This is an article from the latest issue of Linkiesta Magazine Tribute to Ukraine + New York Times Big Ideas on newsstands in Milan and Rome, as well as airports and train stations across Italy. You can order it here.
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The war in Ukraine, that is, the war in Europe, had to radically change our worldview and our priorities, since we Europeans were accustomed to taking for granted a state of peace, freedom and prosperity as practically eternal and seemingly undisputed, undisputed, eroded by anything or anyone, as if it were a natural right that everyone recognizes in us, that all equally take for granted.
The war in Ukraine, i.e. the war against Europe, is therefore changing our perception of reality, all the more profoundly since the invasion decided by Vladimir Putin comes at the end of an upheaval that began in 2016 with Brexit and the election of Russia Donald Trump (but also, to give just one more example, with the tendency towards Catalan separatism, culminating in the illegal referendum of 2017). An upheaval that was also a war of words and ideas, partly fueled and led by Russia itself.
The war in Ukraine is also a gigantic translator for Europe, looking back at much of what has happened over the past six years. The massacres, torture, deportations and all the atrocities committed on Putin’s orders are the truth behind the fake news; they are the flesh and blood men behind the trolls, bots and propaganda we have been bombarded with online, on TV and in newspapers in recent years; They are the heavy artillery called in to complete the work left halfway by the idiots who have helped destabilize, divide and weaken the European Union and the West.
War is the truth that awaited us at the end of Post-Truth, Word of the Year 2016, the year Trump campaigned specifically for the help of Russian hackers to steal Hillary Clinton’s emails. “Russia, if you listen, I hope you will be able to find the thirty thousand missing emails,” he explained, for example, at a press conference in June, referring to one of the many pseudo-scandals artfully pieced together by Trumputian propaganda. To then add significantly: “I think you will be well rewarded by our press.” This is exactly what will happen thanks to the crucial help of Wikileaks. Aid summoned and restarted by Trump throughout the election campaign, without mince words. “I love Wikileaks,” he explains several times in his speeches.
As we can see, nothing has ever been hidden, and perhaps the secret of post-truth lies right here, in that it is, so to speak, a lie in the light of the sun. Because the goal of the Agents of Chaos is not to convince, but to divide, confuse and anger. For this reason, at the same time in Spain, Russia can support the Catalan separatists and the nationalists of Vox, as well as neo-fascist and neo-Nazi formations from around the world, together with parties, groups and groups of the extreme left to the cause. But there is no doubt where his heart beats.
The holy war instigated by Putin and his priest Kirill, according to which the war in Ukraine is a war against Western values, represented by “gay parades,” should have become clear to anyone who still doubts that belief. The similar statements made by Aleksandr Dugin and the oligarchs closest to the Kremlin are unequivocal. They are the other side of populism and sovereignty, of which Putin has been not only the main donor but also the main political and ideological reference point in recent years.
The concrete effect of such campaigns in the West is clearly visible in the United States today. The politicization of the Supreme Court (not to mention arming it) goes well beyond the abortion issue. It is an attempt to plunge liberal democracy from within through the conquest, perversion and exploitation of its highest institutions in a direction that leaves only two paths open: civil war or the Hungarian model. Two options, which, by the way, are not mutually exclusive, as we have seen in the United States: the first option failed, with the “stolen elections” campaign culminating in the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, the second Option actually resumed.
The script closely resembles what we saw at work in Hungary, with the gradual enslavement of all independent powers and guarantors to the clique of Viktor Orbán, Putin’s main Trojan horse in Europe. Nothing remains hidden here either. It is the model of “illiberal democracy” openly claimed by both of them.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine, an expressly justified war of terror and annihilation with the intention of preventing the country’s integration into Europe and the West, now shows how far the country’s highest reference points are willing to go. Nobody can seriously doubt that after a possible victory of Russia in the occupied territories there will be no more free elections or gay parades, and there will be no freedom of expression, just like in Moscow.
From this point of view, things could not be clearer. The motives and goals of the emergency services on site could not be more transparent. The situation could not be less complex.
Putin’s attack on Ukraine and Trump’s attack on American democracy are not only two sides of the same coin, they are also the war on two fronts that the European anti-fascists – the real ones, that is, those fighting against fascism, and not his side – have to face in the coming years. Liberals, seduced by culture wars waged in the name of the right to life, and socialists betrayed by the Kremlin’s anti-Nazi rhetoric, must therefore warn that fascism is on this side (not to mention the Death).
If Putin took Ukraine and Trump took back the White House, it is highly unlikely that the current pattern of political and military alliances within which we have cultivated our illusion of perpetual peace will last long. The failed attempt during Trump’s first term to break up NATO and leave us to our fate in the face of Russian imperialism may succeed in the second. Maybe then some superficial talk about the possibility of helping those who have been attacked will find a different resonance, even in the studios of our talk shows.