archived link / original link (the guardian)
“We are herbivores in a world of carnivores. It is a power politics world, yet we still have in mind that through trade and preaching the rule of law we can have influence on the world. We must still preach the rule of law but we have to be aware there are some leaders that need to be dealt with in a different way.”
. . .
Borrell predicted the war in Ukraine, and the eventual outcome, would be one of the three driving forces creating a new world order, alongside competition between China and the US, and the rise of the global south.
He admitted he was no fan of the term “global south” to describe such a heterogeneous group of people but that an entity existed that “consider themselves part of an alternative to the western models”. He said it was critical to “try to avoid the alliance of China plus Russia, plus parts of the global south.
“The people of the global south want to be recognised because 40, 50 years ago, when the world order was built, some of these countries did not exist. Either they were colonies or so poor they did not have a vote.
“So now they are independent countries and they have been growing economically, demographically, and they want to have a say.”
He added: “Understandably these countries are hedging. One day they look at Russia , another at China. At the UN they vote against the war in Ukraine but many of them do not have this feeling of moral indignation that we have.”
It takes an industrial grade alloy of smugness and lack of self awareness to proclaim yourself a herbivore when your society is built on brutal conquest and the immiseration of billions. This continent’s century of humiliation can’t come soon enough.
He attributed this to deep cultural and political differences inside the EU: “There are some members of the European Union that are Japanese-style – we don’t want to mix. We don’t want migrants. We don’t want to accept people from outside. We want our purity.”
he can call them fascists, it’s not that hard
At the UN they vote against the war in Ukraine but many of them do not have this feeling of moral indignation that we have.
I’m from South America and work for a global company with headquarters in the Netherlands and important offices in Sweden and France.
They talk about Latin America as a “focus region” and wanting to develop the company here, but their only interest is how much money they can extract and take to Europe. They don’t give a shit about the employees here.
And they’re sooo racist about it, but they would never admit it. When one of the products was repurposed for use in Latin America, the European people working on it all desperately transferred teams because no one wanted to work with us. If we ask for anything they just stall and make us wait for weeks or months for it.
They say that they want us to have “ownership” of our processes and tools, but we have to ask for permission for any project, no matter how small.
If we do things our way, they block us with bureaucracy and red tape and make us jump through hoops for every little thing.I could continue all day…
Go ahead, EU. Dissolve. See how long you last once Europe is a fetid pit of bickering petty principalities again. Do it. Do it. It’ll be fun. You’ll have a good time, I promise.
It’ll be so nice if europe returns to its rightful place in the world as a backwards irrelevant peninsula on the western edge of afro-eurasia
