It really is true that there is never an end to absurdity in this country: apparently, next Monday 11 December at the Senate of the Republic, a conference entitled “The advantages of a post-Russia world” will be staged, on the initiative of Italian Senator Giuliomaria Terzi di Sant”Agata, now of the relative majority party Fratelli d”Italia, President of the EU Political Commission of Palazzo Madama, in 2011 Foreign Minister of the technocratic government headed by Mario Monti, and former Ambassador to the USA and Israel [1].
So, it would seem that Italy would benefit if Russia fell apart, as the Anglo-Americans have wanted from time immemorial. And there are those in the current government majority who would even seem to wish not only for regime change in Moscow, but even for the dissolution of the Eurasian giant, a nation with which Italy boasts decades of cooperation and very important economic and cultural relations, despite frequent geopolitical crises.
“The advantages of a post-Russia world”. So, it suits us. And to whom does it suit?
While NATO and the Euro-Atlanticists at home are reckoning without the innkeeper and, dreaming of the end of Putin – when Ukraine has long been on the ropes – from Moscow, they warn us that instead “The End of Europe” (Anteo editions. 2023) has arrived.
The book by sociologist Valery Korovin came out a few weeks ago, and was presented in Verona and Milan by Eliseo Bertolasi, PhD in anthropology, Russian-speaking interpreter and translator.
We met both of them, and as they debate and rant in our institutions about the phantom end of Russia, it is we Europeans who are really sinking into a permanent crisis.
Thanks to Korovin and Bertolasi for accepting this interview, which contains the hope of breaking free from our shackles and rising again, despite the fact that our political class, above all, works against us.
It was the year 2022, a few months before the start of the Special Military Operation in Ukraine, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Policy, Spanish technocrat Josep Borrell called Europe a “garden”, while “Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and the jungle could invade the garden”. Borrell’s audience consisted of cadets from the European Diplomatic Academy, the new EU training centre that aims to create a fully-fledged diplomatic corps for the European Union. And so, he concluded: “Tend the garden, be good gardeners. But your task will not be to look after the garden itself, but the jungle outside” [2].
As adult and conscious Europeans, we dissociate ourselves from the words of Borrell, a technocrat not elected by any people.
Q) Dr Korovin, what would you like to answer Borrell, how do you live in the “jungle”?
A) Borrell’s statement is a typical example of European and, in general, Western arrogance. From this point of view, only the West is “civilization”, while all others are barbarians (those who aspire to become West) or savages (those who do not). This approach is described in some detail in John Hobson’s “The Eurocentric conception of world politics”, where European arrogance, which has developed over centuries, is analyzed. Hence European racism, especially Anglo-Saxon racism – the construction of a sort of “hierarchy” of peoples, in which the Anglo-Saxons place themselves at the top and place the others below them in order – starting with those who are most similar to them, down to those who strive to be similar, but fail to do so at all. Below, in some “basement”, they place those peoples who by defending their own identity, culture and peculiarities of civilization do not strive to become the West. The problem of the West is that in the “basement” or “jungle”, as Borrell puts it, it has placed the majority of humanity – seven billion out of eight – thus placing itself in contrast to all the rest, i.e., non-Western humanity, by ascribing it the category of “jungle”. But these are not all the problems faced by the Western elite racists: another problem is the fact that in the West itself, the majority does not share this racist arrogance and does not accept either Western values or the European elite, to which Borrell himself refers. It follows that the European elite is a minority within the minority to which the West belongs. And that is how they should be treated: as a small group of madmen who should be in an asylum and not in the leadership of the European Union, where the opinion of the majority of the European peoples is not even represented. To preserve itself this little group of madmen is preparing its replacement: a diplomatic, political and ideological elite. They do this to survive, even Borrell himself realizes that, in general, there is no one who will intervene on their behalf. In their desire to turn the whole of humanity into a concentration camp, where European technocrats see themselves as overseers, they are not only not supported by the majority of humanity, but not even by the sane majority of Europeans – those same peoples who have created Europe for centuries, but who did not notice the takeover of power over them by a group of obsessed maniacs. I have written extensively about this in my book “The End of Europe”.
Valery Korovin, sociologist.
Q) Dr Bertolasi, for Borrell, Europe is a “garden” where “everything works”. As a European and an Italian citizen living his daily life in reality, is Borrell right or does something not add up?
A) If we look around, not only in Italy but throughout the West, it is impossible not to observe a general collapse both in terms of values and quality of life. I do not rule out the possibility that Borrell (like his high-ranking colleagues in the European Union), accustomed to living in his “ivory tower” of privileges and salaries unimaginable to poor “mortals”, might judge Europe to be a “garden”; yes, for him it may be, that is his point of view, but certainly not for the vast majority of the European population. To understand how distant this elite lives from reality, one only has to enter the streets of European cities and face everyday reality. Neighbourhoods are multiplying, and not only in the big cities, where indeed the term “jungle”, as Borrell puts it, would be absolutely fitting in this case: chaos, decay, filth everywhere, delinquency, terror for those who live there, dilapidated public services, the absence of the state… The policies promoted by the EU are pushing the peoples of Europe more and more towards a lasting and growing future of inflation and inflation, recession, precariousness, unemployment and poverty. Just compare this with the living conditions in Italy twenty to thirty years ago! It already seems like a reality light years away: employment, decent work contracts, social mobility, functioning services, almost no petty crime… All in all, a widespread well-being that was reflected in everyday life with greater economic possibilities and a good standard of living.
Q) Dr. Bertolasi, why are you presenting Valery Korovin”s book?
A) I know Korovin personally and have been reading him for some time. I find his book “The End of Europe” extremely interesting, as it touches on absolutely topical issues that are very dear to me in the light of my studies in anthropology – I am talking about questions of identity. Crucial issues that directly implicate the fate of Europe, and therefore also of Italy.
Above all, these issues are addressed through a look “from the outside”, precisely from Russia, on this Europe that is changing with impressive speed in its identity configuration. The greatest reference, of course, is to the great migratory flow that has been affecting all European countries in recent years, the effects of which are now so evident that they are objectively there for all to see. On the basis of common sense, it is inevitable to ask how far Europe will be able to contain and absorb within itself these incessant waves of migration, in short, to assume a limit also dictated by its not unlimited social and economic resources, which are already scarce. These observations are as logical as they are obvious, but it seems that in Italy it is taboo to talk about them! Well, Korovin’s book breaks these taboos and addresses these issues. Korovin even poses a question that in my opinion is of great symbolic significance: “How and in what way can we (Russians) help Europe?… Understanding Europe to save Europe is our super-task, to the solution of which this book is dedicated. But, of course, not to save any Europe, not the current one in particular, but the one that was there before and the one that should be”.
Q) If “The End of Europe” as a civilization, as a society, as an economy is indeed near, what will become of Italy?
A) If Europe implodes under the weight of its inconsistencies and contradictions, under the yoke of its growing internal and external challenges, it will certainly not be because of the innate passivity of the “Bel Paese” [“The Beautiful Country”]. Italy is a country with limited sovereignty, where every political choice is subordinated to the orders of Brussels or Washington: in the face of the most arduous sacrifices, the mantra of Italian politics is always the same “Europe asks us”, “Washington asks us”… The Italian people eventually swallow the bitter pill and adapt, perhaps devising yet another fallback. I expect nothing more from Italy. If Europe implodes, then Italy will simply adapt cunningly without art or part in line with the new trend. The Supreme Poet [Dante Alighieri] in Canto VI of the Purgatory of the Divine Comedy already wrote of Italy at that time: “Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello, nave sanza nocchiere in gran tempesta, non donna di provincie, ma bordello!”.
Eliseo Bertolasi, analyst and translator
Q) Dr Bertolasi, imagining between utopia and reality, let us try to think about the “end of the European Union”: would it be a tragedy or a liberation?
A) I have never hidden my Euroscepticism, so for me it would be a liberation. To be able to imagine my country free, sovereign, able to determine its own future, able to truly become the heir to the millenary culture it has always represented, would truly be an extraordinary achievement. Russia, for example, has loved Italy poignantly, and continues to love it, precisely because Italy has always represented a world beacon of art, culture, and beauty. Just think how many Russian artists, musicians, poets and men of letters have visited Italy. Do we Italians not have the right to feel ourselves heirs of this Italy that is so esteemed and loved in the representation that the Russians, and not only them, have of our country! To defend this culture and this reputation! In his book, Korovin speaks of the migration phenomenon that is disrupting the physiognomy of European peoples. I ask myself, as an Italian in love with his own country: do the new “Italians” love and will they love Italian culture? To the point of wanting to safeguard it, preserve it, even honor it? What will be the significance for them of a Dante Alighieri, whom I have just mentioned, as well as a Raphael, a Beato Angelico, or even Verdi, Puccini…? The list of these illustrious personalities who have contributed to making Italian culture “great” is unlimited. But holding an Italian passport and feeling Italian are two distinct concepts that do not automatically go hand in hand. This question is raised by Korovin when he writes in his book:
“According to European bureaucrats, newly arrived immigrants will, after having studied one or the other European language and found a job, become the typical citizens of the various European countries and conscientious taxpayers-consumers. Having received the appropriate passports, they will become ‘French’, ‘German’, ‘Italian’, ‘Norwegian’… And lo and behold, legally they are already absolutely equal to all other Europeans (with all documents properly prepared and all formalities complied with). If a person has a passport and a Schengen visa, he is (formally) a European, so that he cannot be distinguished from another European, whose ancestors, on the other hand, have lived for centuries in Europe: in France, Germany or Switzerland… There is no legal difference between them: that is how the matter is seen by the European legal machine… What the European document officials do not see is, however, clearly visible on the European streets. It is there that it jumps out at them that newcomers to Europe, people from other continents, representatives of other races and civilizations, even with the brand new European passports in their pockets, certainly do not become ‘French’ or ‘German’… in a cultural, historical, psychological, mental sense. But they remain Muslims, Africans, Arabs, representatives of their tribes, that is, bearers of precisely those collective identities that have long since ceased to exist in the European conceptual space. And since they do not exist in that space, then they should behave as Europeans, uploading the corresponding values into their cleansed memory (as European officials see it)…”.
Ultimately, it is the Europe of the Peoples that was there, the Europe that was the source of many civilization projects that I have in mind and that could be reborn with the collapse of the EU; but I fear, it will not return, it is too late. That Europe died when it deliberately chose to deny its thousand-year-old Christian culture. No eventual ‘renaissance’ can be discerned in its decline. This is the bitter fruit of the globalist, migratory, progressive single thought that is imposing itself against conscience, morality, tradition… conveying a new set of values, in which vice, individualism, nihilism, indifference dominate, where evil becomes good, falsehood becomes truth, ugly becomes beautiful, and vice versa, and which is inexorably leading the West into the sunset.
Q) Dr Korovin, in reality, the Western liquid society governed by multinational surveillance capitalism is racing towards extinction. Will “The Third Rome” save European civilization?
A) May the liberal liquid society of today’s Europe be doomed to die! Its image is well shown in the Wachowski sisters” film “The Matrix” – in which a person is just a battery that receives nutritive fluid and releases energy to power machines controlled by artificial intelligence. This is the fate that transnational capital has prepared for mankind, and today’s Europe is an “enclosure” in which transnational capital conducts its anti-human experiment, and then extends it to all mankind. To save humanity from these experimenters, we must first save Europe. Today, only sovereign Russia, “Moscow – the Third Rome”, can do this, relying on the Spirit, on God, on authentic traditional human values should the Europeans themselves fail to free themselves from the shackles of widespread transnational American exploitation. This scenario is described as positive in my new book “The End of Europe. Together with Russia on the road to multipolarity”.
[1] https://www.freenationsrf.org/
[2] https://www.eeas.europa.eu
Translation by Costantino Ceoldo