Ukraine and the collapse of Western values

by Guy Mettan,* freelance journalist

(3 October 2022) Timothy Snyder, one of the most prominent academic representatives of the Western establishment, describes the stakes of the Ukraine war in the September issue of the American magazine Foreign Affairs.¹

Defending "European values" against barbarism, democracy against dictatorship, heroic virtues against war crimes, this is the discourse that Western leaders and media have been serving up, day after day, since 24 February, with such a tone of voice and unanimity that cannot be challenged.

"Russia, that aging tyranny, seeks to destroy Ukraine's insolent democracy. A Ukrainian victory would assert the principle of free government, integration with Europe and the ability of people of good will to face global challenges.

A Russian victory, on the other hand, would increase the genocide policy in Ukraine, enslave Europeans, and make it impossible to fight climate threats, strengthen fascists, tyrants and nihilists who see politics as a show to distract people from the destruction of the world. This war determines the principles that will prevail in the 21st century, policies of mass murder or policies defending human dignity. It is the future of democracy that is at stake."

An urgent assessment of the situation is required

Do we really believe that this vision matches reality and that this war is a struggle between the good guys and the bad guys? What are these so-called values that we hear so much about, but which we are careful not to define and, above all, not to put our own behavior to the test? How much is a useless "value" worth when it is being adulterated or devalued by attitudes that are even more criminal than those attributed to the adversary? These questions are not insignificant because, seen from the rest of the world, Europe is showing that it has failed to share its internal model – cooperation between member nations on an equal basis of mutual respect – with the other nations of the world and that it is about to lose its honor and its credit with them. – An urgent assessment of the situation is required.

The first difficult finding is that the founding value of Europe since 1945, the one that was upheld for seven decades to legitimise the creation and success of the European Union, peace among nations, has totally disappeared from official and media discourse since last April.

The value of peace among nations

Of course, peace had already suffered a serious blow in the 1990s, during the Yugoslav war, when Germany's premature recognition of the independence of Slovenia and Croatia set off a firestorm, and the German and NATO staffs concocted in 1999 the phony Horseshoe plan and staged the Raçak massacre, allegedly planned by the Serbs to wipe out the Kosovars, the German and NATO staffs concocted the false Horseshoe Plan and staged the Raçak massacre, allegedly planned by the Serbs to wipe out the Kosovars, to legitimise the bombing of a European country for 78 days at the cost of dozens of deaths and billions of damages.

This ideal of peace was also undermined by the gradual transformation of NATO into an increasingly hostile alliance after the demise of the Soviet Union, as evidenced by the aforementioned attacks on Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Syria and Afghanistan, most of which were committed in violation of international law. Not to mention the continuous bombing of the civilian population of Gaza or the deportation of the inhabitants of the Chagos Islands by the British to install a military base (Diego Garcia), recently condemned by the International Court of Justice.

Despite such infringements, peace, officially at least, remained the foundation for action and a professed "value" of Europe and the West. It was in the name of safeguarding peace that President Sarkozy rushed to Moscow in the summer of 2008 to meet President Putin after the failure of the war in Georgia triggered by Saakashvili.

It was once again for the sake of peace that Europe, led by France and Germany, negotiated and secured the Minsk Accords following the overthrow of the Ukrainian government and the uprising of Ukraine's eastern provinces in the wake of the riots of February 2014 and the incorporation of Crimea into Russia. Hopes had even been raised that peace would be possible between Ukraine and Russia in late March of this year, until the media coverage of Butcha and the visit of Boris Johnson in early April put an end to any hint of negotiations on the Western side.

Since then, peace has disappeared from the European horizon. Moreover, ministers and the media, led by the President of the European Commission, are constantly calling for more war, more arms deliveries, more sanctions, more financial support, more energy austerity, stigmatising the few voices that dare to call for de-escalation and diplomacy as traitors. This yawning gap between proclaimed values and actual behavior undermines the entire Western discourse on values.

In the same vein, how can we interpret the discourse of European leaders and the media, who have no words harsh enough to slam the nationalism of Serbia, Russia, Hungary, Turkey, China (vis-à-vis Taiwan), the chauvinism of the so-called "far-right" parties in France, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria and elsewhere, as well as the separatism of the Catalans, of the Donbass and Crimean republics, but who have every possible consideration for the secession of Kosovo, the independence of Taiwan, the occupation of the Golan Heights and the colonisation of the West Bank, which are not recognised by international law, and for the righteous struggle of the Ukrainian ultra-nationalist battalions, which was condemned by the UN in the resolutions against Nazism?

How can we praise nationalism for some by providing them with arms, financial support and political recognition, while condemning others' nationalism, which, unlike the former, did not start any war? What's a value that deserves to be acknowledged even if it is stained with blood, but worth nothing when expressed peacefully by the ballot box?

The value of democracy

The second value defended by the West is democracy. As for peace, we are tempted to applaud. But when looking closer, one has some doubts. How can anyone justify the unconditional support to a country, Ukraine, under the pretext of democracy, when this very same country has banned all opposition parties (last March), shut down all non-governmental news channels (in 2021 and 2022), banned minority languages (and even majority languages since Russian is spoken by two thirds of the population), had dozens of journalists, political opponents and even negotiators murdered by its security services, and allowed rampant corruption to develop (122nd position in the world corruption ranking, not far from abhorred Russia), sold off 17 million hectares of good agricultural land to three American multinationals despite popular opposition, forcibly enlisted the male population in its army, executed prisoners of war, used its own civilian population as human shields (see Amnesty report), and filled its army and administration with notorious neo-Nazi sympathisers, to name but a few of the most important facts that have been acknowledged by the dominant media only paying lip service? Is this really the model of democracy we want to defend?

And what about our own appetite for democracy when we rush to Baku to beguile the dynast Aliev who keeps attacking Armenia, to Saudi Arabia to pay tribute to Prince MBS who had the journalist Khashoggi cut into pieces, to Qatar to pay homage to the Emir, or to Cameroon to become friends with President Biya, who has been in power for 40 years, for the sole purpose of getting a little gas or oil? All this to boycott Vladimir Putin, who has only been president for 18 years and who is willing to supply us with more environmentally friendly gas and oil for little money?

Similarly, there are no words harsh enough to denounce Russia's interference in the affairs of democratic countries, as it was the case throughout Donald Trump's term and during the French elections of 2017. But how do we respond when two American special prosecutors (Messrs. Robert Mueller and John Durham) claim the opposite? Nothing!

On the contrary, we enthusiastically endorse our interference in the political functioning of third countries, as it happened in Venezuela in 2019 with the support to the self-proclaimed president Juan Guaido, with the putsch against the Bolivian president Evo Morales and with all the colored revolutions intended to overthrow legitimate governments like the one in February 2014 in Ukraine.

Australian journalist and filmmaker John Pilger recounts that during his eighty-three years of life the United States government has succeeded in or attempted to overthrow fifty foreign governments, most of them democratic, that it has interfered in the elections of thirty other countries, that it has waged war or dropped bombs on thirty other countries, most of them poor and defenseless, that it has fought liberation movements in twenty countries and tried to assassinate the leaders of fifty nations, all this at the cost of carnage, massacres and untold destruction. A fine example of democracy and respect for the people!

And finally, what are we to think of our own democratic functioning when we support a war without having consulted the citizens, when we sabotage neutrality without debate, as is the case in Switzerland, when we are warmongering against people’s opinions?

Let's recall in this respect the poll conducted in Germany and published on August 30 by the magazine Stern, to the absolute indifference of the Western media, because it is contrary to the dominant doxa:

77% of Germans are in favour of peace negotiations in Ukraine (as opposed to 17% who believe that nothing should be done), 87% believe that we should talk to Putin (as opposed to 11%), 62% that we should not deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine (as opposed to 32%). Another survey in Austria gave more or less the same results. These are popular opinions that will not be taken serious.

The value of human rights

The third category of values we are supposed to defend in Ukraine is human rights. Western ideologists claim that Russia committed a crime of aggression, the worst of all crimes according to the Nuremberg Tribunal, by launching its "special operation" against Ukraine. This is quite possible. But the Russians, in the same mode as the Western accusations about the Uighurs in China, answer that they have only responded to the crime of "genocide" perpetrated by Ukrainian forces since 2014 in the Donbass, at the cost of 14,000 deaths attested by the UN ...

Ditto for violations of humanitarian law, the taking of civilians hostage, the execution of prisoners. According to estimates in August, the UN put civilian casualties at 5,587 dead and 7,890 wounded since February. This is 6,000 dead and 8,000 wounded civilians too many, but it is far from a generalised massacre and hundreds of thousands of civilians killed by NATO troops and pro-Western armies in Iraq, Afghanistan or Yemen.

Crimes against crimes, accusations against accusations, we will not make progress, if we look at things from a short distance. And in any case, if we are honest, we have to admit that we don't know anything about it for the moment and that, if we want to condemn the supposed aggressor for his crimes, we should start with ourselves.

The value of freedom of expression

In the same way, the West, and Europe in particular, likes to present itself as a model of freedom of expression, compared to a Russia that would shamelessly flout them. But how to explain then that our sycophantic media trample all the criteria of an objective information by taking unanimously sides for Ukraine without listening to the other party? Altera pars audiatur say the journalism manuals.

On Wednesday morning, three experts were debating on the morning news on France Culture, all of them inveterated anti-Russian, Edwy Plenel in the lead. Where is the famous pluralism of the press? The diversity of opinion? And why were Russian media RT and Sputnik banned from the EU? Isn't this a crass infringement of freedom of expression, even when it is justified under the pretext of countering "Russian propaganda"? Since when has censorship become democratic and representative of freedom of expression? And how can we justify the despicable treatment inflicted on Julian Assange, Edward Snowden or Chelsea Manning, because they have exposed the machinations of the NSA, the American crimes in Iraq or the compromises of Hillary Clinton and the Biden son?

The value of the private property rights

Last but not least, the flagrant violation of the private property rights with the confiscation of Russia's Central Bank assets, oligarchs' private assets, and the confiscation of billions of Afghan and Venezuelan assets by the American and British central banks.

The value of environmentalism

Fourth and last category of values betrayed by Western practices: environmentalism and climate change. Since the 1992 Rio Summit, the West has posed itself, not without difficulty and with much internal debate, as the champion of the struggle for the "preservation of the planet" and the development of green technologies by declaring war on CO₂ emissions.

In 2019, it’s political and media elites were swooning over Greta Thunberg and the youth strikes, while at the same time calling upon Southern countries, accounting to almost zero greenhouse emissions, to join the fray in exchange for dubious investments, estimated in hundreds of billions of dollars by the manipulative President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.

Three years and six months of war in Ukraine later, what has happened? Nothing but an abandonment of all the promises made and the betrayal of the countries of the South. In the name of the fight for Ukraine and the "bringing of the Russian economy to its knees", Europe has begun to import – with great efforts and the use of polluting tankers and bulk carriers – shale gas and oil that were once disapproved. Coal-fired power plants are being reopened in Germany and Poland with the blessing of environmental ministers who would have cried “foul” only 12 months ago. And soon will it be the turn of nuclear power plants.

All over Europe, the Greens, once at the forefront of the anti-nuclear and pacifist struggle, have become leaders of the most belligerent and anti-environmental policies, under the pretext that this would be temporary and that it would not compromise the climate objectives!

Like the socialists who voted for military credits in 1914, today's Greens have put on the green-gray uniform to adhere to the most virulent militarism and to convert to the benefits of fossil fuels certified as "democratic" even though they are bought in Qatar, Saudi Arabia or Azerbaijan. Look for the mistake!

Betraying the countries of the south

As for southern countries, they feel more betrayed than ever. At the last Euro-African climate summit held in Rotterdam on September 5, not a single European head of state made the trip, with the exception of the Dutch host! This is a slap in the face that Africans will not soon forget, as the continent has only contributed 3% of historical greenhouse gas emissions and was promised $100 billion per year in aid starting 2020. The European heads of state were too busy fine-tuning the latest sanctions against Russian natural gas.

The collapse of the moral principles

This laundry list of small and large violations of the values professed by the West in the context of the war in Ukraine is symptomatic not only of the hypocrisy of the West – which is not new – but of the collapse of the moral principles and exemplary nature with which it honoured itself to justify its domination over the rest of the world.

It was in the name of these values that it fought and eventually won the Cold War against the Soviet adversary. The great diplomat and Cold War theorist George Kennan had already written in 1951 that "the most important influence the United States can exert on internal events in Russia will continue to be that of example. […] The message we strive to bring to others, whatever it may be, can only be effective if it is consistent with our own behavior. That it is sufficiently impressive to command the respect and trust of a world which despite all material difficulties is more willing to recognize and respect spiritual excellence than material opulence."

We have to admit that we are not following this path. Europe, which is stuffed to the brim with its own propaganda, is convinced that it still embodies a moral ideal and that it can be satisfied with declaiming the moral clichés of the Cold War – good against evil, democracy against dictatorship – without having to apply them. Whatever the outcome of this conflict, whatever the responsibilities of each party, it is to be feared that Europe is only deceiving itself and that this war, waged in the name of morality through the Ukrainians, is only the façade of a desire for universal robbery and global hegemony that has never been satisfied which the other six billion inhabitants of the planet have not accepted for some time now.

* Guy Mettan is a political scientist and journalist. He started his journalistic career with Tribune de Genève in 1980 and was its director and editor-in-chief in 1992–1998. From 1997 to 2020, he was director of “Club Suisse de la Presse” in Geneva. Nowadays he is a freelance journalist and author.

1 Foreign Affairs is a US foreign policy journal. It is published six times a year. It is edited by James F. Hoge, Jr. on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), an influential US think tank.

References

• Survey: majority wants negotiations on end of war, Stern, August 30, 2022.

• John Pilger, Silencing the Lambs – How Propaganda Works, Consortium News, 8 September 2022.

• Joe Lo, African leaders blast European no-shows at climate adaption summit, ClimateHomeNews, 6 September 2022.

• Laurence Caramel, Africans denounce rich countries' absence from climate change summit, Le Monde, 5 September 2022.

• George Kennan, America and the Russian Future, Foreign Affairs, April 1951.