A 10-million-dollar lesson in pragmatism

Through a series of coincidences that have nothing to do with chance – I don’t believe in chance – I was invited by a Cypriot acquaintance to attend the congress of the “International Council of Directors of the World Youth Festival (WYF)”, which premiered in Sochi in May this year with 25,000 participants from all over the world.
  For two and a half days, I accompanied over 100 representatives from as many countries at team building and youth leadership seminars, interspersed with visits to high-tech locations in the Russian capital such as the sensational Atomic Pavilion of the Wedankhino Space Museum and the Cyberdom Centre, which brings together the best in the fields of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. A programme that was in no way inferior to the annual curators’ meeting of the WEF Youth Leaders, which took place at the same time in Geneva, as my young Indian neighbour from Gujarat told me.
  The day after our visit, Vladimir Putin, who received his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi with great pomp, showed his guest round the same premises.
  Why am I telling you about these events, which at first glance seem nothing out of the ordinary?
  Because there I received one of the finest lessons in pragmatism in recent years, while our terribly ideological way of seeing the world was given a joyful rebuff.

What distinguishes 
the WYF from the WEF?

What distinguishes the WYF from the WEF and the BRICS countries and the Global South in general from the G7 and the OECD? On the surface, almost nothing, but basically almost everything.
  With typical Russian timing and a sense of historical continuity, the Cyberdom Centre was set up in a former factory for wax and postal seals, which were used to seal letters in Tsarist times. The red brick walls are papered with anthologies of Soviet literature and video screens showing futuristic visions of the cyberthreats about to flood the planet. The whole thing looks like a Californian high-tech campus inspired by Marx and Dostoyevsky. A young computer geek with long hair and a beard explains to us that his company produces security solutions. All kinds of solutions. Both offensive and defensive ones, because a good shield is not conceivable without a good command of the sword, as Sun Tzu would have said. For 500,000 US dollars, he assures us, he can hack into the mobile phone of anyone in the world in less than 15 minutes. His speciality, however, is the defence against cyber intrusions. Anything can be hacked: Factories, hospitals, ski resorts, satellites, aeroplanes, submarines, schools, self-driving cars.
  Depending on requirements, he offers guaranteed, tested services for one million dollars and for the most sensitive for ten million dollars. This means that before the solution is delivered, it is subjected to a test by the hacker community on the Darknet, who are offered one million or ten million if they manage to hack the solution. If the solution passes the test, it is sold to the customer, confirms the director, who gained his experience in the Netherlands and the USA before returning to Russia.
  I conclude that this generation of entrepreneurs, who are connected to the world and laugh at the obstacles in their way, put their personal interests above everything else. Not out of selfishness, but because they have learnt to distrust morality and that the appeals to coexistence and the common good so prevalent in the prevailing narrative conceal interests that are anything but altruistic.
  In other words, in their worldview, an individual, a nation or a state must act first and foremost for itself and not to satisfy the ambitions of a third party – be it a person, a multinational corporation, an ideology or a government.

Rejection of any ideology

Incidentally, the lack of ideology was what struck me most about this meeting. It is true that the Russian organisers tried to present themselves in the most favourable colours, as they were aware that they had to show off their ‘soft power’. But at no point did they try to sell a particular ideology or world view. Quite the opposite. Everyone was encouraged to present the best of their home country or region.
  I didn’t get to talk to every one of the 100 participants, but I did get to talk to a Filipino serial producer, a Central African worried about the future of his continent, a Seychellois with the face of an Egyptian stele, a bright psychologist from Botswana, an unassuming Azerbaijani woman with a keen eye, an enthusiastic Mexican activist and my new Gujarati friend, among others.
  None of them think about changing the world, transforming it, subjecting it to their whims or the convictions of their clients. Quite unlike the young leaders at the Davos Forum, who call themselves ‘global shapers’ in their jargon, i.e., trainers, shapers, transformers of a world that they want to govern according to their rules.
  This rejection of any transformative ideology is completely unusual in our Western imagination. We cannot imagine our actions on this earth as anything other than a transformation of the existing into something else that is preferable or superior to it. That is why everything we do is characterised by a constant atmosphere of conversion and adherence to a religion – the religion of liberalism, progressivism, democracy, globalism – which is superior in nature and which can therefore be imposed on others without restriction, by moral coercion and, if necessary, by bombing.
  We do not accept the difference as such, but on the condition that it is subjected to us. The other is therefore never equal to us and cannot be. On a geopolitical level, it is George Bush’s famous “Either you are with us, or you are against us” that authorises all violence, all discrimination and all inquisitions. Not only must you act, but you must prove that your intent is pure and your belief is absolute.
  Depending on whether or not you are taken in by the good guys, you will be praised or stoned. A bomb that kills two people in a hospital in Kiev on the same day is considered intolerable, while another that kills 27 people in Palestine goes unnoticed (9 July 2024).
  Nothing of this spirit can be found outside the West. You won’t be asked to constantly testify to your belief in democracy, human rights, multiculturalism and false inclusion. Everyone is free to think what they want, how they want. That’s why people in the West have such a hard time understanding why the countries of the South can work together even though everything seems to divide them, and why Viktor Orbán can simultaneously uphold conservatism at home and cultivate his relations with the communist Xi Jinping. Why Narendra Modi can appreciate both Vladimir Putin and Joe Biden. Why Lula feels comfortable with authoritarian China, but boycotts Israeli democracy, which he sees as complicit in a new apartheid in Palestine. And why Mohamed bin Salman is courting both the USA for her security and China and the Petroyuan for the sale of his oil, while shaking hands with Putin and Lula at the BRICS summit.
  In Moscow, strange as it may seem to you, I didn’t feel like I was in an either-or situation, but in a both-and situation. I’m careful not to hold up the rest of the world as a role model. But from time to time this sentiment simply feels good.  •

(Translation Current Concerns)

* Guy Mettan is a journalist and member of the Grand Council of the Canton of Geneva, which he chaired in 2010. He has worked for the ‘Journal de Genève’, ‘Le Temps stratégique’, ‘Bilan’, ‘Le Nouveau Quotidien’ and later as director and editor-in-chief of the ‘Tribune de Genève’. In 1996, he founded the Club Suisse de la Presse, of which he was President and later Director from 1998 to 2019