Most of humanity views the world just as Putin does despite Western liberal denial. Writes Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
The speech by President Vladimir Putin should be understood as Russia declaring itself as the leader of the global anti-colonial struggle, a position the country should deservedly hold given it’s the inheritor of the Soviet legacy. In this way, the Russian president appealed to communists and other leftists, not only in Russia, but across the world. However, in the same speech, Putin positioned himself as a leader and defender of traditional values in the face of ever-growing degeneracy in the West, and thus also appealed to conservatives. By appealing to the world’s left and right, Putin’s call for the multipolar world order is attractive to most of the globe, who, despite what might appear from the West’s media dominance, live a completely different life with huge value discrepancies compared to Western liberalism.
The Russian president addressed the nation after signing the agreement on the unification of four regions with Russia – the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, as well as Zaporozhye and Kherson. His speech extended to criticism of Western politics, violation of international agreements, and the West’s intentions to capture the world within its framework. Putin also highlighted the degradation that Western liberalism has devolved into, ideas that are attractive to the majority of the world’s population, including many conservatives in the Western world, particularly those in the US with Trumpian ideas.
During the speech, Putin called for “a liberation anti-colonial movement against unipolar hegemony.”
“The West is ready to step over everything to preserve the neo-colonial system that allows it to parasitize, in fact, to plunder the world at the expense of the power of the dollar and technological dictate,” he said, adding that Western countries have “nothing to offer” other than “robbery and racketeering.”
“In fact, they spit on the natural right of billions of people, most of humanity, to freedom and justice, to determine their future on their own.”
Putin positioned Russia as a fighter for liberation from neo-colonialism, but also as a country programmatic and ideologically pragmatic. His speech openly challenges the existing unipolar world order and lays the foundations of a new one away from US-led hegemony.
None-the-less, the attitude of the American administration, which was not enthusiastic about Ukraine’s request to join NATO, shows that the Kiev regime is just being used as a pawn against Russia for the Western hegemonic powers. Both US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO Secretary Jens Stoltenberg have said that NATO is not a party to the conflict, and basically one could say that they suddenly cooled down their rhetoric a bit, especially after Putin’s speech.
It appears now that they understand what Putin said, even though the Russian president has been trying to make them understand for years that he will defend Russian territory and independence by all means. Russia and NATO are already in a proxy conflict that can be kept within certain limits so as not to completely escalate the situation.
However, Putin’s speech did not only appeal to anti-imperialists and leftists, but also conservatives. He also portrayed Russia’s conflict against NATO via Ukraine as a struggle against the degeneration of Western liberalism.
“They [the West] are moving toward open satanism,” Putin said. Western elites were teaching “sexual deviation” to children who changed their gender, he continued. “We’re fighting for historical Russia, to protect our children and grandchildren from this experiment to change their souls.”
Continuing, Putin said: “Do we really want, here, in our country, in Russia, instead of ‘mum’ and ‘dad,’ to have ‘parent No. 1,’ ‘parent No. 2,’ ‘No. 3’? Have they gone completely insane? Do we really want… it drilled into children in our schools… that there are supposedly genders besides women and men, and [children to be] offered the chance to undergo sex change operations? We have a different vision.”
Although this might sound shocking to many in the West who have been forced into accepting cultural degeneracy, such views are considered perfectly normal in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East and across Asia, i.e. where not only the overwhelmingly majority of humanity lives, but also the regions that have experienced the brunt of Western imperialism/colonialism. As mentioned though, as more Westerners become disillusioned because of the current economic, social and cultural decline, there are strong segments of conservatives in the West who also relate to the values promoted by Putin, especially after feeling empowered since Donald Trump’s presidency.
Western media and leaders are attempting to portray Putin’s speech as the ramblings of a mad man, and although Western liberals will of course conform to this view, they are a very small minority in the global sense, with their influence and grip of hegemonic power continuously waning. The uncomfortable truth for Western liberals is that overwhelming majority of humanity views the world in the same way that Putin does.
Ahmed Adel, Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.
