Folks who know me are aware that I am no diplomat; the only piece of diplomacy I know is that one should take a quick, and long, walk in the forest if one has forgotten to wish the wife on one's wedding anniversary. But even such a geo-politically challenged individual can figure out what is happening today in the year 1AT (After Trump): the new global order looks like a sequel to Pirates of the Caribbean, with western "leaders" being made to walk the plank by a Captain Barbossa in the White House. And guess what? I'm happy about it all, because they deserve it.
One strategically placed, massive lump of ice in the Arctic has exposed the leaders of the countries of Western Europe, or the European Union, for the cynical hypocrites, racists, spineless transactionalists and colonists that they really are. Trump's threats and moves on "acquiring" Greenland (something he has coveted since his first term) have the Melonis, Starmers, Macrons, Freidrich Merzs and Von der Leyens now running around like headless chickens, screaming that the global "rules based order" is in danger and that Trump cannot violate the territorial sovereignty of another country. But that is exactly what all these morally defunct charlatans have been doing for the last three years in their fawning support for the genocide being waged daily in Palestine by the USA and Israel.
The USA has always been a predatory state- remember the "war against Communism" in Vietnam, Bay of Pigs in Cuba, the toppling of Patrice Lumumba in the Congo (1960), the coup against Mossadegh in Iran (1953), the ouster of Manuel Noriega in Panama (1989), the more recent attacks on the sovereignty of Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya? Remember also the support it provided to the savagery of tyrants like Pinochet and Somoza? But it did all this "legally"- building concensus, obtaining approval of its own Congress and the United Nations- in order to maintain the fig leaf cover of the rules based order. In Gaza and Palestine (and most recently in Venezuela), however, it discarded even this minimum vegetation of an excuse, giving all of us a sense of where it was ultimately headed-unilateral domination by force, grabbing of resources (oil, land, minerals) by replacing the rules based order with a "might based order".
For the last three years it has allowed-nay, enabled- a blood thirsty Netanyahu to murder a half a million Palestinians, continue with a planned genocide and forced displacement of millions more, convert the lives of the survivors into a living hell with no food, water, medical aid or education. It provided this Zionist Mephistopeles with billions of dollars of funding, weapons and munitions and the veto cover in the UN. And Europe did nothing- yes, the same Europe which is now so concerned about the rights of 56000 people in Greenland. Like, the 7 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have no rights? Or is it that they don't have white skins? Or that Mediterranean beach front real estate is more profitable than the frozen permafrost of Greenland?
Actually, it's probably not correct to say that the EU marionettes did nothing while 200000 women and children in Palestine were being slaughtered by Israel. No, sir, they were actually quite busy- holding innumerable conferences where only proforma noises were made over bagels and coffee, sending more weapons to Israel, concluding even more trade deals with the Zionist country, blocking every move in the UN to stop the destruction of Gaza and the usurpation of Palestine, cautioning Greata Thunberg against breaking the maritime siege of Gaza but doing nothing to help her in her relief efforts (actually, Ms. Meloni did consider giving her a naval escort but then decided that it was safer to go back to writing her autobiography), praising Trump's Gaza "Peace Plan" (they would all naturally get a slice of the Mar-o-Gaza on the Mediterranean.
In retrospect, one should not be surprised that Western Europe dipped its hands willingly in the blood shed by Israel and successive US Presidents in Gaza. It was perhaps constrained by its own colonial history, by the guilt of its own genocide and persecution of Jews in the past, by its latent racism. It did nothing.
And then Venezuela happened. It did nothing.
But now the monster it had nurtured is knocking on its own doors and it has no defence- moral, legal, or military. The United Nations cannot help because these same countries have defenestrated it with Trump's backing. They have no sympathisers or support in the Global South, all of whom have, at some time in the past and the present, been exploited by these partners-in-crime of Trump. In Greenland Europe now has to deal with a psychopathic President in an advanced stage of dementia, a Mafia boss, a Capo-di-tutti-Capi whose ideology is based on extortion, theft and violence.
The tables have turned for Western Europe, the hunter has become the hunted, in a way, and it does not know how to deal with it. It has always sided with the USA-Israel axis in their illegal attacks on the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Venezuela. For years it has sown the wind and now, with Greenland, it is time to reap the whirlwind. And worse is in store for it. As Ed Luce, the Editor of the Financial Times, told Karan Thapar in an interview this week, Europe is on the way to irrelevance. The world is headed for a tri-polar status, with the USA, Russia and China carving out and controlling their own backyards. There will be no place for Europe at the high table: it can cluster around its little "pond", bemoan its lack of conscience and spine, and continue (in the apt words of Mani Shankar Aiyar in another context), its "snivelling in the shadows of power."
One has to disagree with Avay Shukla on his accusation of Europe’s hypocrisy over Gaza versus Greenland. His argument rests on a questionable moral equivalence. The issue is not a simple binary of Good versus Bad, Indifference versus Support, or Resistance versus Imperialism, as he sketches it.
ReplyDeleteGaza is a wound shaped by decades of geopolitics, religion, territorial nationalism and cultural hostility. What now festers erupted long ago from irreconcilable Zionist and Palestinian national claims, regional power rivalries and repeated episodes of violence. Greenland, on the other hand, has no such historical or ideological origins. It represents a strategic and transactional contest - a preemptive geopolitical move by the United States to secure Arctic dominance against rival powers Russia and China. That the island is rich in minerals is an additional attraction (if not the main), however forefronted by its President.
Europe resists this directly because Greenland is territorially, politically and geographically embedded within its own sovereign framework. Being a part of Denmark, a direct challenge to Greenland is therefore a direct challenge to European territorial integrity. It is not ethical awakening that drives Europe’s reaction here, but strategic self-interest.
Avay Shukla also overlooks that India demonstrates the same differentiated approach that he condemns. India’s posture on Balochistan versus Kashmir follows precisely this logic of prioritisation of sovereignty. This should not be labelled hypocrisy; it is a recognised logic of statecraft. As an added illustration, India’s position on China, in the matter of Taiwan versus its border claims in Arunachal and Ladakh, reflects the same segregated approach. What Avay Shukla presents as an unprincipled double standard is, in reality, a systemic differentiation that operates across the international system.
There is little purpose in erecting a moral framework around this behaviour. Nations respond first to threats aimed at their own territorial and strategic interests. That may be uncomfortable, but it is the geopolitical reality. To collapse structurally different conflicts into one emotionally charged moral symmetry may satisfy sentiment, but does not stimulate intellectually.
What remains to be seen is whether US gets Greenland from Europe, for Avay Shukla to exult, "Serves you right!"
Mr.Patankar apparently obscures Israel ' s settler -colonial project under a pile of anodyne rhetorics to underplay European complicity. Geopolitical and historical reasons apart Israel ' s structural violence and assault goes beyond self defence and constitutes a " text book case of genocide".
DeleteGandhi saw the very creation of Jewish state with colonial support was a violation of moral code.
Avay Sukla is certainly right in calling this out and exposing the moral bankruptcy displayed by European Nations in Palestinian question. Hypocritical shrills against Trump' s Green land grab" can hardly justify European morality or lack of it.
A backfire of the sort as delivered by Mr. Indrajit Sen was anticipated.
DeleteEurope’s complicity in the devastation of the Middle East is not being denied here. Neither is an attempt being made to swivel the spotlight away from its role in the region. But the situation in Gaza is a mix of territorial nationalism, ethnic conflict, religious differences and a statehood dispute, all indigenous to the region. It has not been exacerbated to the current solutionless abyss simply because of a conniving Europe as Mr. Shukla and Mr. Sen like to think.
What Mr. Shukla is saying is this:
1. The US is a conscienceless predator.
2. Europe is a duplicitous merchant.
3. Gaza is a decrepit exhibit, made defunct chiefly by Europe's acquiescence to the US.
4. Greenland is the lamb that Europe is unwilling to dangle for slaughter.
This argument, however appealing to the emotions, is not functional in the real world which operates on hard self-sustainance.
Is it Mr. Shukla’s - and Mr. Indrajit Sen’s - expectation from Europe to relinquish Greenland out of moral compunctions arising from its role in the Middle East?
This is sovereignty in consideration here, not morality.
Excellent article written with great insight, thank you. Gives perspectives that mainstream media does not give, thank you,
ReplyDeleteI am extremely disappointed with Mr. Patankar's comments; he is usually quite lucid and rational in his dissections, but in this case I cannot for the life of me comprehend what he is trying to say. Is he arguing that "geo-political reality" justifies the slaughter of half a million people (250000 of them being women and children, all non-combatants), forced displacement of 3 million more, naked genocide of a whole race? This is not about historical disputes or a contest between "sovereignty" and "morality": Gaza and the West Bank are sovereign Palestinian territory by UN resolutions and what Israel, US and western Europe are doing is to negate that by force and suffering and impose a new reality. I am shocked that a person of his acumen is seeking to justify genocide and mass murder under the guise of "statecraft" and "real politic". By his logic even Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin and their likes were justified in their atrocities. I am sorry my blog does not "stimulate intellectually" someone like Mr. Patankar (his words) but I do hope he will realise that, at the end of the day, the excuse of politics as usual should not trump the need for humanity and compassion for the weak, and strength should not be a justification for inflicting suffering. Mr. Patankar may not agree, which is why I am disappointed. And if he cannot see the colour bias and rancid racism implicit in Europe's contrasting approaches to Gaza and Greenland, then maybe a trip to the ophthalmologist is called for.
ReplyDeleteLet it be stated unambiguously: at no point are human violence, mass displacement and civilian deaths ever justified. To bring them into question is to inject a moral - and manufactured - caricature into a feisty discussion that is steaming on logic - till now.
DeleteThe genocidists that Mr. Shukla names in his nettled response, the terrifying numbers he projects of those killed, the additional horror he introduces by separating the dead women and children numerically from the men, and the emphasis of the dead as non-combatants - all add to a rhetorically violent rebuttal, intended to overwhelm the followers rather than clarify.
These devices do not, however, serve his stand of conflating Gaza with Greenland. The two are different on all parameters of historical origins, geopolitical structure, legal status and strategic context.
Mr. Shukla’s attempt to draw a moral symmetry between them only enfeebles, rather than enhances his argument. When aggression and outrage are the overpowering tools of persuasion, there is little space left for readers to take a nuanced view of a complex matrix. The discourse then veers off the guard-rails to include prejudices of colour and racism without establishing them.
To condemn blindness is easy; to see and differentiate is difficult. That is what the dash to the Ophthalmologist revealed.