APPEAL TO EUROPEANS

Serov's Abduction of Europe

 

 Let's Discuss together about our Future

Обсуждаем вместе наше будуще

Discutiamo insieme il nostro futuro

Discutons ensemble notre avenir

Diskutieren wir unsere Zukunft zusammen

After so many bad news, finally a good one: more than 20 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, Europeans are in a position to evaluate without prejudices the events which occurred to them since then:

-Contrary to what they expected, the fall of the communist system has not given rise to a better way of living or to more peace;

-On the contrary, the former communist states have suffered a huge loss in their standard of living, which they are recovering just now;

-Whilst Europeans had had no war during the last fifty years they have had about 10 wars, both in Europe and abroad, between 1989 and 2010 (Afganistan, Nagorno-Karabagh, Transnistria, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kossovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Irak);

-The economic situation of Western Europe has not become better, but, on the contrary, it has gone deteriorating from year to year, in the sense of the loss of economic perspectives, of individual rights, of investment opportunities, and, especially, of the certainty to be able to program a reasonable future for themselves and for one’s relatives. The last events, including financial crises, Middle eastern events and Japan’s catastrophe, are worsening and worsening the situation;

-The hopes to have a European Constitution, which could have transformed the present European Union into a full-fledged European Federation, have vanished after several tentatives to write a meaningful text of Constitution, and to have it approved by a popular referendum;

-The historical political and cultural leaderships seem to have exhausted their own creative capabilities, and have even given up to speak about Europe’s future, focussing on marginal technical emergency issues, like the salvage of Member State’s budgets;

.-New countries are emerging on the world’s economic and political scene. Europe becomes more and more irrelevant. Paradoxically, only Russia is proposing to Europe something concrete, i.e.:

-      to join forces in the economy, utilizing the huge resources and markets of Russia for maintaining a large amount of turnover, and allowing, in exchange, to Russia, to profit of Europe’s technology;

-    to join forces in politics, for solving the overdue problems of post-cold war Europe: new peace agreements limiting strategic forces; military cooperation; new legal instruments for association between the European and the Post-sovietic areas;

-     to mutually open one’s house  doors, in such a way that the peoples of Europe and of Russia can cooperate and know each other better, working and studying together.

This is a specially favorable moment, in which there is not any so dramatic emergency as to drain political resources in both areas, nor to create a partisan confrontation between “favorables” and “contrary” to Russia.

Creating a structural form of cooperation between Europe and Russia would amount, substantially, to the real completion of Europe’s unification.

This objective, which nobody had formulated seriously up to now, has been expressed formally by Russia’a Prime Minister in an article in Süddentsche Zeitung and repeated at the annual meeting of the Deutsche Führungs Kräfte. Mr. Putin has added that such an objective would have been considered as a dream until short time, but, on the contrary, it could not be considered any more as such, if all of us make an effort in this direction.

He cited also, as an example, the remarkable achievement of Chancellor Kohl, who succeeded in the reunification of Germany, which also many consider as just a dream.

The same objective has been expressed in other occasions by President Medvedev, when he has proposed, in particular at his meetings with NATO and EU, a completely new set of agreements for the European Security, in substitution of the ones of the times of the Cold War.

All of us are conscious of the difficulties implied in such objectives. However, we feel also that what is lacking in our time are, precisely, ambitious objectives which we can realistically pursue, so giving a meaning to our lives.

Personally, as the founder of Alpina Srl and of the Dialexis Cultural Association, I have aimed, since the beginning, at the objective to start a process of innovation  among Europeans,in order  lead to a stronger European Identity, to a stronger European Union and to the enlargement of Europe, in a form or in another, to all “European” peoples.

We would be happy to become the catalysts of a cultural, social and political movement of Europeans striving to enlarge, to Russia, the European Cultural Identity, and to support the political efforts  of Authorities for the association of Russia (together with other Post-Sovietic countries) to the European Union.

These objectives will be pursued through a multiplicity of instruments:

-      debates about Europe and Russia;

-      publications connected with this theme;

-     campaigns, for interesting both the public opinion, and the authorities, on a specific program in this direction.

We invite everybody, who is interested in this program, to enter in contact with us for this objective.

In the following posts, we will inform about the initiatives under way and comment the events which are going to occur in the meantime.

http://www.alpinasrl.com

http://www.dialexis.com 

http://www.torino2019.eu 

tel 00 39 011 6688758

E.mail: info@alpinasrl.com

OUR COMMON MISTAKES (1979-2008)

The Shelling of Belgrade

Europe has Lost 30 Years 

Европа потеряла 30 лет 

L'Europa ha sprecato 30 anni

L'Europe a perdu 30 ans

Europa hat 30 Jahre verpasst

The path towards European Identity is unbelievably slow. Moreover, it seems to progress not by way of a consistent and conscious path, but, on the contrary, mainly  via a process of trial and error. Also the way  toward a new  self-consciousness of Russia is proceeding  slowly and in a contradictory way.

For Europeans at the time of World War II and of Cold War, “Russia” was just a synonym for “Communism” - what was false also then (see: “White Guards”, Vlassov Army, the “patriotic” character impressed, to the War, by Stalin himself). Because of this wrong characterization, most Europeans conceived their attitude towards Russia, at that time, just alongside their own ideological preferences or refusals.

At a later stage, let say during the period of Khruschev’s “Peaceful Coexistence”period, in the Sixties, Europeans were interested to Russia especially for business (see the Lada plant of Togliatti) , and, also, for some, rare, cultural products which arrived to us: some novels, like Doctor Zivago, or some films, like Cistoe Nebo.

“Russia-Bashing” was becoming general in the Seventies: from the side of anti-communists, but also of the left, which denounced a “Treason of Socialism”. In Eastern Europe, Russians were identified with the Soviet Union, and, also there, for this reason, they were submerged by general suspicion.

At the moment of Perestrojka, Europeans were not inclined to a rational attitude towards the proposals expressed by Gorbatschev, whom they did not understand. They could not even have imagined that Russians loved Europeans and would have been happy to coordinate with them their future destinies.

Therefore, there was no real enthusiasm for Gorbatschev. Even the events in Eastern Europe were not so clearcut as they are described, retrospectively, now. The struggle was not between communists and anti-communists, but, on the contrary, between different fractions of the former establishment, with a weak contribution of dissidents which, by and large, could not be defined as “anti-communists”.

Finally, one of the most powerful drivers of the change has been precisely Russia, which at the end supported Gorbatschev  and Eltzin in their choice to overcome Communism.

Only when plays were over without its contribution, the West started to intervene with its rhetoric of “the re-conquered freedom”and its pretension to impose its choices. And, paradoxically, West Europeans were not in a hurry to welcome East Europeans in general among them. This is true both for peoples of Central-Eastern Europe, and for the ones of the Former Soviet Union.

The population in the West did not know anything about Eastern Europeans, but one fact: "they are poor, they need money". What West Europeans did not perceive then, and has not yet perceived now, is that, beyond the contingency of financial aids, Perestrojka was opening up, to Western Europe, an extraordinary opportunity, both in economics, and in politics. It was, and is,  precisely the opportunity to achieve the necessary complementarities and economies of scale, and to become strong enough to become a  real player  on the world scene.

Thus, Western Europe committed three major mistakes: submitting the countries of Central-Eastern Europe to  bothersome membership procedures, so alienating the sympathies of Eastern Europeans and giving time to all Euroskeptical tendencies (small nationalisms, American lobbies, even jihadism), to organize and to gain momentum, precisely thanks to the absence of Europe. This is the explanation of Nagorno-Karabagh, of Transnistria, of former Yugoslavia. Allowing Enlargement of NATO before the one od European Union. Excluding Russia and Turkey.

Europeans were persuaded that, making Europe with  the East meant undertaking huge responsibilities and the need to engage themselves much more in depth. Understanding that would have disturbed their comfortable way of life life,  they preferred to ignore the problem.

The US,  at the times of George Bush Senior, had been very cautious towards the new developments in the East, being afraid to open a space to new phenomena which they considered more dangerous, for them,  than Communism itself, (like for instance  German and Russian nationalisms)  saw , at the end of the day, that neither nationalism had materialized.Then, they felt free to follow an  agenda,  of cultural, political, military and economic “annexation” of Central Europe and of Russia to their tighter sphere of influence. Europe did not show any sign of concern  about that.

Also the Roman Catholic Church, which, at least in theory, had interpreted the evolutions in the East not just as a revolt against communism, but also as a revolt against saecularization, did not draw from that point  its  correct consequences, which woul have implied to continue, in another form,  the old struggle of Solidarność, in the same direction, but, this time, not against Communism, but against the dictature of economy, proper to the West. Pope John Paul II often preached that concept, but did not implement it.

Also the East made several mistakes. Gorbatschev pretended to transform communism into social-democracy without neither any effort to draw the of the consequences from a marxist point of view, nor any program of ideological change, nor any written guarantees from the West. Also Eltzin showed a  blindfolded confidence in the West, giving to foreigners free access to the most precious Russian resources.

Yugoslav leaders started a suicidal war of all against all, without understanding that this would have ruined all the Republics for many decades at the same time.

The Polish Leadership and the Catholic Church forgot every  point of Solidarnosc program, and, instead of  complying with Walesa's promise "to build up a society which would have been better than East and West", simply copied the Western, if not the American, standards.

All other East Europeans took that occasion for starting a mutual and generalised conflict without any serious  objective, a conflict which, in many case, has not ceased up to now. Above all, they had not understood that Europe should be an opportunity for counting more all together, not to spoil each one's neighbours.

Now, Europe is shaken, also because of those mistakes, by a series new crises: the financial, but also a political one, created by xenofoby, separatism and lack of vision, a social one, with the lack of motivation of the youth, and a spiritual one, with the abandonment of any kind of serious engagement. 

The past mistakes should have teached  us what we shall not absolutely repeat. 

According to us, the first lesson  to be learnt is that we need much more culture and much more political debate about these themes.

Just culture shall allow us to understand the historical moment in which we live, our most dramatical problems, the possible solutions, the role of Europe in the world.

East-West cultural exchange is the focal point of this required culture. For this reason we are insisting on this concept.

The initiative "Starting Again, from Culture", and the manifesto "The World of Culture against the Jettison of European Ideal", initiated by the associations of the City of Torino,  are aimed at this goal. Following to the launching of thisd blog, we will launch parallel initiatives specifically devoted to the East-West dialogue.

HOW MUCH WESTERN ARE EUROPEANS?

Pope Paul II

The Key to future is in the East

Ключ будущего - Восток

La chiave del futuro è l' Oriente

La clef de l'avenir, c'est l' Orient

Die Schluessel  der Zukunft ist im Osten

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We hope  we  have  succeeded in showing, as we purported to do, that, all over their history, Europeans and Russians have been very similar, and have influenced each other in a decisive way. We would like to add that this consideration is applicable also for the present days.In this regard, the similarity is still more evident, at least for what the exterior side of each country’s life. Reading the newspapers of a certain number of European countries, including Russia, or watching at their  television programmes,  you find the same themes, the same habits, the same fashions, the same trends. It is true that this is happening all over the world because of globalisation. However, if you consider the United States, the Arabic countries or other Asiatic countries, like, for example, Kazakhstan or Iran, you will perceive much more differences. For instance, you find, in newspapers, a lot of cultural articles, and, in the television programs, information tends to be more formal, the debates are very sophisticated.

Most observers find that the most important difference is political in character.

Paradoxically, in the precise moment when they would have had an outstanding occasion to enhance their identities, feeling “just Europeans”, the peoples of West Europe have started to consider themselves as “Westerners”(what they did not do before).

But are West Europeans real Westerners? Do they share the fundamentalistic expectation of a providential New World Order? Are they really so individualist, so effectiveness-motivated, as they like to describe themselves? Do not have, also they, some, or many, “Eastern” weaknesses, like the “vice” of nostalgia, like a certain inclination to communitarism and to romanticism?

Is not Europe somewhere in the middle, between East and West?

Pope John Paul II, in recovering the old idea of Ivanov-Razumnik, that Europe must breath with its two lungs, hinted precisely to the fact that Europe possedes huge cultural resources that link it to the West, but that these resources have been less and less exploited over the years, because of the growing and growing hegemony of Europe's most Western parts (England and French), and, latwer on, eve, of America.

As we have seen in all preceding posts, links of Europe with the East are the heritages of ancient civilisations (Danube Civilisation, Peoples of Kurgan, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Anatolic Civilisations, Persians,Israel, Ellenism, Peoples of the Steppes, Constantinople, Islam, Sarmatism, the Third Rome,  Marxism, Russian Culture, a.s.o).

The contributions of most of these civilisations to the European, and even, to the Western, ones, are underestimated. Danube Civilisation, Kurgans, Anatolic civilisations, Sarmatism, are even ignored. Persians, Peoples of the Steppes, Constantinople, Islam and Russia are criticized as barbaric and tyrannic, the messages of Egypt, Israel, Ellenism, are misinterpreted. Even the positive contributions of Germany, Italy, Spain and Scandinavia are minimuised, whilst the ones of  America, England and France are overestimated.

Yet, the ethnic basis of all Europeans comes from the steppes, ancient cultures and Christendom come from the Middle East, Christian and Jewish philosophies are practically ellenistic philosophies re-worked by Islam, Eastern Europe occupies more than a half of Europe.

In present times, the tentative to "westernise" the world seems less realistic than in the past. China, India and South America, thanks to their growing economic strength, are re-opening a genuine research about the great non-western cultures. Islam is heading towards being the most numerous world religion. All are laying the basements for asking to be heard at world level  about the decisions on the future of humankind.

America itself studies attentively these developments, and many Americans are studying how to accomodate with a leading role of China.

If Europe wants to escape its present decline, it must participate in this worldwide effort to reconsider world cultures. Its pretension that its model is applicable worldwide is partially motivated by the consistence of federalism with multiculturalism. However, it is not sufficient even now for giving a voice to Europe in world affairs.

As Martin Jacques puts it, Europe risks to be cut out of world decision for its

incapacity to understand other cultures. The late Ramon Panikkar pretended that, in order to establish a true dialogue with the other cultures of the world, the West must undertake a "cultural desarmement". Present days West Europeans are far from knowing whence to start for understanding Islam, China and India.

This is paradoxical, because they have all the opportunity to know foreign cultures, which are present in their cities. We say more. They should be obliged to study certain basic elements of their own culture, such the Persian Origin of the idea of "progress", the Islamic origin of Christian theologies, the role of Central and Eastern Europe in the history of European Constitutionalism, the role of  monarchic and soviet russia in shaping basic ideas of European Federalism, such as the "Concert of European States" and  Regional Federalism.

Studying the elements of East which are in Europe, and even in Western Europe, constitutes the first step for understanding that Western culture is not the only culture. Only after this step, Europeans will be ready to understand China and India, and discuss with them on an even footing.

Therefore, the dialogue between Western and Eastern Europe is so important. Where, by Eastern Europe, we intend, in first instance, Russia, but, immediately afterwards, Euroislam nd Turkey, Eastern Churches, Judaism, all Slavic, Ugro-Finnic,Baltic, Kartvelian and Illyric nations, a.s.o.. 

DE L'ATLANTIQUE AUX OURALS

 General De Gaulle

De Gaulle 's Heritage

Наследство Де Гол

L'eredità di De Gaulle

 L'héritage de De Gaulle

De Gaulles Erbe

The events occurred in Russia during the last ten years recall to us under several points of view the policies of late French president Charles de Gaulle.

This similarity attains to several facts:

-the need to restore the authority of the State after a period of internal disorders and of colonial uprisings;

-the ambition to maintain France at the height of its great power status;

-the need to balance, for this purpose, the alliance with the USA with a proactive role in Europe;

-the idea that Europe cannot be confined to its western parts, but must include all of its naations, up to Russia;

-the effort to achieve cutting edge technological advance mainly thanks to European  projects in aerospace, defence, transportation.

All of these policies may be summarised under the caption "Europe, from the Atlantic to Urals".

De Gaulles policies were opposed, partially openly, and partially in an indirect way, by may actors: America, anxious tha no challenger could strive to compete with it as a leader of the West; left wingers, wich considered his ambitions as outdated in an area of ideological and social conflicts; ultra-conservatives, who considered him an ambiguous nationalist, who, for his ambitions, had fought against Patainist France and was capable to ally with the leftand with the So viet Union.

For these reasons, De Gaulle was portrayed as a anti-European, as a ridiculous  anachronist, and, especially, as a dictator. These are the same attitudes of mainstream press and politics towards Putin's presidency, which, in fact, has deployed, as regards Russia, policies that recall the ones of De Gaulle in France.

Those European, and, especially, American, observers, who do not lack any occasion for attacking today’s Russia, insist, especially, on the fact that, under Putin’s presidency, Russia would have undergone a dramatical change, in the sense of an increasing authoritarianism, a stronger State intervention in the economy and a more aggressive stance towards the external world.

According to us, the most objective experts remark that these three attitudes correspond to long-term trends of the Russian politics, which were continued also during Eltzin period, with just some nuances, due to the different contexts in which specifics action have been undertaken. Especially in the mid-term of Eltzin’s presidency, and especially at the occasion of the Kosovo crisis, Elzin's Russia had undertaken a much harsher course towards the United States, contrasting in any way the latter tentative to expand eastwards and to destabilize Russia.

Later on, Putin tried to remedy what Eltzin had compromised by his imprudent attitudes during the first “romantic” period. We repeat that these remedial actions had already been started under Eltzin’s pperiod, but Eltzin had not enough strength,nor  enough credibility for completing them.

In a few words, how do we view the achievements of the Russian policies of the last ten years?  First of all, Russia  has restored the credibility of the  State, defeating the Wahhabites in the Caucasus and consolidating there the traditional leadership of the political and religious Sufi Qadīr dynasty, so to avoid the very concrete risk that Caucasus Islamic separatism would have spread also throughout the Ural region - so, in practice, destroying the territorial unity of Russia-. From a realistic point of view, the present status of Chechnya can be considered as the greatest victory possible for Chechen Islamists and separatists, without jeopardizing the interests of Russia, exactly as the independence of Algeria from France could be considered, at its time, as the greatest possible victory for Arab  nationalism. In fact, Chechnya is, today, exactly what separatists dreamed of since the beginning:  a mono-ethnic state, without Russians, organized alongside the model of a rich Middle-East Emirate. Shari’a is the law of the State, and the ruler is, at the same time, a religious and a political chief, as it happens to be in many Islamic  States (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Iran) and as it was in Chechnya before its annexation to Russia-.

Secondly, it  has modernized the army and its military technology, so that Russia  is again in a position to withstand an hypothetical attack from any foreign power, what  is not at all unrealistic, as it has been shown by the events in  Southern Ossetia.This sound similar, even if at a larger scale, to the establishment of a French Force de Frappe and the merging of the aerospace industry into Aerospatiale, alongside the same path followed by Russia with Rostechnologia

Third, it  has rationalized thoroughly the main industry and source of revenues of the Country: gas and petroleum. Through a well calculated mix of re-nationalizations, international agreements and new pipelines, it has brought back to the Russian State the revenues that, during the Eltzin period and even  after,  oligarchs had been exporting into the US, the UK and Israel. Russia has also increased the supply capacity of gas to the outside world and has partially imposed, onto the Republics, worldwide gas prices.Also De Gaulle had carried out, during his first mandate, a large wave of nationalisations of strategic industries.

Fourth: it  has worked out and diffused, through the majority  Party, Edinaja Rossija,  a well balanced national ideology, based on the continuity with Russian history and on the idea of “Sovereign democracy”, without condoning to extreme Russian Chauvinism. Also De Gaulle founded a new party of national cohalition, initially called RPF.

Fifth: Russia has signed on an equal footing the renewal of the anti-proliferation Treaty , albeit renewing the stock of its own intercontinental ballistic rockets .De Gaulle had striven to achieve a nuclear status also thanks to a negotiated cooperation with the US.

The attitude of Europe towards the Ossetian war was astonishing, because of the differences between its different leaders. This led the Izvestija to publish, on its front page, a map of Europe, where European countries were distinguished among “Russia’s friends”, “Russian Lobbyists”, “Neutral” and “Anti-Russian”. In fact, whilst the Italian Prime Minister declared that it was the moment to stop to provoke Russia, and the French President Sarkozy flew to Moscow and Tbilisi for having a draft cease-fee agreement signed by Russians and Georgians, the leaders of Poland, Czechia, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, flew to Tbilisi, but for participating in a rally in favor of the Georgian Government. Sarkozy, who was present for signing the close-fire with Saakashvili, refused even to meet in Tbilisi Poland’s President Kaczynski.

This division among Europeans is a clear symptom that Europe as such has no Common Foreign and Defense Policy. Paradoxically, we find positive that there are such political conflicts among Europeans, because, without them, no new political orientation would even arise, and a seious Common Foreign and Defense Policy would never materialize, as shown still recently by the positions assumed by UK Foreign Minister Hague. 
This division, again, reflects the different attitudes of European capitals towards De Gaulle, gong from the total hostility of UK, to the complete alignment of Germany and Belgium, passing  through the neutrality of Italy.

We have already stressed  many  striking similarities between France and Russia. Let's come to a laast  similarity: the one among the two constitutions. Whilst many observers in the West insist in affirming that Russia’s political structure is not democratic, nobody has remarked  that present days Russia’s “substantive constitution” reproduces, in broad lines, the same schemes of some of the most important West European States, and, in particular, the ones of France.Like in France, we have a very strong President, an important Prime Minister ("coabitation"), a Parliament, where only 4 or 5 major parties are represented, a very strong centralized State, with a powerful army and strong, State-controlled strategical industries.Also the Russian Regions" the private companies which are floated at the stock exchange cooperate tightly with the Administration, and are often governed by former civil servants ("Enarques").

In the cases where such structure  differs from the one of France (like in the case of the centralization of media, of corruption, of criminal and political violence), it shows characteristics which are very similar to the ones of other Western countries, and, in particular, Italy and/or the United States (conglomerates, secret services, tycoons, mafia, bribery, mass killings, special troops).

As it is known, East European and Third World politicians, which are accused without interruption to be undemocratic, are very  (and we add even, sometimes exceedingly) attentive to maintain in their own countries certain features of Western Constitutions, which, by the way, are unfavorable to the leaders themselves, but which are not essential to democracy, and which, on the contrary, derive from historical contingencies of other countries. One of these features is the duration of presidential mandate, which, in the US, is of 4 years, and is not renewable more than one time. Almost all of the constitutions of the former Soviet Union, as well as many developing countries, had introduced thes rules, and a certain type of polemics about this habit seemed to hint that changing this rules would amount to create a dictatorship (without considering that, in countries where the main powers stay with the Prime Minister, the latter has no limitation to his mandate) Let’s think of Italy, where  Berlusconi has been prime minister with broad powers, with short interruptions, since 1993).

So, whilst Belarus,Venezuela and Kazakhstan have abolished, by way of referendum, the limitation to 2 terms, Russia has kept alive this limitation, so that President Putin has successfully candidated to the role of Prime Minister for the last 4 years term. Also this seems, to Westerns commentators, to be an antidemocratic action, while, on the contrary, it has given rise to a certain power-sharing at the top of Russian State, again alongside the French example of “Coabitation”. Always foreign observers (showing, thus, in practice, which are the inconveniences, but also the advantages, of “coabitation”), take profit of any difference in political nuances between Russia’s President and Prime Minister for imagining of political struggle among the two and a future weakening of the Russian State.By the way, also the habit that a leaving leader chooses his successor is a Western use, which was applied, for instance, to Merkel, Rajoy, Brown and Alfano.

Finally, the overall image of Russia is the one of a large national consensus about very basic strategic goals, as the one to foster a multipolar system at world level, which is, historically,  precisely the aim of French "semi-presidentialism", as created by General De Gaulle for stabilizing France and making it again a powerful and independent State. During the last period (the Medvedev Presidency) new political slogans have been launched, which seem to hint to those new political trends which, according to many observators, would amount to a change of policy, and, hence, to different objectives, of the two Presidents.

Let’s examine them more carefully:

-“Perezagruzka”: this term means, in Russian, “Reset”. It was employed by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and by US State Secretary Hillary Clinton for indicating that, after the election of President Obama, the “frost” in the relationships between Russia and the USA culminating in the Georgian War, had been overcome, and new agreements (starting from the SALT III Agreement) could have been reached. Thanks to “Perezagruzka”, the UE-NATO partnership has been able to re-start its activities by the Lisbon NATO-Russia summit.

-“Evroremont” is a Russian jargon expression, utilized for designating the complete refurbishment of a flat /”European-style Refurbishing”). This was the first designation of “Modernizacija”, in the same way as “Glasnost” was the first designation of “Perestrojka”.

-“Modernisacija” is the slogan inaugurated by President Medvedev, which designate a re-orientation of Russia towards high technologies and legal reforms. This trend, announced by President Medvedev by his article “Rossija Vperiod” (“Russia, Forwards”) in the Nezavizimaja Gazeta, purported to reply to several types of critics which are usually addressed, especially by international observers, to today’s Russia:

-  to be only formally, but not substantively, a democracy, because the rules of law are not applied with the necessary transparency, and because oppositions are not sufficiently operational;

-  to be focused too much on the export of gas, instead of reinvesting in new technologies.

The launch of these campaign is something very similar to the cumbersome activities carried out, often with a long advance, by all candidates to the accession to the European Union, for “preparing to adhesion”. Even if former Premier Primakov has stated recently that "Russia could consider to enter the EU", there is no sign that it is really doing that now.

Up to now, Russia has offered two different answers to the objectionof its "insufficient democracy".

The first is: “Yes, we know that we are not sufficiently democratic, because of the traditions of Empire and of communism, but we are working for remedying to that”(Medvedev).

The second answer is: “We are more democratic than the US, because our President does not declare illegal wars, we are not occupying independent countries, we do not interfere in the internal policies of foreign States, we have no more torture, death penalty, secret prisons and concentration camps”(Putin).

Both answers are true, but both of them are, according to us,  "diplomatic answers", as it is required from politicians, which do not  address yet the core problem directly. 

In reality, what Americans call “Democracy” is not a clearcut political and legal principle, like in Europe: it’s a puritan religious dogma:"Democratic Individualism is a culture rather than a theory.For this reason, it prevails itself of arguments which are 'simpler' than the ones utilised by analytical philosophers.Its tenants are persuaded that the idea and the protection of individual rights cannot rely just on rational justifications.This not just because we are not obliged to justify everything, but first of all because the will to subordinate the democratic will to logical coherence risks to empty the value of human dignity, subordinated it to the success of its justification"(Nadia Urbinati, Individualismo democratico, Emerson, Dewey e la cultura politica americana, Donzelli, Roma, 1997, p.21)

What is important is to believe in the dogma, not to apply the principles. The dogma is that any “symbolical hierarchy” is sinful. Shmuel Eisenstadt, an American-Israeli scholar, has shown since a long time that the main difference between Americans and Israelis is that the former deny “symbolic hierarchy”, whilst the latter accept it. So, in Israel, a rabbi is more esteemed than a billionaire, because his function is, symbolically, more important. The contrary in the United States. The “lack of democracy” which Americans denounce in all other countries (including the European), is precisely the lack of pathos in denouncing “symbolic hierarchy”. 

So, you can adopt all reforms that you want, but Americans will always find that other peoples “are not sufficiently democratic”, even if their president has less powers than the American President, complies with all defense and privacy rights, refuses war, a.s.o..This attitude has  also to do with the "N.I.H.(Not Invented Here) Syndrome": all things which were not conceived in the States are not good.

The question is: are Europeans the same as the Americans? Do they really require all these acts of faith for accepting somebody as their peer?

RUSSIA DISAPPOINTED BY AMERICA

 From the fall of USSR to the II Afghan war

 из распада СССР до II Афганской войне

 Dalla caduta dell'URSS alla II Guerra dell' Afganistan

 De la chute de l'URSS à la II Guerre d'Afganistan

 Seit dem Fall der UdSR bis zum zweiten afganischen Krieg

Since Europe had not allowed for a long time  (1989-2004) East Europeans to enter  the Union , during the meantime the latter   cared much more the relationships with the US and with  NATO, with whom things seemed to go on much faster.

This gave rise to a new problem. Thanks to the adhesion to NATO of many East European countries, the American Army was moving nearer and nearer to the core of Russia, what ran contrary to the deepest rooted requirements of any Russian government, as well as to the informal agreements reached when the Soviet Union withdraw the Red Army from Eastern Europe. Throughout the centuries, Russia has accumulated a series of strategic convictions, focussed on the idea that its territory is very exposed to foreign attacks, and that, therefore, a series of precautions have to be taken. Historical experience, including Mongol, Tatar, Polish, Swedish, French, German, British, American, Japanese and  Czech, invasions, have  shown that this is not just paranoia, but a matter of fact.

The first of these precautions had been the one  to have, if not satellites, at least friendly or neutral states, surrounding Russia's borders. Such States had been, over the centuries, the Cossack Republics, Finland, Poland, Persia,  the Muslim Emirates, Sweden, Austria, Afganistan,  Belarus, Ukraine, Caucasus, Outer Mongolia,   the Warsaw Pact States,Yugoslavia, North Korea, Syria, a.s.o.. Now, if precisely some of those states host the military bases of Russia’s most likely military foes, all security of the country vanishes, and Russia must devote a larger and larger part of its resources to a continuous preparation for war. By the way, Gorbatschev mantains that he had been persuaded, by Americans, that this would not have happened if he had withdrawn his troups. Now, at the contrary, it is precisely what was happening. Russia felt encircled and threatened, in a period in which many other countris started to feel  desillusioned by America.

After World War II, America had presented herself as a “status quo power”, which had helped the entire world to repeal the attack of Nazism, and which would have been ready to go on helping everybody to repeal communism (two “revolutionary” forces), precisely because they were aggressive worldwide movements that threatened the peaceful life and the independence of the peoples. The USA  were   very attentive, in that period,  not to give  to anybody the impression to be, themselves, a “revolutionary” power,  which would have been  kin  to aggress foreign nations for ideological reasons, i.e. for imposing, onto them, certain political principles and/or  military alliances. This “neutral” attitude of the USA seemed  confirmed, at that time, by the fact that America was friendly not just  with Western-style democracies, but also with a set of completely different States, such as Maoist China, Hiberian  and South American fascist dictatorships, Islamic kingdoms and republics and any other kind of regimes all over the world.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Soviet “threat” disappeared, the attitude of America started to change. America started waging wars against several States (Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan) purportedly for curbing their violations of international law, but, substantially,  but just because their political orientations or their strategical interests conflicted with the ones of the USA.

Among  the  States which were obliged to reconsider their relationships with America, there were, in first instance, Russia and China, but also France and Germany had serious reasons of disagreement.

Moreover, the West had also promised to help economically Russia to overcome the impending economic crisis, but this did not succeeed. 

The history of foreign relationships of Russia during the Eltzin period is  complex. At the beginning, Eltzin and his followers acted according to what has been called “political romanticism”. They had believed seriously what Americans and Europeans had told Gorbatschev during the Perestrojka period - i.e. that they were enchanted that Russians were making their own reforms and freeing their “satellites”, that Europe and the West were part of a great brotherhood, and that, once Russia would have followed the Western schemes, it would become very rich and very influential worldwide, inside this large brotherhood-.

So, Eltzin and his government retired completely their troops from the former “satellites”, and, partially, also from the former Soviet Republics; they reduced drastically military expenditures; they accepted foreign consultants for transforming Russia’s economy; they decentralized power to the regions and to autonomous Republics and Provinces.

The result of all that was that the economy got worse and worse, causing a dramatical fall in the standards of living, and even in life expectation; uprisings took place in Chechnya and the neighbouring territories;  civil wars exploded in Georgia,  Moldova and former Yugoslavia; Russians and their Serb allies were obliged to flee by millions from certain  Republics; Russia-friendly autonomous Republics, such as Abkhasia, Ossetia or Transnistria, were exposed to assaults by their former "titular" nationalities; millions of immigrants arrived in Russia from former Soviet Republics.

At that moment, Eltzin was obliged to reconsider, at least partially, his policy, slowing down privatizations and  fighting youghly  in Chechnya and in Moldova. The results of all that remained modest. The economy got worse and worse,  oligarchs started to grab larger and larger slices  of national finance and strategic industries, and Russia was obliged to grant some form of independence to Chechnya.

In the last period of Eltzin’s Government, the situation became even worse.  Oligarchs had started transferring abroad their shares in strategic public companies, including defense and gas, and wahhabite guerrillas, not satisfied with the independence of Chechnya, used the latter as a basis for attacking other Republics. Last, but not least, NATO attacked Serbia, an old friend of Russia, for helping Kosovo Albanians, and Eltzin was obliged to send some tenths of tanks to Kosovo for protecting ethnic Serbs.

Bombing Serbia was a very tragic experience for many Europeans, which had dreamed that, with 1989, all of Europe should had become only one country, and, now, saw themselves obliged, on the contrary,  to participate in shelling a Central European capital.

All of that lead to a change in the official and people's view of America, from a model to imitate and an ally to rely on , to a hostile power, erodingv the sovereignty, the unity, the riches and the development prospects of Russia.

What appears suspicious is that, when the Soviet Union was the State which lied the farthest from the American way of life (a party dictatorship, a State-Owned economy, a military bloc covering one half of the Globe), the USA had no difficulty in dealing with the USSR, but, since Russia has adopted democracy and free market,an has withdrawn the former Soviet troops, it has started to be considered suspect and anti-democratic.And, paradoxically, this is increased since Russia has been able to recover its economic and political strength.

Now, with the tentative Perezagruzka, this impression could vanish. However, the present difficulties in founding a joint solution for the problem of anti-ballistic missiles risks to reinvigorate mutual diffidence. 

RUSSIA DISAPPOINTED BY EUROPE

Perestrojka: an Exceptional Occasion Miserably Missed

Перестрoйка - чрезвычайный, презренно  не использованны, йшанс

La Perestrojka: un'occasione eccezionale persa miseramente.

Péréstroyka: un'occasion exceptionnelle perdue misérablement.

Perestrojka: eine aussergewoehnliche, miserabel verpasste , Chance

Recent polemic declaration of former USSR President Gorbatschev against the policies of Edinaja Rossija has brought back to the interest of the political world and of the general public for a retrospective discussion about the faults and the benefits of Perestrojka.

We try hereby to express a  balanced point of view
.

Within all  confusion of Perestrojka, all major European players were not, according to us, up to requirements of their roles: Gorbatschev, the dissidents, the Church, Eltzin, but, especially, Europe. Nobody, in the European Union, even considered the fact that, since all these things were happening in Europe, they fell within the primary responsibility of all Europeans.

On top of that, an unbelievable theory of European Law, which is not written in the Treaties, prescribed that, before being able to enter the European Union, any European State must undergo a huge amount of changes and examinations, for becoming “apt” to become a member of the Union.

This principle starts from the wrong idea that the  Union is an ideological organization, which selects the ones who are homogeneous to its ideology. On the contrary, the Treaties foresee just that any European State has the right to become a member with the sole conditions to have a democratic constitution and a market economy. Even if this should change the political balance within the Union.

This discrimination has hurted very much many East European States, like the Poles, who are very proud of their nation, and that, therefore, do not like anybody to teach them how they have to be. Therefore, they are now very critical of the Union and pursue their own interests without a lot of attention for the others.This hurts still yet very heavily especially Turkey. Keeping many States, for 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, years outside the European Union, the EU  encouraged any type of nationalistic reactions, including separate dealings with America, a hostile attitude with neighbors, local wars, and so on.

If this attitude is hurting for Poles and for Turks, or even for smaller nations, it goes without saying that it is absolutely unacceptable for Russia. Nobody recalls any more that, when President Eltzin came to Strasburg for addressing the European Parliament with a proposal whereby Russia could have joined the European Union, he was even barred from speaking by the then President of the  European  Parliament.

Eltzin was the most “Pro-Western” President that Europeans could have expected. In reality, European politicians were not interested at all for an accession, but not even to an association,  of Russia, even under the very unbalanced conditions of that time. How could they expect that Russia would  not have been hurted by that attitude? We are keen to think that, at the end of the day, Russians have been interested to participate in the European Union since the beginning of Perestrojka. Primakov has confirmed that recently. But how could they dare to propose this again, if they risk to be treated like Eltzin?

In fact, Russia would likely be, as suggested by Hélène Carrière d' Encausse,  more interested in a partnership between Russia as a whole (or the Eurasiatic Economic Community) and the European Union. This could apply also to Turkey.

THE EUROPEAN COMMON HOUSE: A POPE'S IDEA

Pius II

Gorbachev's Slogan picked up from a speach of Pius II

 Девиз Горбачева - цитата Пия II

 Lo slogan di Gorbaciov ripreso da Pio II

 Le slogan de Gorbatschev repis de Pius II

Der Slogan von Gorbatschev stammt aus einer Rede von Pius II

1.From "Socialism in One State" to "Stagnation"

Once rejected the idea of a worldwide revolution, the only solution, at the end, remained to the Soviet Union was the one of the “Pacific Coexistence” launched by Khrusciov. Notwithstanding the efforts made by the Party, at those time, it seemed that all the efforts for reaching Communism, considered as a higher economic and social phase, had achieved  only meager results. That period was called, by Soviets, the one of “Stagnation”.

“A posteriori”,this definition is understandable because the very high levels of growth of the Soviet economics, which had characterized the country during the Stalinistic period, could no more be achieved.It is astonishing that the great economic achievements of UdSSR are normally forgotten, whilst the procapite income in Russia has just recently recovered the 1991 level, after a dramatical fall in the 90ies.  Unfortunately, later on, during the Gorbačev and Eltzin periods, people understood that the situation could had become even worse.

 2.From Perestroika to the Great Recession

It is difficult to speak in a few word on those events, because there are neither objective points of reference, nor similar experiences with which to compare them.

Military force of the USSR remained unattained. But an army which does not fight a “real” war for 35 years cannot sustain the hardships of a present days “uneven war”, like the one in Afghanistan. This is something that also Westerners are experiencing at the end. When Soviets understood that they were defeated in their first “real” war  after World War, against a few, badly equipped guerrillas, they lost any residual  confidence towards their system.

So, Gorbatchev was chosen for trying a change of route. At the beginning, he had a good intuition: there were no more good reasons for disputes between Russians and Europeans, so that a wide-ranging cooperation would have been possible. However, he had no clearcut strategy: he did not understand that, in particular, without party dictatorship or someway of authoritarian rule, Socialism could not have resisted the overall pressures of western capitalism.

The typical slogan of Gorbachev, “A Common European House” had been invented, 500 years before, by a Pope: Pius II, that became Enea Silvio Piccolomini, who, as a geographer, had inserted, for the first time, Muscovy and Greater Lithuania, up to the Azov Sea and to the Don, into geographical Europe. It is not astonishing that this Slogan has been accepted and backed by Pope John Paul II. However, such an important t understanding between Russia and the catholic Church could have been effective only  if the policy of integration of both, Russia and Europe, into the “Common European House” had been sustained strongly, since the beginning, from one side, by the Christian Democratic forces who had a leading role in the largest part of Western Europe, and, from another side, by the catholic nations of churches, which were very strong at least in Poland, Lithuania, Slovakia, Czechia and Croatia. What, according to us, did not happen.

In the absence, from one side, of the maintainment of the strength of the Soviet State at home and abroad, and, from another side, of a genuine alliance with strong cultural and spiritual forces all over Europe, the centrifugal trends, which the system itself (Stalin’s “Nationalities Policy” and its consistent application) had generated, but that the Communist Party had held under control in the past, were unlashed, becoming free to destroy the “Eastern system”.  The idea of a “European Common House” was too vague: it did not materialize into a State, into a Treaty, into an ideology, into a military alliance, into an economic system. Also the forces which were starting to operate throughout the whole Empire lacked a clearcut strategy.

The first to act in this context had been the Ayatollah Khomeini, with his well-known Letter to Gorbatschev, announcing that Islam would have overcome communism, and would have even substituted it as the true revolutionary force of the future. He was right, but also the Schi^ca was too weak in the former Soviet Union for aggregating forces; so, the leading role passed to Talibans. Who, at their turn, had not the ambition to create a State, but just to be left free to cultivate their religion according to their own fundamentalistic interpretation, without any secularistic ingerence from abroad. Osama Bin Laden had that ambition, but he had too many enemies for being able to create anything, and he was soon engaged in another, much broader, struggle.

From the other side of the Empire, the Poles have always been happy to surge against Russians. For a certain period, they succeeded to stay, when they had had an opportunity, united beyond Solidarność, which was promising extraordinary changes, including, as Lech Wałesa was saying, “a system which would be better both of Communism and of Capitalism”. However, not a long time after the “Round Table”, everybody saw that there was no “Polish Way”, but just a neo-liberal policy, to which the Church did not oppose any effective resistance, especially thanks to the extraordinary positive attitude of Gorbatschev. According to us, the interview which was released, not long time ago, by former Polish President Jaruzelski to a German newspaper, are of  the utmost significance. Jaruzelsky said that both Margaret Thatcher and François Mitterand had asked the Russian to intervene in order to impede German reunification, whilst  just Russia was favorable. also Walesa hoped that the Soviets would have intervened. What shows that there was more “European Solidarity” between Germans and Russians than between France, Germany and, even, Poland.

The absence of an adequate strategy by Gorbatschev caused a huge amount of troubles to Russia: an extraordinary fall in GNP, which has been recovered just recently; the civil war in Nagorno,-Karabagh, Chechnya, Ossetia, Abkhasia, Transnistria, but also Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Macedonia, the coup in Romania; the selloff of Russian natural resources for several years; overall poverty and corruption. From that moment on, general trends were set by the first precedents: to apply existing constitutions as well as an interpretation of existing laws in such a way as to allow the introduction of democracy. In Islamic countries, like Chechnya, a precedent was constituted also by the example of Itan, talibans, al-Qaida, and, then, by the implementation of Shari’a.

3.The Recovery

For about one decade, Eastern Europe and Russia were submerged by these contradictions.

What is paradoxical because, precisely in the same period, China arose as one of the most formidable players in the World. In the same time, the events of these two decades are a practical demonstration of the tremendous interaction that always has existed, and which exists still now, between Russia and Europe. At the beginning, he lack of a clearcut proposal, from either Gorbatschev  or Eltzin, lead to an insufficient response from Europe. Russia went on weakening  itself too much. A political gap arose. East European countries fell into the chaos. In front of this chaos, Western Europe couldn’t identify its own identity, strategies and policies. Thus, Russia was obliged to reconsider its own policies. Europe was not able to finalise its own integration in a rerasonable way .

A situation which is deceiving for all of us, and that we can solve only together.

As we can see, the mutual attitudes in that period have deeply influenced our societies in the last twenty years. For Western Europe, the progressive lack of capability to organize their own strategiers. For Russia, the necessity to rely primarily on itself. And, for both parties,at the end,  the need to find finally a common way of understanding.

We hope  that the efforts that we are doing here will be helpful for all Europeans and all Russians who are sincerely interested to rebuild this common path.