"Europeans, open this book, go inside. After a few steps in the night
you will see strangers gathered around a fire, come closer, listen: theyare discussing the fate they reserve for your general trade agencies,
for the mercenaries who defend them. They will see you perhaps, but they
will continue to talk among themselves, without even lowering their voices.
That indifference strikes at the heart: the fathers, creatures of the
shadow, your creatures, were dead souls, you dispensed light to them,
they only spoke to you, and you did not bother to answer those zombies.
The children ignore you: a fire illuminates and warms them, which is not
yours. You, at a respectful distance, will feel furtive, nocturnal,
frozen: to each his own turn; in that darkness from which another dawn
will emerge, you are the zombies."
(J.P. Sartre preface to F. Fanon "The Wretched of the Earth", 1961, ed.
it. Einaudi, 1962)
THE FIRST TIME
The current international situation increasingly resembles that of the
summer of 1914. Not only in the purely strategic and military dimension,
but also in the political and ideological one.
Once again, as in 1914 at the height of capitalist and colonialist
exploitation, the "Western world" believes itself to be the moral guide
for the entire world. Bearer of universal and superior values. But,
unlike 1914, the rest of the world has already tried the "Western" cure
for many decades. Whether it was the socialist illusion or the
capitalist mirage, the countries, freed from the colonial yoke after
bloody and very hard struggles, have now understood that those models
were only false decoys. Models valid only for the places where they were
born. Off limits for all the others.
Again, in 1914 the West believed it had experienced decades of peace,
when in fact it had only exported war to the countries to be
"civilized". Where it had already widely experienced the enormous
destructive capacity of the war industry and where the ideological and
exterminatory system closely linked to the combined provisions of the
second industrial revolution/imperialism/racist theories/positivism had
already been largely formed. But the extermination of entire populations
was not a scandal, given that they were considered little more than
subhuman.
Then, the enormous destructive capacity of the military industry, at the
height of imperialism, turned its weapons against itself. What was
thought of as a war from the nineteenth century (even if this
interpretation is starting to take on a bit of water because in reality
it was well known what modern weapons were capable of, given that they
had been abundantly "tested" against "inferior peoples") literally
changed the known world. In this case the "inferior beings" to be sent
to the slaughter were the working classes.
PARADIGM SHIFT
The war in the West developed because each state thought it was making
the right move, some to gain hegemony in Europe, some to oppose it, some
to respect military alliances, some to transform it into a revolution.
Like sleepwalkers, undaunted
"Those who had the responsibility for the main decisions - kings,
emperors, foreign ministers, ambassadors, military commanders and a host
of minor officials - walked towards the danger with cautious and
calculated steps.
The outbreak of the war was the culmination of chains of decisions taken
by political actors who consciously pursued objectives and were capable
of reflecting on what they were doing, and who identified a series of
actions by formulating the most appropriate assessments based on the
best information available to them. Nationalism, armaments, alliances
and finance were all elements that became part of history, but they
acquire an explanatory value only when it is possible to show their
actual influence on the decisions that, together, caused the war to
break out.[...]All the documentary sources are full of attributions of
blame (it was a world in which aggressive intentions were always charged
to the adversary, and defensive ones attributed to oneself)[1]».
The current situation is certainly very different and, for some, much
worse. We have thousands of atomic bombs capable of destroying the
planet several times over, but, unlike what happened during the Cold
War, talking about a possible nuclear war is no longer a taboo.
(IN)VOLUNTARY SLAVERY?
But this is not the only thing that distinguishes our era from 1914. In
2024 it is now clear that the countries that contain the majority of the
world's population no longer accept being on display. Let's be clear: no
one here is good and/or bad. Each of the actors in the field defends
personal interests, hegemonies, vested interests but, if we are made of
blood and shit it will be difficult to expect the triumph of asceticism.
Even the phase of decolonization was carried forward and achieved with
all the problems and physiological contrasts within a society (even
within the socialist one), but the liberation from the colonial game,
whatever the means used, was a positive thing in itself. Beyond the same
actors who achieved it and even beyond the heirs
of those actors who often distorted it.
The US has been in a crisis of political hegemony for decades, but still
has military hegemony and for them it would be a disaster if Europe had
a minimum of dignified autonomy (remember? European Hegemony 1914). It
should therefore first be made clear that the US is Europe's main enemy.
There is only that small problem of the thousands of bases with which
they have scattered the old continent. Of course, in our defense, but a
defense that is very reminiscent of that provided by the Camorra to
avoid seeing their shop go up in flames. Oops, shop... I meant North
Stream 2.
WHAT'S LEFT
This dying animal is now truly dangerous. No state gives up hegemony,
even the smallest, let alone an Empire. Hegemony means economic,
military and ideological dominance. It means not having to answer to
anyone for one's activities, but, rather, dividing the world into good
and bad without fear of being judged.
As Walter White says in the series "Breaking Bad", "I am not in
danger,[...]I am the danger. I open the door and I get shot, is that how
you see me? No. I am the one who knocks".
The United States like Israel is a democracy (someone maliciously says
Democra-cia). And it is true, internally these 2 countries represent an
advanced democracy, very different from the European ones. Both are
countries that have excluded entire categories of people from
participating in the democratic banquet: the natives, the blacks, the
Palestinians.
However, the USA is a country on the perennial brink of civil war
(confirmed by the attempted assassination of Trump) that needs to move
its aggression outside its borders.
That said, in front of North America there are now countries that
contain billions of people and that do not want to be treated like bad
schoolchildren and do not recognize the moral authority of the "West" at
all.
DOUBLE STANDARD
Moral authority already. For 9 months now we have been witnessing a
massacre of unprecedented proportions, where the democratic State of
Israel (where rave parties are organized next to the barbed wire of what
used to be an open-air prison and is now a pile of rubble and dead) has
slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians (children, women, old people
and journalists) without any hesitation. A voluntary massacre aimed at
eradicating the Palestinians from Gaza once and for all. What else can
we call it if not an organized and planned genocide? Should the only
point of reference to use this term really be Nazism? Well, let's use
this reference, let's break this taboo. Because the writer no longer
finds any difference between the criminal behavior of the Israeli army
and that of Hitler's army. Even a calm and serious historian like Enzo
Traverso has broken the glass of academic detachment to write a book
that contains truly unprecedented words in the mouth of a scholar. A
clear sign that the barrier of horror has exceeded, if not all, many
limits.[2]
Destruction of hospitals, universities, refugee camps. Sniping of
civilians, photos and videos where Israeli soldiers destroy homes, laugh
on the bicycles of murdered Palestinian children. Is anything else
needed to indicate the abyss into which the entire democratic Israeli
state has sunk?
Faced with this genocide in broad daylight (where the Nazis acted by
concealing it), what does the so-called and self-proclaimed
"international community", which now represents only a small and old
part of the world, do?
As De André would have said
"It is dismayed, it is indignant, it is committed
Then it throws in the towel with great dignity".
In fact, it does much worse. It fully justifies these actions,
demonstrating that Zionism and the related and cowardly accusation of
anti-Semitism are truly the last refuge of scoundrels. The refuge of the
extreme right to gain points of respectability (or, as I have already
written, the heirs of those who sent the Jews to the camps - and that
those fathers never denied - today accuse the "left" of being
anti-Semitic) which, as it happens, is welcomed with open hands by the
"liberals" who, in order to stop any "left" would make (as they have
always done) agreements even with Beelzebub himself.
The press, completely subservient (and now unreadable), covers up this
genocide. What can I say? They expected Nazism with nailed clubs and
instead it arrives with "free" information.
Then, when a bomb falls on civilians in the other war (the one that will
take us to hell, perhaps) then extraordinary editions, global
condemnations. Hang the pig Putin.
Who knows how those 2/3 of the world that we persist in considering a
minority, will read this blatant double standard?
UP TO THE LAST UKRAINIAN. AND THEN?
As I write, it seems that Zelensky (in view of Trump's probable victory)
has begun a sort of march towards an agreement with Russia. After the
farce of the conference in Switzerland, to which one of the two warring
parties was not invited (a very strange peace conference), therefore, a
twist dictated by necessity seems to be starting. Who knows how our
helmeted informants will recycle themselves after having argued, without
any moderation, that "we" (??) had to win the war ("we" they did not
write ... but it was understood).
After 2 and a half years in which it is not known how many deaths there
are among the parties involved, and where the war industry has
celebrated unusual glories, are we back to square one? I don't know, to
tell the truth, this European Union is now in an incontinent war phase.
The words, gestures and actions really seem like those of sleepwalkers.
A ruling class of incompetents, completely enslaved to the market,
devoid of any autonomous thought, slaves of a nation in full
gerontocratic decadence (a dotard and a moron will compete for the
kingdom of what remains of the world).
There is no longer any need for the killing of an archduke to unleash
the massacre. We have learned from history to do without it.
Andrea Bellucci
[1]Christopher Clark, "The Sleepwalkers. How Europe Arrived at the Great
War", Laterza 2014-2019.
[2]E. Traverso "Gaza Before History", Laterza, 2024.
https://www.ucadi.org/2024/07/20/larciduca-ferdinando/
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