By Batiushka for the Saker Blog
Almost one thousand years of Western Imperialism are coming to a shameful and self-inflicted death, one way or another
As schoolchildren will tell you, the names of the continents begin and end with the same letter, A: Asia, Africa, America, Australia, Antarctica. There is one exception: Europe, which though still beginning and ending with the same letter, the letter is not A, but E. Why the difference? Is it perhaps because Europe is not really a Continent? After all, it is not a vast landmass surrounded by an ocean (if it were a small one, it would be called an island). Its borders are arbitrary, having frequently changed, were only relatively recently pushed to the Urals, and are still much disputed. In reality, surely Europe is the artificially isolated north-western peninsula of Asia? It is not a geographical Continent at all, it is an ideological construct. That is why the slogan of so many EU-fanatics, like the former French President Chirac, was: 'Faisons l'Europe' - 'Let's Create Europe'.
We ask the above question because in this winter of 2022-2023 the old EU and Non-EU Europe has had to face a new reality following the war that the US/NATO lost in the 'Ukraine', as it used to be called. Europe-wide, indeed worldwide, food riots with looting of supermarkets and 'bill boycotts' (the wave of civil disobedience with the refusal/inability to pay soaring fuel bills) made this clear. Obviously, a worldwide reconfiguration is coming. Already the new world is becoming multipolar, with several main centres within the old BRICS, Russia, China, India, Brazil, South Africa, and now more to come, perhaps Iran, Türkiye, Argentina, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Mexico, Lebanon and Indonesia. In general, all Asia, Africa and Latin America now at last have their own future.
Not only are the old, thoroughly corrupted international organisations like the UN, WTO, WEF or IMF rightly disappearing into the sewers of history along with their discredited puppet-master, the US elite, but so too are pro-US regional groupings, like its European political and economic arm the EU and its European military arm, NATO. And here precisely, we ask where does the US/NATO defeat in the Ukraine leave the European peninsula, both the EU part of it and the rest of it, outside the EU? After World War I Europe had to be reconfigured, and again after World War II. Now, after whatever you call the 2022 Western rout in the Ukraine (World War III, or World War I, Part III), what is its destiny?
Surely the greatest revelation of the US proxy war in the Ukraine is Europe's dependence on Russia. Without Russia, it simply cannot survive - though Russia can survive without it. The fact is that for the last few centuries, the largest European country has been Russia for surface area and, over the last century and a half, for population. The most common European language in Europe is Russian, the second German, the third French, the fourth English, the fifth Italian. As regards natural resources, whether agricultural or mineral, and as regards military power, the most important country, once again, is Russia.
Having said that, it must be admitted that part of Russia's might, on which Europe depends, comes from Asia, which forms the majority of Russia's territory. Thus, Russia is also Asia, specifically the northernmost third of the Asian landmass, whereas Europe is just the tiny north-western tip of that same landmass. As for Europe's peoples, they too came from Asia, and mostly speak 'Indo-European', that is, Northern Indian, languages. As for Europe's traditional religion, it too is Asian, for Christ, who appeared on earth as a coffee-coloured man who certainly never wore trousers, lived in Asia, specifically in the Middle East. It seems obvious to anyone with even the most basic geographical and historical knowledge that the destiny of Europe, now divorced from its former landgrab colonies in Africa, America and Australia, is with Russia, which is its link to Asia.
The territory of the four largely East Slav Union States, the Russian Federation, Belarus, Malorossiya and Carpatho-Russia (the last two formed from the old, ill-fated US vassal, the 'Ukraine'), dwarves the rest of Europe. Similarly, with a population of 200 million, the Four Union States are far larger than any of the European Regions in population. The future European Regions are still independent, if integral, parts of Eurasia, within the Russian resource and security umbrella, on which they depend. Non-Russian Europe has its own personality and culture, which varies amongst its members. Geographically, historically and linguistically, the 450 million people of the old EU and non-EU Europe can be divided into eight European Regions. What are they, in order of population?
1. Germania (122 million):
Germany, Austria, the South Tyrol, the Netherlands, Flanders (Northern 'Belgium'), German-speaking East 'Belgium', Luxembourg, German-speaking Switzerland and Liechtenstein. These countries, with about twice as many people as most of the other European Regions, have all been influenced by the same culture of Germanic organisation, order and productivity. This could provide direction to the way out of their present black hole.
2. Francia (74 million):
France, Wallonia and Brussels, French-speaking Switzerland and Monaco. All share in the same Catholic and post-Catholic French-speaking culture. A return to ancient roots and historic cultural heritage could give direction to this Region in the future.
3. The Anglo-Celtic Confederation (73 million):
England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Though geographically clearly one, these thousand islands and their four nations have in history been much perturbed by the centralising, unionist spirit imposed by force from alien 'British' London. (Between the Imperialist Romans and equally Imperialist Normans, the English Capital had been Winchester). If some equitable, confederal settlement can be reached between all four by the rejection of everything Britain and British, there is a future here. Could the acronym, IONA (Isles of the North Atlantic) provide clues to that future?
4. The Visegrad Group (66 million):
Poland, Lithuania, Hungary, the Czech Lands, Slovakia. Lithuania is not usually included in the 'Visegrad Group', but it has so much in common with Poland and national Catholicism, that it must belong to this group. All share in a common West Slav/Central and Eastern European, largely Catholic nationalist, culture.
5. South Eastern Europe (65 million):
Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, North Macedonia, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Greece and Cyprus. Although very varied in culture, mainly Orthodox, but also Catholic and Muslim, and spreading as far as the Romanian Carpathians as well as the Greek Islands and the island of Cyprus, the centre of this group is a common, though often so far tragic, South-East European history.
6. Italia (62 million):
Italy, San Marino, Ticino and Malta. All have a common Italian culture, which can provide the strength for political, economic, cultural and social renewal.
7. Iberia (57 million):
Spain, the Canaries, Catalonia, the Basque Country, Gibraltar, Andorra, Portugal, the Azores, Madeira. All share in a common Iberian culture. With decentralisation, they could work together to find a way out of the present crisis.
8. Nordica (30 million):
Iceland, Norway, Denmark, the Faeroes, Sweden, Finland, Estonia and Latvia. With a largely Lutheran and post-Lutheran common cultural heritage, these countries, with only about half the population of most of the other European regional groups, could work together to provide a direction away from the suicide to which they have come so perilously close in recent decades.
Many are at present profoundly pessimistic about the future of the European Peninsula. The EU is collapsing and has for some time been collapsing for all to see. However, we see no long-term reason for such pessimism. Once 'Europe' has reconnected with its geographical and historical roots in Asia, it will have a future again. In time, we are convinced that history will come to see Europe's previous thousand years as in many ways a deviation from and a distortion of its historic destiny, which is as an integral, if idiosyncatic, part of the Asian landmass.