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The Road to Ukraine: How the West Lost its Way
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is the latest chapter in a series of events that have their origins in World War One. The difficult existential questions that emerged before and during this conflict still remain unresolved. Contrary to the claim that wars are not supposed to happen in Europe or that we live in the era of the End of History, the experience of Ukraine highlights the salience of the spell of the past. The failure of the West to take its past seriously has left it confused and unprepared to deal with the current crisis. Unexpectedly fashionable claims about the irrelevance of borders and of nation states have been exposed as shallow myths. The author argues that the West’s self-inflicted condition of historical amnesia has encouraged it to disregard the salience of geo-political realities. Suddenly the once fashionable claims that made up the virtues of globalisation appear threadbare. This problem, which was already evident during the global Covid pandemic has reached a crisis point in the battlefield of Ukraine. History has had its revenge on a culture that believes that what happened in the past no longer matters. The Road To How the West Lost Its Way argues that overcoming the state of historical amnesia is the precondition for the restoration of global solidarity.
- GenresPolitics
175 pages, Kindle Edition
Published September 6, 2022
2 people are currently reading
36 people want to read
About the author
Frank Furedi
69 books92 followersFrank Furedi is a professor of sociology at the University of Kent, UK.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
October 14, 2022
One of the profoundest books I have read about Ukraine crisis. How the collective West lost its way, its historical amnesia, its disastrous moral posturing, Western elite's efforts in reviving moribund globalization, its selfish abuse of Ukrainian troops to arrest the downward slide- Furedi has meticulously examined all these things. I am delighted that Furedi has termed the current era as a multipolar one. He, however, has reservations regarding the proclamation that a New World Order has emerged. The tussle between advocates of state sovereignty and the advocates of a borderless world, identity politics bedeviling the West, the New Federalists' pipe dream are some topics that have been dealt with deftly. Overall, a delightful read! Furedi as a westerner himseld bemoans the decline of the West but Let the West continue making mistakes and lose its pole position.
December 30, 2024
(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)
Всё переплетено, море нитей, но
Потяни за нить, за ней потянется клубок
Этот мир — веретено, совпадений ноль
Нитью быть или струной или для битвы тетивой?
Всё переплетено в единый моток
Нитяной комок и не ситцевый платок
Перекати-поле гонит с неба ветерок
Всё переплетено, но не предопределено
Книга написана очень мутно. А когда книга пишется мутно, невольно возникает ощущение что делается это намеренно, чтобы ввести читателя в заблуждение или чтобы он до конца не понял, что хотел сказать автор. С этой книгой у меня случилось примерно то же самое, ибо я так и не понял ключевую идею автора. Автор, разумеется, подытожил написанное, но из этого объяснения любой читатель может сделать какой угодно вывод.
Western societies will have to learn that you cannot pause or delete history. As the war in Ukraine illustrates, the past caches up with us sooner or later.
Да, автор главным образом будет ссылаться на некую историю, которую забыли страны Запада, но что конкретно подразумевается под «you cannot pause or delete history», не понятно. Можно предположить, что речь идёт об эпохе Холодной Войны, а это значит, автор продвигает известный нарратив, что война в Украине случилась именно потому, что страны Запада забыли об этой самой Холодной Войне и о негласном правиле не расширять НАТО на Восток. Однако с другой стороны, автор является очевидным противником глобализации и поэтому под историей может пониматься историческая Европа с чётко очерченными границами, в которой отсутствовали надгосударственные образования типа ЕС и куда Украина так рьяно пытается попасть.
The outsourcing of decision-making to organisations like the IMF, WTO or the EU allowed governments to avoid taking responsibility for the unpopular measures imposed on their citizens by these institutions. In effect, these globalist institutions sought to depoliticise decision-making, constrain the influence of national sovereignty and severely limit the workings of democracy.
или
He added that ‘international institutions could not stop Putin from invading Ukraine’. Yet again the experience of Ukraine highlights an important historical fact, which is that national security should not be outsourced to an external agency.
Как видим, под фразой «you cannot pause or delete history» может пониматься очень многое. Как я сказал выше, книга написана таким образом, что трудно понять, что автор в точности имеет в виду. Возможно, англоязычный читатель это поймёт, но с моей точки зрения, автор намеренно не изъясняется просто и понятно. Поэтому не удивлюсь, если кто-то укажет мне, что я просто не понял «всей гениальности автора». Но возможно, автор говорит о желании многих украинцев отдать решение всех важных проблем, как например, построение устойчивой демократии и борьба с коррупцией на аутсорсинг ЕС. Вполне возможно.
Ближе к концу автор начинает яростно критиковать представителей стран Запада из-за того, что они занимаются самопиаром на теме страдания украинского народа из-за того что «The EU faces an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, and many of its leaders are acutely sensitive to their lack of moral authority». В целом, такая критика оправдана, но мне кажется, автор пытается найти чёрную кошку в тёмной комнате, в которой нет никакой чёрной кошки. Да, его критика европейских бюрократов выглядит оправданной, но так уж ли она важна в рамках событий в Украине?
‘Ukraine has unified the EU like never before by giving it a renewed sense of purpose’, wrote Paul Grod for the Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s struggle for its national independence is regularly presented as a crusade for promoting EU values. Writing in this vein, Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian claimed that ‘Zelensky and his people are fighting for their lives to defend European values.
Fukuyama’s representation of Ukraine as the saviour of liberalism and freedom is connected to the belief that the negative example of Russia’s behaviour and the setback suffered by Putin can be used to strike a blow against populism within the United States. That is why he predicted the imminent ‘new birth of freedom’ leading to the final defeat of populism. From this perspective, the forces of populism in the U.S, and Putin are connected so that the defeat of the latter would represent a major setback to the former.
Ukraine has even been instrumentalised to support the cause of Scottish independence. ‘Ukraine war bolsters the case for independence’, argued Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland.
Перечитывая эти цитаты из книги, в которых автор выдвигает претензии своим соотечественникам (справедливые, замечу), я вдруг подумал, что автор этой книги занимается тем же самым, т.е. он использует тему войны в Украине, чтобы в очередной раз напасть на сторонников глобализма. В этом случаи он мало чем отличается от критикуемых им людей. Конечно, каждый заводит свою шарманку, но опять же, насколько это является важным в рамках всей катастрофы, которая разворачивается между Россией, Украиной и Беларусью? Возможно, в обвинениях автора имеется какой-то другой смысл, нежели тот, который обнаружил я. Я хочу сказать, что автор прямо не говорит, что же он предлагает. Нужно не занимается продвижением собственных идей на фоне украинского кризиса, это я понял, но что потом?
Возможно обвинения европейских бюрократов, а также журналистов и политологов в самопиаре объясняется ещё тем, что автор видит в этом не попытку разрешить конфликт между Россией и Украиной, а разрешить собственные внутриэлитные политические проблемы внутри Европы для чего из Путина лепят некий вариант Гитлера 2.0.
The anachronistic thinking of the current era leads newspaper commentators to ask, ‘Is Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler? Is Russia a fascist danger to world peace, as was Nazi Germany?’ before answering, ‘the parallels are disturbingly familiar’. One political scientist, Alexander Motyl, declared, ‘Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist’. And Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, stated that Putin’s ‘monstrous ideology’ poses a ‘deadly threat to Europe’. He claimed that Putin was more dangerous than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
It is particularly worrying when professional historians make tenuous and strained comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Nazi Germany. Thus Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, declared, ‘We should say it. Russia is Fascist’. To validate his argument, he adopted the thesis that claims that fascism is defined principally by ‘the triumph of will over reason’. If one was to rely on this ahistorical definition, literally every unreasonable pursuit of violence – from the pursuit of violence by the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century to jihadist aggression in 20th century Syria – could be described as fascistic.
Я специально привёл такую длинную цитату из книги, т.к. она очень хорошо смотрится на контрасте с нынешней реальностью, когда США больше интересуются своей границей с Мексикой, а не свержением новоявленного «российского Гитлера» или когда в Европе появляется всё больше стран, которые не только покупают у «фашистской России» нефть и газ, но и предлагают Украине сесть за стол переговоров. Возможно, именно в этом несоответствии риторики и действительности и кроется смысл критики автора европейских бюрократов?
In a recently published survey designed to explain who amongst the Ukrainian population is willing to fight and what motivated their decision to take up arms, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova note that ‘feelings of Ukrainian pride and self-identified closeness to the country were indeed positive predictors of willingness for military service, while Russophone populations were more reluctant to join up’
<…>
The authors’ counter-position of the forces of nationalism and appeals to democratic freedom is likely to be influenced by a mistaken view that perceives nationalism as the antithesis of democracy. Rather, the sense of pride in nationhood is often intertwined with the aspiration for freedom and democracy.
Отдельно отмечу термин «Russophone populations» под которыми подразумеваются восточные украинцы, что ли? Откуда такая осведомлённость у авторов, какие регионы преобладают в нынешней украинской армии? Я видел и русскоговорящих украинских солдат или это не считается?
Как видим на примере этих двух цитат, идея автора может заключаться не только в критике глобализма с его надгосударственными структурами типа ЕС, которым отдают на аутсорсинг важные политические задачи (борьба с коррупцией, построение демократических институтов), но и первостепенной является упрочнение националистической повестки, ибо только она способна, в отличие от евробюрократов, на реальные действия, как например, защита страны от агрессора. В этом смысле идеи автор становятся более видимыми. В контексте этого риторика европейцев (Путин и РФ как новый фашизм) рассматривается как спектакль для собственных граждан. В таком случаи вполне оправданным видится мне следующее заявление автора.
That, at the turn of the 21st century, war could serve as the source of moral rehabilitation, explains the Cold War envy that has been evoked by the conflict in Ukraine. For many policy makers, the public’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also represented a ‘wonderful, heart swelling surprise’.
---
The book is written in a very vague way. And when a book is written in a vague way, one can't help but feel that it is done intentionally to mislead the reader or to make him not fully understand what the author wanted to say. I had the same thing happen to me with this book because I never understood the author's key idea. The author summarized what he wrote, but from this explanation, any reader can draw whatever conclusion they want.
Western societies will have to learn that you cannot pause or delete history. As the war in Ukraine illustrates, the past caches up with us sooner or later.
Yes, the author will mainly refer to some history that the Western countries have forgotten, but what exactly is meant by "you cannot pause or delete history" is not clear. It can be assumed that we are talking about the Cold War era, which means that the author is promoting the well-known narrative that the war in Ukraine happened precisely because Western countries forgot about the Cold War and the unspoken rule not to expand NATO to the East. However, on the other hand, the author is an obvious opponent of globalization, therefore history can be understood as historical Europe with clearly defined borders, where there were no supranational entities like the EU and where Ukraine is trying so zealously to get to.
The outsourcing of decision-making to organisations like the IMF, WTO or the EU allowed governments to avoid taking responsibility for the unpopular measures imposed on their citizens by these institutions. In effect, these globalist institutions sought to depoliticise decision-making, constrain the influence of national sovereignty and severely limit the workings of democracy.
or
He added that ‘international institutions could not stop Putin from invading Ukraine’. Yet again the experience of Ukraine highlights an important historical fact, which is that national security should not be outsourced to an external agency.
As you can see, the phrase "you cannot pause or delete history" can mean a lot of things. As I said above, the book is written in such a way that it is difficult to understand exactly what the author means. Perhaps an English-speaking reader will understand it, but from my point of view, the author deliberately does not make it simple and clear. So I would not be surprised if someone points out to me that I just didn't understand "all the genius of the author." But perhaps the author is talking about the desire of many Ukrainians to outsource all important problems, such as building sustainable democracy and fighting corruption, to the EU. Quite possibly.
Toward the end, the author begins to fiercely criticize the representatives of the Western countries because they are engaged in self-promotion on the topic of the suffering of the Ukrainian people because «The EU faces an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, and many of its leaders are acutely sensitive to their lack of moral authority». In general, such criticism is justified, but it seems to me that the author is trying to find a black cat in a dark room where there is no black cat. Yes, his criticism of European bureaucrats looks justified, but is it so important in the context of the events in Ukraine?
‘Ukraine has unified the EU like never before by giving it a renewed sense of purpose’, wrote Paul Grod for the Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s struggle for its national independence is regularly presented as a crusade for promoting EU values. Writing in this vein, Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian claimed that ‘Zelensky and his people are fighting for their lives to defend European values.
Fukuyama’s representation of Ukraine as the saviour of liberalism and freedom is connected to the belief that the negative example of Russia’s behaviour and the setback suffered by Putin can be used to strike a blow against populism within the United States. That is why he predicted the imminent ‘new birth of freedom’ leading to the final defeat of populism. From this perspective, the forces of populism in the U.S, and Putin are connected so that the defeat of the latter would represent a major setback to the former.
Ukraine has even been instrumentalised to support the cause of Scottish independence. ‘Ukraine war bolsters the case for independence’, argued Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland.
Rereading these quotes from the book, in which the author makes claims to his compatriots (fair, I note), I suddenly thought that the author of this book is doing the same thing, i.e., he is using the topic of the war in Ukraine to once again attack the supporters of globalism. In this case, he is not much different from the people he criticizes. Of course, everyone is talking about their own, but then again, how important is that in the context of the whole disaster that is unfolding between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus? Perhaps there is some other meaning in the author's accusations than the one I found. My point is that the author does not directly say what he proposes. It is necessary not to promote one's own ideas against the backdrop of the Ukrainian crisis - I understand that, but then what?
Perhaps the accusations of European bureaucrats, as well as journalists and political analysts in self-promotion can be explained by the fact that the author sees in this not an attempt to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine but to solve their own internal elite political problems within Europe for which purpose they mold Putin as a kind of Hitler 2.0.
The anachronistic thinking of the current era leads newspaper commentators to ask, ‘Is Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler? Is Russia a fascist danger to world peace, as was Nazi Germany?’ before answering, ‘the parallels are disturbingly familiar’. One political scientist, Alexander Motyl, declared, ‘Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist’. And Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, stated that Putin’s ‘monstrous ideology’ poses a ‘deadly threat to Europe’. He claimed that Putin was more dangerous than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
It is particularly worrying when professional historians make tenuous and strained comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Nazi Germany. Thus Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, declared, ‘We should say it. Russia is Fascist’. To validate his argument, he adopted the thesis that claims that fascism is defined principally by ‘the triumph of will over reason’. If one was to rely on this ahistorical definition, literally every unreasonable pursuit of violence – from the pursuit of violence by the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century to jihadist aggression in 20th century Syria – could be described as fascistic.
I have purposely given such a long quote from the book because it looks very good in contrast to the current reality when the U.S. is more interested in its border with Mexico than in overthrowing the new "Russian Hitler" or when in Europe, there are more and more countries that not only buy oil and gas from "fascist Russia," but also offer Ukraine to come to the negotiating table. Could it be that this discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is the point of the author's criticism of European bureaucrats?
In a recently published survey designed to explain who amongst the Ukrainian population is willing to fight and what motivated their decision to take up arms, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova note that ‘feelings of Ukrainian pride and self-identified closeness to the country were indeed positive predictors of willingness for military service, while Russophone populations were more reluctant to join up’
<…>
The authors’ counter-position of the forces of nationalism and appeals to democratic freedom is likely to be influenced by a mistaken view that perceives nationalism as the antithesis of democracy. Rather, the sense of pride in nationhood is often intertwined with the aspiration for freedom and democracy.
I would like to separately note the term "Russophone populations," which means eastern Ukrainians or what? How do the authors know which regions are predominant in the current Ukrainian army? I have also seen Russian-speaking Ukrainian soldiers, or does that not count?
As we can see from these two quotations, the author's idea may consist not only of criticizing globalism with its supranational structures like the EU, to which important political tasks (fighting corruption, building democratic institutions) are outsourced but also of strengthening the nationalist agenda, because only it is capable, unlike Eurobureaucrats, of real actions, such as defending the country from an aggressor. In this sense, the author's ideas become more visible. In this context, the rhetoric of the Europeans (Putin and the Russian Federation as a new fascism) is seen as a spectacle for its own citizens. In this case, the following statement of the author seems to me quite justified.
That, at the turn of the 21st century, war could serve as the source of moral rehabilitation, explains the Cold War envy that has been evoked by the conflict in Ukraine. For many policy makers, the public’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also represented a ‘wonderful, heart swelling surprise’.
Всё переплетено, море нитей, но
Потяни за нить, за ней потянется клубок
Этот мир — веретено, совпадений ноль
Нитью быть или струной или для битвы тетивой?
Всё переплетено в единый моток
Нитяной комок и не ситцевый платок
Перекати-поле гонит с неба ветерок
Всё переплетено, но не предопределено
Книга написана очень мутно. А когда книга пишется мутно, невольно возникает ощущение что делается это намеренно, чтобы ввести читателя в заблуждение или чтобы он до конца не понял, что хотел сказать автор. С этой книгой у меня случилось примерно то же самое, ибо я так и не понял ключевую идею автора. Автор, разумеется, подытожил написанное, но из этого объяснения любой читатель может сделать какой угодно вывод.
Western societies will have to learn that you cannot pause or delete history. As the war in Ukraine illustrates, the past caches up with us sooner or later.
Да, автор главным образом будет ссылаться на некую историю, которую забыли страны Запада, но что конкретно подразумевается под «you cannot pause or delete history», не понятно. Можно предположить, что речь идёт об эпохе Холодной Войны, а это значит, автор продвигает известный нарратив, что война в Украине случилась именно потому, что страны Запада забыли об этой самой Холодной Войне и о негласном правиле не расширять НАТО на Восток. Однако с другой стороны, автор является очевидным противником глобализации и поэтому под историей может пониматься историческая Европа с чётко очерченными границами, в которой отсутствовали надгосударственные образования типа ЕС и куда Украина так рьяно пытается попасть.
The outsourcing of decision-making to organisations like the IMF, WTO or the EU allowed governments to avoid taking responsibility for the unpopular measures imposed on their citizens by these institutions. In effect, these globalist institutions sought to depoliticise decision-making, constrain the influence of national sovereignty and severely limit the workings of democracy.
или
He added that ‘international institutions could not stop Putin from invading Ukraine’. Yet again the experience of Ukraine highlights an important historical fact, which is that national security should not be outsourced to an external agency.
Как видим, под фразой «you cannot pause or delete history» может пониматься очень многое. Как я сказал выше, книга написана таким образом, что трудно понять, что автор в точности имеет в виду. Возможно, англоязычный читатель это поймёт, но с моей точки зрения, автор намеренно не изъясняется просто и понятно. Поэтому не удивлюсь, если кто-то укажет мне, что я просто не понял «всей гениальности автора». Но возможно, автор говорит о желании многих украинцев отдать решение всех важных проблем, как например, построение устойчивой демократии и борьба с коррупцией на аутсорсинг ЕС. Вполне возможно.
Ближе к концу автор начинает яростно критиковать представителей стран Запада из-за того, что они занимаются самопиаром на теме страдания украинского народа из-за того что «The EU faces an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, and many of its leaders are acutely sensitive to their lack of moral authority». В целом, такая критика оправдана, но мне кажется, автор пытается найти чёрную кошку в тёмной комнате, в которой нет никакой чёрной кошки. Да, его критика европейских бюрократов выглядит оправданной, но так уж ли она важна в рамках событий в Украине?
‘Ukraine has unified the EU like never before by giving it a renewed sense of purpose’, wrote Paul Grod for the Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s struggle for its national independence is regularly presented as a crusade for promoting EU values. Writing in this vein, Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian claimed that ‘Zelensky and his people are fighting for their lives to defend European values.
Fukuyama’s representation of Ukraine as the saviour of liberalism and freedom is connected to the belief that the negative example of Russia’s behaviour and the setback suffered by Putin can be used to strike a blow against populism within the United States. That is why he predicted the imminent ‘new birth of freedom’ leading to the final defeat of populism. From this perspective, the forces of populism in the U.S, and Putin are connected so that the defeat of the latter would represent a major setback to the former.
Ukraine has even been instrumentalised to support the cause of Scottish independence. ‘Ukraine war bolsters the case for independence’, argued Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland.
Перечитывая эти цитаты из книги, в которых автор выдвигает претензии своим соотечественникам (справедливые, замечу), я вдруг подумал, что автор этой книги занимается тем же самым, т.е. он использует тему войны в Украине, чтобы в очередной раз напасть на сторонников глобализма. В этом случаи он мало чем отличается от критикуемых им людей. Конечно, каждый заводит свою шарманку, но опять же, насколько это является важным в рамках всей катастрофы, которая разворачивается между Россией, Украиной и Беларусью? Возможно, в обвинениях автора имеется какой-то другой смысл, нежели тот, который обнаружил я. Я хочу сказать, что автор прямо не говорит, что же он предлагает. Нужно не занимается продвижением собственных идей на фоне украинского кризиса, это я понял, но что потом?
Возможно обвинения европейских бюрократов, а также журналистов и политологов в самопиаре объясняется ещё тем, что автор видит в этом не попытку разрешить конфликт между Россией и Украиной, а разрешить собственные внутриэлитные политические проблемы внутри Европы для чего из Путина лепят некий вариант Гитлера 2.0.
The anachronistic thinking of the current era leads newspaper commentators to ask, ‘Is Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler? Is Russia a fascist danger to world peace, as was Nazi Germany?’ before answering, ‘the parallels are disturbingly familiar’. One political scientist, Alexander Motyl, declared, ‘Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist’. And Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, stated that Putin’s ‘monstrous ideology’ poses a ‘deadly threat to Europe’. He claimed that Putin was more dangerous than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
It is particularly worrying when professional historians make tenuous and strained comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Nazi Germany. Thus Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, declared, ‘We should say it. Russia is Fascist’. To validate his argument, he adopted the thesis that claims that fascism is defined principally by ‘the triumph of will over reason’. If one was to rely on this ahistorical definition, literally every unreasonable pursuit of violence – from the pursuit of violence by the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century to jihadist aggression in 20th century Syria – could be described as fascistic.
Я специально привёл такую длинную цитату из книги, т.к. она очень хорошо смотрится на контрасте с нынешней реальностью, когда США больше интересуются своей границей с Мексикой, а не свержением новоявленного «российского Гитлера» или когда в Европе появляется всё больше стран, которые не только покупают у «фашистской России» нефть и газ, но и предлагают Украине сесть за стол переговоров. Возможно, именно в этом несоответствии риторики и действительности и кроется смысл критики автора европейских бюрократов?
In a recently published survey designed to explain who amongst the Ukrainian population is willing to fight and what motivated their decision to take up arms, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova note that ‘feelings of Ukrainian pride and self-identified closeness to the country were indeed positive predictors of willingness for military service, while Russophone populations were more reluctant to join up’
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The authors’ counter-position of the forces of nationalism and appeals to democratic freedom is likely to be influenced by a mistaken view that perceives nationalism as the antithesis of democracy. Rather, the sense of pride in nationhood is often intertwined with the aspiration for freedom and democracy.
Отдельно отмечу термин «Russophone populations» под которыми подразумеваются восточные украинцы, что ли? Откуда такая осведомлённость у авторов, какие регионы преобладают в нынешней украинской армии? Я видел и русскоговорящих украинских солдат или это не считается?
Как видим на примере этих двух цитат, идея автора может заключаться не только в критике глобализма с его надгосударственными структурами типа ЕС, которым отдают на аутсорсинг важные политические задачи (борьба с коррупцией, построение демократических институтов), но и первостепенной является упрочнение националистической повестки, ибо только она способна, в отличие от евробюрократов, на реальные действия, как например, защита страны от агрессора. В этом смысле идеи автор становятся более видимыми. В контексте этого риторика европейцев (Путин и РФ как новый фашизм) рассматривается как спектакль для собственных граждан. В таком случаи вполне оправданным видится мне следующее заявление автора.
That, at the turn of the 21st century, war could serve as the source of moral rehabilitation, explains the Cold War envy that has been evoked by the conflict in Ukraine. For many policy makers, the public’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also represented a ‘wonderful, heart swelling surprise’.
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The book is written in a very vague way. And when a book is written in a vague way, one can't help but feel that it is done intentionally to mislead the reader or to make him not fully understand what the author wanted to say. I had the same thing happen to me with this book because I never understood the author's key idea. The author summarized what he wrote, but from this explanation, any reader can draw whatever conclusion they want.
Western societies will have to learn that you cannot pause or delete history. As the war in Ukraine illustrates, the past caches up with us sooner or later.
Yes, the author will mainly refer to some history that the Western countries have forgotten, but what exactly is meant by "you cannot pause or delete history" is not clear. It can be assumed that we are talking about the Cold War era, which means that the author is promoting the well-known narrative that the war in Ukraine happened precisely because Western countries forgot about the Cold War and the unspoken rule not to expand NATO to the East. However, on the other hand, the author is an obvious opponent of globalization, therefore history can be understood as historical Europe with clearly defined borders, where there were no supranational entities like the EU and where Ukraine is trying so zealously to get to.
The outsourcing of decision-making to organisations like the IMF, WTO or the EU allowed governments to avoid taking responsibility for the unpopular measures imposed on their citizens by these institutions. In effect, these globalist institutions sought to depoliticise decision-making, constrain the influence of national sovereignty and severely limit the workings of democracy.
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He added that ‘international institutions could not stop Putin from invading Ukraine’. Yet again the experience of Ukraine highlights an important historical fact, which is that national security should not be outsourced to an external agency.
As you can see, the phrase "you cannot pause or delete history" can mean a lot of things. As I said above, the book is written in such a way that it is difficult to understand exactly what the author means. Perhaps an English-speaking reader will understand it, but from my point of view, the author deliberately does not make it simple and clear. So I would not be surprised if someone points out to me that I just didn't understand "all the genius of the author." But perhaps the author is talking about the desire of many Ukrainians to outsource all important problems, such as building sustainable democracy and fighting corruption, to the EU. Quite possibly.
Toward the end, the author begins to fiercely criticize the representatives of the Western countries because they are engaged in self-promotion on the topic of the suffering of the Ukrainian people because «The EU faces an unprecedented crisis of legitimacy, and many of its leaders are acutely sensitive to their lack of moral authority». In general, such criticism is justified, but it seems to me that the author is trying to find a black cat in a dark room where there is no black cat. Yes, his criticism of European bureaucrats looks justified, but is it so important in the context of the events in Ukraine?
‘Ukraine has unified the EU like never before by giving it a renewed sense of purpose’, wrote Paul Grod for the Atlantic Council.
Ukraine’s struggle for its national independence is regularly presented as a crusade for promoting EU values. Writing in this vein, Timothy Garton Ash of the Guardian claimed that ‘Zelensky and his people are fighting for their lives to defend European values.
Fukuyama’s representation of Ukraine as the saviour of liberalism and freedom is connected to the belief that the negative example of Russia’s behaviour and the setback suffered by Putin can be used to strike a blow against populism within the United States. That is why he predicted the imminent ‘new birth of freedom’ leading to the final defeat of populism. From this perspective, the forces of populism in the U.S, and Putin are connected so that the defeat of the latter would represent a major setback to the former.
Ukraine has even been instrumentalised to support the cause of Scottish independence. ‘Ukraine war bolsters the case for independence’, argued Nicola Sturgeon, the first minister of Scotland.
Rereading these quotes from the book, in which the author makes claims to his compatriots (fair, I note), I suddenly thought that the author of this book is doing the same thing, i.e., he is using the topic of the war in Ukraine to once again attack the supporters of globalism. In this case, he is not much different from the people he criticizes. Of course, everyone is talking about their own, but then again, how important is that in the context of the whole disaster that is unfolding between Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus? Perhaps there is some other meaning in the author's accusations than the one I found. My point is that the author does not directly say what he proposes. It is necessary not to promote one's own ideas against the backdrop of the Ukrainian crisis - I understand that, but then what?
Perhaps the accusations of European bureaucrats, as well as journalists and political analysts in self-promotion can be explained by the fact that the author sees in this not an attempt to resolve the conflict between Russia and Ukraine but to solve their own internal elite political problems within Europe for which purpose they mold Putin as a kind of Hitler 2.0.
The anachronistic thinking of the current era leads newspaper commentators to ask, ‘Is Vladimir Putin the new Adolf Hitler? Is Russia a fascist danger to world peace, as was Nazi Germany?’ before answering, ‘the parallels are disturbingly familiar’. One political scientist, Alexander Motyl, declared, ‘Yes, Putin and Russia are fascist’. And Mateusz Morawiecki, the Polish prime minister, stated that Putin’s ‘monstrous ideology’ poses a ‘deadly threat to Europe’. He claimed that Putin was more dangerous than Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin.
It is particularly worrying when professional historians make tenuous and strained comparisons between Putin’s Russia and Nazi Germany. Thus Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale University, declared, ‘We should say it. Russia is Fascist’. To validate his argument, he adopted the thesis that claims that fascism is defined principally by ‘the triumph of will over reason’. If one was to rely on this ahistorical definition, literally every unreasonable pursuit of violence – from the pursuit of violence by the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century to jihadist aggression in 20th century Syria – could be described as fascistic.
I have purposely given such a long quote from the book because it looks very good in contrast to the current reality when the U.S. is more interested in its border with Mexico than in overthrowing the new "Russian Hitler" or when in Europe, there are more and more countries that not only buy oil and gas from "fascist Russia," but also offer Ukraine to come to the negotiating table. Could it be that this discrepancy between rhetoric and reality is the point of the author's criticism of European bureaucrats?
In a recently published survey designed to explain who amongst the Ukrainian population is willing to fight and what motivated their decision to take up arms, Pippa Norris and Kseniya Kizilova note that ‘feelings of Ukrainian pride and self-identified closeness to the country were indeed positive predictors of willingness for military service, while Russophone populations were more reluctant to join up’
<…>
The authors’ counter-position of the forces of nationalism and appeals to democratic freedom is likely to be influenced by a mistaken view that perceives nationalism as the antithesis of democracy. Rather, the sense of pride in nationhood is often intertwined with the aspiration for freedom and democracy.
I would like to separately note the term "Russophone populations," which means eastern Ukrainians or what? How do the authors know which regions are predominant in the current Ukrainian army? I have also seen Russian-speaking Ukrainian soldiers, or does that not count?
As we can see from these two quotations, the author's idea may consist not only of criticizing globalism with its supranational structures like the EU, to which important political tasks (fighting corruption, building democratic institutions) are outsourced but also of strengthening the nationalist agenda, because only it is capable, unlike Eurobureaucrats, of real actions, such as defending the country from an aggressor. In this sense, the author's ideas become more visible. In this context, the rhetoric of the Europeans (Putin and the Russian Federation as a new fascism) is seen as a spectacle for its own citizens. In this case, the following statement of the author seems to me quite justified.
That, at the turn of the 21st century, war could serve as the source of moral rehabilitation, explains the Cold War envy that has been evoked by the conflict in Ukraine. For many policy makers, the public’s reaction to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine also represented a ‘wonderful, heart swelling surprise’.
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