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October 14, 2022 - 3:42pm
It’s been a big week for Josep Borrell, the European Union’s most senior diplomat. In two historic, borderline apocalyptic speeches this week, Borrell laid out a stark vision of Europe’s threatened place in a world of growing insecurity and competition between states, grappling with a reality the continent’s leaders have until now been too slow — perhaps fatally slow — to apprehend.
Channelling Edward Gibbon’s famous opening lines from the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Borrell remarked across both speeches that “Europe is a garden. We have built a garden. Everything works. It is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion that humankind has been able to build,” but “the rest of the world is not like this.” Indeed, “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden… Because the jungle has a strong growth capacity, and the wall will never be high enough in order to protect the garden.”
Echoing the warnings of the German political theorist Hans Kribbe, Borrell observes that “We are too much Kantians and not enough Hobbesians,” because we have failed to “understand the world the way it is,” and attempted to export European norms of governance to a hard world which “is not ready to follow our exportation of model.”
Instead, it is aggressive and expanding authoritarian states like Russia and China which are turning the wheel of history at Europe’s expense. Urging us to read Putin’s dark and threatening speech on the occasion of Russia’s annexation of much of Ukraine — “Every European citizen must read this speech” he insists — Borrell’s essential warning is that unless Europeans recognise and prepare for the gravity of the international situation now upon us, “the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.”
The post-Cold War order, a world in which “You — the United States — take care of our security. You — China and Russia — provided the basis of our prosperity” has evaporated, never to return: “This is a world that is no longer there.” Instead, “We live in a world of power politics. The rules-based system that we defend is challenged like never before, and our interdependency — which was supposed to be a good thing, preventing the war — now is becoming weaponised.”
What does this mean for us? With Europe’s model collapsing, other systems, like China’s authoritarian governance model, in which “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,” will hold greater appeal, not only worldwide but perhaps in Europe itself. After all, he notes, “the radical Right is increasing their grasp in European politics,” taking pains to remind his audience of budding EU diplomats that this trend is “the choice of the people” and “not an imposition from any power.”
But for the foreseeable future, Europe will be poorer than we have ever experienced, buffeted by global storms we cannot outrun. The foundations of Europe’s Panglossian political worldview and economic prosperity are toppling, one by one, in rapid succession, with no clear sense of what will come next. All that we can be certain of is that we are living in a new era, “a ‘moment of creation’ of a new world.” Europe’s decades-long holiday from history is over: finally, Europe’s leaders appreciate the scale of the challenges facing us. The only problem is that none of Europe’s leaders, including Borrell, possess any convincing plan for the hard road ahead.
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Subscribe“the radical Right is increasing their grasp in European politics,” taking pains to remind his audience of budding EU diplomats that this trend is “the choice of the people” and “not an imposition from any power.”
Perhaps that’s because the (so called) radical right “understand the world the way it is,” better than the elites, the delusional left liberal consensus that has lead to this looming crisis in the first place. I suspect many ordinary people are coming to the same conclusion.
what exactly is ‘radical’ about them? Can someone explain?
That’s easy. “radical right” refers to anyone that fails to promote expansion of Global Marxism and Authoritarianism.
Key indicators to spot these “radical right” domestic terrorists-in-waiting are Christian symbols, American flags, any “God Bless…” wording or of course working in competitive private sector businesses.
You are probably “safe” if you are surrounded by public servants (heroes really), are at a Climate Change rally, work in highly regulated non-competitive unionized industries that enabled retirement at age 52, indicate your sexual preferences on your auto bumper, have a payment plan at Ziggy’s Tattoo and Piercings, and have never heard of Unherd.
They are radical enough to care about self-preservation while the progressive spends her days worrying about the climate, refugees, the travails of the non-binary, anti-racism and decolonisation, hate speech etc
Encouraging to see that at least one senior figure in Europe understands the challenges facing that continent. As the author notes, however, European leaders seem unable to propose, let alone implement, viable solutions to any of these problems. They even seem to be in denial about the looming energy crisis this winter.
My guess is by next spring Europe will be a different place, with an electorate now acutely aware of the need to wake up, shake off their Green fantasies, and deal with the world as it really is.
I’m sure that McKinsey, Bain, and your Euro equivalents are advising Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin et all are feverishly crafting their “pivot strategies”.
pivot….Pivot!……PIVOT!!!
Hopefully.
With Europe’s model collapsing, other systems, like China’s authoritarian governance model, in which “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,” will hold greater appeal. What do you mean ‘other systems’? Authoritarian governance is the EU’s system! EU citizenry don’t get to vote for the various EU presidents – they are parachuted in after shabby backroom deals have been done.
Borrell is probably correct in his diagnosis of what is facing Europe. Unfortunately, the EU is not equal to the challenge. In its earlier days, the EU did a lot of good in reducing poverty in its poorer member states but the model has run out of steam now and the challenges facing Europe are very different. In many instances, the EU is an obstacle to finding solutions e.g. the economic migrant problem. Either the EU will have to change quite radically (which seems unlikely) or it will ultimately disintegrate.
Indeed – when I read that sentence, I genuinely assumed he was referring to the EU governance model – e.g the effective appointment of Italian PMs from Brussels.
“Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden… “
Could? What on earth has been going on over the last fifteen years…. an invasion’ encouraged by our political leadership because capitalism needs labour. Trojan Horse comes to mind.
Europeans forgot that the foremost prerequisite of modern life is electricity, more specifically, reliable 24/7 electricity.
Buried in our cell phones as we wait for a self-driving Uber to arrive knowing Amazon can open my front door to drop my pre-chopped microwave ready frozen carrots in my fridge, we get run over by those base ugly trappings of civilization like sewers, clean running water, electricity, and stable food supplies. Those base trappings that everyone wanting into the US, UK, Germany, Italy, France crave for their children.
History is a litany of bewildered ‘civilised’ nations unprepared for the inevitable appearance of barbarians at the gates, unable to comprehend that their civilised lives were only made possible by rapacious exploitation of incivility in far flung lands.
Retracted
Apocalyptic and concerning. A wake-up call that cannot be ignored.
Mr Borrell is an utter disaster as a diplomat, and shows the dangers of believing your own propaganda. After its wanton trashing of all constitutional principles over the last two-and-a-half years, no member of this EU Commission has any right to pretend to rule of law or defence of individual freedoms.
But that is not enough hypocrisy for Mr. Borrell – instead of working hard on diplomacy to promote peace, building on the EUs past successes in submerging historical hatreds in a larger project, the EUs “top diplomat” has positioned himself as minister for war – even nuclear war – of a polity that does not even have an army.
The sooner he goes the better.
So what does this EU gardener’s philosophy look like from inside the garden? Based on the EU’s near term policy initiatives, it is apparently necessary to counteract the barbarians at the gategate by doubling double down on:
Conclusion: to combat the authoritarians knocking at the gates of our wonderful garden we are going to turn it pre-emptively into a prison state ourselves. Finlandization plus the Stockholm syndrome?
Many, I would say the majority of Europeans and Americans would agree with Putin when he says:
“Let’s answer some very simple questions for ourselves. Now I would like to return to what I said and want to address also all citizens of the country – not just the colleagues that are in the hall – but all citizens of Russia: do we want to have here, in our country, in Russia, “parent number one, parent number two and parent number three” (they have completely lost it!) instead of mother and father? Do we want our schools to impose on our children, from their earliest days in school, perversions that lead to degradation and extinction? Do we want to drum into their heads the ideas that certain other genders exist along with women and men and to offer them gender reassignment surgery? Is that what we want for our country and our children? This is all unacceptable to us. We have a different future of our own.
Let me repeat that the dictatorship of the Western elites targets all societies, including the citizens of Western countries themselves. This is a challenge to all. This complete renunciation of what it means to be human, the overthrow of faith and traditional values, and the suppression of freedom are coming to resemble a “religion in reverse” – pure Satanism. Exposing false messiahs, Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on the Mount: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” These poisonous fruits are already obvious to people, and not only in our country but also in all countries, including many people in the West itself.”
The garden did try to engage the jungle. In some cases it worked. Colonization worked beautifully in North America and Australia. Other forms of colonization worked for short periods. “Improving” or fertilizing the jungle just produces a stronger, more aggressive jungle, as we see now. Think about it. No farmer sows crop seeds into a field of weeds; the ground must be cleared first. And no farmer sows crops seeds and weed seeds together because the weeds will always crowd out the crops. We must abandon any idea of co-existing with the jungle or of somehow improving the jungle. If we want to keep our garden we are going to have to fight the jungle. Like it or not.
I left Europe over 30 years ago in order to join the “jungle” and my conviction about having made a good decision has never stopped growing since that memorable day.
Thank you so much for the link to the free Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire!
I’m only two chapters in, and it’s terrific. Almost every paragraph has me diving down a Wikipedia rabbit hole.
Aris Roussinos wrote, “The post-Cold War order, a world in which ‘You — the United States — take care of our security. You — China and Russia — provided the basis of our prosperity’ has evaporated, never to return … The only problem is that none of Europe’s leaders, including [Josep] Borrell, possess any convincing plan for the hard road ahead.”
Some necessary steps in the plan are evident even if the full plan is unclear to the European governments.
Two steps have highest priority. They are enforcing the borders and distancing the European nation from the United States.
Enforcing the borders means both deporting illegal aliens and refusing to yield to demands by (for example) the Indian government to open the borders to Indian citizens.
Distancing the European nation from the United States means exiting the American security architecture, which includes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
The justification for the second step is that all European nations will remain Western countries after the United States ceases to be one.
By 2040, the United States will cease being a Western nation, due to open borders. Most Americans will reject Western culture, and Hispanic culture will dominate. Currently, in California, 40% of the residents are Hispanic. Most residents of the state already reject Western culture, and Hispanic culture dominates.
Get more info about this issue.
My Hipanic neighbors aren’t “Western”? Really?
Think maybe the EU has been an introductory course, a grooming if you will, for the acceptance of an authoritarian form of governance ?
Why is Hispanic culture not western?
Whoa there, cowboy! I have lived in California for 56 years. While it is true that the demographic lazily referred to as “Hispanic” is becoming a majority, that in no way justifies the conclusion implied that people lumped into this unfortunate and inaccurate categorization are somehow “non-Western” in their values.
First of all, the mother country of “Hispanic” cultures ( plural, because they are diverse ) is Spain, a European, i.e., western culture. Secondly, as shifts in voting trends clearly demonstrate, “Hispanics” are moving to the right, endorsing traditional, conservative values of family, education, hard work, and liberty. All, by the way, products of Western culture.
Let’s discuss facts, not half-truths. “Hispanics” in California – despite illegal immigration, which is still, after all, illegal – have not been damaging to this culture as have immigrants in Europe. On the contrary, “Hispanics” are contributing to ethnic variety and vigor of this place we call the United States of Anerica.
Whoa there, cowboy! I have lived in California for 56 years. While it is true that the demographic lazily referred to as “Hispanic” is becoming a majority, that in no way justifies the conclusion implied that people lumped into this unfortunate and inaccurate categorization are somehow “non-Western” in their values.
First of all, the mother country of “Hispanic” cultures ( plural, because they are diverse ) is Spain, a European, i.e., western culture. Secondly, as shifts in voting trends clearly demonstrate, “Hispanics” are moving to the right, endorsing traditional, conservative values of family, education, hard work, and liberty. All, by the way, products of Western culture.
Let’s discuss facts, not half-truths. “Hispanics” in California – despite illegal immigration, which is still, after all, illegal – have not been damaging to this culture as have immigrants in Europe. On the contrary, “Hispanics” are contributing to ethnic variety and vigor of this place we call the United States of Anerica.
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Is Spain in any manner related to Hispanic? Is it in the West?
I spent a few years living in Latin America. It was refreshing how unapologetically Christian and pro-western culture they still were.
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Since when is Hispanic culture not western?
When you say “most residents reject Western culture” what are you actually referring to? Hispanic is of Spanish origin. Spain is part of Western culture. Maybe Hispanic’s will save America from itself.
‘Europe is a garden and the rest of the world is a jungle’… wow.
For those of us hailing from the jungle, it is only from the jungle that such a statement could come. The last 500 years of this European tribe’s history is perhaps a testament to that.
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There will BE a USA in 2040 ?
Division is destroying it, with no help from the Hispanics needed.
Hispanics may actually save California in my view, and bring it back to Western culture.
That’s a very interesting thought. If not Western culture then certainly a culture of family, work and social cohesion, which is what got us here.
Exactly