by Roberto Iannuzzi *
Also this week, ie Western countries They met at two events, the G7 in the Bavarian Alps and the NATO summit in Madridto emphasize the new contrast between blocks that would now divide the world. According to Western rhetoric, there would be democracies lined up to defend international freedom and legality on the one hand, and autocracies led by Russia and China on the other. On the agenda, military support to UkraineEconomic war to the bitter end against Russia (despite the terrible “side effects” crushing Western economies), Finland and Sweden joining the Atlantic Alliance with Turkish approval (and relatively Selling out the Kurdish question to please Ankara), a new NATO “strategic concept” that actually unites Russia and China in a new axis against the West.
Through the US President’s announcement of the Global Infrastructure and Investment Partnership (really just redefining an unrealistic project against China, formerly known as Build Back Better World). Joe Biden He argued, “If democracies show what we can do, what we have to offer, I have no doubt that we will win the competition every time.” Biden wanted to imply that the success of the western democracy it would refer to some form of geopolitical competition rather than the correct implementation of democratic principles in the West. The Italian Prime Minister repeated it in relation to Ukraine Mario Draghi, which states: “We are united with Ukraine because if Ukraine loses, all democracies lose”. According to Draghi, the success of democracy would be linked to supporting a country with dubious democratic credentials (whose government is persecuting opponents, activists and journalists) in a conflict that could have been avoided, rather than actually applying the principles of freedom and equality and Representation within western democracies. “If Ukraine loses, it will become more difficult to argue that democracy is an effective model of government,” is Draghi’s somewhat questionable thesis.
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G7, the conclusions of the summit are really disappointing
Similarly, according to the British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, the high inflation and Biden’s billions in spending for Ukraine are “a price for democracy and freedom”. On the other hand, Johnson has no doubts about the democratic credibility of the United States, which he says remains “an incredible guarantor of values, democracy and freedom in the world.” The theses of Biden, Draghi and Johnson are well summarized in the concept “Alliance of Democracies‘, An old obsession of the American president, who specifically aimed to split the world into two irreconcilable fronts between which there could be no dialogue or understanding. The idea took shape last December at the first Pro-Democracy Summit convened by Biden to consolidate some sort of ideological front against Moscow and Beijing. But the last few decades show that democracy in the West has not been “threatened” by external actors like Russia and China, but has been compromised by them political decisions of western governments. “There is no alternative” was a slogan dear to the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcherto point out that there are no other options than market deregulation, spending cuts and the dismantling of the welfare state.
Deindustrialization, financialization of the economy, job insecurity, widening inequalities are a legacy of Neoliberal globalization. The emergency logic, which allowed for the “suspension” of some democratic principles, began to prevail since the American response to 9/11. The 2008 financial crisis sanctioned the failure of neoliberalism and a well-established system on debt of households and financial institutions. Instead of punishing those responsible for the crisis, the Western ruling elites aimed at austerity measures and a further erosion of the rights of the lower and middle classes. Understandably, this increased dissatisfaction. According to a recent study, protest movements around the world have more than tripled in less than 15 years, fueled in the West by the decline of democratic standards, corruption and social injustice. However, because of the “logic of the emergency”, the “advanced” countries prefer to demonize all forms of dissent.
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In the G7 I see only a meeting of the western elite, arrogant and bankrupt
Meanwhile, trade wars, unsuccessful energy policies, lockdowns and the redefinition of supply chains in an anti-Covid key have further exacerbated an economic situation that never healed after 2008 and fueled a new flare-up in inflation long before the outbreak of the Ukrainian conflict. All of this has little to do with the “threat” posed by Russia and China. The impression, if any, is that Western leaders are struggling with one legitimacy crisis is becoming increasingly clear, an “enemy from outside” can be useful to blame for the economic woes of its own people and to justify the continued suspension of democratic principles on the basis of an uninterrupted, and now twenty-year, succession of – terrorist emergencies, economics, health and now geopolitical. Outsource the crisisbut apart from not solving the problems that caused it, it risks exacerbating already existing international conflicts and erupting new ones, making the overall situation in which the planet finds itself even more dangerous.
* Author of When Washington Loses Control. Crisis of American Unipolarity in the Middle East and the World” (2017).