On October 27, 2022, the president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, gave a speech at the Valdai Discussion Club Foundation which I find to be of much interest. Permit me, our dear readers of this column, to present to you Part 1 of such speech:

Ladies and gentlemen, friends,

I had the opportunity to know what was discussed here during the last few days. It was an interesting and substantive discussion. I hope you will not regret coming to Russia and communicating with each other. I’m glad to see you all. We have used the platform of the Valdai Club to discuss, more than once, the important and serious changes that have already taken place and are taking place throughout the world, the risks posed by the degradation of global institutions, the erosion of the principles of collective security and the replacement of international law by “rules”. I was tempted to say “we are clear who came up with these rules”, but perhaps that would not be an accurate statement. We have no idea who invented these rules, what they are based on, or what they contain. It seems that we are witnessing an attempt to impose a single rule by which those in power – we were talking about power, and now I am talking about global power – could live without following any rules and could get away with it. These are the rules that we hear them constantly, as they say, insisting, that is, talking about them incessantly.

The Valdai debates are important because various assessments and forecasts can be heard in them. Life always shows how successful they were, since life is the most severe and objective teacher. Thus, life shows how accurate our forecasts of previous years were. Unfortunately, events continue to follow a negative scenario, which we have discussed more than once during our previous meetings. In addition, they have become a major system-wide crisis that has affected, in addition to the political-military sphere, the economic and humanitarian spheres. The so-called West, which is of course a theoretical construct as it is not united and is clearly a very complex conglomerate, but I will still say that the West has taken a number of measures in recent years and especially in recent months that are designed to aggravate the situation. In fact, they always seek to aggravate the situation, which is also nothing new. This includes fomenting the war in Ukraine, provocations around Taiwan, and destabilizing world food and energy markets. Of course, the latter was not done on purpose; there is no doubt. The destabilization of the energy market was the result of a series of systemic mistakes made by the Western authorities that I mentioned earlier. As we can see now, the situation was further aggravated by the destruction of the pan-European gas pipelines. It is something totally alien to reality, but nevertheless we are witnessing these sad events. Global power is exactly what the so-called West has at stake in its game. But this game is certainly dangerous, bloody and, I would say, dirty. It denies the sovereignty of countries and peoples, their identity and uniqueness, and tramples on the interests of other States. In any case, although denial is not the word used, they are doing it in real life. Nobody, except those who create these rules that I have mentioned, has the right to keep their identity: everyone else must comply with these rules.

In this regard, let me remind you of Russia’s proposals to our Western partners to build trust and a system of collective security. In December 2021 they were released again. However, in the modern world, doing nothing cannot work. Whoever sows winds reaps storms, as the saying goes. The crisis has taken on a global dimension and has affected the whole world. Don’t be under any illusions about it. Humanity is at a fork: continue to accumulate problems and end up crushed by their weight, or work together to find solutions. Humanity is at a fork: keep piling up problems and end up crushed under their weight, or work together to find solutions — even imperfect ones, as long as they work—that can make our world a more stable and secure place. I have always believed in the power of common sense. For this reason, I am convinced that, sooner or later, both the new centers of the multipolar international order and the West will have to start a dialogue on an equal footing on a common future for all of us, and the sooner the better, of course. In this regard, I will highlight some of the most important aspects for all of us.

Current events have overshadowed environmental issues. Oddly enough, this is what I would like to talk about today first. Climate change is no longer at the top of the agenda. But that fundamental challenge has not disappeared; it is still with us and growing. The loss of biodiversity is one of the most dangerous consequences of the alteration of the environmental balance. This brings me to the key point for which we have all gathered here. Isn’t it equally important to maintain cultural, social, political and civilizational diversity? At the same time, the smoothing over and erasing of any and all differences is essentially what the modern West does. What’s behind this? First of all, the decline of the creative potential of the West and its desire to stop and block the free development of other civilizations. There is also an openly commercial interest, of course. By imposing their values, their consumption habits and their standardization on others, our adversaries—I will be careful with my words—try to expand the markets for their products. The objective in this way is, in short, very primitive. It is remarkable that the West proclaims the universal value of its culture and worldview. Although they do not say it openly, which they often do, they behave as if it were so, as if it were a fact of life, and the policy they carry out is designed to demonstrate that these values must be accepted unconditionally by all other members of the international community. I would like to quote Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s famous speech at the Harvard commencement ceremony, delivered in 1978. He said that typical of the West is “a continual blindness of superiority”—and that it continues to this day — that “supports the belief that vast Regions around the planet must develop and mature to the level of today’s Western systems.” This he said in 1978. Nothing has changed. In the almost 50 years since then, the blindness that Solzhenitsyn spoke of, and which is openly racist and neo-colonial, has taken on particularly distorted forms, particularly after the emergence of the so-called unipolar world.

What do I mean? The belief in one’s own infallibility is very dangerous; it is only one step away from the desire of the infallible to destroy those they do not like, or as they say, to nullify them. Think about the meaning of this word. Even at the height of the Cold War, the height of the confrontation of the two systems, ideologies and military rivalry, it did not occur to anyone to deny the very existence of the culture, art and science of other peoples, their opponents. It didn’t even occur to anyone. Yes, certain restrictions were placed on contacts in the fields of education, science, culture and, unfortunately, sports. But, nevertheless, both the Soviet and the American leaders understood that it was necessary to treat the humanitarian field tactfully, studying and respecting your rival, and sometimes even borrowing from him in order to maintain a basis of solid and productive relations at least for the future. The Nazis once burned books, and now Western “guardians of liberalism and progress” have gone so far as to ban Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky. And what happens now? The so-called “annulment of culture” and in reality – as we have said many times – the real annulment of culture is the eradication of everything that is alive and creative and stifles free thought in all areas, be it the economy, politics or culture. Today, liberal ideology itself has changed beyond recognition. If at the beginning, classical liberalism was understood as the freedom of each person to do and say what they wanted, in the 20th century, liberals began to say that the so-called open society had enemies and that the freedom of these enemies could and should be restricted if not nullified.

An absurd point has been reached where any alternative opinion is declared subversive propaganda and a threat to democracy. Everything that comes from Russia is branded as “Kremlin intrigues”. But look at yourself. Are we really that omnipotent? Any criticism of our opponents—any—is perceived as “Kremlin intrigues”, “the hand of the Kremlin”. This is crazy. What have they come to? Use your brain, at least, say something more interesting, present your point of view conceptually. Not everything can be blamed on Kremlin intrigues. All this was prophetically predicted by Fyodor Dostoyevsky in the 19th century. One of the characters in his novel Demons, the nihilist Shigalev, described the brilliant future he envisioned as follows: “Starting from limitless freedom, I end with limitless despotism.” This is what our Western adversaries have come to. Another character in the novel, Pyotr Verkhovensky, echoes him, speaking of the need for universal betrayal, denunciation and espionage, and stating that society does not need talents or greater abilities: – Cicero has his tongue cut out, Copernicus gets his eyes gouged out and Shakespeare gets stoned. This is what our Western adversaries come to. What is this but western culture cancelled? These were great thinkers, and frankly, I’m grateful to my helpers for finding these quotes. What can be said to this?

History will surely put everything in its place and know who to override, and it will definitely not be the great works of the universally recognized geniuses of world culture, but those who for some reason have decided that they have the right to use world culture as they see fit. Their self-esteem has no limits. In a few years no one will remember their names. But Dostoevsky will live on, as will Tchaikovsky. Pushkin, however, much they would have liked otherwise. Standardization, financial and technological monopoly, the erasing of all differences is what underlies the Western model of globalization, which is neo-colonial in nature. His goal was clear: to establish the unconditional dominance of the West in the world economy and politics. To do this, the West put at its service all the natural and financial resources of the planet, as well as all the intellectual, human and economic capacities, alleging that it was a natural characteristic of the so-called new global interdependence. Here I would like to recall another Russian philosopher, Alexander Zinoviev, whose centenary of birth we will celebrate on October 29. More than 20 years ago, he said that Western civilization needed the entire planet as a means of existence and all the resources of humanity to survive at the level it had reached. That’s what they want, that’s exactly how it is. But as soon as non-Western countries began to reap some benefits from globalization, especially the big nations of Asia, the West immediately changed or abolished many of those rules altogether. And the so-called sacred principles of free trade, economic openness, equal competition, even property rights, were suddenly, completely forgotten. They change the rules on the fly, the moment they see an opportunity for them. Here is another example of substitution of concepts and meanings. For many years, Western ideologues and politicians have told the world that there is no alternative to democracy. It is true that they were referring to the Western style, to the so-called liberal model of democracy. They arrogantly rejected all other variants and forms of government of the people and, I want to emphasize it, they did so with contempt and disdain. This form has been configured since colonial times, as if everyone were second class, while they were exceptional. It has been this way for centuries and continues to this day.

(To Be Continued)

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November 27, 2022
Finca Solana
Corozal Town