As Western hegemony comes to an end, the EU bloc may eventually be forced to redefine itself as the western peninsula of Greater Eurasia

Lucidity is the engine of our own freedom: independent minds influence history.

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After the UK's exit, Hungary's turn to the East once again exposes how liberal fanaticism is tearing the EU apart.

By Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway, 09/23/2022

The meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in Uzbekistan has prompted a geo-economic earthquake, as Eurasian giants such as China, India, Russia, Pakistan and Iran are integrating their economies to new levels.

Meanwhile, Turkey wants to be the first NATO country to join the group.

The aftershocks of the meeting are also being felt in Europe. More specifically, as I sit here at the Budapest Economic Forum, organised by the Central Bank of Hungary, I can feel the Samarkand Spirit of the SCO, as a Eurasian future is being charted. 

The collapse of the international economic system

Liberal international economic systems tend to form when there is a concentration of economic power under a strong leader. With an immense concentration of fiscal heft, the collective West was able to act as a “benign hegemon” that could deliver public goods and create trust in a stable international economic order. This was the European Union that Hungary integrated into in the 1990s when the US was the sole superpower and the EU was considered a locomotive for economic and social prosperity across the continent. 

However, three decades later the world is a very different place. The EU’s relative share of the global economy continues its steady decline as industrial competitiveness deteriorates, debt reaches unsustainable heights, and the future of the euro looks grim. In the US, the economic picture and issues with political stability also give cause for concern. 

Brussels is also incapable of facilitating wider cooperation. The bloc was never able to accommodate Russia, the largest state on the continent, causing a revival of Cold War dynamics. The British demand for preserving the political sovereignty of national parliaments could not be accommodated, and Britain thus left the EU. It now appears there is also no room in the European tent for the conservative aspirations of Hungary and Poland. As the bloc threatens to suspend billions in funds to Hungary, it becomes more difficult to preserve political independence. 

When an economic hegemon is in relative decline, the international economic system begins to fragment. To defend their position in the international system, the US and EU use economic coercion against both allies and adversaries. The West disrupts the supply chains of rival powers such as China and Russia to prevent their rise, while friends and allies such as India, Turkey and Hungary are also punished for failing to display geoeconomic loyalty. Subsequently, the unipolar era is over. The West is no longer capable of acting as a benign hegemon by providing public goods or administrating an international economic system based on trust. 

Eurasia rising

The international economic system is fragmenting as economic dependencies formed over the past decades are weaponised. A multitude of problems ranging from disruptive technologies, war and environmental degradation threaten the world, yet the necessary cooperation is faltering. It is evident that the unipolar order is already over, and a multipolar order is emerging in its place to revive economic connectivity and restore stability. 

This is facilitated by the Greater Eurasian partnership, which entails the development of a new multipolar geoeconomic ecosystem. The countries on the Eurasian super-continent are developing connectivity between their technological hubs and financial hubs, while connecting physically with huge infrastructure projects to form new transportation corridors.

Budapest’s objective is to become a key node in the new Eurasian geoeconomic ecosystem and to revive economic connectivity in a multipolar format. Hungary was the first country in Central and Eastern Europe to sign a currency swap agreement with China, and the first in Europe to join China’s trillion-dollar Belt and Road infrastructure initiative. Not only is Budapest connecting itself closer to the growth engine of Asia, but it is also setting itself up as a bridge between the East and West.

Hungary is also resisting further sanctions on Russia to maintain access to energy resources. Simply put, Eurasia is reviving globalisation.

A conservative path

Hungary’s Eurasian path is also consistent with its conservative aspirations. After decades of communism and the development of Marxist Man, Hungary naturally seeks to restore the role of national culture, the Church and traditional values in its national consciousness.

As new technologies and rampant market forces cause disruptions, it is necessary to balance change with continuity. Conservatism therefore anchors stability in the eternal as the focus on family, faith and traditions connect the past with the future, to prepare society for disruptions. 

Yet, liberalism in the collective West is not especially tolerant of conservative values. While the liberal nation-state was previously a vehicle for success, liberalism has begun decoupling itself from the nation-state over the past years. Liberal Man is rapidly liberating himself from his own past through multiculturalism, radical secularism, a departure from recognising the family as the main institution of a stable society, and an aversion to traditional values. 

In contrast, cooperation in a multipolar Eurasia does not entail exporting a political system or conformity around “values”. The various civilisations in the Eurasian house pursue economic and cultural connectivity, whilst preserving their respective cultural distinctiveness. As a conservative country, it paradoxically becomes easier for Hungary to preserve its European distinctiveness in the multipolar Eurasian format.

Hopefully, Hungary will show the way for the rest of Europe in terms of transitioning from the confrontational unipolar order to a cooperative multipolar format – as the western peninsula of Greater Eurasia.

Petition against arms supply to Ukraine

We, the people of Europe, cannot remain indifferent:  #StopKillingDonbass

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Petition against arms supply to Ukraine

Dear leaders of European states and leading international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe!

We, the people of Europe, based on our civil and political rights guaranteed by international law and national legislation, appeal to you to stop supporting the incitement of hatred and enmity carried out by Ukraine and the spread of senseless bloodshed in the center of our continent, as well as its possible escalation into the world war.

Unfortunately, today, contrary to the fundamental principles set forth in Article 2 of the UN Charter, in particular, the principles of sovereign equality and the peaceful settlement of international disputes, our countries supply Ukraine with weapons that cause massive deaths and injuries of civilians in Donbass, including children. This process multiplies human suffering and sacrifice in the very heart of Europe, which does not allow us to remain indifferent observers. We share the pain of Donbass people, we deeply sympathize with their grief and categorically condemn the supply of weapons and ammunition, which is ultimately directed against the civilian population. Moreover, we believe that this practice increases the possibility of hostilities spreading to the entire continent and even the risk of third world war outbreak.

Obvious consequences of such a short-sighted militaristic policy are also the instability in the European security sphere, the incitement of hatred and enmity between peoples, severing cultural and mutually beneficial economic ties. All this has a direct correlation with a sharp decline in living standards in our countries today, in contradiction to Article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and tomorrow it can lead to catastrophic consequences for an already very fragile peace.

We urge you to remember the lessons of the most terrible in the history of mankind World War II and not to repeat these mistakes today. In this regard, we strongly urge the governments of European states and the heads of leading international organizations, including the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, to make a feasible contribution to stopping the targeted extermination of civilians in Donbass, including the killing of children, destruction of houses, schools and hospitals. We demand an end to (i) the financing of state terrorism and genocide against the people of Donbass, (ii) as well as the ongoing violations of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and other acts of international humanitarian law since 2014.

 

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In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations. 

(A.I. Solzhenitsyn, 1918 – 2008 ; The Gulag Archipelago, 1958-68) 

The simple act of an ordinary brave man is not to participate in lies, not to support false actions! His rule: let that come into the world, let it even reign supreme -- only not through me. But it is within the power of writers and artists to do much more: to defeat the lie! For in the struggle with lies art has always triumphed and shall always triumph! Visibly, irrefutably for all! Lies can prevail against much in this world, but never against art.

(A.I. Solzhenitsyn, 1918 – 2008 ; Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1970)

 

Etude scientifique majeure: les patients "asymptomatiques" ne transmettent pas la COVID-19

Une étude scientifique majeure a été publiée le 20/11/2020 dans la prestigieuse revue Nature Communications: Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China. (1) Notre article a pour objectif de résumer en français cette étude, au vu de l'importance de ses conclusions qui mettent en défaut la politique sanitaire dans les pays occidentaux. En effet, cette étude n'est semblable à aucune autre par le protocole utilisé : 87.4% de la population totale de Wuhan soit presque 10 millions de personnes ont été testées en 19 jours. Les résultats statistiques sont donc extrêmement significatifs.

En tant que foyer le plus gravement touché par la COVID-19 en Chine, Wuhan avait été confinée très sévèrement du 23 janvier au 8 avril 2020. Au cours des mois suivant, les autorités se sont toujours inquiétées du risque de reprise de la COVID-19.

Pour déterminer l’état actuel de l’épidémie, le gouvernement de l'agglomération de Wuhan a effectué un dépistage complet de l’infection par le SRAS-CoV-2 à l’échelle de l'agglomération du 14 mai 2020 au 1er juin 2020. Environ 50 000 professionnels de la santé (principalement des médecins et des infirmières des centres de santé communautaires) et plus de 280 000 travailleurs et bénévoles de la communauté ont contribué à la collecte d’échantillons, au transport d’équipements et d’échantillons recueillis, à l’organisation du processus de participation et au maintien de l’ordre des sites d’échantillonnage.

La campagne de tests PCR ciblait 10 652 513 personnes âgées de 6 ans et plus à Wuhan (94,1 % de la population totale). Le dépistage de l’acide nucléique a été effectué en 19 jours et a testé un total de 9 899 828 personnes sur les 10 652 513 personnes prévues (taux de participation, 92,9 %). Sur ces 9 899 828 participants, 9 865 404 n’avaient pas de diagnostic antérieur de COVID-19, et 34 424 patients étaient supposés guéris de la COVID-19. 

Les techniques de prélèvement, acheminement et d’analyse des tests ont suivi des recommandations nationales bien détaillées (1).

Le dépistage des 9 865 404 participants sans antécédents de COVID-19 n’a révélé aucun cas de malades COVID-19, c'est-à-dire avec des symptômes, et a identifié 300 cas positifs asymptomatiques. 1174 contacts étroits des cas positifs asymptomatiques ont été identifiés, tous testés négatifs pour la COVID-19.

34 424 cas de COVID-19 guéris ont participé au dépistage massif dont 107 ont de nouveau donné un résultat positif avec le test PCR, ce qui indique un taux de repositif de 0,31 % avec le test PCR. 

La proportion de cas asymptomatique positifs au test PCR qui se sont révélés négatifs lors des tests antigènes IgM (−) et IgG (−) était de 36,7 %, indiquant la possibilité de faux résultats positifs des tests d’acide nucléique. Information majeure: les cultures virales effectuées à la suite ont été négatives pour tous les cas asymptomatiques de tests PCR positifs et repositifs, n’indiquant aucun « virus viable » dans tous ces cas positifs détectés dans cette étude par le test PCR.

Tous les cas asymptomatiques positifs au test PCR, ainsi que les cas repositifs et leurs contacts étroits ont été isolés pendant au moins 2 semaines dans des lieux spécialisés jusqu’à ce que les résultats de 2 tests PCR consécutifs aient été négatifs. Aucun des cas positifs détectés par le test PCR ou leurs contacts étroits n’est devenu symptomatique.

Cette étude scientifique permet d'affirmer les conclusions suivantes:

• une personne asymptomatique testée positive au test PCR n'est pas porteuse d'un virus SARS-cov-2 viable. Elle ne développe pas cette maladie, et ne transmet pas ce virus. 
• après le premier confinement général, le reconfinement généralisé ou partiel, temporaire, intermitent (couvre-feu) ou de longue durée, géographiquement limité ou auto-confinement est inutile : seuls les malades, c'est-à-dire ceux qui développent des symptômes, doivent être isolés.  
• les mesures de distanciation sociale et les gestes barrière suffisent pour protéger les personnes à risque (personnes immunodéprimées ou présentant des facteurs de comorbidité).
• L'estimation intérêt/risques d'une campagne de vaccination massive doit être établie à nouveau à partir de ces nouvelles données. 

 

(1) : Cao, S., Gan, Y., Wang, C. et al. Post-lockdown SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid screening in nearly ten million residents of Wuhan, China. Nat Commun 11, 5917 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19802-w 

(2) : La méthode Real-time reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) a été utilisée pour les tests d'acide nucléique. Le protocole indique que 2 cibles géniques ont été simultanément  amplifiées et testées: open reading frame 1ab (ORF1ab) et la protéine nucléocapside (N). Une valeur seuil du cycle (Ct-value) inférieure à 37 a été définie comme un résultat positif, et une absence de Ct-value ou une valeur de Ct-value supérieure ou égale à 40 ont été définies comme un résultat négatif. Pour les valeurs de Ct-values entre 37 to 40, l'échantillon a été retesté. Tous les échantillons positifs au test PCR ont bénéficié de tests antigéniques IgM et IgG réalisés dans des laboratoires de niveau 2 et leurs cultures virales  ont été effectués dans des laboratoires de niveau 3 de biosécurité.

The crisis of the modern world, by René Guénon - Foreword

 

This digital edition is a new translation of the 1946 edition of La crise du monde moderne published in French, with no modifications or additions. The original edition dates from 1927.

Despite the care taken with this translation, it is not perfect, but its license allows it to be improved. The French edition is the reference to the meaning to be given to each sentence.

 

René Guénon died January 7, 1951. Depending on the country, copyright can be exercised during 50 years (in Canada) and up to 100 years (in Mexico) after the author's death.

Readers of this digital edition are invited to comply with the copyright legislation in force in their country.

The author of this digital edition is identified using:
6531AD177CA0B8D87C9397F5B0F37EF2A434B0819FE58EC1745F7C39E674A25E
This SHA-256 print is the one of his author's name.

This digital edition is distributed under the CC BY SA license. (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ ).

This Guénon's book has already been translated into english in 1942 and published under a commercial licence.

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FOREWORD

When we wrote East and West a few years ago, we thought we had given, on the questions that were the subject of this book, all the useful information, at least for the moment. Since then, events have been rushing by at an ever-increasing speed, and, without changing a single word we were saying at the time, they make certain additional clarifications timely and lead us to develop points of view on which we did not think it was necessary to insist first of all. These clarifications are all the more necessary as we have seen some of the confusions that we have already tried to dispel in a rather aggressive way in recent times, while carefully refraining from getting involved in any controversy, we have seen fit to put things right once again. There are, in this order, considerations, even elementary ones, which seem so foreign to the vast majority of our contemporaries, that, in order to make them understand them, we must not tire of returning to them repeatedly, presenting them in their different aspects, and explaining them more fully, as circumstances permit, which may give rise to difficulties that it was not always possible to foresee at first sight.

The very title of this volume requires some explanation, which we must provide first of all, so that we know how we understand it and so that there is no ambiguity in this regard. That we can speak of a crisis in the modern world, taking the word "crisis" in its most ordinary sense, is something that many no longer question, and, in this respect at least, a fairly significant change has occurred: under the very action of events, some illusions are beginning to dissipate, and we can only welcome them, because there is, despite everything, a rather favourable symptom, the indication of a possibility of a recovery of the contemporary mentality, something that appears to be a weak glow in the midst of the current chaos. Thus, the belief in indefinite "progress", which was once considered a kind of intangible and indisputable dogma, is no longer as generally accepted; some people glimpse more or less vaguely, more or less confusedly, that Western civilization, instead of always continuing to develop in the same direction, could one day reach a standstill, or even sink entirely into some cataclysm. Perhaps they do not see clearly where the danger is, and the chimeric or childish fears they sometimes manifest are sufficient proof of the persistence of many mistakes in their minds; but it is already something that they realize that there is a danger, even if they feel it more than they really understand it, and that they manage to conceive that this civilization whose modern ones are so infatuated does not occupy a privileged place in the history of the world, that it can have the same fate as so many others who have already disappeared at more or less distant times, and some of whom have left behind only minute traces, remnants with hardly perceptible or difficult to recognize.

So, if we say that the modern world is in crisis, what we usually mean by this is that it has reached a critical point, or, in other words, that a more or less profound transformation is imminent, that a change of direction will inevitably have to take place in the short term, willingly or forcibly, in a more or less sudden way, with or without disaster. This meaning is perfectly legitimate and corresponds well to a part of what we think ourselves, but only to a part, because, for us, and by placing ourselves in a more general point of view, it is the whole of modern times, as a whole, that represents for the world a period of crisis; it seems that we are approaching the end, and that is what makes the abnormal nature of this state of affairs, which has lasted for a few centuries, but whose consequences have not yet been as visible as they are now, more sensitive today than ever. This is also why events are taking place at this accelerated speed to which we were referring first of all; undoubtedly, this can continue for some time, but not indefinitely; and even, without being able to assign a precise limit, one has the impression that it can no longer last very long.

But in the very word "crisis", other meanings are contained, which make it even more capable of expressing what we want to say: its etymology, in fact, which is often lost sight of in everyday use, but to which we must refer as we always do when we want to restore to a term the fullness of its proper meaning and its original value, its etymology, let us say, the fact partially synonymous with "judgment" and "discrimination". The phase that can be called truly "critical", in any order of things, is the one that immediately leads to a favourable or unfavourable solution, the one in which a decision is taken in one direction or the other; it is then, therefore, possible to make a judgment on the results achieved, to weigh the "for" and the "against", by making a sort of classification among these results, some positive, others negative, and to see on which side the balance is finally tilted. Of course, we have no claim to establish such discrimination in any comprehensive way, which would be premature, since the crisis has not yet been resolved and it may not even be possible to say exactly when and how it will be resolved, especially since it is always preferable to refrain from certain forecasts that cannot be based on reasons that are clearly understandable to all, and that would subsequently be too likely to be misinterpreted and add to the confusion rather than remedy it. All we can propose, therefore, is to contribute, to a certain extent and to the extent that the means at our disposal will allow us, to making those who are capable aware of it aware of some of the results that seem well established from now on, and thus preparing, if only in a very partial and rather indirect way, the elements that will subsequently serve the future "judgment", from which a new period in the history of terrestrial humanity will open.

Some of the expressions we have just used will undoubtedly evoke, in the minds of some, the idea of what is called the "last judgment", and, to be honest, it will not be wrong; indeed, it will be literally or symbolically, or both, because they are by no means exclusive in reality, no matter here, and this is not the time or place to fully explain this point to us. In any case, this balancing of the "for" and "against", this discrimination of positive and negative results, of which we were talking earlier, can certainly remind us of the division of the "elected" and the "damned" into two groups that are now immutably fixed; even if there is only one analogy, we must recognize that it is at least a valid and well-founded analogy, in accordance with the very nature of things; and this still requires some explanation.

It is certainly not by chance that so many minds are now haunted by the idea of the "end of the world"; we can regret it in some respects, because the extravagances to which this misunderstood idea gives rise, the "messianic" ramblings which are the consequence in various circles, all these manifestations resulting from the mental imbalance of our time, only aggravate this same imbalance even further in proportions which are not absolutely negligible; but finally it is nonetheless certain that there is a fact here which cannot be ignored. The most convenient attitude, when such things are observed, is certainly to dismiss them purely and simply without further examination, to treat them as mistakes or unimportant reveries; we think, however, that, even if they are indeed errors, it is better, while denouncing them as such, to seek the reasons that caused them and the more or less distorted part of truth that can be contained in them despite everything, because, since error has in sum only a purely negative mode of existence, absolute error cannot be found anywhere and is only a meaningless word. If we look at things in this way, we can easily see that this concern for the "end of the world" is closely linked to the general state of unease in which we are currently living: the obscure presentiment of something that is actually about to end, acting without control over certain imaginations, quite naturally produces disorderly representations, and most often grossly materialized, which, in turn, are externally reflected in the extravagances to which we have just referred. This explanation is not an excuse in favour of them; or at least, if we can excuse those who involuntarily fall into error, because they are predisposed to it by a mental state for which they are not responsible, it can never be a reason to excuse the error itself. Moreover, as far as we are concerned, we cannot surely be blamed for excessive indulgence towards the "pseudo-religious" manifestations of the contemporary world, nor towards all modern errors in general; we even know that some would rather be tempted to blame us for the opposite, and perhaps what we say here will make them better understand how we see these things, always trying to place ourselves in the only point of view that matters to us, that of impartial and disinterested truth.

That is not all: a merely "psychological" explanation of the idea of the "end of the world" and its current manifestations, however just it may be in its order, cannot be regarded as fully sufficient in our eyes; to leave it at that would be to be influenced by one of those modern illusions against which we are rising precisely on every occasion. Some, we were saying, feel confused about the imminent end of something whose nature and scope they cannot define exactly; it must be admitted that they have a very real, albeit vague, perception, subject to misinterpretation or imaginative distortions, since, whatever that end, the crisis that must necessarily lead to it is quite apparent, and a multitude of unequivocal and easily observed signs all lead to the same conclusion in a consistent way. This end is probably not the "end of the world", in the total sense in which some people want to hear it, but it is at least the end of a world; and if what must end is Western civilization in its present form, it is understandable that those who have become accustomed to seeing nothing outside it, to considering it as "civilization" without an epithet, easily believe that everything will end with it, and that, if it does disappear, it will truly be the "end of the world".

We will therefore say, to bring things back to their proper proportions, that it seems that we are really approaching the end of a world, that is, the end of a historical era or cycle, which may also be in correspondence with a cosmic cycle, according to what all traditional doctrines teach in this respect. There have been many such events in the past, and there will undoubtedly be more in the future; events of unequal importance, moreover, depending on whether they end more or less extensive periods and whether they concern either the whole of humanity on earth or only one or the other of its portions, a particular race or people. It is to be assumed, in the present state of the world, that the change that will take place will be very general in scope, and that, whatever form it takes, and which we do not intend to seek

to be defined, it will more or less affect the entire earth. In any case, the laws governing such events are applicable analogically at all levels; so what is said about the "end of the world", in a sense as complete as it is possible to conceive it, and which moreover usually refers only to the terrestrial world, is it still true, all things considered, when it is simply the end of any world, understood in a much more restricted sense.

These preliminary observations will greatly help to understand the considerations that follow; we have already had occasion in other works to make frequent references to "cyclical laws"; indeed, it may be difficult to make these laws a complete exposition in a form easily accessible to Western minds, but at least it is necessary to have some data on this subject if we want to get a true idea of what the present era is and what it represents exactly in the whole history of the world. This is why we will begin by showing that the characters of this era are indeed those that traditional doctrines have always indicated for the cyclical period to which it corresponds; and it will also show that what is anomalous and disorder in a certain respect is nevertheless a necessary element of a broader order, an inevitable consequence of the laws that govern the development of any manifestation. Moreover, let us say it right away, this is not a reason to be content with passively suffering the trouble and darkness that seem momentarily to triumph, for, if it were so, we would only have to remain silent; on the contrary, it is one, on the contrary, to work, as much as we can, to prepare the way out of this "dark age" from which many indications already allow us to glimpse the end more or less soon, if not quite imminent. This too is in order, because balance is the result of the simultaneous action of two opposing tendencies; if one or the other could completely cease to act, the balance would never be found again, and the world itself would vanish; but this assumption is unfeasible, because the two terms of an opposition only make sense one by one, and, whatever the appearances, we can be sure that all partial and transitional imbalances ultimately contribute to the achievement of total equilibrium.