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https://scheerpost.com/2024/01/21/patrick-lawrence-russias-turn-from-the-west/

Russia’s Turn From the West

Sergei Lavrov’s recent comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text.  

Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s steady, able, intellectually quick foreign minister, last week held one of those wide-ranging press conferences he and his boss favor. Lavrov’s remarks are subtly delivered but of a significance we must not miss.

Tass published a useful summary of them on Jan. 18.

Here are a few of Lavrov’s pithier remarks. The first of these appeared under the subhead, “On friends of Russia.” I take the liberty of minorly cleaning up the English translation:

“Relations between Russia and China currently experience the best period of their centuries-long history.

Their relations are firmer, more reliable, and more advanced than a military union as we understood these in the previous Cold War-era.

In all cases, the interests of Russia and China reach a common denominator after negotiation, and this is an example for resolution of any issues by any other participants in global communication.

Relations of particularly privileged cooperation with India develop gradually. Russia also takes relations with African states to a truly strategic level. It develops relations with the Latin American continent. Russia’s close circle also includes Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and Qatar.”

Here is Lavrov on the BRICS–Plus group, which expanded last year from its original members, Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa:

“About 30 states are interested in rapprochement with BRICS. This association has a great future. Being a superregional global structure, BRICS symbolizes the diversity of a multipolar world.”

At one point Lavrov turned, inevitably, to the conflict in Ukraine:

“It is not up to Ukraine to decide when to stop and when to talk seriously about realistic preconditions for the end of this conflict. It is necessary to talk with the West about it.

The West wants no constructive resolution that would take Russia’s legitimate concerns into account. This is indicated by incitement and coercion of Kiev for increasingly aggressive use of long-range weapons to strike Crimea, in order to make it unsuitable for life, as well as deep into Russian territory, and not only incitement, but the handover of corresponding weapons as well.”

Three practical questions as Russia’s top diplomat interpreted them in a review of “Russia’s diplomatic work in 2023,” as TASS put it. This is fine as it is, but Lavrov’s comments are a case of the subtext being vastly larger than the text. Russia’s objective in 2024 — this is TASS again — is “to remove any dependence on the West.”

I am sure you know the old adage, derived from an 18th century Christian hymn, “God moves in mysterious ways.” So does history. Let us, then, consider this history in brief. Lavrov’s press conference brims with implied references to it.

Notions of Progress

Russia is considered among the scholars what is called “a late developer.” Such nations are so named because they were a century or more behind the West as it entered the age of scientific and industrial advances and then — regrettably enough, I would say — on to the Age of Materialism. Railroads, telegraph lines, steamships, photography, Bessemer steel, and all the rest: Late developers, lagging in these technologies, looked Westward with envy well-mixed with a felt inferiority.

The premier case of late development is Japan. Among Russians as among the Japanese, the condition of being “behind” produced profound confusion as to identity and their place in the modern world. This confusion is still easily detected.  At its core lie two very consequential misunderstandings.

One, there is the fraudulent Western notion of “progress” as this became an orthodoxy from the mid–19th century onward. I say “fraudulent” because history does not advance in anything like a straight line, and progress is measured in the West strictly according to material advances. In matters of ethos, humaneness, equality, environmental stewardship, the settling of conflicts — of the human spirit altogether — the West remains more primitive than many “primitive” societies.

Two, and the larger point here, from the 19th century onward, there was only one way to modernize. All colonized people who chose the capitalist road understood the imperative this way: modernization = Westernization. All of a sudden, to advance, to make a future in the modern world, meant to repudiate who one was and imitate being someone else.

How hard is it to imagine the deep disturbances and distortions — at bottom psychological but also political, social, economic, and cultural — that arose in consequence of this misapprehension? I count the equation of modernizing with Westernizing, as measured by the extravagant damage it did, among the gravest errors of the late 19th century and all through the 20th to our time.

Russia has spent nearly three centuries in this state of turmoil and — maybe not too strong a term — disorientation. Periods of orthodox conservatism have been followed by cycles of Westward-looking liberalization, this followed by a return to previously abandoned traditions, which have included over many years a return to reaction and a new valorization of one or another kind of nativism and nationalism.

A New Course  

There is another factor to consider. From the 1830s onward to NATO’s post–Cold War expansions, the horrific U.S.–led program to turn the Russian Federation into a capitalist greedfest after the Soviet Union’s collapse, and now the conflict in Ukraine, Russia’s struggle to understand itself has been accompanied by more or less incessant Western efforts decisively to reshape Russia in the West’s image.

We cannot understand Lavrov’s press conference, or many, many of the things Vladimir Putin has said these past few years, without this historical context. In so many words, all of them well-chosen, the foreign minister and the president have announced that Russia will no longer look Westward as it advances into the 21st century. Modernization will no longer mean Westernization.

It would be altogether impossible to overstate the historical magnitude of what Russia has set as its new course. We live in the most interesting times, to put this point another way — even if most of us, mesmerized by the propaganda of eternal Western superiority, cannot see five feet in front of us as the most significant events of our time unfold.

Many things will now fall into place. Lavrov, in enumerating the members of Russia’s “close circle,” describes, a couple of years on, the “new world order” the Chinese frequently reference.

The 5,000–word charter Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping made public two years ago next month, “Joint Statement of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and the Global Sustainable Development,” can be understood now as what your columnist called it at the time: the most important political document to be issued so far in the 21st century.

Gordon Hahn, the accomplished scholar of Russia and Eurasia, last week offered a superb history of Russia’s relations with the West during an appearance last week on The Duran, the daily web program produced by Alexander Mercouris and (in this case) Glenn Diesen. In the course of this long, rich interview Hahn notes, “Putin, as he has stated over and over again now recently, the [Russian] elites routinely demonstrate that they do not trust anyone in the West anymore.” He elaborates:

“For Russia, it looks now, the West is no longer its ‘Other.’… Russia has always identified itself, motivated itself, driven itself in relation to Europe. Now Putin is turning away from that. He said that we are no longer to define ourselves, look at ourselves, through the European prism. For now, we will put all our eggs in one basket, and that is Eurasia…. This close bilateral relationship, of Europe as Russia’s Other, is ending, and therefore the cycle [from conservatism to Westernization and back] is probably ending.”

This moment has been a long time coming. A shallow peruse of the past brings us back to 1990–91, when Michail Gorbachev accepted Washington’s assurance — without a signed document, imprudently — that NATO would not expand eastward from the reunified Germany.

As is well-known, 30 years of betrayals and diplomatic dishonesty followed as Moscow sought a new security architecture that would provide the Russian Federation a place in that “common European home” for which Gorbachev longed.

“I am extremely pessimistic,” Hahn says of the outlook for U.S.–Russian relations. “I can’t see that, even with an agreement between Russia and Ukraine, the West will cease trying to expand NATO. They will try to repeat the same scenario unless something changes in the West itself, in Washington.”

The world turns, even as the West declines or is incapable of turning with it. The teaser on The Duran’s segment with Gordon Hahn reads, “Russia ends 300 years of west-centric foreign policy.” This is big. It rarely gets bigger. History’s mysterious ways lie before us.

Comment to article:

" Thank you Patrick for another truly defining piece of critical journalism! You illustrate that their actually are some global leaders concerned about the welfare of a larger humanity. You also use the term West which some readers seem to take issue with but seem to not understand what it refers to or its historical significance. Russia’s turn from the West and the unity between Russia and China and the emergence of BRICS is a hopeful sign in challenging the Western model of domination, colonialism, greed and ultimately militarism. The real challenge will be the complete dismantling of militarism which will be the only guarantor of human survival as the refusal to address this will undoubtedly result in the use of nuclear weapons likely in our own lifetimes if we keep on the Western trajectory of NATO expansion. So refreshing to see someone like Lavrov an intellectual familiar with world history and shaped by the rich tradition, beauty, and culture of Russia. He reveals the utter vacuity of Blinken, Sullivan, Biden, Macron, Sunak, Scholz, Trudeau and Albanese. "

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https://bracingviews.com/2024/01/15/peace-hero-martin-luther-king-jr/

Peace Hero Martin Luther King Jr.

MLK recognized the evils of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism

It’s sad that the word “hero” is so often modified by or married to “war” in history. He’s a war hero, we say, without giving it too much thought. As if wars are somehow ennobling and sublime.

Waging peace is far more noble than waging war. MLK Jr. recognized this in his famous speech against the Vietnam War on April 4, 1967. Back in 2015, I posted this article on MLK and his warning that America was close to suffering a spiritual death in its constant warmongering. Today, we see America enabling genocide by Israel in Gaza with nary a complaint from those in power. Spiritual death, indeed.

On April 4, 1967, Martin Luther King Jr. gave a powerful speech (“Beyond Vietnam – A Time to Break Silence”) that condemned America’s war in Vietnam. Exactly one year later, he was assassinated in Memphis.

What follows are excerpts from MLK’s speech. I urge you to read it in its entirety, but I’d like to highlight this line:

A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

MLK called for a revolution of values in America. In his address, he noted that:

There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.

MLK didn’t just have a dream of racial equality. He had a dream for justice around the world, a dream of a world committed to peace, a world in which America would lead a reordering of values in the direction of universal brotherhood.

Both of MLK’s dreams remain elusive. Racial inequalities and biases remain, though America is better now than it was in the 1960s in regards to racial equity. And what of a commitment to peace? Sadly, America remains dedicated to war, spending nearly a trillion dollars yearly on defense, Homeland Security, nuclear weapons, and “overseas contingency operations,” i.e. wars.

America has failed to dream the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr., and we are the worse for it. (Bolded passages below are my emphasis.)

Excerpts from MLK’s Speech on Vietnam, April 4, 1967

At this point I should make it clear that while I have tried in these last few minutes to give a voice to the voiceless in Vietnam and to understand the arguments of those who are called “enemy,” I am as deeply concerned about our own troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy, and the secure, while we create a hell for the poor.

Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak of the — for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home, and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as one who loves America, to the leaders of our own nation: The great initiative in this war is ours; the initiative to stop it must be ours…

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately, the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horrible, clumsy, and deadly game we have decided to play. The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war…

It is with such activity in mind that the words of the late John F. Kennedy come back to haunt us. Five years ago he said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Increasingly, by choice or by accident, this is the role our nation has taken, the role of those who make peaceful revolution impossible by refusing to give up the privileges and the pleasures that come from the immense profits of overseas investments. I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin…we must rapidly begin the shift from a thing-oriented society to a person-oriented society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside, but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho Road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of South America and say, “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing except a tragic death wish to prevent us from reordering our priorities so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

Perhaps it seemed in 1967, even to MLK Jr., with all his experience to the contrary, that America could lead the world in a revolution of values, a pursuit of peace. MLK’s dream of such a revolution is dead, drowned in the vast profits of the merchants of death.