The West is back in business with a new war in Europe. After 60 years without real tension and no tanks on the streets (besides, Kosovo and Northern Ireland), the war machine is back in Ukraine. I’m not being sarcastic; on the contrary, I’m quite serious. The White-West is built and developed to make war. We’re educated to see history through our wars: WWI, WWII, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Afghanistan War, the Iraqi War… the list goes on. Our heroes are war veterans who fought for their country. The majority of our taxes go to military expenditures, our scientific investment goes toward research on nuclear weapons. Even our entertainment industry is in bed with the military, as seen in an article by David Swanson published in Pressenza on Jan 5, 2022 (“The Pentagon and CIA Have Shaped Thousands of Hollywood Movies into Super Effective Propaganda”.)
There are many indicators, from our recent past and present, that demonstrate our addiction to violence. We had one of our most famous singers propose to “give peace a chance,” until he was killed on the sidewalk in front of his apartment. We had a President who was perceived as turning pro-peace killed on live television during a parade. We had a spiritual and social leader who opposed the war in Vietnam killed outside his hotel room. Our culture can’t stand peace and nonviolence. There is no political party that would have a chance of winning an election with a peace and disarmament platform.
We also have an internal gun war underway in the US; since Biden’s inauguration in 2021 there have been 47,734 gun deaths, 42,641 gun injuries, 718 mass shootings, 1,652 minors killed, 4,387 minors injured, 2,057 unintentional shootings, and 650 murder-suicides.
We could also talk about the economic war, with a concentration of wealth like never seen before and half of the world’s net wealth belonging to the top 1%.
Finally, we can’t forget to mention the war against our own environment, which is producing an unpredictable change in climate that affects mostly the poorest countries. In the same way, there is an ongoing war of discrimination against immigrants, people of color, and indigenous communities.
Of course the West will be crying for peace now, after bullying Russia for 40 years and expanding NATO to its border and putting it in an impossible situation. Who is going to protest against NATO and ask it to stop its expansion? Is any European country leaving NATO anytime soon?
Before you go to the street and ask for peace in Ukraine, make sure you see what you are asking for. What is peace for you and where will this peace be coming from?
The world is changing and the White-West needs to learn and adapt to a changing new world order where the center of it will not be Europe and the US anymore.
Today’s peace means that we will not be controlling everything anymore and that another type of relationship will need to be built. The White-West’s real choice is either to adapt and become a true partner with the rest of the world, or stay put like an old dictator and die.
David Andersson is the author of the book: The White-West: A Look in the Mirror. A collection of op-eds originally published during the last year by Pressenza. Each article looks at a different aspect of the White-West dynamic and how it plays out against other cultures.
