The conventional wisdom in explaining Europe’s, the European Union’s, and NATO’s reluctance to counter Russian aggression is that European will has become weak due to a rich & comfortable lifestyle established since 1945.
Europe has its own huge economic & military potential, but lacks the mood to use its own potential in kinetic actions.
There are opulent lifestyles in oil-rich Gulf Muslim countries and in Russia and China, but they don’t suffer from institutional decay and paralysis. It’s not the money that drove Europe into inaction; it is most likely caused by overthinking and over-debating as a side effect of rationalism. They are so afraid of “making a mistake” or “harming someone” and forget that inaction is worse than an erroneous action. But fanatics and those who do not subscribe to liberal ideologies do not pause to think about finer points of morality – they act, whether on fulfilling their hedonist urges or pursuing political causes.
Case in point – the recent string of attacks on military equipment across Europe, destined for Ukraine, and even a RAF airbase, perpetrated by pro-Palestinian groups. If they tried pulling a stunt like that in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, or Gaza, they would be either killed by the security personnel or, if they were unlucky enough and caught alive, sent to be tortured by the (secret) police. But in Europe and the US, they are considered “activists” by a large part of the vox populi and media.
The end of the Cold War had some people proclaim Fukuyama’s end of history, so ideologies as value-based systems were confined to dustbins. The Collective West countries were run like corporations, and politicians became state executives, managers, and techies – GDP growth is what mattered, because everyone just wants to lead a normal life, don’t worry, and be happy.
The void was filled nonetheless – all politics became identity politics. It makes sense, right? It matters to an individual who they are, whether they proudly display it for urbi et orbi, or hide and denounce. We would do neither if we didn’t care. Then we find a group that shares our identity, a safe place, a safe space. The fabulousness of a drag queen, the Dr. Martens of a skinhead, the Zwastika fashion of Serbian youth – they all wear their hearts on their sleeves.
Now, Europe and the US are facing the consequences of Querfront in action – a tactical alliance of the alt-right and its traditional values, throwing fits about migrant invasions and the cultural Marxist neo-left that is all about liberating the oppressed, aiming to destroy the centrist.
But it is not left vs. right – it is extremists against everyone else.
Both ideologically driven sides of the horseshoe theory hate all the variants of political flavours between them. “Cut a liberal and a fascist bleed”, says the keffiyeh sporting pro-Palestinian protester. Everyone is a pinko and a libtard to the ultras wearing their football (that’s soccer for our USAian friends) team scarves and shirts.
But what do colors, cloth, or dates matter, a rationalist would ask? Well, it matters to them; they do not care if it matters to others. To extremists, centrists are either oppressors (tankie speak) or traitors (right-wing nutjob lingo).
It is not a coincidence that Anna Politkovskaya was murdered on October 7th, or that the Hamas and PIJ attack on Israel started on that date – it is Vladimir Putin’s birthday. Symbols matter – to them. So they should start to matter to their opponents.
These groups don’t waste time on committees that will determine the Ultimate Truth and Actions Stemming From It That Will Make Everything Right. They already have a value system established, and that gives them the self-confidence to act.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts. – Bertrand Russell
The wiser one yields in a conflict – Serbian proverb
See, these two pearls of wisdom are rubbish. There’s no wisdom in letting time pass in indecision while the fools and fanatics are getting busy; while yielding to those same fools and fanatics is suicidal, not wise.
Better to move fast and break things – the illiberals are already doing it, and they don’t particularly feel bad about it. The confidence given by the Mandates of Heaven also sets them free from any moral obligations.
They will not spend any time digging for truth or fact-checking. The Global South state of mind already owns The Truth. For example, the Serbian media referred to Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists as “operatives”, “activists”, and if the news desk is having a bad day, they sometimes call them “militants”. For the Spanish Vox supporters (“right-wing without complexes”) and Newsmax Balkans alike, global warming is a hoax.
Why are these hills that they are willing to die on? A fun take on the whole MAGA phenomenon, described by its author as “if you think of MAGA as a high school clique (I do), then it’s rather simple. They’ll shoot anyone who doesn’t conform to the clique aesthetic”.
So MAGA is like the “Heathers” directed by David Cronenberg with a Balkan turbo-folk OST.
What that video explains is the MAGA vibes – their lifestyle. Lifestyle, or the way of life, as it was called, whatever it is, is something people, organized in groups that share a value system, is something that they are ready to fight for.
There’s no debating there, and no debate is welcomed by them.
A lot of Europe’s political discourse is a product of infection by the US culture wars.
Stevan Filipović, a Serbian film editor, director, and lecturer in the text “On the right side of plenum” writes that “Today’s students belong to the generations for whom the Milosevic-radical mire, which passes for ‘the right-wing’ in Serbia – is the air they breathe, whether they wanted to or not, even now, when they have become aware that that air is suffocating and killing them. Take a look at the world from their perspective. Most of them started elementary school when Vučić came to power. Milošević was presented to them almost as a mythological being, an unjustly condemned hero. Who is Đinđić to them – a clip from YouTube. Maybe not even that. Combine that with the influence of the global neo-fascist and populist-right movements that brought Trump to power (the so-called “manosphere” and “podcastistan”), poisoners like the late cleric-fascist Charlie Kirk, the misogynist incel Andrew Tate, the cynical opportunist Joe Rogan, and you will easily understand how the youth in Serbia have been grabbed by the tentacles of identity politics, from all sides. They live in “Internet Serbia”, which is not actually Serbia, but a virtual [reality] copy of America, and participate in the American ‘culture wars’ completely unaware of it. A minority of leftists have taken over the ethics and vocabulary of the woke cult, and the rightists are copying MAGA ‘values’ onto the map of Serbia. While at the same time, they do not understand Serbia. The history of Serbia, especially Yugoslavia, which is presented to them, is a chaotic mixture of lies, ramblings of ‘historians’ from Srbin.info (and probably some schools), remnants of Milošević’s and Šešelj’s propaganda, and 15-second clips on TikTok.“
The results of such a society are quite tangible.
Which of those three categories of symbols does the Palestinian flag fit: the national, the university, or maybe the religious one?
On the other hand, Reality show: Why Europe must not cave in Trump’s culture war, by Pawel Zerka, myopically states that:
- Europe is in a culture war with Trump’s America.
- Part of this involves Trumpists propping up their ideological allies in European politics. A deeper level involves humiliating Europeans in their dealings with the US. The two intertwine to tell a single story.
- Trump and his acolytes can only do this because Europeans let them. At the first level Trumpists exploit polarisation in societies and the rise of Europe’s “new right”. At the second they take advantage of division and hesitation among European leaders.
- It doesn’t have to be this way. A decade of crises has strengthened European sentiment among the public. Almost all member states still have mainstream-led, pro-European governments.
- This should give the EU’s politicians the courage to act—and defend a Europe that writes its own script.
- That would also help preserve a strong transatlantic alliance; one in which the EU and European countries are America’s peers, not its subordinates
Okay, fine by me. But Europe should stay away from a foreign culture war altogether.
- Black lives do not matter.
- No eyes on Gaza.
- Who cares whether Zohran Mamdani becomes the mayor of New York?
- The Democratic Socialists of America are not the enemy of Europe’s ideological MAGA enemy that Europeans should cling to.
The Chinese and Russian disinfo networks are well aware of US culture wars and are ready to use them against their foe.
So why should Europe jump into the stew that the USA has cooked for itself? We shouldn’t.
Illiberal political movements in Europe, associated with their ideological allies from Russia, China, and the Global South, cannot be countered by the committees of overthinking everything in existence that are the staple of European mainstream politics. European countries are doing themselves a disservice by getting dragged into foreign cultural conflicts and upholding foreign values that go against rationalism and the Enlightenment.
Serbianism 