Eurasianism - The Closed Siege for the Globalisation

Putin creating ‘an Anti-Globalist International’ in Europe, Pastukhov says

http://euromaidanpress.com/2015/11/15/putin-creating-an-anti-globalist-international-in-europe-pastukhov-says/

Vladimir Putin is creating “an Anti-Globalist International” of those who see no good future for themselves in the new world and thus hope to guarantee that nothing will ever change, Vladimir Pastukhov says; and he hopes to use this ideology to link up with others abroad to overcome Russia’s isolation and restructure the world.

Thus, it is wrong to say as many have that the Kremlin leader wants to leave Europe, the St. Antony’s scholar says. Instead, he wants to transform it according to the principles of the right-wing there and use these principles to form a new ideology for Russia itself.

Russia’s “union with China is a myth,” Pastukhov says; its “Eurasian isolationism is a bluff.” And thus Russia is not distancing itself from Europe but rather coming closer to it,” although it is not likely that everyone in Europe will be especially pleased by this rapprochement.

“But some in Europe, undoubtedly, will be glad,” he continues. “the Kremlin has its own ‘fifth column’ in the West, and more than that, its numbers are constantly growing. Having made anti-globalism almost the official ideology of post-communist Russia, the Russian leader has attacked a goldmine from which he will be able to draw political dividends far into the future.”

In short, Pastukhov suggests, “Russia is rapidly transforming itself into the center of European reaction,” not into isolationism; and under Putin, it is “actively preparing for the release of the second edition of the Holy Alliance” of the early part of the 19th century.

All this is shown by what was said recently at the Valdai Club in Sochi, the historian suggests when Putin and others described what this new anti-globalist world would be like.

It has long been a commonplace that Russia needs at ideology to be stable, and there is some truth in this, Pastukhov says. It hasn’t had one, and even the propaganda campaign against Ukraine was not a serious ideology but rather an example of “primitive tribalist chauvinism” that like all emotions couldn’t last.

As so often in the past, he continues, when Russia couldn’t come up with a new ideology on its own, it is “borrowing” it from Europe. “Despite having banned the import of cheese and sausage from Europe, Russia in now way has blocked its import of the ideas it requires,” only now, these are “different ideas than those that came earlier,” reactionary rather than liberal.

Not surprisingly, most observers have focused on Putin’s speech among those at Sochi, but the Kremlin leader did not give the most interesting or instructive address, Pastukhov says. Instead, that was given by Vaclav Klaus whose words made it clear that “a unified Europe like a unified European policy or unified European view of the world no longer exists.”

As the Czech leader made clear, “Europe has split on the issue of its attitude toward the consequences of globalization.” Some believe that the solution to today’s problems is more globalization and greater integration, but others, the Euroskeptics, think that the solution is to oppose both the one and the other.

Now, as Klaus’ speech makes clear, “’the Euroskeptics’ have extended to [Putin] the hand of help at a difficult time for the Kremlin and have become the new spiritual friends of Russia.”

Klaus said that “existing problems… come more from the West than from the East” and that “we are not ready… to sacrifice our comfortable life… We have no strong opinions.” Instead, Europe is sunk in apathy because “we have replaced education with political correctness and the imposition of a definite [liberal and globalist] ideology.”

“Ideologically,” Pastukhov suggests, “Putin at Sochi was secondary and Klaus was primary” because Klaus’ remarks had the effect of demonstrating that instead of “homegrown Eurasianism with its doubtful intellectual base … the Kremlin prefers to raise above Russia the banner of ‘European reaction.’”

Putin’s Russia has become the world leader of anti-globalism;” and in this one can say that “while Klaus talks about this, Putin is acting: he is building a bridge which should unite the opponents of globalization ‘inside’ and ‘around’ Europe. He is establishing his own anti-globalist international which should help Russia break out of its latest ‘hostile capitalist encirclement.’”

“Anti-globalism,” of course, “is a mantra for those who do not see their place in the future and therefore want that the future not come… They want to receive certain formal guarantees for the preservation of the historical status quo. Leave Europe to the Europeans, the CIS to Russia, the Middle East to Iran, and go on.”

This “might be a beautiful plan if it could be realized,” Pastukhov says, “but so far no one has been able to stop time.” Moreover, “in this international there is neither America nor China nor India. America “believes in itself,” and “China and India believe that in the still undescribed new world they will have a better place than now.”

In fine, “the anti-globalists are those who respond to Hamlet’s question with the answer ‘not to be.’ But although anti-globalism is the religion of the weak, that doesn’t mean that it has no future” given that “religions of the oppressed often have become later the religions of the ruling classes.”

“Putin is part of a historical trend,” the St. Antony’s scholar says. “Russian emperors always were more interested in foreign countries than in their own land… [he] is not yet a Russian emperor but he’s not simply a president either.” Like his predecessors, Putin “is deeply interested in geopolitics seeing himself in the role of the liberator of Europe… from revolutionary infection.”

“The internal split of European society hardly will permit the EU to stand as a united front against Russia,” Pastukhov says. “Europe is obviously tired” from its support of Ukraine and is likely to give way to the Kremlin leader over time. Putin’s problem is inside Russia: he can do a lot abroad with this approach but not much at home.

Organizing “a new world order” abroad is obviously easier for him than managing housing or hospitals inside Russia. Indeed, the St. Antony’s historian says, it sometimes seems that “the president is also an émigré: he has lost his head in geopolitics.”

At present, Putin does not face “any visible foreign threats. Being at the height of his political career and being the unquestioned ruler of Russia and leader of a new Holy Alliance, he does not face any threats — except the growing loneliness and disappointment” he has created for himself.

“Something similar occurred 200 years ago with his great predecessor, the conqueror of Europe and the creator of the first Holy Alliance, the glorious emperor Aleksandr I. Until now rumors circulate that he didn’t die in Taganrog but disappeared having lived out the remainder of his life as a hermit in Siberia.”

The same thing could happen with Putin. He “will never be overthrown; he will simply pass into history together with his secrets.”

Why did anti-globalisation fail and anti-globalism succeed?

https://www.opendemocracy.net/jacob-stringer/why-did-anti-globalisation-fail-and-anti-globalism-succeed

Across the world the political centre ground is disappearing, and the new enemy of the people is globalism. Watching the rise of the nationalist right is particularly frustrating if, like me, you took part in protests in the late 1990s and early 2000s against globalisation. These protests for a few years united the radical left with the less radical NGO world. All were in agreement that there was something rotten about free market overdrive globalisation, that it was creating more losers than winners. Millions of people turned out across the world to say ‘No’.

But the centre left parties – the Democrats, Labour, and their equivalents across Europe – were not among them. There were multiple reasons why they gave in to the siren call of globalisation: many of them were or would one day be handsomely paid by global corporations benefiting from their policies. Most of them were taken in too by the tinpot version of economics – neo-liberal and poorly evidenced – that had taken hold in academia, with the help of rich donors. Politicians also have a tendency to think not much beyond the next election, and the effects of free trade agreements often took longer than that, though not very long, to hit home. But there was another reason why the centre left parties couldn’t get on board with the anti-globalisation movement. From the ‘non-political’ NGOs to the radical left, they were offered no alternative ways of organising economies.

Fifteen years later everything the anti-globalisations campaigners said has turned out to be true, and the UK provides a prime example of the fall-out. The manufacturing jobs and farming jobs are not adequately replaced by service jobs. Around a million people in the UK work in call-centres; few of them love it or take pride in it. Millions more are precariously or insufficiently paid or employed. Vast areas of the UK outside of London have non-functioning economies, with no hope in sight. It seems nobody had ever asked: what if South Wales, or Flint, Michigan, has no comparative advantage on the world stage? Now even the EU funding for impoverished areas is on the way out. Meanwhile the government has no economic strategy except to further inflate the housing market and cut taxes for the rich to ‘compete in the global market’.

But the left did not win support as a result of this catastrophic outcome of corporate globalisation, for ‘The Left’ in most people’s eyes was synonymous with the centre left parties that had bought fully into globalisation. Instead the political beneficiaries were nationalist, nativist right wingers who talk not of globalisation but of globalism – a term now creeping from the US into European debate. The difference in terminology is significant. Globalisation refers to certain processes in the interests of corporate trade. Globalism refers to a global outlook, borders too open, a feared mingling of cultures, implied dangerous liaisons with aliens. Being ‘anti’ each implies very different points of view.

The centre-right parties showed themselves more willing to hook up with anti-globalism than the centre-left parties had with anti-globalisation. In part this was because it offered a partially cultural solution to economic problems, and thus could be neutralised as a threat to the international economic order. But it was also because the anti-globalisers had solutions. Make America Great Again by slowing migration and withdrawing from international obligations, make Britain great again by withdrawing from the EU. They weren’t good solutions, but they were comprehensible, easily stated solutions. Thus anti-globalism succeeded where anti-globalisation had failed: it captured the popular imagination as a response to the economic impact of globalisation.

Perhaps, some might suggest, the right won simply because they had more money behind them. It is a problem the left often encounters: they are out-resourced on every side, and their enemies buy success. But that is to let the anti-globalisation movement off the hook too easily. ‘What is your alternative?’ they were constantly asked, and responded either with silence, and carefully constructed theories about why silence was adequate, or with a clamour of competing voices.

I see now that the response was not good enough. I understand why protestors were resentful when those in power demanded alternatives, for it was not our job to be their problem-solvers. I understand why initially it is sometimes necessary to simply resist, without having to offer solutions. But over the long term if a movement is to succeed it needs to offer tangible alternatives, not primarily to those in power, but to our peers, to our equals, our friends and families who, for example, rely on Tesco for their food. To say that you would dismantle Tesco and its iniquitous supply chains, while offering no alternative, is to offer a future of poverty, even starvation.

Most of the solutions that have been offered were small-scale, in denial about the scale of societies we live in, and the scale of solutions we need. Exemplifying this was the Transition Towns movement in the UK, which spent years trying to convince people that we could grow all we needed around us in cities. Even if we could, the hours of peasant labour it would require would rob us of the ability to develop the luxuries that capitalism has offered us. And yes, some of those luxuries are unsustainable, but not all, and a peasant economy with few luxuries is not the proposal of anyone who genuinely wants a mass movement.

Other more radical voices on the libertarian left seemed to suggest, or at least imply, that we should simply destroy Tesco and let new food production forms emerge organically. Mao would have been proud of the level of sacrifice demanded of other people by such a great leap forward. The truth about this line of thought is that those who indulged in it never believed for a moment that they could win. The human cost was immaterial, because it would never actually happen. Are we surprised this never developed into a mass movement? The radical left would often claim they wanted a different type of globalisation, an open but localised and democratic world, but there were precious few practical examples of how it would work.

None of this is an argument for letting centre-left parties off the hook. They were the ones in power, so their failure was the greatest. Their hitching to the band-wagon of corporate globalisation was a failure of principle, a failure of imagination, a failure of comprehension, a failure of empathy, a political failure in every possible way. That is why they are now losing. Most of those in power in those parties have still not comprehended their failure, and that is why they will continue to lose for years to come. The left must learn to offer something better, and in theory the radical left can push the centrist parties towards their version of ‘better’. But what is that?

I continue to pose the question I have posed for years, the ‘Tesco test’, as I call it. What would you do with Tesco? How should people feed themselves? Where should people work? If you have no answer, you cannot expect to be taken seriously – and I don’t mean by those in power, I mean by your neighbours, your co-workers, your fellow sufferers under the neoliberal order. The anti-globalisers have an answer to the Tesco economy: close the borders and kick out the foreigners so that we will all have jobs and decent services. It is one of the most dishonest packages ever offered, it is the wrong answer, a terrible answer, but it is an answer.

I am not arguing that the radical left has to be perfectly united, but until enough people on the left offer enough of one solution, a convincing one that will scale to our current urban societies, we cannot expect to see a left-wing mass movement. To say it plainly, most people will not campaign for the loss of their own food sources. The convergence on an alternative shouldn’t require one organisation or party shepherding everyone into their solution. It needs to be a broad conversation between hundreds, thousands of organisations, and it needs to move beyond conversation into an offering to our peers. It’s difficult to make this sexy. Meetings will be needed. Forms must be filled out. We have a culture of individualistic rebellion from the 50s through to the 80s that created the blind spot for organisational leg-work that we now inhabit: to talk about restructuring of economic institutions isn’t very beat, it isn’t very punk. But it is rebellion, and it is what we need.

The seeds of the new ideas are floating already in the radical left: slowly a broad swathe of opinion has coalesced around a rejection of both total market solutions and total state solutions. Instead there is more talk of creating self-managed commons, of a re-invigoration of co-operatives, of community-owned housing, of peer production, of new forms of local and global democracy. They are great and exciting ideas, and draw on the long history of the left that is more than social democracy or state communism. What they aren’t yet is an alternative to Tesco and the Tesco economy, to a rigged and divided world of ‘free trade’. They do not constitute a coherent plan for us to live differently and better. Only when we have that, can we build a movement that goes beyond small radical left circles. Only then will anti-globalisation be able to defeat anti-globalism.

The search for a global anternative to mondialism (globalism) as an ultra-modern phenomenon, which summmarizes everything that is considered both Eurasianism and neo-Eurasianism as being negative. Eurasianism in its wider meaning thus becomes conceptual plataform of anti-globalism, or of an alternative globalism. "Eurasianism" unites itself all contemporary trends that deny globalism any objecive (let alone positive) content: it offers the ant-globalist intuition a new character of doctrinal understanding.

The assimilation of the social criticism of the "New Left" into a "conservative Right-wing interpretation" which refers to the heritage of Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze, Antonin Artaud and Guy Debord. This also means assimilation of the critical thinking of those who opose bourgois Western system from the perspectives of anarchism, neo-Marxism, and so on. This conceptual pole representes a new stage of develpment in the "Left-wing" (National Bolshevik) rendencies which also existed among the first Eurasianists (Pyorr Suvchinsky, Lev Karsavin, Sergei Efron), and also provides a means for reaching mutual understanding wich the "Left" wing of anti-globalism.

Globalization: a challenge to the nations and civilizations of the Eurasian continent

Today, in the era of globalization, a Eurasian dialoge between East and West is more important than ever before. Globalization comes from West but increasingly influences the East. This process is very complex and contradictory; it constantly raises new questions, sometimes aquite dramatic and tense ones. The impact on Eurasia has been particularly acute. As a major stage for the process of globalization, it experiences it with the great hardship since the continent is crossed by the major fault-lines and borders of the great cultures and civilizations.

Today as never before we need to comprehend the course, lovig, and path of the process of history. Every day we need to make decisions that will affect future generations. It has become obvious that no single nation, confession, social class and or even civicilation can solve these problems on its own. We increasingly have to listen to one other: Europe and Asia, Christians and Muslims, White and Black people, citizens of modern democratic states and places where traditional society survives. The key is to understand one another other correctly, avoid hasty conclusions, and acquire the true spirit of tolerance and respect toward those with different value systems, habits and norms.

Against "Babylon blending" and the "new xenophobia"

Advances in science and technology have brought Eurasians closer to one another. However, at the same time, ever sharper cultural, linguistic, and religious divisions and hurdles have come to the surface. New threats have beed revealed: the "clash between civilizations", the new wave of terrorism, the outbreak of interethnic and regional conflicts and wars. How can we make blobalization compatible with the preservation of each national character and identity? How do we protect the continental rapprochement of peoples from turning into a global Babylon? How do we avoid a new wave of xenophobia and international strive? Our movement is called to deal with these extremely complicated problems.

Eurasian Mission: An Introduction to Neo-Eurasianism

By: Alexander Dugin

https://books.google.com.br/books?id=lZO4CAAAQBAJ&pg=PA35&lpg=PA35&dq=eurasian+anti+globalism&source=bl&ots=6o_584qoZS&sig=GP_OGBVnVX4Y7naIvZjb-CcYWYk&hl=pt-BR&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjL46TQ3LLbAhWFgZAKHdQ6BIAQ6AEIQTAD#v=onepage&q=eurasian%20anti%20globalism&f=false

http://www.4pt.su/ka/node/27

Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire

https://www.wilsoncenter.org/publication/russian-eurasianism-ideology-empire

"Neo-Eurasianism is the most elaborate of the various conservative ideologies that emerged in Russia in the 1990s," according to Marlene Laruelle, Research Fellow, Central Asia and Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, and former Fellow, Wilson Center. Eurasianism can be defined as an ideology which affirms that Russia and its "margins" occupy a median position between Europe and Asia, that their specific features have to do with their culture being a "mix" born of the fusion of Slavic and Turko-Muslim peoples, and that Russia should specifically highlight its Asian features. Eurasianism rejects the view that Russia is on the periphery of Europe, and on the contrary interprets the country's geographic location as grounds for a kind of messianic "third way."

"This Eurasianist doctrine has been attractive to many intellectuals and politicians because it offers an understanding of the collapse of the Soviet Union and restores Russia's troubled historical and political continuity," stated Laruelle. At a May 4, 2009 Kennan Institute discussion of her book, Russian Eurasianism: An Ideology of Empire (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press: 2008), Laruelle explored Eurasianism's expansion beyond purely academic circles, into a catch-all vision for Russia.

According to Laruelle, Eurasianism's flexibility as an ideology explains its success, its diversity, and the breadth of its coverage. "It is a political doctrine in the strict sense of the word, a theory of nation and ethnos, an alter-globalist philosophy of history, a new pragmatic formulation of 'Sovietism,' a substitute for the global explanatory schemes of Marxism-Leninism, a set of expansionist geopolitical principles for Russia, and much else," she said. Eurasianism often claims to be a science, whose message about Russia does not depend on personal considerations, but is a methodical and objective analysis of Russian interests. It draws much of its success from its commitment to the creation of new academic disciplines such as geopolitics, culturology, conflictology, ethno-psychology, and more.

While Laruelle does not consider Eurasianism to be a marginal phenomenon in any sense, she was careful in her study not to simplify the scope of its influence merely to be an element of Russian foreign policy, a theoretical base of Russia's main nationalist parties, or a new official patriotism promoted by the regime. "The impact of Eurasianism," she offered, "has more to do with the theoretical presuppositions of its doctrine." She identified these as (1) a rejection of Europe, the West, and capitalism through criticism of "Atlanticist" domination, considered disastrous for the rest of mankind; (2) an assertion of the cultural unity and common historical destiny of Russians and non-Russian peoples of Russia, the former Soviet Union, and parts of Asia; (3) the idea that the central geographical position of this Eurasian space naturally and inevitably entails an imperial form of political organization, and that any secession is destined to fail, leaving newly independent states no choice but to revert to a unified political entity; and (4) a belief in the existence of cultural constants that explain the deeper meaning of contemporary political events.

According to the last presupposition named by Laruelle, today's conflicts result not from economic and social struggles, but from a clash between the cultural essences of peoples. With this understanding, "religion is the foundation of civilizations and provides them with an unchangeable nature," she explained, "and civilizations, rather than individuals or social groups, are the true driving force of history." Laruelle held that this essentialist interpretation of the world serves an undisguised political objective: to show that the Western model is not applicable to the post-Soviet countries because civilizations cannot adopt anything from the outside. "Eurasianism has acquired influence in post-Soviet countries in general and Russia in particular by disseminating the idea that culture constrains the liberty of the individual," she stated.

As such, Laruelle argued that Eurasianism plays an important role in Russia for three main reasons. First, it combats the prevalent feeling of failure associated with the turbulence of the 1990s by justifying the experience in strictly ethnic and culturalist terms. Second, it offers a simplistic understanding of the conflicts of the post-Cold War world and of Russia's role in international politics. Finally, it has aided in the elaboration of a pseudo-scientific speak which avoids politics and justifies authoritarianism through culture.

Laruelle closed with the assertion that Eurasianism's call for a civilizational definition of Russia should be considered not as something specific to Russia but as part of a more global phenomenon. "The success of Samuel Huntington's Clash of Civilizations and the comeback of geopolitics are only the tip of the iceberg," she said. With the intellectual retreat of Marxism, socio-economic explanations seem to have been supplanted by the idea that only national identities, cultures, and religions can explain the world as it is today. The widespread acceptance of Eurasianism confirms that the former Soviet Union is fully in tune with the major ideological developments taking place across the planet in the early 21st century. "The phenomenon, therefore, is not specific to Russia by principle, but because of its context," Laruelle concluded. "In the United States, in Europe, and even in the Muslim world, numerous other competitive narratives about the nation, politics, social groups, and tensions between the rich and the poor exist. This is not the case in Russia."