Sever Voinescu, Dilemma: At the Judgment of the West

I have always preferred to speak in civilizational terms rather than political ones, so I prefer to talk about European civilization and not about the European Union, being aware that I choose the more difficult and more contestable language. Civilization is more alive than political institutions, civilization has consciousness, suffers or flourishes, is frightened or courageous, while institutions are cold, have neither consciousness nor memory and are always partial, they are just a fragment and will never be able to claim the whole. The connection of the institution with people is limited only to working hours, institutions only provide a workplace and contain only power relations. Civilizations offer continuous life, even perspectives on death, being totally encompassing.

Well, for European civilization, the unfolding of the war in Ukraine is one of the greatest sins and weighs heavily on its conscience. Fear and greed have pushed the West towards decisions that, starting from 2014 and especially since 2022, have made it more vulnerable and chaotic. According to the logic of "Oh, let's not escalate!", instead of helping Ukraine 100% from the first week of war, the West helped "gradually". Thus, the West was forced by the reality of war to provide Ukraine with the assistance it requested from the first weeks only after a year or two. From tanks, rockets, and planes to sophisticated interception systems, everything Ukraine requested in the first month arrived there in the following ones, but "with caution", so as not to "escalate". Well, look, it escalated, which was absolutely predictable knowing how cunning Putin is. Only the "gradual" support of the West for Ukraine allowed the Russian aggressor to become increasingly competitive, just as rats and mice adapt to poisons and become more resistant. Today there is no doubt that if the West – at that time, at least politically united – had reacted directly and forcefully to Russia's invasion in Donbas, it could have not only been stopped from the beginning but also completely discouraged in the future. The West was afraid. Russia was not. Of course, the Ukrainians made mistakes in turn. The failure of the counteroffensive in June 2023 or the futility of the attack on the Russian Kursk region can be considered strategic mistakes. But at least the Ukrainians make mistakes fighting, the West makes mistakes trembling with fear in its own bones.

If, in terms of military aid, the West behaved like a coward, in economic terms it behaved like a scoundrel. The US-EU sanctions have been outrageously useless. The economic sanctions were "gradual" until they became ridiculous. When we hear today that "work is being done on the next sanctions package" it’s like a friend asking you if you want to hear a joke you already know. The sanctions were not only weak, but even the ones implemented were circumvented by the implementers themselves. It sticks in my brain that Europeans, sanctioning on paper, continued to buy "washed" Russian oil from Indian intermediaries until 2025. This was known by absolutely everyone in the industry, I understand. Not to mention the Western companies that continue to operate in Russia. According to the data I have access to and which do not seem to be contradicted, over 1,000 Western multinationals continue to operate in Russia bringing Putin's budget about 22 billion dollars in taxes per year. Nestlé, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Auchan, Raiffeisen Bank, Knauf, Philip Morris International and many other Western giants do "business as usual" with Putin's Russia. So what kind of sanctions are we talking about? 17 of the top 20 private contributors to Russia's budget are companies from countries that officially support Ukraine. Regarding Ukraine, therefore, we have not only been cowards (and our fear has fed the Russian monster that has reached where it has), we have also been duplicitous. Up until Donald Trump, we could at least be hypocritical, that is, regardless of our actions, at least we all said the same thing in one voice: Russia is the aggressor, Ukraine is the victim, it is in all our interests to help Ukraine with everything it needs to stop Russia. But with Trump's arrival, not even this hypocrisy works anymore. As he came to power, Trump equated morally the aggressive Russia with the attacked Ukraine, clearly indicated that he was annoyed by the Ukrainians and particularly by Zelensky, and stopped any aid (now, everything that comes from Americans to Ukrainians is bought by Europeans). As for Putin, it is clear that Trump is on his side and, humanly speaking, the more he dislikes Zelensky, the more he sympathizes with Putin. If I had to quickly say which world leader is doing best at the beginning of this year, I would say Putin. "The West is slow."

There has been much talk, especially in the media of free society, without institutional or ideological constraint, because in political circles as well as in scholarly and academic ones such a thing is unspeakable, about the weakening of the Western man. How can we still be willing to defend ourselves in a war when in the last three generations we have been drilled into our heads that war is bad and unnecessary, that it can always be avoided and only violent and mentally ill people do not avoid it? How can we still be willing to defend ourselves in a war when we have been drilled into our heads that, with money, we can buy anything – that we have money and we can buy peace, that’s how the West, especially European West, has thought for several decades. Whether we are among those who have the freedom to talk about the shortcomings of "the good life", or whether we are not among them, we all know that we have weakened and that we have inert souls. On the other hand, it is good to know that the West has not always been like this. And that this process of decline is not irreversible. Here is a fragment from a speech delivered by the French writer Albert Camus in March 1957: "There are countless flaws in the West, its crimes and mistakes. But, after all, let us not forget that we are the only holders of that power of perfection and emancipation that resides in the free spirit… The truth is that among us there is room for everything, even for evil [...], but also for honor, for the free living of desire, for the adventure of intelligence. It will be very hard for us to be worthy of so many sacrifices. But we must try, in a Europe ultimately united, forgetting our quarrels, banishing our own mistakes, believing more and being more united… Our belief is that in the world, parallel to the power of destruction and death that darkens history, there is unfolding a power of persuasion and life, a huge movement of emancipation called culture that is nourished both through free creation and through free work. Our daily task, our long-term vocation is to enhance through our work this culture, not to detach ourselves from it, whatever it may be, not even temporarily."

I believe more and more that our only chance of having a united and strong Europe is to talk more about Europe than we talk about the European Union and more about our culture and civilization than about what the members of the European Council do and say.

https://www.dilema.ro/tilc-show/la-judecata-occidentului