pediatric ward of the hospital, causing deaths and injuries. All this with the weapons of “humanitarian aid” from Europe and the United States. The same thing happens in Palestine where the Zionist army murders children with complete impunity.
All the arguments used to send weapons to Ukraine and to support the Zionist entity are the same as those that justify unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua and other countries. The height of indecency and the absence of scruples has been reached. The lack of any type of ethics leads them to demonstrate, without impudence, crimes against humanity that affect the lives and lead to the death of tens of thousands of citizens. They don’t mind injecting money and weapons into the Nazi government in Ukraine and the Zionist government in Israel, which amounts to the same thing.
During the month of November, a draft resolution was presented at the UN to reject the glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices. This resolution was approved by the vast majority of the countries on the planet but rejected by the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain and the European Union. In other words, these countries believe that Nazism should be exalted as a universal value. Perhaps this is the explanation for his unrestricted support for the Nazi regime in Ukraine.
I believe that the debate on these issues goes beyond the actual situation. We must go to the fundamentals, to the structural, to what is strategically in the interests of humanity. In this sense, it can be said that the crisis of values has to do with the implosion of a series of processes that the world is experiencing and that are related to the ineffectiveness of certain theoretical constructs that no longer serve to analyze the current situation. I refer to definitions such as democracy, left and right, separation of powers, alternation in government, freedom of the press and expression, the rule of law and others that today are only instruments for domination, and that even some sectors of the left have assumed… These have even defended them, due to their inability to build alternative points of view, believe in them and use them as tools for the construction of the new society.
To that extent, given our inability to create a revolutionary theory and practice, we have been pushed to defend and safeguard the conceptualization that emanates from antagonistic class societies. We all know that those statements transformed into paradigms of those who have held power were issued many centuries and even millennia ago when the world was totally different from the current one. Continuing to support them is a pipe dream and even absurd. They belong to those who want those who dominate us. One of those paradigms is that of democracy as it is conceptualized in the West. As proof of its total falsehood, it is enough to see what is happening in Peru or in the United States, the very heart of the western capitalist world that reveres representative democracy.
When a well-known Western leader such as Josep Borrell establishes a difference for the world in which Europe is a garden and the rest a jungle, one can perfectly understand the intricacies that they are trying to force us to accept. This justifies the expansion of NATO as an expansion of the beautiful capitalist garden that must be built throughout the planet to save humanity from the barbarism of the jungle. This is necessary even at the cost of war, genocide and the destruction of life on Earth.
In this matter of definitions, centuries of Eurocentrism have made us believe that Europe is the mother of world civilization and the example to follow. It is worth remembering that the great civilizations of antiquity: China, India, Persia, Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Maya, the Aztec and the Inca were not located in Europe.
In reality, Europe is an expression of the worst in the history of mankind. Capitalism and imperialism, slavery and colonialism were born there. The two most brutal wars that the world can remember took place there. Europe exposes in its museums, without impudence, all the barbarism that is its own and that manifests the most execrable of the human condition.
At present, its monarchical systems are sold among tinsel as examples of political stability. Its corrupt parliaments are at the service of reprehensible royalties from other continents and its military structure organized under the figure of NATO that is nothing more than a sweetened manifestation of the continents transformation in a colony of the United States, which was established through the Marshall Plan. Theese are a clear manifestation of a putrefaction that the world will not bear for much longer.
As long as they exist, relationships must be maintained with them, as with everyone, but on the basis of mutual respect. The defense of sovereignty and the ability to make decisions without external interference should be the cornerstone of the foreign policy of any self-respecting country. Other types of links should not and cannot be accepted under any condition.
In the case of Latin America, Europe only wants to have a good relationship to feed the dirty interests of its banks and its plundering companies. Governments are mere servants to guarantee the theft of our wealth.
In this sense, it seems to me absolutely unworthy that even in the 21st century we continue to consider the countries of Europe as guarantees or guarantors of something. Until when? I cannot conceive that in order to understand each other between Venezuelans or Colombians, one would have to resort to Norway or France so that they attest to our good will to solve internal problems. Norway pretends to support peace in Latin America and at the same time, as a NATO country, it supports the Nazi government in Kyiv. In fact, it is the sixth largest contributor of weapons and financial resources with more than 550 million dollars for Zelenski to continue his genocidal work. That is, “work” for peace in Latin America and work for war in Europe. What display of immorality? And we accept that. Until when?
Don’t we have CELAC? Why do we create our institutions if we think that they cannot be endorsers or guarantors? CELAC must be much more than meetings, speeches and applause. How long are we going to continue believing in wild Europe as a synonym for peace?
What can a continent like Europe be when it remains silent while the United States drowns its currency, the Euro. They are nothing, dependent on trade with China, Russian energy and the “security” provided by their status as US vassals. They live from the past and from the history that they themselves built from the money that the robbery, outrage and genocide of hundreds of millions of human beings provided them. They have sweetened history to sell themselves as civilizers and cults.
They cannot be a guarantee for the solution of our problems any more than the OAS can be. Take a look at what just happened to Bolivia and more recently to Peru. To need the OAS is to need the United States. In our case, as the Bolivarian Republic that we are, it is not acceptable under any circumstances to invite the United States or Europe to resolve our business, as the Liberator Simon Bolivar said. There is a reason why he did not invite them to the Congress of Panama in 1826. We must be at the level of our peoples, building our institutions, giving them credibility and granting them the power that popular sovereignty grants to resolve our issues and get ahead.
* Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein is a Venezuelan international relations expert, who was previously Director of the International Relations of the Presidency of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, his country’s ambassador to Nicaragua and an advisor for international politics for TELESUR. Gelfenstein has written numerous books, among them “China in the XXI Century – the awakening of a giant” which has been published in several Latin American countries. You can follow him on Twitter: @sergioro0701
Main by courtesy of Ljubodrag Simonovic.