It has been all very ugly, aggressive and often distinctly vulgar: the way the British Foreign Secretary has behaved before and during his official visit to Moscow.
Mr. Johnson described Russia as “closed, nasty, militaristic and anti-democratic” concluding that it could not be “business as usual”.
He did not define what the UK has become, and the Russian hosts were too polite to explain.
The “business as usual” it was not.
During the last few weeks, the behavior patterns of both the UK and US have began increasingly to resemble those of the badly brought up leadership of the provincial Italian mafia: “You do as we tell you, or we’ll poke out your eyes… or break your leg… or perhaps we’ll kidnap your daughter”.
It appears that there is absolutely no shame left in Washington, in London, and in several other ‘provincial capitals’ of the Empire. Insults are piling on insults and then shot to all corners of the globe. Lies are being spread barefacedly, and bizarre deceptions and fabrications have been manufactured with impressive speed.
It is clear that the Empire is now missing its composure, its nerve; that it is scared of losing its control over the world and its monopoly on deciding what should be universally accepted as the truth.
The more the world realizes that it has been controlled and brutalized by shameless neo-colonialist gangsters, the more the Empire says, indirectly but sometimes even straight into the faces of the international community: “Our interests are what really matter! You will behave and obey, or we will smash you to pieces, starve you to death, invade you and bathe your land in blood”.
It is nothing new, of course: the West has been doing all this for many decades and centuries. Hundreds of millions of Asians, Africans, South Americans, Middle Easterners and Russians lost their lives in the process. All non-white continents were occupied, plundered and enslaved; all, without a single exception. But it was always done “for the good of the victims”, or “in order to protect them” (most likely from themselves).
The Brits were at the forefront of the art of manipulating the brains of their ‘subjects’. Their propaganda used to be refined, effective, some would even say ‘brilliant’. For decades after the end of the Second World War, they used to teach its offspring in North America and Australia, how to lie elegantly and how to convince even those nations that were being barbarically raped, that they were actually being rescued, pampered and made love to, gently and respectfully.
Now the masks have fallen off, and the ugly, gangrenous face of imperialism has been clearly exposed. Britain is simply not in the mood for refinements. It is brutal. It was always brutal. Now it is also, finally, honest.
It is all absolutely frightening, but it is also good, truly significant, that the West is suddenly behaving with such clarity.
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What is it that Mr. Johnson is accusing Russia of? Of liberating Syria from those Western, Saudi, and Qatari backed terrorist groups? What else could be expected from the Foreign Secretary of the country that had been, for long centuries, the mightiest, ruthless and the most deceptive colonialist empire in the history of the mankind? Mr. Johnson is definitely not going to thank the liberator of the oppressed people, is it?
In his open letter to Boris Johnson, the British writer and journalist Neil Clark wrote:
In April you canceled your planned visit to Moscow and traveled to the G7 talks instead, where you urged other countries to consider fresh sanctions against Russia (and Syria), saying that Vladimir Putin was “toxifying his image” by backing Assad.
But if Russia hadn’t supported the Syrian government, ISIS/Al-Qaeda affiliates would probably have taken control of the whole country. Is that what you wanted?
Of course it was! More chaos, the better!
The UK has been playing appalling, truly Machiavellian games all over the Middle East, and it has been doing it for centuries – in Palestine, in what is now Iraq and Kuwait, and in many other areas. To borrow from the colorful lexicon of the Prime Minister Lloyd George, it was reserving rights “to bomb those niggers”, to bomb them and to fry them alive, to rob them of everything, even of the land itself. The UK, together with their close friends and allies such as Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab, managed to manufacture the most conservative branch of Islam, just in order to keep the local population in fear and submission to its commercial and colonialist interests.
The country responsible for hundreds of millions of dead, for tens of millions of human beings who have been hunted down like animals and shipped to America as slaves, has been reserving the right to judge the world, to decide what is ‘free’ and what is not, what is ‘democratic’ and what is dictatorial, what is true and what is false or even ‘fake’.
‘Fake news’ – the latest invention of the crumbling, paranoid Western regime!
Now the Empire is hunting down almost all ‘alternative media’ outlets, including the highly successful and informative RT (Russia Today) international television channel. It is important to remember and to understand: only the official Western channels and press agencies are allowed to spread indoctrination all over the world. To broadcast or to print ‘counter-propaganda’ (or call it an intellectual detox) is considered an arch crime, and punished as such. The RT is now portrayed as a hive of ‘agents’, at least in both Washington and London.
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As the Syrian city of Aleppo was celebrating its first anniversary of liberation, grateful citizens were carrying, in reverent silence, portraits of Russian soldiers who spilled their blood for the liberation of their nation.
The Syrian people know, they clearly understand, who ignited the war, and who came to their rescue.
Boris Johnson can insult Russia as much as he desires, but one thing he cannot deny: there are no men, women and children carrying portraits of British soldiers, be it in Iraq or Afghanistan, in Syria, Libya or Yemen.
In Yemen, the UK talks peace but manufactures bombs that are enriching the already deadly Saudi arsenal of weapons, used to terrorize, and to murder thousands of defenseless Yemeni civilians.
Russian Foreign Secretary Sergei Lavrov said nothing about the crimes against humanity that are being committed by British troops in several parts of the world. I believe that he should have said something, that he should have said a lot, but Mr. Lavrov is a seasoned diplomat, and he knows perfectly well what is appropriate, what is effective and what is counter-productive.
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Yes, the Empire is evidently in panic.
It is scared of everything: of public opinion all over the world, of the great Chinese new Silk Road initiative which is gaining great popularity all over the Asian continent, of the Sino-Russian alliance, of the silent rebellion in the ranks of its former allies, particularly in Asia, of the undeniably increasing economic might of its adversaries, of the new ‘alternative media’, and even of its own tail lost somewhere in the darkness.
For many years, one effective way for the Empire to control the world was to spread dark cynicism and nihilism, in order to ‘pacify’, to immobilize its colonies and even its own people living in Europe and North America. Now this strategy is backfiring: British and North American citizens are not only passive and unwilling to fight for the internationalist and left wing ideals, they are also unimpressed, even disgusted with their own rulers and regime. Yes, most of them are cynical about such countries like Russia, China or Venezuela, but they are also cynical about the corporatism, capitalism, as well as Western domestic and foreign policy. They are not willing to commit to anything. They trust nothing. They believe in very few things.
For the Empire, people like Boris Johnson are extremely useful buffoons: they offer cheap entertainment to the masses, and they deliver it with impeccable upper-class English accents (the BBC-style). They play it dirty, trying to smear, to humiliate their opponents. They try to bring back pride to their imperialist and white supremacist regime, by humiliating the victims, who are now finally standing on their feet and ready to fight for the right to be different.
People like Mr. Johnson turn reality upside down, and it is all done ‘spontaneously’, with a boyish, almost innocent grin. Except that there is actually absolutely nothing innocent in this entire charade. It is all perfectly choreographed, all extremely professional.
*****
The Empire is rotting and it is in agony. It panics. It fights for its life.
Peace is dangerous. If the world is at peace, it is indisputable that the Western Empire would lose, in no time. It would be defeated on social, moral, creative and even economic fronts.
That is why the Empire is spreading chaos, fear, war, perpetual conflicts and antagonism everywhere, all over the world: in Syria and Afghanistan, Libya, in all corners of Africa and parts of Southeast Asia, in Iran, Central and South America, even in the tiniest countries of Oceania.
It is challenging, provoking North Korea, it is insulting countries that have already suffered more than enough from Western terror and barbarism; countries like Russia, China and Iran.
It threatens those nations (and even some international organizations like UNESCO) that are supporting Palestine.
It essentially bullies all those who want to live their own lives, their own cultures, and their own economic and social systems. It punishes those countries that are refusing to plunder their own people and resources in order to support the high-life of the Western nations. It overthrows governments, and murders individuals.
*****
In Moscow, the British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson made a fool of himself. He did! With his unmistakable spineless jellyfish style, he tried but failed to humiliate the nation, which, for several centuries fought determinedly against Western imperialism and colonialism, and, on numerous occasions has already managed to save the world.
Mr. Johnson applied an old and rather disgusting approach: he came to Russia with spite and superiority complex, ready to preach, to insult, to scold those white-looking but essentially Asian people – to ‘show them their place’.
But this is 2017 now, not 1990. London is not the center of the universe, anymore, just the capital of a confused and rather aggressive and increasingly badly behaved nation.
The British bulldog came to Moscow. Frankly, it did not even look like a bulldog, anymore – it looked totally… weird: stoned and mentally unbalanced. It barked and barked, while the Russian bear was calm, maintaining its composure. It was clear who of the two has the upper hand, and who is provoking and who is refusing to fight. It was also obvious who of the two is really scared.
And, it was so apparent to whom belongs the past and to whom belongs the future!
• First published in New Eastern Outlook (NEO)