Western efforts at “sanctioning” Russia have failed miserably. So have efforts to isolate Russia from the rest of the world, by bribing countries – especially of the Global South. They have had exactly the contrary effect.
The Global South – possibly as a result of this permanent lie-based assaults for years of the west on Russia and China – is seeking associations with eastern oriented blocks, like the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), as well as with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a creation initiated by China and Russia.
It is ironic, if not absurd, that the colonialist west, still largely known as racist west, intends to influence their former colonies – and in a modern sense still being colonized by the west – to sanction and separate from those countries that have in the past helped them against western exploitation.
If anything, this shows the degree of arrogance and socio-egocentricity of the west. Total detachment from reality. Most westerners don’t even perceive this horrendous aberration.
As a vivid and current example, citizens of African and Middle-Eastern countries that have been exploited, colonized and destroyed by the west, are now fleeing economic misery and political oppression from their countries which were left with the western heritage: western-bought dictatorial “local” regimes. The worst political and economic victims of these oppressions are attempting to escape to Europe, hoping for a better life; ironically, to the very colonial and racist Europe.
They risk their lives crossing the Med-Sea in rickety boats – often not making it, tens of thousands have already drowned at sea. The few that make it to Southern Italy and Greece are often turned back, where the poor-to-the-bones refugees frequently end up in Libya. There, they are enslaved by the mafias that emerged after the western brutal assassination of Colonel Muammar al-Gaddafi.
For those who forgot, the destruction of Libya was planned and initiated by then US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, during the Obama Administration, and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The coup was executed by NATO in October 2011.
The main reason – of course hidden and disguised by lies, as is so appropriate for the west – was that Gaddafi planned to liberate Africa form the continued colonial economic fangs of the west, by introducing an African-wide gold-backed currency, the Gold Dinar, fully detached from the French franc, alias Euro, and the US-dollar.
The people of the Global South have memories.
Adding to this, Europe’s unrestricted, unquestioned, uncriticized support for Israel, after basically 75 years of Israelis discrimination, atrocities and outright war crimes and crimes on humanity on Palestine and her people, does not bode well for Europe. The Global South is in full support of Palestine.
See this 2-min video – Madame Ursula von der Leyen, unelected President of European Commission, unconditionally lauding Israel for their 75 years of “achievements” – “making the desert green”.
Europe’s absolute and unrestricted support for Israel, reminds the countries of the Global South of 500 years of European colonial atrocities which only stopped on paper, but continues in full swing through financial and monetary exploitation by the west of basically all of Africa and most of Latin America.
Case in point for monetary exploitation to the worst, is France’s keeping her former West-and Central African colonies as of this day in monetary slavery.
This does not bode well for trust in the west.
Therefore, it doesn’t come as a surprise that 85% of the world’s population are refusing to take part in anti-Russia policies — to the contrary. They prefer maintaining good relations with Moscow, as Sergey Lavrov, Russian Foreign Minister said during a World Online Conference on Multipolarity on Saturday, 29 April 2023. See this.
Even the Washington Post reports that numerous emerging economies, also caled the Global South, including India, Brazil, South Africa AND Pakistan, have rebuffed American attempts to enlist them in the fight against Russia amid the conflict in Ukraine. The WaPo refers to leaked Pentagon files.
During the online Multipolarity conference, Lavrov said that “Washington’s and its satellites’ efforts to reverse history, to force the international community to live by the invented ‘rules-based order’” are proving to be a fiasco, citing the “total failure” of the West “to isolate Russia.”
Lavrov added, the fact that delegates from several dozen nations “from nearly every continent” attended the online forum, shows just how much traction the idea of multipolarity has gained.
It is also a clear indication that Russia is far from isolated – to the contrary. Countries from the Global South, the globe’s vast majority in territorial as well as population size, are flocking to the east, Russia and China.
Another reflection of the “changing colors” is the holding of reserve currencies.
In 1990, the US-dollar’s share of reserve currencies in the coffers of the world exceeded 90%. It dropped to 73% by 2001, to 51% in 2021, and in 2022 it slid below the crucial 50% line to 47%. In the next 10 years, the dollar may account for a mere 30%, or less, of all reserve currencies.
The Chinese Yuan is taking up much of the space left by the faltering dollar. See also this assessment by Pepe Escobar.
This is a main reason for the accelerated effort by western economies to introduce fully programmable Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC). Not only would it allow controlling every individual, but it would also present an opportunity to wipe out the CBDC-countries’ debt.
Digital is virtual. Physical money disappears. You would be unable to convert CBDC into old-style banknotes. God forbid that CBDC will prevail. We the people must resist it with all organized peaceful power that we can muster, even if it means starting parallel societies and economies.
During the past couple of decades developing countries, alias the Global South – have been gradually but steadily increasing their share in world economics, while that of the G7 has been declining.
New centers of geopolitical influence are emerging throughout the world, in Africa, the Middle East, Latin America – none of which wants to be dictated by the west, by the ever-warrying, destructive and currently dying western Washington-based empire and its European satellites.
The overall trend is clearly visible that the independent west wants to join international associations pulling to the east, such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Russia and Chia are leading these groups.
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Back to Russia’s non-isolation. Despite western sanctions, Russia has achieved a trade surplus of over US$ 330 billion in 2022, with exports surging by almost 20% in the same year. Russia’s overall trade increase in 2022 over 2021 was 8.1%. Does this show an isolation of Russia from the rest of the world “due to western sanctions”?
Quite to the contrary – Russia’s economy is flourishing thanks to the sanctions which are very concretely destroying the West, foremost Europe. See also this.
While addressing the online Multipolarity Conference, Lavrov explained, a multipolar world order would be based on returning to respect for the UN charter, and for a “balance of interests” as opposed to a western imposed “balance of fear.”
President Putin was clear that Moscow will not abide by the “so-called rules” invented and forced by the west.
The western invented “rules-based order” resembles ever more the new “One World Order”, initiated by the dictates of an elite-led tyranny that 100% of the rest of the world rejects. Multipolarity is growing and will gradually replace the dying, warrying-no-end western empire.
Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).
Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.