What we are witnessing today is a natural reaction to the level to which Western systems and Western media have used ordinary people and their lives, their well-being, and even their subsistence in order to launch wars.
When the General Assembly was in session, the Italian elections came to prove that the Western rhetoric at the UN, especially that of Joe Biden and Liz Truss, has nothing to do with the reality and aspirations of their people.
Western rhetoric tried to show that the West is absolutely united and that the path they are treading is the one that their people want and are determined to tread. However, the Italian elections, preceded by elections in other European countries, proved that Western officials are in one place, and their people, who they are supposed to represent, are in a totally different place.
A lot of narratives and counter-narratives will prevail in the following weeks about the ascent of the right in Europe. Of course, the ruling oligarchy is trying to describe the right as the far right, the extreme right, perhaps verging on calling the right the terrorist right in an attempt to frighten people from the rise of right movements in Europe. These are nationalist movements saying that the aspirations and the lives of our people should precede liberal doctrine and liberal ideas, which have a frightening social agenda that may prove to be incompatible with the rights and happiness of people.
We all saw the danger of neo-liberalism, especially in the last two years, trying to define human nature by spreading concepts, arguments, and narratives that have nothing to do with the spontaneous lives and feelings of people everywhere. Besides, Covid-19 proved to most people that the solidarity required from them during wars to pay for armaments and to pay for raging wars anywhere in the globe is not matched by the solidarity these people receive at times of plague. Italy, in particular, was struck hard by Covid-19 but received hardly any help either from the US or from other European countries, with whom it is aligned at times of wars of aggression. In the meantime, it received great help from Cuba, China, and Russia. So the Italian people see and understand what is happening to them.
This was aggravated by the economic difficulties caused by the proxy war these countries are fighting in Ukraine against Russia and against the emergence of a multipolar world. Western reports show that inflation is rife and people are getting impoverished and suffering from huge expenses exacerbated by an unprecedented rise in prices and fall in their currencies. Why? Because they are required to feed a nonsensical war in Ukraine and destroy a country, which they have nothing to do with, in order to preserve the American hegemony on other countries and other people
So, for the first time, probably since the second world war, we are witnessing today a real rift between Western people and their true interests on the one hand and those who are supposed to represent them, on the other. In order to fight this trend, and perhaps to corner it, Western media, of course, dictated by Western policymakers, is giving these national trends in most European countries titles that have negative connotations with the aim of frightening people from these movements. They are accusing them of hatred of Muslims, hatred of refugees, wanting to establish Christian states, and being only interested in white and Christian countries. The funny thing about these claims is that they make it seem as if Europe now stands as a paradise for refugees and for Muslims and as if equality is absolutely prevalent and no racism can be traced whatsoever in Europe. When the Ukrainian refugees started to flee into Europe, European commentators and program anchors were saying: those are not Syrians, they are not Iraqis; those are white people with blue eyes. If this is not racism, I don’t know what is?!
I am not saying that the rising movements in Europe or right-wing movements or national movements in Europe do not have a negative attitude toward Arabs and Muslims, but I am saying even if they have, which is regrettable of course, there will be nothing new in that. We have been suffering from these attitudes for decades. But the difference between what Giorgia Meloni, the new Italian representative, and Liz Truss and Joe Biden, for example, is that the Italians say things as they are; honestly, clearly, and straight to the point; whereas Liz Truss and Joe Biden have a double-faced, hypocritical rhetoric that is supposed to address one reality, while brushing under the carpet a very different reality concerning the lives of people, both in the West and across the world.
When I read the Western narrative that is meant to frighten everyone from the emerging national movements in Europe, I remembered the importance of naming, and how sometimes naming things or trends or movements is meant to hide the essence of these entities rather than to express their real nature. I remember when I got my MA, I was offered a place to do my Ph.D. at Warwick University in the UK, where I met the head of the English Department. He asked me, “What is the subject you want to work on for a Ph.D.?” I said, “I want to work on the influence of Romantic poets, particularly Percy Bysshe Shelley on the Chartist Movement.” He was shocked and he immediately retorted: “What the hell do the Romantic poets have to do with the Chartist Movement?!” I said, “Well, that is what I want to find out.” The Chartist Movement is the first working-class movement in the world in 1848. It took place about 20 years after the death of Romantic poets; particularly: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.
Through four years of research in newspapers, books, philosophy, literature, and politics, I discovered that the name romantic has nothing to do with the reality of those poets, who were extremely active in the political domain. Lord Byron was killed fighting a war in Greece to liberate it from the Ottoman occupation, and Shelly spent his life trying to liberate Ireland from British rule. Shelly’s poem “Queen Mab” was called “The Chartist’s Bible.” I am relating this incident to show how important naming is and how much the West, particularly the UK, uses naming things or trends or people in order to project the reality it wants rather than the authentic reality that these names should truly reflect.
The war that is still raging in Ukraine is causing the impoverishment of Western people; it is causing great hardships for the majority of Western people. But there are beneficiaries of this war: arms industrialists and senior officials in all domains; whether army, intelligence, or politics… they are the ones who are increasing and multiplying their financial fortunes. Thus, what we are beginning to witness with the rise of the right movements or national movements in Europe are the first indications of real rebellion against these unfair and authoritarian autocratic systems that are calling themselves democracies. The upcoming winter may generate different means that people in Western countries are going to use in order to reach their objectives.
Besides Covid-19 and besides the war in Ukraine, I think that there is a third factor that is motivating people to think deeply about their lives, about the future of their children and their grandchildren. The third factor is the narrative of neo-liberalism that is ignoring all real issues – issues of families, working women, elderly people, poverty, education, childhood, and health – and focusing instead on issues that are almost invented and fabricated by a certain interest group for reasons that have nothing to do with the real lives of people. We all followed the huge concentration in the Western narratives on gay and lesbian relations and same-sex marriages, which in essence contradict human nature. Perhaps there are some people who find themselves in a different boat from most people, but to project this as a necessity and a subject to be forced on the throats of nine-year-olds at schools is something sinister and vicious.
There is no doubt that the destruction of the family nucleus in the West is a huge social problem that most people are suffering from, while yearning to restore the feeling of family and the normal feeling of affection and care among family members. This should be the case instead of putting such a huge stress on the individual and ignoring that the individual is always much happier and performs much better when he/she is raised by a loving family and a loving community and by a social matrix that provides him/her with all the support, love, and affection that help these individuals excel in their lives.
So, what we are witnessing today is a natural reaction to the level to which Western systems and Western media have used ordinary people and their lives, their well-being, and even their subsistence in order to launch wars and make the arms industry the best-thriving industry in the West, through conquering other countries and stealing their resources.
The antithesis for all this is what we read and hear of narratives coming from the East; from China, Russia, Iran, the BRIKS, member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially the narrative expressed and confirmed by Xi Jinping over the last decade that we are all living on one planet and that we have to share the resources of this planet and jointly be responsible for the welfare of this planet, without any of us trying to impose things on the other. We have to establish security for all, integrity for all, and prosperity for all because we all share this earth and we should join ranks in order to make sure that people on this earth live well and have the right opportunities to express themselves, build their future, and work hand in hand for the welfare of everybody everywhere.
Of course, this does not suit systems that encourage apartheid and occupation in Palestine and elsewhere… this doesn’t suit racist systems that see white-skinned men and women as superior to black- or brown-skinned people and want to use brown or black-skinned people as slaves; i.e. modern slaves for accumulating more wealth at the expense of other people and other countries.
So, what most people in the world aspire to is a welfare system; a truly fair system. The people crave for justice and not for claims of democracies that have no positive effect on their lives. Democracies had been used as slogans in order to suppress both peoples of these countries and people of other countries as well. Perhaps the cycle of history has reached a point where change is absolutely imperative. People have reached a conviction that this road, which has been charted by Western powers, is an extremely dangerous road, and has led to a dead-end. So, we better stop here and make a U-turn in order to ensure that we restore the balance; the logical balance to human lives.
SYRIA 360° INTERNATIONALIST 