“For the freedom of nations”

The President of the Republic of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, attended the Munich Security Conference from 15-17 February. Shortly afterwards, he gave an interview to the Russian news agency TASS. His statements on the Security Conference¹ are remarkable:
  “I represent a small country and have no right to interfere in the affairs of big countries, and unlike most leaders, presidents and prime ministers, I know that our opinion is not very important, but it sometimes differs from others, that is why it is prominent. I’ve been to the Munich Conference many times. I think it is important to see and hear how the Western world thinks, and also to listen to different opinions and learn something. This time I saw a lot, but I am afraid that there were not enough conclusions to come up with innovative and inventive solutions to establish peace. It seems to me that the word ‘peace’ has become an unloved and unwanted word in the world.”
  Vučić added: “A new architecture of world politics will certainly emerge, there will be a lot of changes and it will be very different from what it was before. We are getting used to it a bit, but the only thing I can say is that we must always defend our freedom, the right to think for ourselves, to make independent decisions and to decide in accordance with the interests of our people.”

The West is betraying its own values

The two statements are linked. The course of war taken by the states of the West has a central cause: not only Serbia, but also many other non-Western states in the world want to “defend their freedom”, claim “the right to think for ourselves, to make independent decisions and to decide in accordance with the interests of our people”. This is why these states are pinning so much hope on a “new architecture of world politics”. This would be a world politics respecting the dignity and rights of all people, as they are already formulated today – beyond political reality – in international law, in the United Nations Charter and corresponding to the idea of a continued, higher development of human culture. But the pursuit of Western supremacy stands in the way of this - paradoxically, because it was essentially personalities and forces in the Western world who, in centuries of struggle, have stood up for precisely these values.²

False theories …

This Western power politics is not only based on greed for power and money, but also on false theories about humans and about coexistence. Western power politicians think that there must always be rulers and ruled, that world politics is a zero-sum game, an unavoidable struggle (of cultures, peoples, races, states, etc.), and must therefore always be primarily power politics. They cannot imagine that a free world order of equal states and peoples can be a gain for all, a worldwide bonum commune.

… and propaganda

Part of the Western course of war is massive propaganda. Currently the Western mainstream response to the death of Alexei Navalny. For example, the cover story of the German weekly Die Zeit on 22 February. It featured an AI image of Alexei Navalny’s face with closed eyes across half the first page, supposedly depicting a dead Navalny. In large letters under the chin, it read: “What Putin is capable of”. And underneath in smaller letters, also on the picture of Navalny: “The last hopes of the Russian opposition died with Navalny. His death is also a warning to the West: the ruler in the Kremlin will stop at nothing.”
  Former Swiss intelligence officer Jacques Baud is sounding quite different. He has written a book about Navalny (“L’affaire Navalny. Le complotisme au service de la politique étrangère”; Sammelverlag, Zurich, 2021), and the Swiss weekly Weltwoche published an interview with him on the subject on 22 February 2024. Baud is asked whether the Russian government killed Navalny. His answer: “I don’t know. It’s too early to make any reliable statements. At the moment, we can only speculate.” Further down in the interview, he adds: “The whole thing is very unfavourable for Putin; until recently a lot of things went well for him. Just think of the Tucker Carlson interview, which was a success for the Russian president. He was able to explain the Russian view of the world in a plausible way. Now the presidential elections in Russia are due in a month’s time. Putin now controls Avdiivka; the Ukrainians have withdrawn from there. I don’t see why the Russian government should have murdered Navalny right now. The USA, on the other hand, is in an unfavourable position [...]. There is instability in Ukraine. Moreover, Navalny’s death now also plays into the hands of those who are against negotiations with Russia and want to continue fighting in Ukraine until the bitter end. From this perspective, the West has more of an interest in Navalny’s death.”

Conference in Moscow:
“For the freedom of nations”

But this is “our” Western world. Things look different elsewhere.
  For example, another conference took place in Moscow at the same time as the Munich Security Conference – and the Western media did not report on it at all. If we are to believe the unfortunately sparse reports from other parts of the world³, 400 to 600 (the figures vary) representatives of political parties and states from more than 50 countries from Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) gathered in Moscow for a three-day conference entitled “Forum of Supporters of the Struggle against Modern Practices of Neo-Colonialism. For the Freedom of Nations”. The conference was organised by the Russian party “United Russia”, where Vladimir V. Putin is part of and whose chairman is former Russian President Medvedev. The conference had been prepared for a long time, and the meeting from 15–17 February also served to prepare for an even larger gathering.
  The speeches held at the conference are not yet available in their entirety, but can only be viewed on various websites of the participating states and parties. The 18-point final declaration could be found at the end of an English-language article by a Turkish think tank.⁴

Final statement

The final statement begins by referring to “the close ties, relations of friendship, cooperation, and mutual respect between the peoples” of the participating countries, to “a common history of striving to achieve genuine independence and freedom, as well as counteracting destructive practices of colonialism”. The participants declare “being committed to building a fair and equitable multipolar world order with the central role of the Charter of the United Nations (UN) and other universally accepted norms of international law, based on the principles of equality and sovereignty, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, indivisible security, and respect for cultural and civilizational identity”.
  It is noted that “a significant number of countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, bearing the heavy burden of the consequences of colonial dependence, have not yet fully recovered from the damage caused to them”. Furthermore: “The exploitation of the peoples of the world continues through neocolonial manifestations aimed at limiting the sovereignty of other countries in domestic and foreign policy, economic, ideological and other spheres […]”, despite the fact that “the States affected by colonial and neo-colonial practices constitute the World Majority”.
  The final statement welcomes the contribution of the UN in the struggle against colonialism. It stresses that, “the struggle against neocolonialism is not directed against any specific State” but it “is aimed at fomenting constructive dialogue on issues of countering modern neo-colonial practices”. There is a “high demand for enhancing international programmes of cultural and humanitarian cooperation”.

Plans for the future

The parties represented at the conference want to work together “with the aim of consolidating the countries of the World Majority in promoting full and effective compliance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and in countering modern practices of neocolonialism […]”.They want to counteract the “the selective application of universal norms of international law and the promotion of the concept of a ‘rules-based world order’ (imposing certain standards on the World Majority, in the development of which the equal participation of all interested states was not ensured).” They “strongly condemn the gross and illegal practices of interference in the internal affairs of the countries of the world”.
  They want to “focus the attention of the world community on the inextricable cause-and-effect connection between the crimes of colonialism and neo-colonialism and the increasing inequality in the modern world, as well as the problems of poverty and hunger in developing countries”. Moreover: “The Forum expresses solidarity with the Palestinian people, who are effectively deprived of the right to self-determination, independence, sovereignty and peace, guaranteed to them by decisions of the UN Security Council.”
  They describe unilateral economic and political coercive measures, including secondary sanctions, as “practices of economic blackmail”.
  Other points include “ensure long-term food security of the countries of the World Majority”, “approaches to financial security of developing countries, taking into account the need for a full reform of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) system”, promoting “the expansion of the activities of multilateral development banks”, promoting “the diversification of the international monetary system”, “encouraging the use of national currencies in global trade and financial transactions” and defending “the right to energy sovereignty”. There is “carbon neo-colonialism” in climate policy. The industrialised countries are therefore called upon “to achieve the required level of financial assistance for the climate agenda (USD 100 billion per year until 2025) to ensure the right of the countries of the Global South to equitable development”.
  In the area of information and communication technologies, they call for counteracting “the destructive methods used in this area, i.e., the politicization of information and communication technologies, the artificial split of the global Internet, information and psychological campaigns, and cyberattacks used to limit the sovereignty of developing States”. In this context, they speak of “digital neo-colonialism”. Instead, they call for a “equal mutual enrichment of national cultures through multilateral humanitarian cooperation, including intercivilizational and interfaith dialogue”, but also continuing “joint efforts [...] to counteract ‘cultural neocolonialism’, which weakens national identity, threatens the civilizational identity, centuries-old traditions and spiritual and moral values of the countries of the World Majority”.

The split of the world
is a “severe disease”

In his speech⁵ , Russian foreign minister Lavrov spoke of a “deep split between the West and the countries of the Global Majority”. He states: “Neo-colonialism is a dead-end road. Those who insist on following this path are doomed to being involved in a permanent conflict.”
  In an interview with US journalist Tucker Carlson, the President of the Russian Federation also commented on the issue of a split world:
  “Listen, you have said that the world is breaking into two hemispheres. A human brain is divided into two hemispheres: one is responsible for one type of activities, the other one is more about creativity and so on. But it is still one and the same head. The world should be a single whole, security should be shared, rather than meant for the ‘golden billion’. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable. Until then, while the head is split into two parts, it is an illness, a serious adverse condition. It is a period of a severe disease that the world is now going through.” •

¹ https://tass.com/world/1748797 of 20 February 2024
² The fact that the Western world has abandoned its very own values and that it is precisely these Western values that have favoured Asia’s rise in recent decades, for example, was already pointed out by Kishore Mahbubani in his 2008 book “The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East”.
³ e.g.: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2024-02-14-fikile-mbalula-heads-to-moscow-for-forum-on-combating-western-neocolonialism/  of 14 February 2024; https://uwidata.com/33138-the-forum-of-supporters-of-the-struggle-against-modern-practices-of-neocolonialism/ of 20 February 2024; https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/blog/russia-and-the-international-struggle-against-western-neocol  of 22 February 2024
⁴ https://uwidata.com/33138-the-forum-of-supporters-of-the-struggle-against-modern-practices-of-neocolonialism/  of 20 February 2024
⁵ https://www.mid.ru/en/foreign_policy/news/1932745/  of 16 February 2024