Westlessness

By Dirk Pohlmann.

The Munich Security Conference 2020 had issued an overall theme: Westlessness. A new invented term that can be translated as worthlessness. At the request of the organizers, it was to be discussed under various aspects.

The Munich Security Conference, otherwise a kind of NATO party where the US government sets the direction, literally, where the vassals pay homage to the hegemon and assure him eternal loyalty, wanted to lie down on the couch this time, one had prescribed talking therapy.

The West obviously sees itself as the sick man of the world. The USA is increasingly preoccupied with itself as its star is sinking, Europe is drifting lazily between the melting icebergs, and the withdrawal of Great Britain is not a success story. Is this the twilight of the gods for the West?

So the Munich Security Conference was about the self-confidence of the West, in both meanings of the word. Firstly: does the West know what it is, what values it has, what defines it? On the other hand: Does the West have the will to live, the will to power, does it have a sense of mission?

And, with the melodramatic swell of an imaginary symphony film orchestra, the NATO states asked themselves the question whether the West was up to the threat of the brutal Russian and the devious Chinese. Whether it might be necessary to rearm properly after all? A rhetorical question.

One rubs one’s eyes. What was it like 31 years ago? In 1989, with the fall of the Wall, perhaps even before that, the planning for the new American century began. The triumph of the Cold War was to bring supremacy to the one superpower, forever and ever, amen. Francis Fukuyama had even proclaimed the end of history to the restrained applause of Western system academics. Liberal democracy and capitalism, two sides of the same coin that are supposedly inseparable, had triumphed. After the great victory, the West would once again wipe the world wet, and then one service after another would be held for the Mammon. The tributaries would fight for their arrangement and financing.

The secret of success: Western values. We all know them. They are the foundation of our civilization, oh, every civilization. They’re — Wait a minute, I’m getting to that. It’s on the tip of my tongue. Something about democracy. And freedom. Wait a minute, I know it. It’s like pornography. I can’t define it either, but I know it when I see it.

Well, you can always check a cheat sheet. Here, for example: Article 2 of the EU Treaty states: “The Union is founded on the values of respect for human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for human rights, including the rights of persons belonging to minorities.”. Right! That is what it says in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union.

And then it says, “The Union’s shall contribute to the strict observance and the development of international law, including respect for the principles of the United Nations Charter.”

So also to comply with the ban on violence? Article 2 of the UN Charter? Which states: “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”

And what was that in Yugoslavia? Iraq? In Libya? In Syria?

What does the West answer to these questions? This one: “OK, we have said that these are our core principles. Western values, enshrined in the UN Charter. But we lied about that.”

Well, one hardly dares to say such sentences as they are in Article 2 of the EU Treaty or the UN Charter. Immediately the inner East German appears in the conscience and says with sarcastic undertone: I don’t know what the West is, but I smell propaganda 10 kilometers against the wind. Let’s be clear, comrade: Not with me. Not again. I used to believe everything you say. Won’t happen to me again. If you screw me once, it’s your fault, then you’re the bad guy. The second time you screw me over, it’s my own fault. I’ll be a fool.

Unfortunately, it’s not only the inner East German who talks like that. It’s also the real existing Russian. He hasn’t forgotten the promises “not an inch to the east” and the eastward expansion of NATO. And the Chinese anyway. He thinks of Libya, of the no-fly zone, of the humanitarian salvation of the Libyans, which then became the long planned regime change. The Chinese seldom talks, even less often out loud, but he increasingly makes the claim that the West has proven that it is not fit to lead the world. The Iranian refers to the treaties that the value West concludes in order to clean up its backside shortly afterwards. And then there are the Malaysians, the Indonesians, the Indians, the South Africans, who also agree to this. Well, almost all of them, actually. And, to tell you the truth, I’m one of them myself.

I also wonder: are presidents like Jair Bolsonaro, Donald Trump and Boris Johnson historical proof of the victory of good over evil, of the self-purifying power and cultural vitality of democracy, are they proof of the end of history in the best of all possible worlds?

What about the eternal Western values? In 1964, apartheid was abolished in the USA and blacks were allowed to walk the same paths as whites for the first time, sit on the same benches and even study. Only in 1965 did racial discrimination in elections become illegal in the USA. Until 1989 the USA supported South Africa, where apartheid existed until 1994. And now the USA supports Apartheid-Israel. In recent days, huge billboards have been put up there, showing the Palestinian Prime Minister Ismael Haniyyah and Palestinian leader Mahmud Abbas. On their knees, in the ruins of a destroyed city, blindfolded, Hanniyyah in handcuffs, Abbas with his hands up, above the two Israeli attack helicopters circling in a burning sky. On the billboards it says: “Peace is only made with defeated enemies”. This is entirely in the spirit of Benjamin Netanyahu, who said in August 2018: “There is no place for the weak. The weak crumble, are slaughtered and are erased from history while the strong, for good or for ill, survive. The strong are respected, and alliances are made with the strong, and in the end peace is made with the strong,” If the Arabs were to put up posters and say that now, wouldn’t that be a little bit, shall we say, anti-Semitic? I’m just asking.

So that is the peace that the West stands for with its military power. Trump said in 2019 that he was the greatest president of all time and of the world, not only for America, but also for the Jews and Israel, and the Israelis loved him like the second coming of God.

In other parts of the world such statements are not received as enthusiastically as in parts of Israel and the USA. Above all by people who have understood the Western values better than Trump and Netanyahu.

The West talks a lot about humanity when it bombs countries back to the Stone Age. Like in Libya, which until 2011 under the terrible dictator Muammar al Gaddhafi was the African country with the highest standard of living in Africa, with free health care and education, also for women. Until the West of values liberated Libyans from their prosperity and gave them the freedom to receive no water and electricity from at least two governments, but to have the opportunity more and more often to be shot in the street by a Soldateska.

Despite this great achievement of the values West, the Libyans are not enthusiastic and flee to Europe. How ungrateful can one be?

Those who introduced torture in the West of values in the shape of its leading power, the United States, are in the process of murdering a political prisoner, Julian Assange, using psychological torture. He is pursuing Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden. He had to flee to Moscow to escape the regime henchmen Obama and Trump. An American is fleeing to Moscow. Opposite world? No, the phenomenology of the Free West.

The USA wants to have the right to torture journalists to death for truthful reporting of war crimes. If you find this a little totalitarian, be careful who you tell in the democratic, free West, which is totally surveilled by the NSA. And so is the whole world. I warned you. The consequences are yours to bear.

Possibly Julian Assange could contribute important arguments to a discussion about Westlessness. Unfortunately, his solitary confinement in a maximum-security prison prevents him from expressing his views.

What was the Westlessness Conference in Munich about again? Right, mainly about the danger posed by the telecommunications company Huawei.

My dear countrymen, the USA means well with them! They want to save you from the G5 death rays. Who knows what evil effects G5 has. The U.S. just wants to protect you from Chinese death rays. If there were US companies that could make G5 “Freedom Phone” networks, you would have to let them grill you. But there aren’t, because the US can only produce weapons. And this with an almost Soviet corrupt mismanagement, at astronomical prices. While the Russians and Chinese are so technically superior to the USA in many areas that the West can only help itself with trade embargos. Since the Chinese proved that capitalism works better under socialism than in democracy, there have been problems of argumentation in the value West. Even in the free trade of the free West, once an indispensable value of the West, there are now counter-arguments. Since others produce better and cheaper and make the profits.

In case of doubt, all these misguided economic developments are due to the influence of Vladimir Putin’s hackers, just like all false election results, which then have to be corrected with regime changes of the value West, as in Bolivia. Or Venezuela.

As far as patents are concerned, the Chinese have surpassed the USA by far, one could say very far, or even totally super far. They also have 8 times as many university graduates in the MINT subjects, they are now the most important trading partner for about 130 countries. The development direction is clear. Completely Westlessness. Where the West continues to lead: The USA has Special Forces in 149 countries, but only has an ambassador in 144 countries. All right, diplomacy is not their strength and not their concern.

Let me ask you something. Could somebody call the security conference and tell the heads of government that the West, well, how to put it politely? – let’s say: has completely screwed up – because it has been betraying its own values for decades?

Because, it could be that the West hasn’t even noticed that it has moved so far away from the marketplace of ancient Athens, the Agora, that one can no longer recognize this cradle of the West at all. And the USA is also no longer what California was in the mid-1970s: a vibrant promise of a free life.

In these visions, Belmarsh High Security Prison now stands as an obstacle in the line of sight.

Seriously, if you were Chinese or Russian, would you want to become part of the West, like you did in 1970? Or did you consider Westlessness to be the healthier alternative?

Also seriously: what connects the Europeans with their big brother behind thousands of kilometers of sea? The values of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution? France’s support for the USA?

Or: the Second World War? Well, the British maybe, and the Poles, the Danes and the Dutch. But do they really believe that the currently very bellicose USA is eager to save the descendants of the Holocaust murderers in Germany from nuclear flame death?

Wouldn’t it be wiser for Germany to become a neutral state and, above all, to get on well with the new powers of Eurasia? To gain a reputation with them and all its other neighbours as a true guardian of Athens’ Western values, as an honest mediator in the tradition of Dag Hammarskjölds (murdered with the help of the West of values) or Olof Palmes (murdered with the help of the West of values) or Aldo Moros (murdered with the help of the West of values).

Also the Germany of the 18th and 19th century, and certainly Prussia could serve as a model. Even Bismarck is not a bad advisor when it comes to Russia.

One can certainly take up the admirable American heritage of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. (All of them murdered with the help of the West of values.) One can also talk to US governments again as soon as they face the historical truth and clear the air at JFK and probably also 9/11. With Bernie Sanders or Tulsie Gabbard as president, this might be possible.

But we will not experience that. Before they win, the election will be rigged in the USA and the fraud will be blamed on Putin.

I therefore propose as a motto for the next Munich Security Conference the profound wisdom of the Bremen Town Musicians, who said on the subject of Westlessness: The Free West? Let’s get out of here! “We’ll find something better than death everywhere!”

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Thanks to the author for the right to publish the article.

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Picture reference: Maxx-Studio / Shutterstock

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