- (September 2004)
Changing the history of Europe.
When I was a kid, in the 1960s, the Italian politicians routinely delivered
pompous speeches describing how Italy joined the Allies and liberated itself
from fascism. The Italian people knew this was all fantasy and simply laughed
it out. We knew we had lost the war, not won it, and we knew that Hitler and
Mussolini had been defeated by the Allies, not by the partisans. The partisans
were heroes precisely because they fought against an overwhelmingly stronger
enemy, an enemy that they alone could have never defeated. Italians had never
been fanatic patriots, and made no mystery among themselves that the politicians
were just exaggerating the role of the Italian people in liberating Italy.
What a difference 40 years make. The collapse of the Soviet Union, the birth
of the European Union and, above all, the fact that the WWII generation is
dying are dramatically changing the perception of what happened in 1943.
More and more of younger Europeans truly believe that the Allies didn't do
much: it was the Italian partisans and the French partisans who won the war
against Mussolini and Hitler.
The political speeches that used to be derived by the people are now being taken
very seriously by the younger generations. In a sense, the brainwashing
(meant to create a new civil conscience) really worked.
Creating an alternative history that never happened may have an undesired
effect: that Europeans may one day forget the lessons of the history that
truly happened.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (May 2004)
A permanent seat for Germany?. Gerard Schroeder is asking the United
Nations to grant Germany a permanent seat (read: veto power) at the United
Nations council. The main reason is that Germany contributes a lot of money
to the United Nations budget. In other words, Schroeder wants to "buy" a
permanent seat.
This idea comes at the worst possible time. The United Nations is a joke
(see What is wrong with the United Nations)
and the way to fix it is certainly not to emphasize its paradoxes.
India deserves a permanent seat because it represents one billion people.
Maybe Japan deserves a permanent seat because it represents the second
largest economy in the world. But one wonders why in heaven a small declining
continent like Europe should have a fourth permanent seat (Britain, Russia,
France, Germany) when Africa has none (not even Nigeria, whose population
is greater than Germany and France combined) and Asia (more than half of the
human race) has only one (China). This would be an even more "colonial"
council: the western powers would have more control than ever on world
affairs.
Schroeder is proving that the United Nations is only a joke, not to be
taken to represent the world.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (May 2004)
The East-West divide in the new European Union.
Western and Eastern European countries do not share a common vision for Europe.
It is not only that their recent and ancient histories have been so different.
They hold differing views of the alliance with the USA, of the relationship
with Russia, and of the "appropriate" role of the members themselves.
Western Europeans think that they invented capitalism, democracy and consumerism
(i.e., the American model) and they spread it to Eastern Europe. Technically
speaking, they are right on both counts: democracy and capitalism were born in
Europe (well, Britain, close enough) and the reconstruction of Eastern Europe
is being paid by the European Union.
But Eastern Europeans see it from a different perspective: the modern versions
of capitalism, democracy and consumerism were invented in the USA, and
Western Europeans were lucky to be "Americanized" first. They see a wave
that started on the other side of the Atlantic, reached Normandy and Sicily
in 1944, and finally reach the Baltic regions and Central Europe in 1991.
Western Europeans expect gratitute from Eastern Europeans, but Eastern Europeans
don't see Western Europeans as liberators orf evangelists: they see them as
mere implementors of the American model, as a by-product of the USA.
Eastern Europeans see no reason to be grateful to Western Europeans
(especially since these days Western Europeans do not show much gratitude
towards the USA).
France, obsessed with the ambition of becoming the "counterweight" to the USA
(Chirac's expression, not mine), dreams of an expansion of the European Union
further east: Russia. France and most Euronationalists dream of the day that
the European Union will stretch from Portugal to Siberia to Kamchatka. That is
the last thing that the Eastern European countries want to see, after centuries
of fierce wars with Russia and millions of dead people. They are joining
the European Union precisely because they want to separate themselves, their
future and their destiny, from Russia, their traditional enemy.
Internally, one member's ambition is rarely shared by other members. The most
notable example is, again, France, particularly if compared with Poland.
Poland lost WWII in a honorable manner: they fought against Hitler and Stalin
at the same time, and millions died. Stalin had to order the extermination of
all the officers of the Polish army, in one of the war's most famous cases of
genocide. At the end of the war, Poland was completely destroyed.
France, on the other hand, surrendered to Hitler almost right away. The Germans
caused very little damage to France. Hitler took a holiday in Paris, and
enjoyed being photographed in front of the most famous French monuments.
The French just did not fight the Germans. Worse: the French (the Vichy
republic) joined the Germans, and sent troops to fight on the eastern front.
Those troops were eventually defeated. Thus France lost the war twice:
first against Hitler, and then against the Allies. The Polish are very aware
that the heroism of their army was not matched by the mass surrender (and
aboutface) of the French army.
At the end of the war, Poland was punished for its herosim with 46 years of
communism and Russian occupation, while France was rewarded for its cowardice
with democracy, nuclear weapons and veto power at the United Nations.
The paradox is even too obvious to the Polish. No wonder that now they expect
a more balanced role in the European Union. They might be a poor country (due
to the injustice that they suffered) but the European Union may owe quite a bit
to the millions of Polish victims of Hitler and Stalin. If Poland had behaved
like France and simply surrendered and allied with the invader, history would
have been so different that today there might be no European Union at all.
There is another fundamental difference between western and eastern European societies: the east is largely homogeneous (e.g., Christian, and, in most cases,
Slavic), while the west has become a melting pot. The melting pot worked in the USA, but western Europeans do not seem enthusiastic at all about it. Their leaders routinely attack the very concept of immigration, which is hold sacred in the USA
(See, for example, this New York Times article).
Europeans are much less open to cultural exchanges than they proclaim:
the west sees immigration as a problem (unlike the USA that sees it as a solution), the east preempts the "problem" from happening by minimizing immigration.
So it is one Europe, but with many heads and no unifying vision.
Going forward, it is fairly obvious that the European centuries are over,
and Europe will have to content itself with a smaller and smaller share of
the world's output. The European age basically lasted from 1492 (beginning
of western European colonialization of the world) till 1945 (USA invasion of
western Europe). Europe's rapid decline on the international scene is being
paralleled by the even more rapid rise of Asia: China, Japan, ASEAN and soon India
are all becoming economic giants. As Europe shrinks in importance and power,
it will feel the pressure of Russia and of the Arab world. The Arab invasion is
already underway, with about ten million Arabs already living in the European
Union (and multiplying much faster than the native population). Europe has
virtually no oil, a fact which will make it more and more dependent on the
Arab world. Eventually, Europe will have to admit the simple truth that its
wealth depends on the good will of the Arabs; and the fastest growing segment
of its population is Arab. At the same time, Russia is likely to become the
economic giant that never was. After all, it does have the largest natural
resources on Earth. History may, after all, repeat itself. Traditionally,
Russia loses territories when it is weak (e.g., after the revolution and
after the Soviet collapse) but regains them as soon as it gets strong again.
Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine know all about it. In 2004, western Europe
took advantage of Russia's current weakness to "annex" its eastern territories
(the former communist countries of Eastern Europe). If Russia becomes
an economic giant, it may want to rediscuss the issue. Or, quite simply,
economic factors will pull Eastern Europe back into the Russian sphere of
influence.
(Witness how German chancellor Schroeder has been courting Putin and
forgiving him both Russia's human rights abuses in Chechnya and Russia's support
for the undemocratic elections in Ukraine of november 2004).
In the future, thus, the European Union will be torn in three
different directions: the south (led by Spain, France and Italy) will be
pulled towards the Arabs; the east (and possibly even Scandinavia and
Germany) will be pulled towards Russia, and Britain will be pulled towards
the USA. The USA might be willing to "rescue" a few close allies (Italy,
Germany, Poland) from Russian or Arab influence. The challenge for the European
Union in the future will not be so much how to expand, albeit how to survive
under three different kinds of pressure. Not to mention France, which has
been the staunchest defender of the European Union for as long as the
European Union represented a mere extension of French policy, but is likely
to feel uneasy as it loses control over the enlarged European Union,
a consequence that both the French government and the French people did
not fully anticipate before it happened.
(In a sense, this is a repeat of the Middle Ages, when Europe, also in the
grips of an economic and cultural crisis, was pressured
by Islam from the south and by the Mongols from the east, and France,
once again, will be the key battlefield against Islam).
The different attitudes towards the Union reflect a rudimentary awareness
of this "near future".
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (May 2004)
Europe's theory of the USA is very simple: every action by the USA
can easily be explained based on economic interest. As one travels around
(western) Europe, this "theory" is evident. Both political analysts and
ordinary folks discuss USA policies in the world starting from an economic
interest (usually, oil).
This argument is sometimes presented in grotesquely comic overtones. During the
Kosovo war, rumours spread that oil had been found in Kosovo. Even if Kosovo
remains one of the most desolate and poor regions of the world (and no oil has
been found), millions of Europeans are still willing to swear that the USA
bombed Serbia and remove Milosevic from power only because of their
economic interests. If you ask them to be more specific, they can only come up
with very obscure theories of how Kosovo benefits the USA economy (even the
most ignorant of Europeans is aware that Kosovo is less than 0.01% of the USA's
economy).
Ditto for Afghanistan: millions of Europeans are convinced that the USA removed
the Taliban from power because of hidden reserves of oil under the soil of
Afghanistan, or because of a strategic pipeline that will bring Central Asian
oil to the sea (this is true: a pipeline is indeed being built, although the
Afghan pipeline is only one of the many that will connect Central Asia to
the ocean). To million of Europeans, september 11 and Osama are only an excuse
for the USA to do something that the USA would have done anyway out of economic
interests. Never mind that Afghanistan remains extremely poor and that (alas)
no major USA company has invested in Afghanistan.
The American soldiers that protect South Korea from North Korea's communist
regime? Of course, they are there only to defend USA's economic interests.
Again, if you ask these Europeans which economic interests, they can't quite
pinpoint them. It should be fairly obvious that South Korea has nothing that
the USA needs: no oil, no gold, no uranium, no major resources. On the other
hand, the USA helped South Korea become one of the richest countries in the
world. Several South Korean companies have, incidentally, become competitors
of USA companies, and the USA imports from South Korean a lot more than
South Korean imports from the USA. But those are details: millions of Europeans
are convinced that the USA benefit economically from South Korea.
Millions of Europeans are even willing to swear that the USA helped liberate
Western Europe itself merely out of economic interests. They are convinced that
the USA fought Hitler and Mussolini (and saved France twice) simply because
Americans wanted to create a huge market for USA goods.
It is easy to prove that
neither the first nor the second world war brought significant economic
improvements to the USA. The USA's share of world output has decreased, not
increased. Adjusted to inflation, the average American is slighly poorer than
her ancestor of the 1950s, whereas the average European is much richer than
her ancestor of the 1950s. Italy did not have paved roads, public lighting and
appliances: today it has the same roads, lighting and appliances of the USA.
Europe has largely closed the gap that 50 years ago made it the poor cousin
of the USA. Again, one could make the case that countries such as Germany and
France (not to mention Japan) have become the strongest competitors of the USA
on the international markets. The USA, basically, first helped western European
countries become rich, and then even become competitors of the USA.
It should be self-evident that Europe has benefited more than the USA from
the USA's invasion of Europe. Instead, millions of Europeans are willing to
swear that the USA helped liberate Europe only out of economic interest.
The Cold War itself was a massive investment whose dividents are mainly cashed
by the former communist countries: the USA has not gained much from the
liberation of Eastern Europe, while Eastern Europeans are rapidly becoming
rich and modern countries, and may soon join the ranks of countries that
compete internationally with the USA.
No matter how overwhelming the evidence to the contrary, millions of Europeans
are convinced that the USA only acts out of economic interests.
One wonders what the USA could do to prove the opposite: absolutely nothing.
Whatever the USA does in the future, these Europeans will always find "oil"
or some other reason to explain that action. This is a dangerous attitude
that creates a dangerous level of chronic distrust towards anything the USA
says and does. It would make sense if it came from the Arab world.
It is weird that it comes from Europe because Europe has
been (so far) a net beneficiary of American actions.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (May 2004)
Do not celebrate 1500 years of wars.
In all the speeches celebrating the expansion of the European Union
to 25 countries one notable protagonist was missing: the USA.
We heard speeches praising Europe for building peace out of dictatorship
and war. We heard speeches in which Europeans took credit for ending
1500 years of bloodshed. We did not hear any speech telling Europeans
who liberated them, who enforced democracy in their countries, who
caused the Soviet Union to collapse, who nurtured and helped the
European Union from the beginning: the USA.
This is bad history. Europe did not pacify itself: it was pacified
by a much bigger power that emerged out of the ruins of WWII.
Europe was a battleground for 1500 years. Europeans enjoyed killing
each other and the rest of the world for 1500 years, pretty much
every single year of every single century. Untill 1945. What
happened in 1945 that had not happened in any of the years before,
since the fall of the Roman Empire? The "pax americana". In 1945,
at last, one power overwhelmingly dwarfed all the European countries
and imposed its will on them. It was so strong that it even convinced
Europeans that democracy is good and that capitalism is good (both
concepts were widely despised before 1945). The occupation was so effective
that today young Europeans repeat concepts derived from the USA
as if they were native European concepts. Fascism, nazism and communism
are rarely mentioned, as if they were the creation of some non-European
evil, when in fact they were very much the product of 1500 years of
European folly.
Today's European Union is simply the product of two American victories:
the USA's victory in World War II (against Germany and Japan) and the
USA's victory in the Cold War (against the Soviet Union).
Indirectly, all the politicians who omitted the USA from their speeches
celebrating 60 years of peace in Europe are carrying out
a form of brainwashing. They are trying to convince the younger
generations that Europe (politically speaking) is something to be proud of,
and not something to be ashamed of (politically speaking).
This may be understandable, but it may lead to a new form of nationalism,
"Euro-nationalism". Hopefully, the European leaders have not forgotten
that nationalism was the very cause of two world wars.
It would be more educational and more honest to tell young European what
really happened: the small European countries caused millions of deaths
all around the world in 1500 years of wars, until the USA invaded Europe
in 1945. After 1945, there have been no wars in USA-occupied Europe, and
there has been a continuous process of integration that has led to
the European Union. In 1991, with the end of the Cold War and the collapse
of the Soviet Union, the other half of Europe (the half that was
invaded by the Soviet Union) was also won over by the USA and also adopted
the USA model and also joined the European Union. The USA is not just
a footnote in this story: it is the main protagonist.
Omitting the protagonist from a story is not a good way to understand the
meaning of the story and to learn from it for the future.
Instead, one result of this impressive wave of Euro-nationalism is that
Europeans are becoming increasingly anti-American,
despite the fact that Europeans are obviously getting more and more Americanized
(from food to clothes to movies to rock stars), while Americans are clearly
not getting "European-ized" at all (Asian, African-American and Hispano-American
cultures are far more influential on the American lifestyle than anything
European).
(See also
Why I think there is a real danger of Euro-nazism).
There is another reason for the sudden peace in Europe. Quite simply,
Europe is becoming more and more irrelevant. Small countries like Holland
and Portugal used to matter more than the entire subcontinents of India
and China. Now the opposite is happening: the small European countries
are hardly known outside their immediate neighbors, and even the "big"
European "powers" (Germany, Britain, France, Italy) are less and less
"powerful" compared with China and India, but even to Brazil or South Korea.
Economically, countless countries are growing faster than the European
"powers". As the European continent becomes less and less relevant, it makes
sense that its many small countries get more and more united. It's the only
way to remain relevant.
Projecting into the future, though, it is hard to see how Europe can
live up to its ambitions. It is inevitable that Russia (which has more
natural resources than anyone else, on top of a thousand nuclear weapons)
will eventually obscure the European Union.
(See, for example, this IEA report on Europe's increased dependence on Russian gas).
The consequences of a powerful
and rich Russia bordering on a weak and less rich European Union are
unpredictable. When they get more powerful, Russians will certainly remember
that the European Union took advantage in 2004 of Russia's weakness and
"annexed" a big chunk of its sphere of influence. What will Russians do when
the roles are inverted?
The Arab countries are also likely to become more relevant, especially if
the USA's plan to democratize the area succeed. In a sense, Chirac is right
in opposing democracy in the Middle East: it could result in a united Arab
world, both democratic and wealthy, just like the European Union is the result
of the USA's democratization of Europe. A democratic and capitalistic
"Arab Union" would likely obscure the European Union, simply because they
have the oil and Europe doesn't (the demographics is also in their favor,
and 20 million immigrants already living in Europe are also in their favor).
The problems are compounded by the inevitable change in USA priorities.
Europe is no longer the war front, and it is just a matter of time before
a USA president realizes it: the USA does not need Europe anymore.
It might as well decide that its main allies are in South America (if
isolationism prevails), in Russia (if pragmatism prevails), in India (if
similarities prevail), or in Southeast Asia (if economics prevails).
Inevitably, a weaker USA commitment to Europe will result in increased
European vulnerability.
One wonders if, in two or three generations, Europe won't simply become a
battleground between Russia and the Arabs, with Russia becoming the last
bastion of Christianity.
The European Union is a great achievement for the rest of the world, that
can stop fearing the massacres that small European countries have carried
out for centuries against the rest of the world and among themselves.
But it may not be such a good omen for the Europeans themselves. It may
simply be the sign of an inevitable and rapid decline into irrelevance.
European politicians should give fewer speeches on how Europe became such
a grand concept and more speeches on how the USA created this concept
and on how this American concept (the European Union) can now remain relevant.
(Read What is worrisome about Western Europe) for more details on the rise of nationalism and antisemitism).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (May 2004)
Chaos in the European Union
The reason the European Union cannot come up with a common policy in
world affairs is very simple: the word "European Union" means different
things to different countries. The most obvious cases are the two
former colonial superpowers: France and Britain. The only thing they
share is the ambition to remain world powers. (Unfortunately these
two small countries still enjoy veto power at the United Nations,
an anachronistic privilege that only contributes to feed their ambitions).
France views the European Union as a surrogate for the lost French empire,
and as a tool for France to "counterbalance" the USA (a Chirac
expression). France often refers to its own policy as the policy of Europe
(Chirac routinely says "Europe believes that...", thus attributing
his own opinions to the entire European people). For France, the European
Union is more or less a French territory. This attitude has worsened
under Chirac (his imperial attitude harks back to DeGaulle), but was already
there from the beginning. The original six-member European Community was
conceived as France's political power plus Germany's industrial power
(and four minor countries). French president after French president have
reaffirmed that France and Germany constitute the "engine" of Europe
(and each French president has been very careful to make sure Germany
is left without an army and thus cannot become a political rival).
Britain views the European Union as an alien place but an inevitable
destiny, sort of an unwanted but unescapable close relative. Blair
has reinvented Britain's mission as the bridge between Europe and the
USA, but it is obvious that Britain is closer to the USA (and the other
Anglosaxon countries) than to France or Germany. Unlike France, which
desires a common European policy (run by France, of course), Britain
does not welcome such an idea at all. Britain views itself as detached
from Europe. Britain views its power and its uniqueness precisely in
"not" being part of Europe. (One could say that France's view of itself is
much more realistic than Britain's: Britain is fundamentally victim of an
identity crisis, while France knows its identity very well).
Italy, Spain and now Poland are slowly waking up to the fact that
they command quite a bit of power in a democratic Europe. They have
been relegated to second tier for a long time, due to the fact that
military power determined the tier. Now that population, not military
power, determines the importance of a country, Italy finds itself
equal to France (thus ending a century-old inferiority complex towards
their trans-Alpine cousins).
Italy is a true believer in the European Union. After all, Italy
is an abstraction, born itself out of the federation of smaller states.
Florence or Milan or Venice have never truly become "Italian". They
were city-states for centuries. So for them the transition to being
"European" is painless. In fact, it is welcomed. The Italian city-states
are probably the only ones to see the obvious benefit of being
"European" rather than just "Italian". On top of it, those city-states
spent centuries caring only for the economic (not imperial) aspect of
things: the European market is far more appealing than the Italian
market. It is not a coincidence that Italians consistently rank as
the biggest fans of European integration.
Germans are close seconds, and, again, it is not a coincidence:
Germany too was created relatively recently by uniting a number of
independent states. In fact, not all of the German people have been
united in today's Germany (Austria and most of Switzerland are German
people who are still outside the German Union). So, again, the
European Union is a concept easier to understand for the Germans than,
say, for the French. The fact that the German economy is likely to
dominate the European Union helps accept it, of course.
Spain and Poland are fighting for a
constitution that would grant them the same rights as France, Britain
and Italy. These middle-tier countries (Spain, Poland) view the European
Union as the real thing. Their disconnect with France and Britain is
that they see it as mostly an inter-European affair, not as a worldwide
affair. Midsize countries such as Spain and Poland are only interested
in internal European affairs, not in world affairs.
The very small countries, whether old imperial powers such as Holland and
Portugal or recent inventions such as Latvia and Slovenia, see the
European Union as the lesser evil. They have no strong national identity,
no historical independence to defend, and no political/economic interests
that they risk losing. Becoming a region of a big powerful country sounds
better than being simply an isolated small powerless banana-republic.
Needless to say, several of the smaller countries benefited greatly from joining,
and for them the European Union remains mainly a cow to milk. But,
just like France, Germany and Italy are forgetting where their wealth came from
(the USA), so will Ireland and Portugal forget that they were shephard and
fishermen communities before they joined the European Union. The day will come
that they will believe they themselves (not the European Union) created their
own wealth, just like modern Germans and Italians now believe that they
(not the USA) created their own democracy and economy.
Bottom line: there is only one European Union, but there are several different
definitions of what it is.
When Finnish ambassador Pertti Salolainen declared "The EU... has no vision,
no leadership", he was merely stating a fact, not an opinion.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (April 2004)
Cyprus: Another farce at the European Union.
The European Union accepted countries such as Latvia and Slovakia, and
already approved the future membership of Romania and Bulgaria, but
rejected the application of Turkey, on the basis of racial and religious
intolerance worthy of the Middle Ages. The ultimate farce is that even
Cyprus (an island which technically still has a civil war going on) was
accepted. The European Union quickly set up a referendum to unify the island,
but after telling the Greek part of the island that they would be welcomed
anyway in the Union, no matter how they voted. The Turkish half of the island,
instead, would be admitted only if the whole of the island voted in favor
of reunification. It didn't take a genius to predict that Turkish Cyprus had
a strong motivation to vote yes, and Greek Cyprus had no motivation to vote yes.
That is what happened, and only the extremely dumb bureaucrats of the European
Union (a unique collection of idiots) was surprised.
The ultimate irony is, of course, that the side that rejected the plan (the
Greek side) will get the reward of becoming an EU member.
First of all, the whole world wonders why in heaven is it so important that
Cyprus gets unified. Why can't the Greeks live with Greece and the Turks live
with Turkey? Secondly, people around the world are scratching their heads
trying to understand the logic that rewards the side that disobeys the will
of the EU. Last but not least, all the Turkish people in the world (whether
they live in Turkey, Cyprus or Germany) are wondering how many more slaps in
the face they have to endure.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (January 2004)
The Europacifists just don't get it.
On january 24, the Guardian (one of the most anti-American newspapers
in the world), published an article by a Naomi Klein which is quite
emblematic of the persistent hypocrisy of Europacifists.
Throughout the Iraqi crisis,
the Guardian consistently defended Saddam Hussein's right to remain in
power, despite the fact that Saddam Hussein never allowed any Iraqi citizen
any free opinion (and certainly no free election).
If it were for the Guardian, Saddam Hussein would still
be in power right now, dissidents would still be shot by the thousands,
and Saddam would probably remain in power till the end of his life, to be
eventually replaced by his even more murderous son.
Now that the USA got rid of Saddam's dictatorship and that Iraqis are
free to express their opinion, the Guardian is suddenly concerned about
the will of the Iraqi people.
The article "Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq" sides
with the cleric who wants the new Iraqi government elected by the people,
not appointed by the USA. The concern for the rights of ordinary Iraqis
is welcome, especially coming from people who never cared for the rights of
the ordinary Iraqis. One would hope that it signals a true change of heart,
and that, next time we confront a tyrant, these anti-American fundamentalists
would vote for deposing the tyrant and not to keep him in power.
Unfortunately, the article reveals the usual fascist bias of the Europacifists
by counting only the people who marched in the streets (in the usual
Mussolinian misunderstanding of what democracy is about, the author
of the article focuses on the "100,000 Iraqis" who marched in the streets,
but seems totally indifferent to the will of the 20 million Iraqis who stayed
home, whose will may or may not be the same as the will of the 0.5% who marched).
"I'm not an election expert" the author of the article claims, but then goes
on to express very strong opinions on how elections should be and should not
be organized in a country that has never had free elections (never in
five thousand years). So much for not being an expert, I guess.
In concluding, it doesn't take a genius to understand what this is all
about. It is not about democracy for the Iraqi people, but just the opposite:
it is about sabotaging the transition to democracy so that the Baath party
can get back to power. These anti-American fundamentalists will not give
up. In fact, they get angrier and angrier as the overthrow of Saddam becomes
more and more irreversible, and as they see a transition towards a much more
humane regime, and a much more democratic regime. (The Guardian article,
of course, completely omits the news that hundreds of free elections have
already taken place all over Iraq to elect municipal and regional leaders,
something that no Arab country has ever experienced in the entire history
of Arab civilization).
The article calls for "boycotts" against the USA companies that are
engaged in rebuilding Iraq. That, again, is more of the same: the Guardian
never called for boycotting the thousands of European and American
companies that worked for Saddam Hussein. In fact, over the last week
I haven't seen a single call for boycott against any of the companies
that work with any of the world's dictatorships. These Europacifists just don't
get it: it is so obvious that they are asking to boycott only companies
engaged in helping a country get rid of a tyrant, that their mission is to
defend fascist dictators and sabotage any democratic movement. It doesn't take
any thinking: just read what they publish.
Even when they pretend to be pro-democracy, the
Europacifists cannot hide their fundamental pro-fascist nature.
(Incidentally, I too think that the cleric and those 100,000 Iraqis are right,
as I have written months ago in Why the ayatollah is right and Bush is wrong,
but 1. I don't claim that this represents the opinion of 20 million Iraqis,
but rather simply the opinion of those 100,000 Iraqis and mine, all
100,001 being very incompetent in the matter of organizing elections,
and 2. I was in favor of removing Saddam Hussein and those 100,000 Iraqis
can march in the street because people like me helped remove Saddam Hussein).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (January 2004)
How the USA saved Western Europe.
Europacifists are not only misguided in their fundamentalist criticism
of anything the USA does around the world, and in Iraq in particular:
they are also ungrateful. A simple analysis of the effects of the Iraqi
war shows that the real beneficiaries were the Europeans, not the
Americans. The USA has its own oil, and mainly imports from Canada
and Mexico, and will soon receive oil also from Central Asia via the
brand new Afghani pipeline; but Europeans depend ever more on Arab
oil and Arab purchases of European technology.
The USA is not threatened by the Arab minority, which remains one of
the smallest in the country, but European countries such as France and
Italy are confronted with a fast-growing Arab minority. The USA does not
border on Arab countries with booming populations, but the entire
Mediterranean world is faced with the booming populations of Morocco,
Algeria and Egypt. The Usa had little to fear from Libya's, Syria's
and Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But Europe's status as a military
power, if not the physical safety of its citizens, were at stake:
France looked less and less powerful as Libya and Iraq were about to
acquire the same kind of weapons that make a country a world power.
It is Western Europe, not the USA, that is threatened by the
democraphic, economic and military growth of the Arab world.
The Iraqi war and especially its post-war have greatly humbled the
potentialities and the ambitions of the Arab dictators. Their economies
are more dependent on the USA than ever. Their military power has been
ridiculed (the USA has shown that it can annihilate a country the size of
Iraq in less than a month). Their population will keep growing, but
democracy and progress in Iraq may lead all Arab countries towards a
more self-sufficient future, and thus less emigration towards Europe.
In fact, it may even lead to a reversal of fortunes that may send
millions of Arabs back home.
The main beneficiary of the Iraqi war has been Europe. Europacifists
who think the USA screwed up the Middle East
literally don't know what they are talking about: it was France and Britain
that screwed up the Middle East, and the USA is now trying to fix the problem.
Whatever the real reasons that led Bush to invade Iraq, the Europacifists should
be celebrating, not complaining.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (December 2003)
The European Union may become as irrelevant as the United Nations.
Recent events have proven how dangerous it is to become irrelevant:
if you have become irrelevant, you have to expect that eventually someone
will start treating you accordingly. It happened to the United Nations
that, incapable of providing peace to Timor or Kosovo, and incapable of
saving the lives of 900,000 Rwandans, has been ignored by the USA, the
power that created the United Nations. Now the European Union is on the
verge of becoming another bloated and irrelevant institution.
The European Union is run by an impressive combination of incompetent
politicians (Prodi, Giscard, Dehaene, Duisenberg, etc) through a gigantic
bureaucracy.
The very structure of power in the European Union is grotesque and, ultimately,
anti-democratic: the European Parliament (elected by the people) has no real
power, while two executive bodies (the council and the commission) share
the real power, mostly on the basis of national interests.
Despite the amount of bureaucracy, the European Union is incapable of enforcing
European laws: France and Germany just violated the Maastricht treaty but
they were not even fined, let alone expelled. Chirac (the self-proclaimed
emperor of Europe and Oversea Territories) threatened the European countries
that dared side with the USA on the Iraqi issue, thus splitting Europe in
two (France and its colonies against Britain, Spain, Italy, the new democracies of Eastern Europe). And now Chirac has told the rest of Europe that the
new constitution (drafted, what a coincidence, by a Frenchman, Giscard)
has to be approved as it is: "take it or leave it", says the heir to Napoleon.
Needless to say, the others decided to "leave it". Is it a coincidence that
the two countries strongly in favor of the constitution were France and
Germany, the same two countries that violated the Maastricht treaty, the
same two countries that supported Saddam Hussein? Is it a coincidence the
constitution mainly hurts Spain and Poland, the two countries that more
closely allied with the USA on the Iraqi issue?
In foreign policy, it is fairly obvious that Britain is a closer ally of the
USA than any other country in the world, while France is a stronger opponent
of the USA than Russia or China. Thus one finds within the European Union the
two extremes of diligent (almost passive) pro-USA policy and passionate
(almost fanatic) anti-USA policy.
The European Union has become a "union" only in words, not in facts.
It is only a matter of time before someone (the equivalent of George W Bush)
stands up and says what is relatively obvious: the European Union is
becoming irrelevant.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (November 2003)
Why I think there is a real danger of Euro-nazism.
A recent article that I wrote ( What is worrisome about Western Europe) caused many European readers to reply
that I was out of my mind. I will try to explain that mine is more than
anti-European paranoia (I am a European after all).
When right-wing parties win more and more votes, and anti-Americans
march in the streets by the millions, it is hard for me not to relate
to stories my father told me about the 1930s.
(Is it a coincidence that the larger marches took place in the former
fastist countries Germany, Italy, Spain and France?)
Rome stadium, 2005
My argument uses a little bit of history and a little bit of logic to draw
a parallel between what happened in Germany in the 1930s and what is happening
in Europe today.
The big evil of 19th century and 20th century Europe was nationalism, which
had been born in the 18th century: it led each European
people to believe that their nation was somehow special, and eventually
to believe that they were a superior race (it wasn't only the Germans who
thought they were a superior race). Nationalism led to national wars, and
eventually to world wars (more than two because they already started
in 1756 with the Seven Years' war). Europeans massacred each other decade
after decade after decade in the name of their nationality.
At the same time, socialism became more and more pervasive. It had an obvious
appeal on the lower classes (traditionally forgotten by the ruling elite).
Unfortunately, it also stated the primacy of the state over the citizen,
which indirectly convinced people that the state had to be more (not less)
powerful. Nationalism plus socialism makes "nazism" (it is just an abbreviation
of the two).
At the time when nationalism met socialism, Germany was in the middle of a
severe economic crisis. This did not fit the ideal of a superior race:
if we are a superior race, why are we decaying? Hitler was the perfect
solution to the dilemma: a man who planned to restore Germany's superior
race to its grandeur. It turns out it could have happened anywhere in
Europe, because nationalism and socialism were pervasive. Germany was
the place where they happened to meet first. Germany was also the homeland
of socialism, and the last of the big nations to unite.
So, in my view, Germany was already nazist, and Hitler was simply the product
of German nazism. He found a name (a clever one) for a phenomenon that
had already happened. Mussolini had done the same in Italy, but couldn't
find the right name. Others were doing the same in other parts of Europe
(Stalin, Franco, Salazar). Different names but same concept: my nation is
a great nation (nationalism) and the state will make sure its grandeur is
realized (socialism).
Fast forward to today's Europe. My worries begin with the historical
revisionism that is pervasive among the new generations of Europeans.
That revisionism has at least two causes: 1. The eyewitnesses who knew
what really happened are dying, and their children (who cannot
doubt their parents' stories) will all be dead in a couple of generations.
2. The European soul has not really changed, despite the American colonization
and the forced democratization of their societies. Just check the history
textbooks that each and every child studies in Europe: Julius Caesar and
Napoleon are still described as heroes, not mass murderers; the only
philosophers and scientists worth discussing are the European ones;
the book invariably ends with the European Union, depicted as the
greatest achievement of human civilization. No wonder that Europeans
are rapidly forgetting the 100 million people that Europeans killed in
the 20th century, and 1600 years of continuous European wars. This
historical revisionism is rapidly changing the perception of what happened
before WW II: these Europeans think that Europe was already living in peace
and democracy, and the USA had nothing to do with liberating Europe from
nazifascism and certainly nothing to do with creating the current wealthy,
democratic and peaceful Europe. In fact, more and more Europeans think that
the USA is the problem not the solution. There are more and more Europeans
willing to believe that Hitler did not exterminate Jews (again, the
eyewitnesses are dying and their children will soon start dying).
There are more and more Europeans willing to believe that Europeans
did not cause WW II. One more generation and Europeans will openly debate
whether Hitler was good or bad: wasn't he just trying to create a better
world? Didn't the USA stop Hitler from creating a better world? Wasn't Hitler
trying to do what Caesar and Napoleon had tried to do, spread the highest
civilization? Even if it never reaches these extremes, the historical
revisionism has already created a strong European nationalism. The new
Europeans strongly believe that Europe was the homeland of democracy and peace.
They see themselves as a somewhat superior race, that achieve things that
other civilizations did not achieve. These new Euronationalists (mostly born
after WW II) think they "know" the truth.
The rest of the world has to learn the truth from Europe.
So the national nationalisms are being replaced by a continental nationalism.
At the same time, socialism is more pervasive than ever. Europeans are
capitalists only by convenience. But many have strong socialist beliefs.
Where Americans despise the state, Europeans tend to look up to the state
to solve all sorts of problems. Where Americans are strongly individualistic,
Europeans despise individualism (and individual achievements) and tend to
prefer mediocrity guaranteed by the state.
In one of his most celebrated speeches (Berlin, 10 december 1940), Adolf Hitler
told the crowd that his war was a war against rampant capitalism, against the
wealth gap between the rich and the poor, against mass poverty (all of this
represented by Britain and their friend the USA), and towards a
socialist state that would be more just and humane.
Isn't this precisely the view that today millions of modern Europeans (and their
political leaders) have of the Anglosaxon countries?
European nationalism plus socialism makes Euro-nazism (same abbreviation).
Alas, history is being cruel on the Euronazists (European nationalists and
socialists): Europe is rapidly declining compared with the USA
and will soon be passed even by China, India, Russia, Brazil, etc etc.
The day that South Korea is more relevant than France is not very far.
By the end of the 21st century, no European country will rank among the top 10
economic powers of the world. The European Union as a whole will be
only fifth or sixth (USA, China, India, ASEAN will be bigger economies
with probably much larger populations, and most likely a union of Latin
American countries will also have passed the European Union). This rapid
decline does not fit the nationalistic model: if the Europeans are a superior
race, why isn't Europe the leading country of the world? This is the same
paradox that German nationalists faced in the 1920s. The logical conclusion
could be (and I hope that I am wrong) that Europe needs a new kind of leader,
and Euronazism will have found its new Hitler.
The same way that German national socialism coupled with Germany's crisis
led to Hitler, I fear the new European national socialism coupled with
Europe's crisis could lead to a new Hitler.
Science fiction? I hope so.
Maybe it is just a coincidence that the huge marches in the streets
of western Europe coincided with the growth of the right-wing
parties in Italy (15% of the votes), Austria (Hader),
Holland (20% of the votes), France (a final round between Adolf Chirac,
right-wing, and Lepen, estreme right-wing).
Maybe it is just my paranoia that I see Europeans (led by anti-American
fanatics such as Theodorakis, Pinter and Grass) sympathyzing with
dictators all over the world, from Qaddafi to Mugabe to Castro.
Maybe it is just a coincidence that, out of hundreds of crimes against mankind committed in the 20th century, a court in Belgium (in february 2003) decided to prosecute the Israeli prime minister, Sharon, of a massacre committed some 20 years ago. (Sharon is certainly not a saint, but why pick on a Jewish leader when so many leaders from Belgium and France supported the maddest African dictators? and why not pick one of the many Arab dictators with much bloodier hands?)
Maybe it is a coincidence that in november 2003 a public opinion poll commissioned by the European Union showed that 59% of western Europeans ranked Israel as the greatest threat to peace in the world.
In Sweden in january 2004 a second-rate artist (Dror Feiler) presented
an "artwork" glorifying a Palestinian suicide bomber
Maybe it is a coincidence that the Internet is flooded with messages widely
circulated among Europeans about the international Jewish conspiracy,
an old nazist refrain, which today's Europeans simply update to the age of the USA (see, for example, this message that has been circulating in Italy).
Or maybe there is a general fascination in Europe for totalitarian
regimes, a mood that has always been there and was temporarily
suffocated by the USA invasion, a mood that is beginning to
surface again in the form of right-wing parties and leftist marches in
the streets.
A mood that is exactly the mood of 1922 and 1933, just much more
spread out ideologically.
There are, as usual, dramatic responsibilities by the Left.
In my opinion, there are three reasons for the growth of the right
wing in Europe:
1. Immigration; 2. September 11; and, last but not least
3. The lies of the Left.
The masses may be ignorant, but they are not dumb,
and they realize that liberal intellectuals tend to spin bigger lies
than corrupt conservatives. So the masses, which are ignorant but not
dumb, prefer to vote for the corrupt politicians of the Right than
for the liberal intellectuals of the Left. This has been happening
at least since 1945, when the intellectuals were depicting the
Soviet Union as a paradise.
In a sense, every time a liberal intellectual screams that the USA invaded Iraq for the oil, they
are providing votes to the right-wing parties (it takes five
minutes to prove that buying oil from Saddam Hussein would have been much
more convenient than the very expensive invasion of Iraq)
(then they change their theory and say it's because of the euro-dollar,
but it takes another five minutes to prove that Bush wants a weak
dollar, not a strong one)(then they change their theory
again... and again and again and again... and their credibility gets
lower and lower and lower...).
The masses are sincerely "pacifist" but they easily perceive that
the Left is only being pacifist for opportunistic reasons.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (October 2003)
How environmentalists caused Osama.
As more and more countries in the West phase out or oppose nuclear reactors,
what is happening is very simple: the West becomes more and more dependent on
Arab oil. Luckily, the Arab sheiks and assorted dictators have not realized yet
that they will soon control (de facto) the economies of western Europe and the
Far East. But, in the meantime, the growing western dependency on oil
(thanks to an increasing demand for electricity and a growing opposition to
nuclear power) has created massive western intereference in Islamic affairs.
Remember that for the likes of Osama even a mere visit by a non-Muslim business
man (an infidel) to Saudi Arabia is reason enough to kill. As Germany phases out
its nuclear program, it will have to send a lot more managers, engineers,
workers, boats and planes to Saudi Arabia. Every time a western government signs
a deal with an Muslim country, it is increasing the chances that terrorism
strikes back at home.
Worse: in a grotesque comedy of errors, any such deal also provides money
for the terrorists, because part of the price for oil goes to Osama sympathyzers.
Every time an environmentalist marches in the streets of Rome or Berlin to
protest against nuclear power, s/he is helping Osama acquire the reasons and
the means to blow her/him up. As Lenin used to say, "capitalists will sell us
even the rope to hang them". Rephrase it as "the infidels will give us even the
money to blow them up".
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
- (September 2003)
What is worrisome about Western Europe.
Something very worrisome is happening in Western Europe, and the rest of the
world may be making a big mistake in ignoring it.
First of all, a history lesson. The 19th century was the century of "nationalism". Europeans developed a keen sense of "nation", of belonging to an ethnic,
linguistic and sometimes religious group. Kingdoms such as France and Spain became more than just "the territories ruled by such and such a king/queen": they became nations. Germany and Italy were born by unifying independent states that had in common ethnic and linguistic traits. Nationalism quickly escalated out of control and led to two world wars. Nationalism was the great topic of the 19th century, but also the great curse of the 20th. In the meantime, the European powers caused all sorts of devastation around the world: the slave trade and colonization are the best known. Europeans invented fascism, nazism and communism, the three scourges of the 20th century. In other words: Europe is responsible (historically speaking) for many of the evils of the modern world.
Nationalism was the trigger for many of the worst catastrophes caused by the Europeans. Throughout the 20th century, the world has paid a very high price whenever European masses took to the streets (San Petersburg 1917, Roma 1922, Berlin 1933, Paris 1968).
Fast forward to 2003. Europeans (at least in the continent) have developed a strong sense of European nationalism. They convinced themselves that they are not really guilty of the massacres of the past. On the contrary, they are the most educated and civilized people in the world. They march in the streets by the millions (which is of course a bad omen per se) and, on top of the undemocratic essence of marching in the streets (you are basically pressuring the government to listen to the people who march in the streets, which are only a minority of the population), they never march in the streets to protest against a dictatorship, they only march in the streets to defend a dictatorship. Have you ever heard of a mass demonstration in Europe against China? Cuba? Saudi Arabia? Syria? Libya? Burma? Never. Not once. But try to remove one of those dictators, and millions of people march in the street to oppose the "war" (if a dictator kills one million of his own people, like Saddam did, that is not a "war", whereas when someone tries to depose Saddam that is a "war"). It is even more disturbing that most Europeans don't realize this simple fact (it is not an opinion, it is a fact). Ask any of the "marchers" and they will deny that they only defend dictators. But that's what they do: they only march when a dictator is in danger, they never march when the dictator is left alone to oppress and massacre his subjects. It also comes to them as an automatic reflex: if someone threatens a dictator, they feel impelled to take the side of the dictator.
If that were not disturbing enough, there is also a growing level of ignorance about the European public. Yes, the very same public that prides itself in being very informed the rest of the world. The truth is much more somber: Europeans are as ignorant as Americans, but Americans are at least aware that they are ignorant, whereas Europeans are convinced that they are very knowledgeable. The truth is that they know even less than Americans (the European media devote even less room to foreign policy than American media), and, on top of that, they are bombarded with dis-information. European media (mainstream media, not tabloid) are flooded by all sorts of information that is quickly proven to be false. But millions of people read it, and many remain with the convinction that it was true.
For example, you keep hearing Europeans claim that Saddam's sons are not dead (even after Saddam himself mourned their death).
A combination of poor education and poor media has created a generation of highly ignorant Europeans who are convinced of being highly knowledgeable: an explosive combination.
As always, ignorance begets racism and, in particular, Europe's oldest form of
racism: anti-semitism. There is a resurgence of anti-semitism, as more and more
Europeans (the ones who don't know anyone who was at Auschwitz) doubt that Hitler really killed six millions Jews (a popular theory in Europe is that there were fewer than six million Jews in Europe before the war) or they blame the Jews for causing their own persecution.
There is widespread hostility against Israel and sympathy for the Palestinian terrorists. More and more Europeans side with Islamic extremists in claiming that
the USA is controlled by a conspiracy of evil Jews, an old nazist refrain
(see, for example, this message that has been circulating in Italy).
They pick on low-level bureaucrats of the USA government, turning them into
giants (Perle, then Wolfowitz, then who knows who), and ignoring the other
thousands of much more influential politicians from all other ethnic groups,
in order to create the impression that there is a "Jewish domination" of the USA.
(That was precisely Hitler's invention. Hitler did not invent antisemitism:
that was invented by the Popes. Hitler invented the idea that the USA and
Britain were his enemies only because there was a "world Jewish domination".
Exactly what millions of today's Europeans are beginning to repeat again).
It is not surprising that "conspiracy theories" are so popular in western Europe: they don't require any knowledge of the events, and they are easy to understand and relay. They are almost always based on a gross simplification of the events, but that's precisely what ignorant people like. Europeans (just like Arabs) are deeply influenced by Hollywood movies. For example, most of them know only the historical characters that have been at the center of a Hollywood movie. Hollywood movies specialize in conspiracy theories, and Europeans have become addicted to them without realizing that they are... movies.
The growing ignorance of the European masses combined with the influence of Hollywood has led to an exponential increase in conspiracy theories: anti-Americans are ready to believe in anything, as long as it proves that the USA are evil; and it doesn't matter that some of the conspiracy theories contradict each other: the same people can defend several conflicting theories at the same time.
For example, here is a brief summary of conspiracy theories spun by anti-American propaganda in Europe: "the USA invaded Iraq to steal the Iraqi oil";
once it became clear that the USA has no intention of stealing the oil (and in fact does not need the Iraqi oil because it already controls most of the oil reserves in the world),
"the USA has invaded Iraq to hide the fact that an American citizen was accidentally killed by Israel in the occupied territories";
once it became clear that this theory did not hold water (was and peace in Iraq are slightly too expensive just for hiding the death of one unknown American), "the USA invaded Iraq because Iraq had decided to trade in euros not dollars;
once this was showed to be false (Iraq sold oil to the United Nations in dollars, and in any case Bush has done everything in his power to lower the value of the dollar), "well... no official anti-American explanation available yet, but one coming soon!"
The fate of conspiracy theories is amusing: they change as they are proven false, and the anti-Americans who believed them don't even remember them a few weeks later, as there is a new one, often a conflicting one, to recite like a mantra.
Underlying all of these phenomena is a resurgence of nationalism, albeit of a different sort. Europeans, especially younger Europeans, have convinced themselves that they are not responsible for any major crime, and are actually the heirs to a luminous cultural tradition (not to centuries of massacres, racism and injustice). Many Europeans have convinced themselves that they, Western Europe, are the most civilized place in the world (no matter how many million people have been killed in five continents by the folly of their forefathers). So they convinced themselves that they are entitled to an opinion (50 years ago they would have been more careful) and that their opinion is not only relevant, but it is the "only" one that is relevant. Worse: many Europeans have convinced themselves that they don't owe anything to the USA and Britain. More and more Europeans behave as if they freed themselves of Hitler and Mussolini without any help from the Americans (see for example
It is not only that these Europeans are misled about America's true intensions
(America is fighting for Europe too, and not for oil or for the dollar, but
simply for geopolitical strategy and ultimately for the spread of democracy).
They end up siding (de facto) with the enemy: with Osama, with Saddam, and with
whichever crazy dictator will be targeted by the USA next. Instead of siding
with the liberator, they end up siding with the oppressor. Many Italians in the 1920s and Germans in the 1930s were well intentioned, but badly misled by their own nationalistic ideals. These Europeans are following dangerous examples.
The attitude of so many Europeans towards the USA, the world, totaliratian regimes, their own history is worrisome. It is as worrisome as it should have been a century ago, when it was largely neglected until people started dying by the millions from France to Indochina.
See also
- Iraq: a farce of lies.
- The losers: France, Germany and Russia
- This time, Europacifist should do the right thing
- A history lesson
- The defeat of Europacifism
- Censorship in Europe and in the Arab world
- The real problem is Chirac, not Saddam
- Europeans march for peace
- The Iraqi crisis is reshaping the world alliances
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
(June 2003)
Genetically-modified food and the American superpower.
It sounds like the USA has never been so intimidating to the
rest of the world, and to Europe in particular.
The European Union had voted to ban genetically-modified food, which
mainly comes from the USA. That may or may have not been a wise decision,
but, ultimately, it was a democratic decision: the vast majority of
Europeans do not want genetically-modified food. Unfortunately,
"democracy" is one word that George W Bush does not quite understand.
He kept pressuring Europe to lift the ban and feed Europeans the same
genetically-modified food that he feds Americans: if it's good for
Americans, it can't be bad for Europeans (never mind that
Americans die like flies of bad diets).
On July 2, the European parliament bent to USA pressure and, against
the will of the vast majority of Europeans, passed a law that ends
the ban. The good news is that African countries will be able to
export food to Europe again (genetically-modified food is, no question,
a relief to African countries that are chronically starved, and this
ban made it impossible for them to sell their food to Europe, thus
increasing their poverty while increasing the wealth of French farmers).
There is no evidence that genetically-modified food is dangerous to humans
(but, then, there was no evidence that tobacco or fat were dangerous to
humans until hundreds of thousands of humans started dying around the world).
On the other hand, there is evidence that several kinds of food, from alcohol
to meat, are dangerous to humans, and they are perfectly legal in Europe.
So there is some logic in Bush's protest.
The problem is the labeling. That's where USA power looks truly
mighty. It makes sense that genetically-modified food should be clearly
labeled, so that consumers can choose. The European parliament has
required all food to be labeled in such a way. Bush does not like the
idea (he knows that 90% of Europeans will simply stay away from anything
labeled "genetically-modified"). So he is suing the European Union
with the World Trade Organization, and continuing the pressure.
In other words, Bush is sending the message that Europe must do what it
was told, not just its own variation of what it was told.
The least important factor in this story (just like in Afghanistan, Iraq,
and the USA itself) is what the majority of people want.
Recommended reading on GM food: Peter Pringle's "Food Inc" (Simon & Schuster, 2003).
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
(April 2003)
Censorship in Europe and in the Arab world
They rooted for Saddam, no question about it.
Reading some of the most popular newspapers in western Europe and watching
national tv stations, one found the exact
same propaganda that was delivered daily by Al Jazeera, which is what Saddam
Hussein's minister of information was telling them to broadcast.
Not only did they assume that the Iraqi tv was always telling the truth:
they omitted the celebrations in the streets by the Iraqi people;
they hardly mentioned the joy of the Iraqi people;
they took any rumour as a substantiated fact;
they displayed the corpses of Saddam's hated men as if they were innocent civilians;
they showed the ruins of the military buildings as if they were civilian houses;
etc.
There was a more or less tacit alliance between some Arab leaders and some European politicians to hide most of the truth from the Arab and European masses.
Arab dictators are afraid of being next in line.
Their censorship is easy to understand.
They want to galvanize their peoples against the USA so that the people will
help them stay in power if the USA attacks.
Many European politicians are, instead, afraid of looking what they are: pathetic incompetent coward losers.
They both need to brainwash their peoples to believe that the USA liberation of
Iraq was a massive failure, either because it was an invasion (not a liberation)
or because the Iraqi people did not welcome them or because the consequences
of that liberation are even worse than Saddam's regime. The mainstream Arab and
European media will continue to bombard their peoples with anti-American
propaganda to defend interests that are very different, but, ultimately,
coincide. The Arab dictators and some European politicians are natural allies
against the superpower that is unveiling the ridiculous failures of their
regimes and policies.
Anti-American conspiracy theories abound, both in the Arab world and in Europe,
because they spread very quickly in societies that are fundamentally
ignorant and backwards (yes, that includes millions of Europeans too).
Arabs and Europeans who did not study history at school or have not read a
book in decades are incapable of judging even the simpler statements.
A recent "report" circulated in Italy named Shell as an
"American oil company"... Almost nobody read
Condoleeza Rice's document,
"The National Security Strategy of the United States" (september 2002),
which was published and widely advertised by the Bush administration,
and contains prescriptions for preemptive action against hostile states
and terrorist groups developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Anti-Americans are so ignorant that they are totally unaware of this very
easy-to-find report and come up with the most grotesque conspiracy theories
to explain why Bush did what he did.
On top of these factors, one has the censorship exerted by the
old communists, who never really gave up and still control the media and
the universities in most European countries. These old communists (who
gladly joined the ranks of the "pacifists" after defending the mass killings
of the old communist regimes) are a far greater danger than one could think.
Far from being defeated and obliterated, they are more jealous than ever of
the USA's success in the world, of the spread of democracy, of the joy with
which peoples of the former communist world have embraced the western model.
They are looking for their own revende, using the exact same weapon that the
Soviet Union and Mao used in their heyday: disinformation.
These old Eurocommunists are raising a new generation on dis-information.
That generation will be unable to distinguish true from false, and good
from evil. They are raising a generation who will not know exactly who
started World War II and who killed whom, but will know very well who dropped
two nuclear bombs; a generation that will have no idea how life was under
Mussolini, Hitler and Stalin, but will know very well every flaw of the USA
government; a generation that will not know that Europe has been responsible for
atrocities all over the world for the last 1,500 years, but will know
whatever mistake the USA made over the last 50 years; a generation that will
believe that the USA is the worst oppressor of all times.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
(April 2003)
Kyoto: the European monopoly for pollution.
Europeans are in a position to dominate the emissions trading market. The USA
has refused to sign the Kyoto treaty and other countries simply depend on the
will of the European powers.
The Kyoto protocol, one of biggest swindles in modern times, allows signataries
to trade pollution. Basically, if you pollute less than what you are allowed
by the Kyoto protocol, you can sell your right to pollute to some other company
that pollutes more than it is entitled to. This is estimated to become
a multi-billion dollar market by the end of the decade. The whole point of
fighting pollution is to save lives: pollution kills, especially children.
The European Union has already issued plans to begin full-scale trading in 2005.
In other words, the European Union has a plan on how to buy and sell
human lives, particularly the lives of children.
arabs.html
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
(April 2003)
This time, Europacifist should do the right thing.
Hopefully, now that Iraq is free, the Europacifists will continue marching
in the streets. This time, hopefully, they will march against the dictator,
instead of supporting him.
Hopefully, the millions of Europacifists will start marching in the streets
to protest the thousands of innocents who are killed every day around the
world by ruthless dictators who have no intention of granting democratic
rights or even a decent livelihood to their peoples.
Hopefully, the Europacifists will ask the USA to invade Syria, which now
holds the title of "worst dictactorship in the Middle East".
Remove Assad and liberate the Syrian people.
Next, Qaddafi, who has been in power for 34 years (something that Europeans
seem to find perfectly reasonable!).
And next all the mad dictators of French-speaking Africa, all of them
supported by French soldiers.
And let us not forget the longest lasting dictator in the world, Fidel Castro,
who has ruled Cuba for over 40 years: we have abandoned the Cuban people.
Let us hope that the Europacifists will start marching in the streets to force
the USA to invade and liberate Cuba. Why are the Iraqi people more important
than the Cuban people?. Free Cuba!
And let us not forget Chechnya and Tibet, one ruthlessly destroyed by
butcher Putin (who is responsible for the death of hundreds of thousands of
innocents) and the other one ruthlessly oppressed by butcher Hu Jintao (who
"normalized" Tibet when he was young and is now "normalizing" the whole of
China). We well know that most Russian republics do not want to be Russian
and that most Chinese provinces do not want to be Chinese provinces.
The Europacifists well know what the people of the world really want.
Hopefully, Europacifists will now start marching in favor of freedom,
democracy and peace, not only in favor of tyrants and mass murder.
TM, ®, Copyright © 2005 Piero Scaruffi All rights reserved. Back to the world news | Top of this page
(April 2002)
USA-style violence in Europe
- 1993: a two-year-old toddler is killed by two ten-year-old boys
- 1994: a five-year-old girl is killed by two six-year-old boys
- 1996: Marc Dutroux is arrested in Belgium for the kidnapping, raping and murder of six girls
- may 1998: serial killer Donato Bilancia is arrested in Italy for the murder of people
- 2000: 17 male teenagers gang-rape two 13-year old girls in a Muslim neighborhood of France
- 2000: English doctor Harold Shipman is sentenced to life in prison for murdering 15 patients while working at a hospital, but is suspected to have killed between 215 and 260 people over a 23-year period, mainly elderly women, by lethal injection
- 2000: Emile Louis admits killing seven girls in France
- Sep 2001: a madman kills 14 in Swiss regional parliament shooting
- April, 2002: 18 students and professors are killed in a German school shooting
- June, 2003: French serial killer Michel Fourniret is arrested for the murder of ten people
- December, 2003: in Germany, Armin Meiwes confesses to be a cannibal and that his victim volunteered to be eaten by him
- June, 2004: in Italy, victims of Satanic cults are discovered
- July, 2004: in France, Michel Fourniret admits a series of killings
- March, 2005: in France, a trial opens for 66 men and women of a paedophile ring that raped dozens of children (including a six-month baby) between 1999 and 2002
- December, 2005: members of a Satanic group are convicted of multiple murders in Italy
- May, 2006: A German woman gets 15 years in prison for the manslaughter of eight new-born babies
These are only the cases that made the headlines.
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