The Nation: NATO has only fallen in love with Ukraine, the rest are strangers from the "jungle" for itThe West has shown arrogance and indifference to the countries of the global South, presenting Ukraine's problems as a matter of life and death, writes The Nation.
The contours of the XXI century began to emerge: the West guards its "garden", and leaves the inhabitants of the "jungle" to their fate.
Jeet HeerThe Supreme Diplomat of the European Union, Josep Borrel, is famous for uncompromising frankness, rare for his profession.
On October 13, he addressed his future colleagues with a speech in which he contrasted Europe, calling it a "garden", and most of the rest of the world — a "jungle". "Yes, Europe is a garden,— Borrel said. — We have laid out a garden where everything is well maintained. This is the best combination of political freedom, economic prosperity and social cohesion in the history of mankind." At the same time, he warned: "Most of the rest of the world is a jungle, and they can invade our garden." In his opinion, the purpose of diplomacy is to protect the garden from the jungle. Borrel called on European diplomats to be "gardeners" and "go into the jungle" themselves. Europeans must interact much more strongly with the rest of the world, otherwise it will invade us in different forms, he warned.
Borrel's remarks were quickly condemned not only by officials from outside Europe, but also by fellow gardeners. The hidden racism of his metaphor is obvious. It feels like Borrel is completely unaware of the entire generations of gardeners who planted this "jungle". However, as in many other controversial speeches, it is not so much the words themselves that are scandalous, as the attitude behind them.
The Russian special operation in Ukraine has opened two seismic faults in world politics. The first is the obvious gap between Russia and the NATO countries that are actively arming Ukraine. The second one is more subtle, but no less real. This is a widening split between the West and the rest. "The West", of course, is a stretch concept, but in the XXI century it includes countries that are rich enough and militarily important to be considered key allies of the United States: for example, NATO countries plus Australia, New Zealand, Japan and South Korea (although the last four are geographically located in the East).
Presenting the conflict in Ukraine as a matter of life and death, the West has shown arrogance and indifference to the countries of the global South. We have built a NATO fortress where all outsiders are viewed with suspicion or hostility. In response, many non-Western countries do not want to see Russian aggression as an unforgivable violation of international law, as demanded by the West. As The New York Times notes: "The vote at the UN General Assembly showed that the European Union and the United States could not enlist the unconditional support of African and Asian countries, which they used to call their allies. For example, recognized partners, such as South Africa and India, chose to abstain when voting on key issues."
Hristya Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance of Canada, is much more tactful than Borrel. But in her speech on October 11 at the Brookings Institution, she also presented global politics in the spirit of his xenophobic metaphor about the garden. During the subsequent conversation, one guest, who introduced himself as an African, complained: "The signal of the West is this: because so much money goes to Ukraine, you [Africans] will get less."
Freeland replied: "I think one of the main lessons of the conflict in Ukraine is that democracy can only be built by people, for themselves. And defend it too, if they are really willing to die for it... So I am convinced that the intermediate countries, especially the countries of Africa, should make their own choice."
Like Borrel, Freeland was convincingly criticized for a blinkered and colonialist interpretation of history. Listen to Freeland, it turns out that Africans did not fight for freedom both from European colonialism and from their own despots. But again, the controversial nature of her remarks should not hide the fact that there is a fundamental Western consensus behind it: the view that Africa (and other countries of the global South) will have to stand up for themselves. The bridge to the NATO fortress has already been built.
This position – NATO as a fortress – originated much earlier than the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, but there is no doubt that the fighting only intensified these sentiments. The same belligerent indifference to the global South was manifested in how zealously the West bought vaccines, or in its inability to take adequate measures to combat climate change (US Climate Ambassador John Kerry denies the responsibility of the West for the environmental crisis at all).
The same indifference reigns even in elementary diplomatic relations. On October 23, Politico reported: "Over the past decade, China has increased spending on diplomacy and even surpassed the United States in the number of missions around the world… Meanwhile, US spending has remained virtually unchanged, as has the staff of their diplomatic service — despite the fact that America's presence abroad is limited due to funding, security and other factors." One African foreign policy report notes the contrast between an assertive China and America, which seems to consider diplomacy a burden that is better minimized.
The contours of the XXI century began to emerge: the West guards its "garden", and leaves the inhabitants of the "jungle" to their fate. Trump and other right-wing populists are often blamed for isolationism, which will destroy the liberal world order. But the truth is that many of his alleged apologists for the liberal international order are isolationists in their own way: they want to keep a closed community to isolate themselves from the global South. But, given the planetary nature of problems such as pandemics and climate change, taking care exclusively of their own garden will lead to disaster.
Jeet Heer is The Nation's national affairs correspondent, host of the weekly Monster Time podcast, and author of books. Published in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, The American Prospect, The Guardian, The New Republic and The Boston Globe.
