We are pleased to publish this first testimony of a francophone reader of vineyardsaker. Filo is of Yugoslavian origin. He emigrated to the West in the 70’s, and tells us of his disillusionment on the Western model as well as that of an entire people.
The French Saker Editors
1989, The Year the West Did Everything Wrong
by Filo
I was born a long time ago, in a country that was said to be situated between two blocks: that of the East and that of the West. A nonaligned country. Above all, an untroubled and peaceful country. I was born and lived there the first twenty years of my life. Enough for me to be able to perceive and understand the life of my country, engage in my studies and in my first experiences.
As early as 1960, socialist Yugoslavia was forced by the West and the IMF to open itself to a market economy and to start making economic reforms. Poorly prepared and ill-protected, state companies rapidly went into an economic crisis. Mass unemployment appeared. In short, we became easy prey, exploitable at will. The country was invaded by entrepreneurs and businessmen from Germany, Austria, Netherlands, and Switzerland, all attracted by low-cost manpower.
Many Yugoslavians became “gastarbeiters”, immigrant workers. When this situation reached its apex, there were in the West up to 2.5 million Yugoslavian workers according to estimates.
In 1970, I was among those who followed this course. I landed in the middle of an economic boom. I remember, my eyes wide open, being astonished by all of these ostentatious signs of wealth, by the presence of banks everywhere.
Although I was not born in capitalism, a question worried me: How can all of these banks be profitable? I finally understood much later. I will not say more about it now because I would like to keep that topic for another article.
Inevitably, I compared this new world I was discovering to the world I had just left. I was first struck by the amount of falsehood and manipulation in the written or broadcast media. These media were full of glorification of the Western society, presented as being superior in every aspect. The others, the Eastern countries, were systematically criticized and slandered. Yugoslavia often was simply lumped together with the other countries of the Eastern Bloc. I had just discovered that the media of my country were much more objective, more moderate, less dishonest, and overall more democratic.
The Period of Illusions
The year 1989, right after the Berlin wall had fallen, was meant to be the Year Zero for the whole of mankind. At least, that was what we thought at the time. A new start of a world without wars, without poverty. A world of happiness for all, in which we were finally going to live together. No more divisions or hostility, no longer this imminent fear of a forthcoming war.
In the East, they believed in it so much that, led by illusions, they began to dream with their eyes wide open of a new world of coexistence and sharing.
They imagined and persuaded themselves that the Western World was a world suspended between earth and sky. A myth that had suddenly become touchable, within hand’s reach.
They were probably in a state of mind similar to that of the Amerindians at the beginning of the conquest of the Far West; very naive. Truly ingenuous.
Then, history did nothing else but repeat itself. Because history always repeats itself. Only the context changes.
Too bad the West did not understand, did not want to seize such historical opportunity to open itself and welcome, in full frankness and mutual respect, this world from the East that came peacefully seeking a reciprocal coexistence.
Lies and Mental Aberrations
Since the end of World War II, Western propaganda, particularly the American variety, has never ceased to aim at the East a quasi-obsessional hammering of idyllic messages and images of a Western World bathing into perfect happiness.
Applied equally in the West, this propaganda was mixed with images and stories of the world behind the “iron curtain”, the reality of which was utterly distorted and darkened.
The goal was to create (and they succeeded) what was later called the “American leadership”. To define it, I offer to define “leadership” as a whole set of illusions and mental aberrations about the existence of a world to which everyone would like to belong. In reality, it is a world that does not exist and never existed. This world is also called « “The American Dream”.
In short, a game of fools. A fabric of lies in which we believed. Still today, it has become clear that the reality of yesterday and that of today are a permanent fabric of lies.
Americans in particular live in a permanent lie and have since the creation of their country. It started with the myth of the Far West put into images by Hollywood in an idyllic manner. The reality is entirely different and has been twisted around. Twenty million American Indians at the arrival of European settlers at the beginning of the conquest; at the end, less than a century later, only 60,000 were left. It is the largest genocide in human history. To date, no condemnation. The truth barely transpires today.
Still, the Western world is entirely used to the sleep-inducing image of “the American friend” wrapped into the aura of “the savior the Free World”.
A friend who, according to the legend, first came to save Europe and the world during the First World War. What a blessing!
And who returned again, during the Second World War. The American savior succeeded in stopping the evil Soviets at “Checkpoint Charlie.” The whole Western world barely dodged a disaster. Whew!
At this checkpoint, the Americans and their European lackeys tried to create a myth to go along with the Hollywood sauce. Big kitsch, yes!
At the beginning of this month of June 2014, during the commemoration of the Normandy landings, I was amazed to see how Americans continue to falsify history and blatantly lie. With the help of European cowards of course.
To maintain a permanent psychosis, the Americans were threatening and provocative, as much towards their opponents as towards their own people and the population of the Allies. Such a behavior caused similar reactions among their opponents until the introduction on both sides of a true paranoia.
I believe that the Soviet intervention in Hungary in 1956, the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961, and the crash of the “Prague Spring” in 1968 are direct consequences of this escalation of paranoia between the two Blocs. The Americans can be credited for the direct initiative of this escalation.
One day we will know the truth about this period known as the “Cold War.” We even have a duty to know the truth and the whole truth.
It is important to be reminded that “walls” are first and foremost within our own minds. But, regarding the other Wall that fell in 1989, it is clear that it is still there in the minds of today’s Western policymakers. It is not yet destroyed. This is especially the case with regard to the Americans, subject to a total mental aberration.
Back to Reason: Four Examples
Unfortunately, we were bound to quickly become disillusioned and understand that we would not enter into a new era of peace and prosperity. It was all lies and promises from the West. Their intentions were far from sincere and honest, and they never intended to deal with us as equals. Their only endgame was as Western conqueror, triumphant and vengeful. Wishing to enslave us in order to better exploit us. For them, we were only consumers of their capitalist products; a potential market, and nothing more.
To support and confirm my statements, I offer four examples among many others:
- In our “liberated” countries, Western manufacturers implemented a dairy and food industry supplanting what was already there, regardless of the existing agricultural environment. The domino effect was instantaneous, and the farmers of these countries were ruined.
- We were discredited and treated as “sheep to shear” in favor of the capitalist banking and its usurious system. Putting their hands in the banks of the conquered countries, the “banksters” have imposed their methods and systems: Western-type mortgages, but with interest rates sometimes up to five times higher than those of West. Self-authorized robbery, yes! Especially because they were loans in euros, Swiss francs or dollars, modeled on the fluctuation of exchange rates. The destructive effect was guaranteed within a year after the loans were made. Result: a lot of ruined people and exorbitant suicide rates.
- The Westerners also robbed us of all of the wealth and raw materials in our soils. They systematically bought our raw materials at a fraction of their market value, often bribing local potentates to acquire both the mines and the factories that reprocessed these raw materials. In return, they gave us vague promises of investments and employment for the local population which never arrived.
- More directly, they sent an army of occupation. Example of such a deceit: Kosovo and “Bondsteel”, 40,000 m2, the largest U.S. base ever built in Europe. In 1999, the U.S. imposed on a puppet government in Pristina a 99 year lease, where the subsoil is rich in mercury, silver and lead. I am convinced that Americans began looting it immediately. The day they leave, there will be nothing left in the subsoil but gaping holes. The American army also uses this base as one of their secret prisons.
After blowing in like a hurricane, the Westerners triggered a tsunami effect.
Western Arrogance
These Western acts of triumphal conquerors were particularly stupid. We were open to them, and we wanted to learn from them, but also we wanted to pass on our own knowledge. In the field of culture, we could have had a very rich exchange: for us culture has always been very important, and we take great care of it. Contrary to this, we were treated with a wave of violence, spite and humiliation.
Curiously, I find some similarities between these events and those that occurred at the time of the Mayan and Aztec civilizations, when savage conquistadors looted and destroyed civilizations that were far more advanced than their own.
I am deeply convinced that the West in this year 1989 did not understand what had just happened. Together we could have built a new world, instead of just destroying what already existed. The confidence that was then lost will never be regained.
In the Year 1989, Westerners Blew It!
For example, the Germans believed in the coming of a 4th Reich. Genscher, at the time Minister of Foreign Affairs and former a SS officer, began to secretly visit the former Axis countries. He was forcibly expelled from the Baltic countries by the Soviets.
Mitterrand’s France was first opposed to German reunification. Backed as usual by the U.S., the UK was waiting for a signal from the Americans. The U.S. acted as if they understood everything; but they mainly pretended they did. They immediately applied (once more) their “Shock Doctrine”- immediate gains for sure, but very stupid in the mid to long term.
Those Who Saw Through It All
I think the only ones who got it all in 1989 were the Russians. Not the Russia of Mikhail Gorbachev and his entourage, but the Russians in the background, the strategists who acted immediately and started to create today’s Russia. They understood that German unification would be, at least for the next twenty years, like slamming an economic brake on the new reunified Germany and by extension on the Western economy, and that this length of time would enable a modernizing Russia to recover economically and militarily.
Today one must admit that they were visionaries who were absolutely right.
The stupidity and greed of Westerners in general and Americans in particular have led to where we are now, a dead end without alternative.
Today the West has lost its hegemony over the world. The failure of its policy since 1989 is complete!
Recent events such as those in Syria demonstrate this well.
The effects of this global deception
“At the time, I was young, very naive and very stupid, and I sincerely believed that the Soviet Union was a deadly threat to Western Europe and that the only thing that stood between them, the evil Communists, and we, the Free World, was the military power of NATO,” the Saker stressed in a text published in March 2014 [1].
How true is this sentence of the Saker’s. Unfortunately we were young and naive, our naivete bordering on stupidity. Especially since the American style has always been the same – simple, too simple, downright simplistic.
The End of the USSR
The Russians are a nation of spontaneously and naturally friendly people; they voluntarily dropped “the wall” thanks to Mikhail Gorbachev’s naivety. Although, as regards the naivete of Gorbachev, head of the USSR from 1985-91, there remain some doubts to this day. According to the latest news, an inquest has just started in Moscow to determine whether the fall of the USSR was simple naivete or a case of high treason.
The only result produced by his “perestroika” (reconstruction) was an economic, military and political weakening of the USSR and its subsequent disintegration. The ruble was became worthless and people started throwing rubles out of their windows in disgust. In spite of all this, even today, he says he is satisfied with what he did.
In 1990, he received the Nobel Peace Prize. Later, with the collapse of the USSR, it was rumored that the Prize was a reward given to Gorbachev by the Americans for “letting the fox into the hen house.”
Then, another strike of bad luck for the Russians hit. Either a real string of bad luck, or the result of a large-scale corruption: the arrival of Boris Yeltsin. Notorious drunkard, yes. For eight years, Russia had an open door to all possible abuses and looting. Russia saw the appearance of vultures nicknamed “oligarchs.” Enriched overnight, they became billionaires. Some of the best known among them: Khodorovsky, Abramovich, Berezowsky, Navalny, etc. A real scourge for Russia.
Boris Yeltsin himself considerably benefited from the situation. In Switzerland, he has been investigated for corruption. He presumably received bribes from a civil engineering company in Tessin, led by an Albanian who was mysteriously contracted to renovate the Kremlin.
During his reign, privatizations prevailed. All that could be privatized and sold cheaply went to either oligarchs or foreigners, in particular Americans. Hence, Americans treated themselves to buying a military industrial complex in the north of Russia. Immediately after this purchase, they froze all of the activities with the company so as to harm the Russians. With Boris Yeltsin, a chronic alcoholic, Russia became the laughingstock of the West. Bill Clinton, at that time the U.S. president, was accustomed, at each meeting with Yeltsin, to laugh himself to tears. Forced but triumphant laugh of course!
Russia, a great heroic nation, saw its dignity trampled. Westerners, Americans in particular, stupid and vengeful, behaved like bulls in a china shop: looting, humiliation, and harassment of all kinds ruled the day, both towards Russia and towards other so-called Communist countries.
The Ceausescu Trial in Romania
Coup in Romania. Sloppy and expeditious trial of the Ceausescu couple. Death sentence and immediate execution of the couple. Judgment by two judges who were taken by force to an improvised courtroom site that looked like a grade school classroom.
Shortly after the trial, the two judges committed suicide.
The Destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Now, here is the height of Western stupidity: the destruction of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, under the false pretext that the people who composed it no longer wanted to live together. A pretext as cowardly as it is deceitful. Witness of it is the fact that it took Westerners almost twenty years to destroy it (from 1991-2006). A great and beautiful country, a Europe in miniature. A country of 24 million inhabitants and a territory of nearly 260,000 square kilometers (half of France). A sweet mixing of populations, cultures, and religions. An incredible diversity of cultures, arts and foods.
During the Cold War, the country had perfectly fulfilled its buffer role between East and West. Unfortunately the West had ideas of conquest and domination. I’m sure that the West had always and only ever wanted to take advantage of the Yugoslav position between the two Blocs, and that’s all. As disposable as a Kleenex, discarded once it has served.
Thrown out to the dogs of Western wars, all for more dough for their arm dealers.
Dough, the Only Real Western Value!
At the end of the Cold War, the old demons awoke. First, among the Germans and the Austrians (memories of 1st and 2nd World Wars). But also at the Vatican, who saw an opportunity to settle disputes with the Orthodox Church. Westerners played on the antagonisms that were unique to this land in order to destroy it.
Such an act is cowardly, criminal and stupid, and it caused a lot of suffering, hundreds of thousands of deaths and as much destruction.
Remember that in a house there are walls that are said to be load-bearing. One should never touch them, because of the risk of seeing the house collapse. Yugoslavia, for Europe in any case, was one of those bearing walls. And our stupid Western leaders destroyed it.
Since then, the house has kept cracking and threatening to collapse.
I feel that the destruction of this country will be fatal to the destroyers and that the Yugoslavian national anthem might as well be the Western funeral song. In the case of Yugoslavia, the West has shown a staggering political illiteracy and a stunning cultural ignorance.
And What About Russia in All This?
The Russians said, “Never again!” And they kept their word.
Once Yeltsin was thrown in the dumpster of history, the Russians chose the best among them.
VV Putin. A president and a very talented and intelligent politician. Someone who holds life principles which he applies. In less than 15 years, he managed to return glory and power to Russia. Today, not only is his country no longer the laughingstock of the West, but on the contrary, Russia has become a major geopolitical actor on the world stage. On the military level, its role is just as important. The Russians have caught up and even surpassed the Americans in this area. NATO has found a Russian opponent who managed to halt its progression towards the east. The lying behavior of Westerners in the face of Russia is now being turned against them.
“The day the sun will rise above Russia, NATO will melt,” Slobodan Milosevic (former President of Serbia) said.
Milosevic “committed suicide” in 2006 at the hand of his jailers in the prison of the ICC in The Hague. According to British media, his trial was moving inexorably towards a nonsuit, that is a dismissal of charges.
And Finally, What About the West in All This?
In 1989, a Russian visionary declared: “Communism and capitalism are the heads and tails of the same coin. Now we let down our communism. How long after that, do you think your capitalism will hold?”
Today, results agree entirely with him.
Conclusion
Forty-four years have passed since my arrival in the West. I am a full citizen of my adopted country (Switzerland). From the beginning, I had the desire and made the effort to integrate into this country. But I always refused to assimilate.
Since the beginning, I was aware of the benefits of having been born and raised in another country, another political system, before arriving here. I have always taken advantage of this asset and used it in every opportunity that presented itself. I especially used it to understand and analyze some features and paradoxes of the West.
For example, very quickly, I had to admit the evidence that Westerners were viscerally anti-Communists, including towards such rather tempered form of that of Yugoslavian Communism, which was quite diluted from its original form.
For years I asked myself why.
A paradox that I wanted to elucidate at all costs. And I finally understood.
It’s huge, because in reality it is the keystone of the West itself. The cause is capitalism itself. Since its beginning, by its very definition, it is an economic concept that is not viable. Therefore, it was doomed to fail from the beginning.
The reasons and causes of its inevitable failure I will address in my next article.
Filo, for vineyardsaker.fr
June 2014
[1] http://vineyardsaker.blogspot.fr/2014/03/today-every-free-person-in-world-has-won.html
Source: http://www.vineyardsaker.fr/2014/07/15/1989-lannee-ou-loccident-a-tout-rate-par-filo/
