Europe’s Leaders are Freer than Ours
Dispatches from Deena Stryker
Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s far-right National Front Party, is visiting Moscow, dissing the US’s scenario for Europe. Many political observers have noted that the 20th century actually began with the Russian Revolution of 1917, and is really ending with Europe gradually ending its estrangement from its neighboring behemoth. Ironically, it is the right wing parties that are break with seventy years of implicit and explicit anti-Russian policies, following the defeat of Nazi Germany.
World War II was a turning point not only for Russia, but for all of Europe, in a way not shared by the US: our women exchanged pots and pans for riveters, but what we only now refer to as ‘the homeland’ emerged unscathed. For Europeans, World War II was about defeating an occupying force, and the pro-Soviet left constituted the bulk of resistance fighters. Today, in a supreme irony, a liberalized and increasingly docile left is being replaced center stage by a nationalist right that seeks to restore relations with Russia.
Much ink is yet to be spilled over the ‘alt-right’ — or alternative right,—represented, in France, by Marine Le Pen, and in Russia, in a certain sense, by Vladimir Putin. But not since Margaret Thatcher practically flew into Mikhail Gorbachev’s arms upon his arrival at Heathrow airport, and George W saw Putin’s soul, have we witnessed such eloquent eye contact between two leaders as shown today on RT.
As Le Pen draws increasing support from former Gaullists — a major current in French politics —her meeting in the Kremlin will increasingly be seen as a turning point in the birthing of De Gaulle’s ‘Europe of Nations from the Atlantic to the Urals’. And thanks to the China-Russia Silk Road project, it will extend all the way to Vladivostok.
Getting Inside People’s Heads
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ollowing the latest shocking terrorist attack in Europe — this time in the heart of Britain’s fabled ‘democracy’, right on its parliament’s doorstep — it’s London’s’ turn to consider better ways of getting into the minds of would-be attackers, following other major capitals.
Invariably, the talk is about using the school curriculum to vaccinate minds against Islamism — a distorted interpretation of a great religion — and scrutinizing mosque leaders. Five percent of London’s population is Muslim and there are an estimated 1750 mosques across the country. (Ten percent of the French population is Muslim and there are about 2000 mosques, with more being built.)
What is curious in this situation is that the talk of getting into Muslim minds is all about denying them the right to fight for their faith, even as the West — huddled around the US First Amendment, which protects freedom of religion — claims the right to bomb, and even invade, Muslim countries in a veritable domino effect.
I do not want to belabor this point, but to any casual observer — say, from another planet — it would almost surely appear that the right hand is systematically undoing the left hand’s work. Sadly, it has not occured to Western leaders that there could be a link between the wars they have waged in the Middle East since 2003 and the behavior of that region’s peoples in the West’s own backyards.
ADDENDUM
RT EXCLUSIVE)
Published time: 24 Mar, 2017
“I don’t see any good reason to engage in a Cold War in any form. Russia as well as the US is a great power. It’s very important for France to build up balanced relations with both of these countries. I think we could do that with Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump,” Le Pen told RT.
The National Front leader noted the importance of restoring and strengthening trade and cultural ties between the two countries, as well as boosting cooperation in the energy industry and in the fight against terrorism.
“I believe France shouldn’t put limits on itself when it comes to improving relations with Russia. First of all, we should lift the sanctions [against Russia] that actually have been forced upon us by the European Union.”
When touching upon the accusations of Russian meddling in the French election campaign, Le Pen said the claims were groundless.
“I hear all the time [French President] Hollande talking about it, but I have never seen any proof to these accusations,” Le Pen said.
“At the same time, I see that Hollande does not ask the US for explanations, although it turned out the CIA eavesdropped on some European leaders and the 2012 candidates for the [French] presidential elections,” she said.
“I think we should stop this policy of double standards – this is what creates a sense of injustice not only for Russian people, but for many nations worldwide,” Le Pen concluded.
French presidential candidate Le Pen and Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting in Moscow on Friday, focusing on the need for joint efforts in fighting terrorism.
DEENA STRYKER, Senior Contributing Editor
Born in Philadelphia, Stryker spent most of her adolescent and adult years in Europe, resulting over time in several unique books, her latest being
CUBA: Diary of a Revolution, Inside the Cuban Revolution with Fidel, Raul, Che, and Celia Sanchez
America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World
A Taoist Politics: The Case For Sacredness
She began her journalistic career at the French News Agency in Rome, spent two years in Cuba finding out whether the Barbados were Communists before they made the revolution (‘Cuba 1964: When the Revolution was Young’). After spending half a decade in Eastern Europe, and a decade in the U.S., studying Global Survival and writing speeches in the Carter State Department, she wrote the only book that foresaw the fall of the Berlin Wall AND the dissolution of the Soviet Union (“Une autre Europe, un autre Monde’). Her memoir, ‘Lunch with Fellini, Dinner with Fidel’, tells it all. ‘A Taoist Politics: The Case for Sacredness’, which examines the similarities between ancient wisdom and modern science and what this implies for political activism; and ‘America Revealed to a Honey-Colored World” is a pamphlet about how the U.S. came down from the City on a Hill’.
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