Paul
Goble
Staunton, August 6 – During the Cold
War, some on the European left routinely chanted “better red than dead” to show
their opposition to the United States. Now, their descendants have updated that
slogan for analogous reasons to “better Putin than a Muslim,” according to
Prague commentator Václav Vlk.
In
“Neviditelny Pes” this week, Vlk points to this latest version of a slogan
which first appeared among German soldiers in World War II who earlier declared
“better dead than red” as evidence of the way in which European thinking has
evolved (neviditelnypes.lidovky.cz/evropa-lieber-rot-als-tot-i-d08-/p_zahranici.aspx?c=A150802_205520_p_zahranici_wag).
The
slogan “better red than dead,” the Czech writer points out, reflected not only
opposition to the US but also “fear of the Soviet Union and its rockets and
tanks.” Many, especially young Germans
thus declared their preference to be “red” not “dead.” Now, many in Europe fear the influx of
Muslims and thus they look to Russia and Putin.
The
new “’arabized’” Muslim immigrants in Europe, who Vlk says “hate our culture
and us in general” regardless of our politics are “the problem” that has
changed Europe. “In their eyes,” he argues, all Europeans are simply “unbelievers”
who should be converted or destroyed in the name of Islam.
“The
optimists” among Europeans, he continues, “suppose that when the jihadists get
fat and calm down after the seizure of Europe and when through the use of
murders they achieve the complete submission of the population, then our situation
will recall that of Christians in the Ottoman Empire.” As to how that worked in
practice, “ask the Bulgarians or the Serbs.”
European
elites have been unwilling to face up to this threat, Vlk argues, but many in
the populations of European countries see it – and that explains why they are
shifting their views not only about Europe about whose future they have great
doubts but also about Putin’s Russia and how they should relate to it.
European
populations are increasingly alienated from the ruling elites whose
multiculturalist approach they distrust and see as the reason that Muslims now
threaten their countries. Some Czechs, Vlk continues, dismiss the EU’s approach
with the “ironic comment” that “they have struggle for human rights so long
that they have reached the mosque.”
Consequently,
“people are searching for a way out,” and “despite the enormous delight at
meetings with American soldiers” who have come into the region, “media
observers note that on Internet sites, there are appearing ever more supporters
of Russia and of Putin.”
This
is not “despite” Crimea but “even possibly “precisely because of it,” Vlk says.
Many view Putin’s “seizure of Crimea” as “base against the penetration of
Muslims to the North (Crimean Tatars and Turkey)” and thus conclude that
annexing it to Russia was “a great idea” that they should support.
Moreover,
a shot clip on Youtube showing Russian soldiers killing Somali pirates has not
appalled Europeans. “’That is how one must act,’ think the majority of ‘white
residents of Europe and probably Australia, ‘rather than babbling about human
rights and paying off the pirates while allowing them to kill ours.’”
“It
is unbelievable,” Vlk continues, “how US foreign policy over the last 20 years
has been able to transform friendly countries which welcomed the US and the
West as their saviors and as examples for emulation into countries of
unconcealed hostility the US among a significant part of the population.”
At
the same time, he says, no one familiar with history should have been entirely
surprised. “Already from Napoleon’s time, but above all from the time of ‘national
rebirth’ not only Czech but also Serbian, Bulgarian, Slovenian and others,
these peoples have balanced between ‘West’ and ‘East.’”
They have done so “in the interests of
their national survival,” and consequently, “every time when an internal crisis
and war begins in the West or when it simply makes a mistake, these peoples) and
not only they but also, let us say,” Vlk adds, “Austria) turn to Russia.” That
is what is happening now.
These peoples “understand that this
is a Byzantine despotism” regardless of its formal title, “but there is the
conviction that it is possible to survive in its shadow. With difficulty and
misfortunes but possible nonetheless.” Hence, he suggests, the slogan of today,
“better Putin than a Muslim.”
Those who can’t see this, the Czech
writer says, don’t have any political vision: they “can’t see further than
their own nose.”
Obviously, not everyone in Europe
feels this way or shares the xenophobic attitudes toward Muslims that Vlk
points to. But the attitude he points
to, with what might be called its “survivalist roots” undoubtedly plays a
large, even growing role in the politics of many countries on the continent.
And it can be opposed only if it is first understood.
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