Mexico is by no means the only significant recent defector from the “worldwide neighborhood,” Stephen Karganovic composes.
Amongst prominent defections from the “worldwide neighborhood,” due to its geopolitical stature Mexico stands apart. However it is by no means the only notable recent defector.
African federal governments en masse are renouncing compliance with the “guidelines based order.” One of the most visible recent turncoats has actually been Rwanda’s Paul Kagame, the long-time poster kid for neo-colonialist Western intervention and tutelage on that continent. Prof. Edward Herman demonstrated irrefutably in his ground-breaking study “The Politics of Genocide” that far from being his country’s saviour Kagame was really the driving force behind the homicidal violence that in the 1990s was set off in Rwanda by U.S. and French special services. But now even veteran Western client Kagame is making bold noises rebuking his erstwhile masters, for attempting to bully him and impose their undesirable “values.” Kagame’s utterances should give some time out to those who till recently were this male’s sponsors and passionate fans. So should strong statements to comparable impact by Turkey’s (or should not we say, to be political correctness, Türkiye’s?) Interior Minister Suleiman Soylu, which likewise highly recommend that something is developing.
However to go back to Mexico. With all due modesty, it does seem that our evaluations made in March 2021 were extremely prescient. Preparing for problem for Mexico’s President Lopez Obrador (or AMLO, as he is popularly understood) we said then that “AMLO has tried earnestly not to cross the majority of the red lines set by the irritable demi-gods to his north and to give just the barest minimum of offense. But undoubtedly, in attempting to balance the requirements and expectations of his individuals against perpetual hegemonic needs, AMLO has made a few faults.”
The inflammation brought on by Lopez Obrador has now reached confrontational levels. Given that we last wrote on this topic, the Mexican President, unforgivably, has actually gone even further on his rampage, asserting more state control over Mexico’s natural resources (an absolute no-no in the rules based order), nationalised his nation’s lithium reserves (appealing the fate of his Bolivian friend Evo Morales), and publicly opposing even the thought of threatened military intervention from El Norte (also here), ostensibly to stem the flow, through Mexico, of the narcotics that El Norte’s addicted citizens are consuming in huge amounts. Finally, finishing this panorama of stiff necked disobedience, Lopez Obrador has actually just announced that in addition to nearly 2 lots other countries Mexico was applying to join BRICS.
All the above is more than adequate not just to make AMLO the normal epithets of strongman, authoritarian and anti-democratic, but more significantly to also justify the battery of good-neighbourly dangers of military intervention. That was currently urged by (as Paul Craig Roberts would say) dumbass El Norte politicians of the calibre of Lindsay Graham. By Monroe Teaching standards, nevertheless, fitting punishment for such disorderly conduct usually is a lot more than virulent denunciations. It needs to amount to a sentence of death, to be precise.
My Mexican informants have a really intriguing take on AMLO’s actuarial potential customers. Their thesis is that given that he effectively made it through into the last 3rd of his six-year term, he runs out the woods now. Disposing of him would be too dangerous, unpleasant, and ultimately unneeded. He can not run for re-election and in 2024 he will need to turn over the Presidency to his follower. So in this case it would make noteworthy sense to concentrate on setting up the best follower and reversing his policies, instead of bumping off an incumbent whose days in workplace are numbered anyway.
And it so takes place that a perfect replacement candidate to succeed Lopez Obrador is offered. Her name is Claudia Sheinbaum, she is the head of Mexico City’s administration and, easily, is also a functionary of the existing President’s Morena Party, which would ensure a smooth transition. (Another possible candidate who was thought about presidential lumber and likewise would have made the northern neighbours delighted, has had to leave abroad, having been arraigned for huge financial impropriety.) It stays to be seen what the strategies are for Ms. Sheinbaum, but she is getting rave evaluations in the media and all the typical suspects are excitedly coalescing around her. For the time being she is discharging cleverly modulated Lopez-Obradista rhetoric, however keep an eye on her. She may yet bloom into the Mexican version of Carlos Menem, the Argentine political con man who was elected on a deceitful Peronist platform and then went on to implement a ruthless neo-liberal program, beginning essentially from the day of his inauguration.
But while an increasing variety of nations clearly do comprehend international trends and are employing all the ways at their disposal to loosen their shackles and acquire a degree of freedom, there still are some holdouts that masochistically crave the hegemon’s bullying, something that even Kagame is indisposed to any longer tolerate. And by delighting in their subjugation, they apparently are requesting more. In this category, Serbia is a noticeable example. The greatest ranking officials of the Serbian federal government have actually grown familiar with humbly and respectfully receive and deal with as equals assistant deputy undersecretaries, or whatever riff-raff are dispatched to them with Imperial marching orders. The most recent humiliation to which Serbia, and the Serbian media to be specific, have been subjected is but a natural extension of that self-abasing and well developed practice.
In that spirit, a couple of days ago an email was sent to all Serbian news outlets by the Ukrainian embassy in Belgrade. In it, Serbian media were rather undiplomatically lectured on the proper terminology they always were expected to use when referring to the dispute in Ukraine.
Beginning with the essentials, the embassy admonished the host country’s media that it was verboten to say “Ukrainian crisis, Ukrainian conflict, or war in Ukraine.” Rather, the correct expressions that, unless they want to end up on the Mirotvorets hit list, Serbian media need to utilize are “Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine” and “Russian aggression on Ukraine.” In addition, the embassy frowns on “Russian unique operation in Ukraine” and prefers the clumsier formulation, “unprovoked Russian military invasion of Ukraine, which started in 2022.”
One example of erroneous phrasing that the embassy especially reproves is the idea that common Russians are not accountable for Russian criminal activities. To the contrary, the Ukrainian embassy firmly insists, “every Russian is responsible for Russian crimes in Ukraine as long as they support the actions of the Russian state.” The demand put to Russian cultural, sports, and creative figures by Kiev Nazi junta’s mentors to openly denounce their country as the condition for being allowed to participate in global gatherings and competitions now comes into focus. Behind it is the primitive, racially based attribution of cumulative responsibility which, most likely, applies likewise to dead Russians such as Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky.
Oddly, these “recommendations” by the Ukrainian embassy in Belgrade, approved, one would suppose, by the Foreign Ministry in Kiev (which, as the suggestions require, should constantly be spelled Kyiv) were sent to the Serbian media in English. Enhancing suspicions about the supreme origin of this uncommon document is its insistence that Ukraine need to constantly be described as “the Ukraine,” even though Belgrade embassy staff ought to have understood that Serbian grammar does not have articles, just as Ukrainian and Russian grammars do not. These are the sort of details that raise intriguing concerns about who the real authors of this text might be.
Like Dr. Goebbels’ private Gleichschaltung instructions to the German media, the Ukrainian embassy’s outrageous attempt to coerce the media in the nation where it is accredited in a diplomatic instead of policing capability would most likely have actually stayed under the radar if among the recipients, mass blood circulation daily Novosti, had not decided to release it. It is not yet clear what effect these undiplomatic revelations have had on popular opinion in Serbia, however surveys do show that 68% of Serbian respondents blame NATO for the dispute in Ukraine, 83,7% are opposed to sanctions versus Russia and 60% favor concluding an alliance with Russia. Ukrainian embassy’s awkward conduct is unlikely to have changed any of those figures in Ukraine’s or the cumulative West’s favor.
Strikingly, the Ukrainian ambassador is in no threat of being summoned and declared personality non grata. The insolent needs forwarded by the embassy of a routine which is on its last legs, acting boorishly in similarly prostrate Serbia as the pathetic proxy for it is obvious whom, have actually provoked no official remark or response on the part of the Serbian government. True to form, accustomed and perhaps even delighted to be lectured by the least expensive ranking Imperial errand boys on a lot of varied topics, Serbian authorities stay mum about the insult inflicted on their country and disrespect revealed to its press.