I am writing from Lisbon, and it is unpleasant for me that Russian television commentators, whose opinions often appear in translation on social media, insist on concluding their anti-European tirades by saying, “If necessary, we will stop only in Lisbon.”
It is from this perspective that we have to interpret the publications of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who now serves as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and who regularly ends them by emphasizing the goal of “Open Europe, from Lisbon to Vladivostok.” Europe is naturally open to the demands and whims of the Kremlin.
And this Tuesday (2), it was Vladimir Putin’s turn to say that Russia is “ready for war with Europe.” Of course, he began these statements by saying, “Russia does not want war, but if Europe insists on wanting war, we are ready.”
What war does Putin say Europe wants? Do we support Ukraine in defending the fundamental principle that no country can be torn apart by its more powerful and armed neighbour?
Putin’s position is similar to that of many aggressors who blame the victims for their attacks. Adolf Hitler also said in 1939 that his “love of peace” and “infinite patience” should not be “confused with weakness or even cowardice.” The day after the invasion of Poland that year, he lied that Warsaw had fired for the first time on German territory to achieve the result he had always wanted: “From now on, the price for bombs will be paid with bombs!”
Do Europeans panic when they take the statements of Putin and his companions seriously? What should we do then?
In the other hemisphere, how should we react to the reversals of language that Trump uses to justify the escalation that today is no longer just rhetoric, and who knows what it will be like tomorrow, against Venezuela?
Just as migrations are described as invasions to justify armed repression, drug trafficking is wrapped in a discourse of “poisoning and narco-terrorism” that is nothing more than the invention of a “causa-war,” a pretext for war, whether it is actually used or not.
Even for those who dislike Nicolas Maduro and reject his authoritarian regime pretending to be Bolivarian, it is clear that this is nothing more than a farce with potentially dangerous consequences.
In this sense, Latin America and Europe have more in common than we often notice. We are two groups of diverse, sometimes traumatized, but generally peaceful, countries that have to share their continent with a neighbor that has reacted badly to their imperial decline and wants to return to their original “sphere of influence,” ruling its neighbors around it.
We must prepare ourselves quietly, discreetly, without making a fuss, but methodically, to be responsible adults in our part of the world, including in our relationships with each other.
exaggeration? “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you,” says a phrase that no one really knows who invented it. The question for me today is who to apply it to.
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