In a blog entry,
reflecting on the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on July
7–8, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy
Josep Borrell seemed to have accepted the painful truth that the West was
losing what he termed “the global battle of narratives”.
اضافة اعلان
“The global battle of narratives is in full swing
and, for now, we are not winning,” Borrell admitted. The solution: “As the EU,
we have to engage further to refute Russian lies and war propaganda,” the EU’s
top diplomat added.
Borrell’s piece is testimony to the very erroneous
logic that led to the so-called battle of narratives to be lost in the first
place.
Borrell starts by reassuring his readers that,
despite the fact that many countries in the Global South refuse to join the
West’s sanctions on Russia, “everybody agrees”, though in “abstract terms”, on
the “need for multilateralism and defending principles such as territorial
sovereignty”.
The immediate impression that such a statement gives
is that the West is the global vanguard of multilateralism and territorial
sovereignty. The opposite is true. The US-Western military interventions in
Iraq, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and many other countries and regions
in the world have largely taken place without international consent and without
any regard for the sovereignty of nations. In the case of the NATO war on
Libya, a massively destructive military campaign was initiated based on the
intentional misinterpretation of UN Security Council Resolution 1973, which
calls for the use of “all means necessary to protect civilians”.
Borrell, like other Western diplomats, conveniently
omits the West’s repeated — and ongoing — interventions in the affairs of other
nations, while painting the Russian-Ukraine war as the starkest example of
“blatant violations of international law, contravening the basic tenets of the
UN Charter and endangering the global economic recovery”.
Would Borrell employ such strong language to depict
the numerous ongoing war crimes in parts of the world involving European
countries or their allies? For example, France’s despicable war record in Mali?
Or, even more obvious, the 75-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestine?
When talking about “food and energy security”,
Borrell lamented that many in the G20 have bought into the “propaganda and lies
coming from the Kremlin” regarding the actual cause of food crisis. He
concluded that it is not the EU, but “Russia’s war of aggression against
Ukraine that is dramatically aggravating the food crisis”.
Again, Borrell was selective with his logic. While,
naturally, a war between two countries that contribute a large share of the
world’s basic food supplies will detrimentally impact food security, Borrell
made no mention that the thousands of sanctions imposed by the West on Moscow
have disrupted the supply chain of many critical products, raw material and
basic food items.
When the West imposed those sanctions, it only
thought of its interests, erroneously centered on defeating Russia. Neither the
people of Sri Lanka, Somalia, Lebanon, nor, frankly, Ukraine were relevant
factors in the West’s decision.
Borrell, whose job as a diplomat suggests that he
should be investing in diplomacy to resolve conflicts, has repeatedly called
for widening the scope of war on Russia, insisting that the war can only be
“won on the battlefield”. Such statements were made with Western interests in
mind, despite the obvious devastating consequences that Borrell’s battlefield
would have on the rest of the world.
Borrell speaks of bigger ideals, as if the West were the only morally mature entity capable of thinking about rights and wrongs in a selfless, detached manner. In addition to there being no evidence to support his claim, such condescending language, itself an expression of cultural arrogance, makes it impossible for non-Western countries to accept, or even engage, with the West regarding the morality of its politics.
Still, he had the audacity to chastise G20 members
for behaving in ways that seemed, to him, focused solely on their national
interests.
“The hard truth is that national interests often
outweigh general commitments to bigger ideals,” he wrote. If defeating Russia
is central to Borrell’s and the EU’s “bigger ideals”, why should the rest of
the world, especially in the Global South, embrace the West’s self-serving
priorities?
Borrell also needs to be reminded that the West’s global
battle of narratives was lost well before February 24. Much of the
Global South
rightly sees the West’s interests at odds with its own. This seemingly cynical
view is an outcome of decades — in fact, hundreds of years — of real
experiences, from colonialism to, presently, routine military and political
interventions.
Borrell speaks of bigger ideals, as if the West were
the only morally mature entity capable of thinking about rights and wrongs in a
selfless, detached manner. In addition to there being no evidence to support
his claim, such condescending language, itself an expression of cultural
arrogance, makes it impossible for non-Western countries to accept, or even
engage, with the West regarding the morality of its politics.
Borrell, for example, accuses Russia of a
“deliberate attempt to use food as a weapon against the most vulnerable
countries in the world, especially in Africa”. Even if we accept this
problematic premise as a morally driven position, how can he justify the West’s
sanctions that have effectively starved many people in “vulnerable countries”
around the world?
Perhaps, Afghans are the most vulnerable people in
the world today, thanks to 20 years of a devastating US/NATO war that killed
and maimed tens of thousands. Though the US and its Western allies were forced
out of Afghanistan last August, billions of Afghan money are illegally frozen
in Western bank accounts, pushing the whole country to the brink of starvation.
Why can Borrell not apply his bigger ideals in this particular scenario,
demanding immediate unfreezing of Afghan money?
In truth, Borrell, the EU, NATO and the West are not
only losing the global battle of narratives, they never won it in the first
place. Winning or losing that battle never mattered to Western leaders in the
past, because the Global South was hardly taken into consideration when the
West made its unilateral decisions regarding war, military invasions or
economic sanctions.
The Global South
matters now simply because the West is no longer determining all political
outcomes, as was often the case. Russia, China, India, and others are now
relevant, because they can collectively balance out the skewed global order
that has been dominated by Borrell and his likes for far too long.
Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the editor of The Palestine
Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest, co-edited with Ilan
Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and
Intellectuals Speak out”. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at
the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website
is www.ramzybaroud.net
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