Hugo Dionísio
Throughout 2024,
we have all heard the term “European values” used countless times by von der
Leyen, Borrel, Kaja Kallas, and now António Costa as a weapon against opponents
and as a supposedly civilizational wall against elected enemies. Values such as
the “promotion of peace” or “solidarity and mutual respect between peoples”
have come to coexist with a logic of confrontation, in which the level of
fanaticism with which these values are waged against others has become the main
element of evaluation and performance, and the guarantor of individual
promotion in the chain of power.
Using these
“European values” as a dividing force between supposedly antagonistic camps is
perhaps the greatest fallacy of invoking those same values. Invoking such
values as a divisive wall for relations between peoples means today the same as
the “salvation of souls” meant to the expansionist era of the Iberian nations,
at the dawn of the mercantile age, or, as “democracy and human rights” means to
the USA, whenever they want to constitute a differential justification for a
particular intervention across borders.
All expansionist
civilizations, not just the Western ones, have used so-called “values” that
they considered to be primordial, as a justification for their expansion and
the division between themselves and others. However, these values may have
expressed the opposite idea, even if their use in these terms has never been an
obstacle to any conquest, expansion, or intervention. Just as Israel uses its
security to oppress the Palestinian, Syrian, or Lebanese people, denying them
the security it considers itself entitled to. So, nothing new here. What is
new, however, is that Europe, a continent that has been destroyed twice in the
last 110 years, thinks it’s time to invoke the same confrontational logic
again.
Such supposedly
ideological justifications generally contradict the very concepts on which they
are based. Again, this is not unique to the European Union. Perhaps, the most
questionable thing is just how often the West repeatedly uses such pretexts,
arrogating to itself a kind of universal superiority that makes its judgment
supposedly superior to others. This exclusivity, this exceptionalism, the
absolute power to forgive or condemn, to divide and unite, is historically
recognized as the power that corrupts, that blinds.
But what are
these “European values”? These values find legal backing in Articles 2 and 3 of
the Lisbon Treaty and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.
The European Union is founded on “human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality,
the rule of law and human rights. From a more territorial point of view,
European “societies” are founded on “pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance,
justice, solidarity and equality between men and women”. These are all noble
values, although we find countless situations in which they have not been taken
into account, either in the treatment of Europeans themselves or in the
treatment of other peoples.
Take the case of
Syria. For some European nations, Bashar Al-Assad has gone from a “reformist”
visionary to an inveterate tyrant. Chirac’s France was the first to set the
tone, awarding him the Grand Cross of the French Legion, followed by other
commendations from countries such as Ukraine (2002) Finland (2009) or Italy
(2010). A symbol of secularism and a leading figure in the Arab world (in 2009
he won CNN Arabic’s poll for “Person of the Year” and in 2010 he came second
only to Erdogan, Bashar Al-Assad’s most valued areas of government were the
economy, stability, foreign policy and women’s rights.
Today, when we
see the photo of Annalena Baerbock and other women alongside Al-Jolani and
other “new” Syrian politicians being blurred by the press linked to the new HTS
regime, we can see the flexibility and paradoxicality with which “European
values” are invoked. If in Assad’s case, they allowed him to be elevated and
then condemned, with Al-Jolani, the same “European values” have made it
possible to rehabilitate a “Reformed Terrorist” into a “pragmatic radical”,
elevating him to such a status that the entire European Union has rushed to
Syria to bless someone who has a 10 million dollar bounty on his head. The
exodus of European figures to Al-Jolani’s Syria also says a lot about the role
that such people play in today’s politics, reduced to a role of random
figurants who pass on the message, to the world if possible, that the U.S. is
now at peace with Syria. So far, at least. Once again, the same values that
rehabilitate Al-Jolani will easily be used to condemn him and, at that point,
the exodus of irrelevant Western mainstream figures will run out and an exodus
of Merkava tanks and F35s will begin.
The fact is that
knowing the history of this former professional terrorist, his time in
Al-Qaeda, Al-Nusra, and other terrorist organizations, it is incredible that
under the “European Values” of “human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality,
the rule of law and human rights”, whose European “societies” are supposedly
based on “pluralism, non-discrimination, tolerance, justice, solidarity and
equality between men and women”, it is possible to rehabilitate someone who,
yesterday, carried out the most violent and gratuitous acts against innocent
people.
Knowing that
terrorism, at least in theory – and it seems only in theory – is the most
serious form of violence against human beings; knowing also that, according to
the official theory of the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001, Al-Qaeda was
the organization behind its preparation; it is reason enough to ask how such
rehabilitation is possible. After all, what crime did Bashar Al-Assad commit
that made his rehabilitation impossible? We already know that it wasn’t the
alleged torture – that happened in Guantanamo Bay too; nor was it the allegedly
famous “chemical attacks”, because Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and Al-Nusra have even more
barbaric crimes in their repertoire; nor was it the alleged disregard for
democratic values, because, after all, in Ukraine, the elections were suspended
indefinitely and the U.S. is an expert at subverting election results whenever
they don’t suit them, as is the case in Georgia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Romania
and so on. At the risk of being called an “Assadist”, what did the man do?
It is in
Al-Jolani’s speech that we find the answer to the question about the most
terrible crimes that a human being can commit in the eyes of the West. The
“withdrawn” jihadist does not consider “his” Syria to be a threat to the world,
especially not by choosing the U.S. and Israel as enemies. It is not without
contradiction that these ultra-radical jihadists, like Al-Jolani, who are so
vehement in invoking the Koran when it comes to oppressing women, have never,
ever developed any attack against what is the Arab and Muslim world’s greatest
enemy: Israel.
We’ll see how
Al-Jolani deals with Syria’s national economy, but maintaining the status of
imperial immunity granted to him by the U.S., G7, NATO, and the EU depends on
another factor, no less important than those listed above: the extent to which
the HTS-led regime will allow the vast Syrian natural resources to be handed
over to Western multinational corporations. After all, the defense of the
sovereignty and independence of the Syrian nation was another of the points of
honor of the regime led by Bashar Al-Assad. The insistence on defending
national sovereignty, and preventing the appropriation of oil and gas reserves
by Western multinationals, has led the U.S. to use the pretext of fighting ISIS
to occupy the richest part of the country in hydrocarbons 10 years ago. And so
we learn about the one crime that is considered unacceptable in the eyes of
“European Values”: the defense of national sovereignty.
In a world where
violent crime invades our lives through the mainstream media and vengeful
feelings are stirred up, usually against ethnic minorities, this rehabilitation
by the West of an entire terrorist movement is just as serious: imagine if
Western governments started rehabilitating the most serious criminals just
because they promised to become well-behaved, rule-abiding boys? How would
Western public opinion react if their governments started granting pardons to
the biggest criminals, simply because they said “We’re sorry, we’re reformed
and we’re out of crime”, and “Now we’ll play by the rules”. Would such behavior
be acceptable?
What about the
Syrian people? Is it plausible that the Syrian people would rather see their
nation destroyed than be ruled by someone like Assad? And what about the Syrian
women? Would they rather live in an authoritarian state that respected them as
women or one that removed them from public life?
By allowing the
country to be governed “from the outside”, the connection between today’s Syria
and the supposed “European values” emerges, duly maneuvered by Von Der Leyen,
Sholz, and alike, at the whim of their orders. We have already seen that, as
far as “European values” of an individual nature are concerned, it would be
impossible to rehabilitate someone like Al-Jolani – the previous disrespect for
human life, for women, the indignity of his actions, the injustice that is
immanent in them, the absence of pluralism, freedom and observance of gender
equality towards the Syrian people, make his attitude incompatible with such
values. Only in a West that considers their actions as something divine, with
the power to forgive and condemn, would such rehabilitation be possible, and
always in the logic of unjust forgiveness. Unfair to the victims, especially.
But, in Article
3 of the Lisbon Treaty, among the list of principles and values it contains,
ranging from the EU’s internal functioning to its relations with the world, we
find the answer to Al-Jolani’s rehabilitation. The sovereign policies defended
by Calin Georgescu, Robert Fitzo, Bashar Al-Assad, Vladimir Putin, Nicolas
Maduro, Ibrahim Traoré (did Al-Jolani come to power through elections?), by
countries such as Mozambique, Iran, Georgia, Nicaragua, North Korea, Cuba,
Gaddafi’s Libya or Orban’s Hungary, on the left or right of the political
spectrum, more socialist or more capitalist, such claims are omitted from
“European values”. The list of values, principles, and objectives that make up
these “European values” does not include the independence, autonomy, and
respect for the sovereignty of peoples, least of all European peoples. The EU’s
entire power architecture is the same as a large federation in which states are
governed from the outside or by a faraway center making it easier for other
outside actors to take over.
The very
independence, autonomy, and sovereignty of the EU are absent. These are
ultimately absent concepts. National pride and patriotism are seen as outdated,
emasculating, and subversive concepts. The EU is not a construction of free,
independent, and sovereign peoples. It is a construction of subjected and
passively assimilated peoples, governed by a center power called Brussels.
So, given this
situation, it’s not by surprise that the new Syria fits into this logic and
that Al-Jolani could be rehabilitated. After all, what fails on one side of the
scale complies on the other. That’s the beauty of “European values”. In one
case, they serve to treat Vladimir Putin as a criminal, because he’s under
investigation by the ICC; in the other, they serve to excuse Netanyahu because,
since he’s under investigation by the ICC, he should be given the benefit of
the doubt. If being with Vladimir Putin is toxic, being with Al-Jolani is
fashionable and therapeutic. That’s what everyone who goes there these days can
tell you. It’s all about knowing whose crimes are being committed. Putin is
alleged to have carried out his alleged crimes in the name of the wrong people.
In the name of the right people, they wouldn’t even be crimes.
Now, all the
caricature done here highlights the real wall dividing people and their
interests from the interests of their oppressors. It’s not the idealistic and
ethereal “European values” that divide; these should unite and unite, rather
than disunite. When has the EU stopped “contributing to peace and security” and
“mutual respect between peoples”, as enumerated in Article 3 of the Lisbon
Treaty? However, the enumeration of these principles is instrumental to the
federative doctrine that established the EU itself.
Thus, there is a
great divide and disconnection with “European values” among those who defend
sovereignty, independence, and freedom, because, without the former, there is
no freedom, since when we are governed by others whom we don’t scrutinize, we
can never be free, just as those who succumb to global federative globalism led
by the U.S. and embodied by the G7, NATO and the EU are not. What is the point
of overthrowing a government, electing another, or revolutionizing a country
that, in the end, will have to continue to comply with the dictates imposed
from the outside? That’s why this is the first dividing line these days. It is
the most visible, the most palpable. The most detectable, at least.
But don’t let
this mask another dividing line, the deepest of all, the most hidden: the class
divide. What is hidden behind this divide between sovereignty and federalism
are the interests of the working peoples, non-financialized small businessmen,
factions of deconcentrated productive capital, peasants, and intellectuals, as
opposed to the class interests of financialized capitalism in its imperialist
phase.
In the end, what
is at stake is nothing more than the struggle between rentier, financialized
capitalism and the brutal gains it makes for an increasingly wealthy and small
handful, who need a world with no limitations other than those imposed by
themselves, which we can call a “rules-based order”, in which the rules change
and are interpreted at the will of the self-designated “legislator”, always in
opposition to the interests of the peoples, including the public or private
productive forces, whose national ownership means their stability, sovereignty
and independence, guarantors of their freedom and ability to use these
installed productive forces, not for the benefit of a central, transnational
and increasingly reduced rentier class, but for sovereign and collective
interest.
In this way,
being a sovereignist is today, as it was yesterday, a revolutionary act, and
not just because of the cleavage, rupture and break it makes in relation to a
still dominant process of suppression of peoples’ sovereignties and freedoms,
but because the assumption of this sovereignty itself implies a sovereign
economic construction, in which: 1) the state is in possession of the political
and democratic direction, guiding the measures that guarantee the functioning
of the part for the benefit of the whole and the defense of the national
interest; 2) a state in possession of the strategic mechanisms that guarantee
the capacity of governments, democratically constituted (in another conception
I don’t see myself) and democratically legitimized (which doesn’t mean through
a liberal model), to guarantee the application of the public measures for which
they are chosen; 3) a diversified economic system, including public,
cooperative, private and social, which works for the whole and incorporates
into its action the benefit, sustainability, stability and independence of the
national economy, as the only way to guarantee popular sovereignty in freely
choosing its path.
A vision of
sovereignty and the role that a state must play in guaranteeing it is an
effective break with the federalist, globalist trend of recent decades, which
is responsible for crushing not only the freedoms but the living conditions of
the majority for the benefit of a tiny minority.
Thus, as in the
example of Syria, where Al-Jolani’s rehabilitation depends on the nation’s
submission to the interests of Washington and its vassals, Vladimir Putin’s
rehabilitation, in the eyes of the West, would depend on handing over to U.S.
rentier interests the 80 trillion dollars worth of mineral resources that
Russia harbors in its lands and which Calin Georgescu so aptly referred to as
being necessary to pay off the public and private debt of the Western-dominated
financial system. Between these truths and the proposal to defend Romanian
sovereignty, there may have been reasons for the hasty annulment of the
elections he won.
In a Europe that
talks so much about “European values”, we see calls to strengthen security
while its military policy is handed over to NATO; we see calls for “energy
security” while it is handed over to the U.S. shale gas industry; we hear
repeatedly about the need to ensure the independence of supply chains, but
European states serve as business brokers for the U.S., as happened in Angola
with the Lobito Corridor
In a Europe that
doesn’t know what independence, autonomy and sovereignty are, defending them
means that we are automatically excluded from these “European values”, and,
therefore from European forgiveness.
Martin Jay
There was probably no danger of
Germany’s hapless foreign minister getting off the plane and being met by
absolutely no one when she arrived in Damascus – as was the case when she had
travelled to Malaysia in January 2024. On the tarmac to meet her were an
impressive line-up of officials from Syria’s new government who were happy to
welcome her and shake her hand. She was joined by France’s foreign minister who
both visited Syria to tell its new firebrand terrorist-turned-politician who
goes by two names Ahmed al-Sharaa or his nom de guerre, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.
The duplicity of identity might be a
clue as to what to expect in Syria whose new regime is being given a makeover
by the Americans who are happy to use CNN as a fake news tool to completely
rebrand both its leader and the group who he represents. For anyone who wants
to look, there are still many examples of appalling beatings and torture going
in, in line with Sharia law, which raises the obvious question what exactly is
going on with this very European visit.
Jolani needs restructuring aid to
rebuild Syria. But for that sluice of possibly hundreds of billions of dollars
to be opened, he has to form a credible, functioning state where ministries
appear to function, police keep the peace and restore law and order and above
all human rights atrocities are quashed. Once that is done, then sanctions can
be rolled back. Once that is done, restructuring aid can flow.
And both Germany and France, as well
as Jolani, all want this. They have short-term goals which are all aligned. Yet
they should we be worried that a terrorist group which Jolani heads, with such
a heinous history of beheadings and torture against anyone who doesn’t comply
with its particularly barbaric interpretation of Sharia law, will be in line
for billions of euros of aid?
What is Annalena Baerbock really
trying to achieve in Damascus?
Her presence there surely is to fool
gullible Europeans that the way forward is for the EU to bring Jolani and his
gang in from the cold. Of course, Baerbock also wants to get first in line for
German companies to clean up on restructuring aid, which her corrupt friends at
the European Commission will soon sign off. But is it fair to question this
decision of the West getting into bed once again with terrorists? If we look
back at how Al Qaeda was formed, it’s worth noting that it came about after
taking money from the West to fight Soviets in Afghanistan until 1989 when
their services were no longer needed. A similar point can be made about
Hezbollah, which the Americans will no doubt call a terror group, but which was
initially financed in the 80s by a series of decisions taken by Ronald Reagan
who allowed them to sell drugs in the U.S. placed on U.S. airliners.
Even in recent times, we should
remember that the 9-11 bombers were operatives of Al Qaeda and on European soil
there are too many examples of appalling acts of terrorism from such groups who
have bitten the hand that has fed them. The bombing of the Ariana Grande
concert in Manchester in 2017 was carried out by a British Libyan young man who
was encouraged by the security services to travel to Libya and fight with Al
Qaeda against Gadaffi’s forces.
The point which is lost is that
Israel will welcome any such blowback on U.S. or European soil and so has no
problem at all installing HTS in Syria.
The ignorance of Baerbock is as
disturbing as her outstanding hypocrisy. How does somebody so lacking in patent
intelligence or any obvious ability become a foreign minister?
Baerbock emphasized that all Syrians
should be part of the new political process, regardless of their ethnicity or
religion, as Syria is made up of a number of minorities, which together, make
up almost 40 percent of the population – as opposed to Sunnis which represent
60 percent.
According to one report, she
“outlined key conditions for European support, including the assurance of
minority rights, the fostering of inclusivity, and the rejection of extremism.
Baerbock also emphasized the urgent need to address Syria’s pressing humanitarian
crisis and provide relief to its people”.
One has to wonder whether Syria’s
new leaders will take any of these points seriously when its leader belongs to
such an extreme interpretation of Islam which doesn’t even permit him to shake
the German FM’s hand. We could also note that Baerbock is so ignorant of the
people she is working with that she didn’t even know about the hand shake faux
pas. Who’s advising this half wit?
The answer is no one as she is not
important. Baerbock is simply a messenger and she has done her job. The real
power lies in Brussels and she is just paying homage to that community which
will almost certainly give her a job one day.
And yet it is worrying and not
without irony that she is heralding a turning point with the West’s
relationship with the new regime. Did the Americans and the Europeans opt for a
useful idiot that they can blame it all on, when, six months in, the heads are
getting chopped off and minorities are being slaughtered?
Remarkably, the German government
was a stalwart supporter of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians and so
for one of its representatives to preach human rights is somewhat absurd at
best. The rank hypocrisy is breathtaking. But then there is irony to mull as
well.
During their visit, Baerbock visited
the infamous Sednaya prison, a brutal example of Assad regime’s depravity.
Thousands of political prisoners there were tortured, executed or simply
vanished before its liberation last month. The ministers spoke of the need for
“justice and reconciliation” to heal Syria’s “deep scars” while successfully
navigating her talking points away from one minor point: Germany was Assad’s
biggest supporter and actually played a key role in advising him and overseeing
his regime’s brutality. Is it possible that she is so stupid and ignorant that
she doesn’t even know her own government’s bloody past in Syria?
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