Portugal's democracy turns 50
reuters.com
reuters.com
Western Europe had an officially fascist government 50 years (+1 day) ago. ~60 years ago Black people in the US were officially discriminated, enshrined in law. Franco-Algerian wars also finished 62 years ago, and saw atrocities worthy of the worst ethnic cleansing of WWII. Balkan wars are still more recent and depressingly deadly too. Alan Turing committed suicide 70 years ago, being pursued after the "crime" of homosexuality. Not to mention some of the stuff going on today...
We take so much for granted, the world really is a nicer place than it used to be.
And because we take it for granted, we act as though it'll be around forever. There are still people who don't want these things. If we get complacent, they'll be gone before we know what we've lost.
Ukraine is a bit different in that both the official Russian ideology and the prevailing public opinion don't see it as a colony, but rather as "lost heartland" that is inhabited by what are still fundamentally Russians who have "strayed". So the long-term goal there isn't to acquire a new colony for the metropole to exploit - it's to forcibly assimilate its Ukrainian population into the metropole in its entirety. Now in practice this isn't that simple either, because of course the occupied territories are exploited. However, one could argue that it is still not colonial exploitation, because its economic nature is fundamentally the same as the relationship between Moscow and basically every other Russian region. That is, it would make sense to say that occupied Ukraine is a colony if you're also willing to say that pretty much all of Russia is also effectively a colony of Moscow (which is not an unreasonable way to describe it, to be fair - just not a conventional one in Western historiography).
And I said they even though Im one of them because I hate the culture of the country. Foreigners arent any depper, of course. They go "ohhh lisbon is so beautiful" and that's as far as they go.
It is also wild seeing how people are reacting to the President talking about reparations.
I'm sure there's plenty of others as well. The tentacles of colonialism are getting scarcer, but are still very much there.
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/world/france-pull-troops-out-niger-f...
[1] - https://time.com/6301177/niger-african-support-russia/
As far as gains and losses, you're correct when looking purely at the economic aspect of it, but that's not all there is to it. Indeed, my fear is that the West is finding it very hard to understand (and believe in) what Russia is doing precisely because it is so focused on economic cost-benefit analysis, and ignores the ideological aspects, which dominate the Russian political elites today.
---
"NATO enlargement, particularly to Ukraine, remains "an emotional and neuralgic" issue for Russia, but strategic policy considerations also underlie strong opposition to NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia. In Ukraine, these include fears that the issue could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene."
---
That's just one paragraph. The whole cable is an easy read, interesting, and full of evidence. But what makes that cable fun is not only how clearly it emphasizes we knew exactly what would happen, but also who wrote it. It was written by William J Burns - the current head of the CIA.
A very strange thing to say, given that war against Ukraine is an extremely blatant attempt at re-colonization (with a heaping dose of full-tilt racist ethnic cleansing to boot).
Putin's designs in Africa are clearly different, and "colonialism" probably isn't the right conceptual model to apply there. But this insinuation you're making that he's on some kind of "anti-colonial" mission there (or that that he's lending the people in those countries a helping hand in any other way) is equally bizarre, an fundamentally quite naive.
Russia's motivations in Africa obviously aren't anti-colonial or whatever. It's the same stuff that's going on with South Africa, Brazil, China, and so on. They're simply pivoting towards the 85% of the world, the 'global south' - a pivot that began many years ago, but which the conflict has accelerated due to strained relations with the 15%. The stronger and more independent the global south, the more beneficial and productive the pivot.
[1] - https://ukraine.un.org/en/264355-report-human-rights-situati... (page 10, note 38)
You're way off base on that. Just look at any of Putin's numerous (and incredibly obnoxious) pronouncements on the topic of Russia-Ukraine relations.
I don't think further discussion will be productive here. I'll have to leave you to sort these issues out on your own.
> It was written by William J Burns - the current head of the CIA
When Burns joined the CIA in March 2021, Russia was already building up troops for the invasion. I’m not sure what, if anything, you’re insinuating here.
The importance of it being written by Burns is that there are a lot of cables written, often shooting in many different directions. But in this case, the intelligence on what would happen with Ukraine not only remained consistent, but the individuals writing it were and remained extremely high level players within the government. So the idea the US was, in any way, surprised by what happened can be quite safely discarded as false.
Except Ukraine wasn't seeking NATO membership, they were going to sign the EU cooperation agreement until Russia bullied and threatened them into backing out. Again, Russia is ultimately the one encouraging NATO expansion.
> And the catalyst there was us backing a coup that overthrew a [democratically elected] Russian leaning President, sending the largely ethnic Russian regions (including Crimea and Donbas) into outright rebellion, starting the exact civil war Burns had predicted.
The US didn't want Yanukovych ousted. The Nuland tape shows that the US was trying to set up meetings between him and oppo leaders after he opened up spots in his interim government (because both sides wanted a neutral mediator and the EU was dragging it's feet, hence the famous comment). He chose to flee, though, and was voted out by parliament.
It wasn't the EU that was desperate for Ukraine to join, it was the US. We wanted to use them as a strategic tool against Russia, whereas them actually joining the EU would cause nothing but problems for the EU because it'd result in a mass flooding of labor, cheap grain, and so on. Flooding the EU with cheap grain sounds awesome, but it would imperil farmers and agriculture, in general, in other countries. It's an issue that persists to this day with numerous countries banning the import of Ukrainian grain - something that could not be done if Ukraine was in the EU. The only relevant reference from Nuland regarding Yanukovych was a desire to "see if he wants to talk before or after." [3]
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ukraine-russia-deal-speci...
[2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Customs_Union_of_the_Eurasian_...
The US has no interest in bolstering one of their main economic competitors with millions of skilled workers, don't be silly. European industries drool at the prospect of getting access to a skilled metal worker for a few hundred euros per month.
In this paragraph, you unintentionally reveal why Ukraine saw mass protests when Yanukovych sabotaged closer relations with the EU after last-minute Russian pressure. Ukraine is one of the poorest countries in Europe, but opening up to the EU for movement of goods and labor would've meant sharp and massive rise in the living standard of Ukrainians - as has happened everywhere else in Eastern Europe.
Poland is roughly the same size as Ukraine in terms of population. Poland requested EU membership in 1994 and started implementing reforms required for membership soon thereafter. It joined the EU as a full member in 2004. Here's what the process did to the GDP: https://i.imgur.com/008Ynan.png
Ukraine was on the verge of similar explosion of economic development. Imagine your wage rising five to ten times in mere ten years.
And naturally, that massive rise in living standard would've alienated Ukraine from Russia and greatly reduced Russian influence on Ukraine because they have nothing comparable to offer. In the worst case scenario for Russia, seeing the prosperity in Ukraine could've mobilized their population to demand change and topple Putin.
Plain human greed and desire for "more stuff" was one of the key drivers behind USSR's collapse too. When Gorbachev loosened censorship in the late 1980s, people learned how Europeans and Americans lived, and wanted the same things for themselves and their children: nice clothes, Sony stereos and German washing machines. A very simple, natural instinct.
That's disingenuous. He was looking to offset the damage caused by Russia's trade restrictions done in retaliation for considering or signing the agreement. The Reuters article mentions this:
> Next year Ukraine will have to cover foreign debt payments of $8 billion, according to its finance ministry. It was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, partly because Moscow was blocking sales of Ukrainian-produced meat, cheese and some confectionery, and scrapping duty-free quotas on steel pipes. Some officials said the restrictions showed what life would be like if Ukraine signed the EU agreement.
Also, three months before the summit in which it was supposed to be signed, Russia essentially stopped all imports from Ukraine[0] but resumed them after the agreement failed[1]
I think the timelines also support this. As per your link, the customs arrangement between Ukraine and Russia was terminated on August 14th. As per the Reuters link, Yanukovych was actively hostile to joining the Eurasian Customs Union a month later, and only sided with Russia about 4 months later. He only seems to have only finally changed his mind once it became clear that not only was he not going to get rich(er) off the EU or the IMF, but he also got Russia to offer him $15 billion as well as sharply lowering the prices paid by Naftogaz - a Ukrainian state run gas company that was headed by a Yanukovych appointee - Yevhen Bakulin, who has a fun rabbit hole to go down, in his own right.
The catalyst was shooting of peaceful protesters that killed over 100 people, and the president fleeing as soon as he realized that he had lost the support even among his own party and would be facing criminal charges. You mention that Yanukovych was a democratically elected president, but you conventiently fail to mention that he was removed from office by the parliament with unanimous 328-vs-0 votes.
And there was no civil war. It was entirely manufactured by Russian military and special services from the start. From a judgement by the European Court of Human rights:
The Court held, on the basis of the vast body of evidence before it, that Russia had effective control over all areas in the hands of separatists from 11 May 2014 on account of its military presence in eastern Ukraine and the decisive degree of influence it enjoyed over these areas as a result of its military, political and economic support to the “DPR” and the “LPR”. In particular, the Court found it established beyond any reasonable doubt that there had been Russian military personnel present in an active capacity in Donbass from April 2014 and that there had been a large-scale deployment of Russian troops from, at the very latest, August 2014. It further found that the respondent State had a significant influence on the separatists’ military strategy. Several prominent separatists in command positions were senior members of the Russian military acting under Russian instructions, including the person who had had formal overall command of the armed forces of the “DPR” and the “LPR”. Further, Russia had provided weapons and other military equipment to separatists on a significant scale (including the Buk-missile used to shoot down flight MH17). Russia had carried out artillery attacks upon requests from the separatists and provided other military support. There was also clear evidence of political support, including at international level, being provided to the “DPR” and the “LPR” and the Russian Federation had played a significant role in their financing enabling their economic survival.
By the time of the 11 May 2014 “referendums”, the separatist operation as a whole had been managed and coordinated by the Russian Federation. The threshold for establishing Russian jurisdiction in respect of allegations concerning events which took place within these areas after 11 May 2014 had therefore been passed. That finding meant that the acts and omissions of the separatists were automatically attributable to the Russian Federation. /---/ In the absence of any evidence demonstrating that the dependence of the entities on Russia had decreased since 2014, the jurisdiction of the respondent State continued as at the date of the hearing on 26 January 2022.
If you get your facts straight, the story changes completely.
But the point here is that the civil war began in March. Could Ukraine have snuffed out the rebellious regions without Russian interference? Most likely, but countries feeding arms and support to rebellions that they support is pretty run of the mill geopolitics stuff (and was also 100% expected by the US per the diplomatic cables). Similarly, it's highly unlikely that the Ukrainian coup would have succeeded without US backing and direct involvement. In the 8 years that followed (until the invasion) Russia repeatedly tried to organize some sort of a cease fire and mutually agreeable solution for the breakaway regions - basically letting them have some sort of special administrative status while remaining part of Ukraine. This resulted in the Minsk accords. Those accords were then repeatedly violated, with both sides blaming the other, until the situation reached a climax in 2022.
[1] - https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/13/world/europe/ukraine.html
In the first stage, they captured Crimea. Then, on 12 April 2014, the war broke loose in Eastern Ukraine after 50 Russian commandos led by Girkin captured the town of Sloviansk. Sabotage groups sent to rile up people and sow confusion were active even earlier than that (Ukraine managed to detain a number of them).
There were no separatists, no rebels, no break-away regions, nothing before Russia manufactured them to create an appearance of a civil war and deprive Ukraine of foreign support. That was all a cover story for the military operation - on of the most effective deceptions in the history of warfare.
Less stretched though is the struggle to end South Africa’s apartheid and the Israel Palestine conflict. Both Apartheid South Africa, and modern day Israel are fighting to legitimize a settler colonial state (preferably ethno-state of European descendants) which unevenly allocates land and rights to the descendants of the European colonizers (see also Northern Ireland before the good Friday agreement).
And finally we have Western Sahara, which is a full on colony just like Angola, and has an ongoing colonial war for liberation (just like Algeria). The only difference is that the colonial power is Morocco, which is not a European power.
The Good Friday Agreement brought both Civil Rights and equal political representation for Northern Irish Catholics. It also gave a political avenue for further decolonization (including their ultimate goal of reunification with Ireland), making more terrorist activities kind of unnecessary.
I would consider that a pretty good results of violent resistance against your colonizer.
For anybody unfamiliar the many many islands in the East Indies historically have had easily distinguishable cultures and largely seperate rule until the Dutch consolidation.
The Dutch were replaced as "rulers" by a small group, the most overtly colonial act being the invasion of West Papua following the west largely shrugging their shoulders when independance was sought and "free elections" were rigged via torture.
I'm sure there's good writing on the subject, a cursory search turned up
https://www.e-ir.info/2015/12/17/neo-orientalism-indonesias-...
which seems adequate as a starting point.
EDIT: Given the replies below that I suggest reading my comment perhaps more than once. It seems some people are quick to jump onto some wrong conclusions after grep'ing two or three words from the paragraph I wrote :)
And also the fact that HDI metrics of most of Eastern and Southern Europe only broke the 0.9 (very very highly developed) because of EU funding and support.
Edit: you aren't arguing that the EU is a neo-colonial/imperialist project. I answered as such assuming you are anti-EU. +1 on Snyder btw - highly recommend reading "Postwar" if anyone has the time.
Which is basically true, though the primary motivator was to interlink economies to avoid another war in Europe as started ww1 and ww2
Just look at Croatia versus Serbia despite having the same ethnicity, language, and civil war, or Romania versus Moldova, or Poland versus Belarus despite both sharing the same HDI in the early 1990s.
Imagine how little the US might care about possible threats to the Baltic states from Russia if the borders to the EU and NATO were still at Germany.
Insofar as the EU relationship to its member states is extractive, its not principally extractive, nor is it primarily parasitic in nature. And anyway, EU expansion is driven entirely by applications to join, not efforts to annex.
That's not to say that anything like the EU is necessarily good, just that its unambiguously not a colonial/imperialist project, and its a weird non sequitur to act like it is.
Unfortunately, having worked together to defuse it, both Kennedy and Khrushchev were cancelled soon after.
Instead of a strong reaction to this creep like during the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have seen nothing of this sort. It has tipped the balance of military power in Europe deeply in favor of Russia and emboldened them to launch land grabs against Ukraine.
In 2024, we are living the scenario where Russia placed missiles in Cuba, saw no reaction, and then invaded Florida "to protect Cuban minorities".
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37597075
[2] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/files/2016/11...
[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-65932700
[4] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/new-russian-military-ex...
That'd be awesome. They're nothing but trouble anyway: fought wars to keep slavery twice* in a row, yet still somehow keep installing US presidents with deep security apparatus ties — they're worse than Georgians with moustaches. Как тебе такое, Илон Маск?
I'd miss Austin, but am now imagining all the great mashups to be sung on one of {1 Feb, 2 Mar, 9 May}:
The Yellow Rose of Texas Sobiraet Vinograd
All my Katyas live in Texas
Ne Valay Duraka, Oklahoma
Oy, To Ne Betcha
On the Road is Long Again
Seven Spanish Tankista
* three times, if you count the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican–American_War ? Anyway, I'd reckon they'd love them the Novorossiya flag.
The only reason why Ukraine even wants to get into NATO is because Russia has never stopped viewing it as a core part of its Greater Russia imperial restoration project. This is also why the entire Eastern Europe rushed to NATO as soon as they could - because they didn't want to end up like Ukraine did.
I thought it was to unite EU to prevent another World War happening and to join coal resources?
Why wage war in Europe when you can peacefully exploit the Global South?
> Colonialism itself did not stop in 1945,
Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism—
> not at all, in fact the very last European (or European/Asian) empire is on its last stretch trying to re-colonise Ukraine.
Oh. I guess that too.
> Yeah I guess France has its whole neocolonialism—
It's over for France. Putin sent Wagner to set former French colonies on fire. Why do you think Macron is talking about sending French weapons and soldiers to Ukraine? Payback for dismantling the French order in Africa.
Except in 1989 Germany got the keys to Europe and jumped in bed with Russia screwing over Europe in the process. Because once you get away with murder, you don't fear doing it again.
US colonialism lived on through economic and military interventionism through Manifest Destiny in N America and Monroe Doctrine in the greater Americas for more than 2 centuries, and still continues to meddle to this day. An explicit policy of American military supremacy post-WW2 is one of the fundamental genesises of the Cold War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_and_the_Haitian_...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican%E2%80%93American_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Provisional_Government_of_Cuba
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ni...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_Ha...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_occupation_of_th...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_PBFortune
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1954_Guatemalan_coup_d%27%C3%A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1964_Brazilian_coup_d%27état
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Hemisphere_Institute_f... (School of the Americas)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Banzer
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_FUBELT
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_Chilean_coup_d%27état
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Honduran_coup_d%27%C3%A9t...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1979_Salvadoran_coup_d%27%C3%A...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinaltrainal_v._Coca-Cola_Co.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Venezuelan_uprising_attem...
Finally, in the recent few years, Africa countries are becoming more self-aware and escorting colonial vestiges of control out the door to forge their own paths.
The whole Salazar period was one of stagnation and many people (my family included) had to leave Portugal for better (or just some) opportunities elsewhere.
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/25/everyone-was-i...
1 Fidel Casto Cuba 52
2 Chiang Kai-shek Republic of China 47
3 Kim II-sung North Korea 45
4 Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal Mongolian People's Republic 44
5 Muammar Gaddafi Libyan Arab Republic 42
6 Paul Biya Cameroon 41
7 Omar Bongo Gabon 41
8 Enver Hoxha People's Republic of Albania 40
9 Mohamed Abdelaziz Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic 39
10 Francisco Franco Spanish State 39
11 Eamon de Valera Ireland 37
12 Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo Equatorial Guinea 37
13 Gnassingbe Eyadema Togo 37
14 Jose Eduardo dos Santos Angola 37
15 Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe 37
16 Josip Broz Tito Yugoslavia 36
17 Antonio de Oliveira Salazar Second Portuguese Republic 36
18 Todor Zhivkov People's Republic of Bulgaria 35
19 Ali Khamenei Iran 35
20 Alfredo Stroessner Paraguay 34
What is context?
I found this:
https://blogdelviejotopo.blogspot.com/2014/04/40-aniversario...
Those soldiers were part of the outer siege [more precisely at the beginning of Rua de Serpa Pinto] to the crowd-packed Largo do Carmo where Marcello Caetano (the successor to Salazar) went to seek refuge from the rebellion - inside the GNR (sort of Gendarmerie) barracks there.
Portuguese state broadcaster RTP has a documentary called “Os Olhos da Revolução” about the ‘lost footage’ of the Revolution.
ca. 28m53s:
https://www.rtp.pt/play/p13273/os-olhos-da-revolucao
(the whole thing is worth to watch ;)
Hardships bring fear for oneself and fear for oneself is psychological reason why people are conservative and right-wing. Those people vote in right-wing parties. And leaders of those parties are not very smart because position they achieved is solely due to psychology of their voters, not actually earned by their own political merits. So the only way those leaders can imagine for retaining power is to dismantle democracy that handed them this power on a silver plate. If they only cultivated fear in the populace they won over (whist avoiding the blame for the hardships) and create political alliances to avoid being replaced with somebody more right-winged they could retain power indefinitely.
For hard numbers on how quickly that happened in 1933: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39305877
Once the WW2 veterans started dying, people on the "right" started drifting back to the old, shitty ideas of fascism.
I wish the greatest generation was still around to verbally tear the fascist demagogues apart.
And the socialists and communists, 1945 to 1990 wasn't fun either under the soviet rule. From one shit to another.
“Portugal Overthrew its Fascist Regime 50 Years Ago Today to Become a Democracy”.
In 1934, America Nazis even had their very own summer camp for boys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camp_Wille_und_Macht
The German-American Bund (American Nazis org) held a rally of 20k in NYC @ MSG in 1939.
Political scapegoating, violence, and propaganda twisting narratives and history are as old as time. Recall the fate of the Cathars, Armenians, Romani, and the Holocaust.
The Iranian attack on Israel seems to have had similar (but milder) effect on MAGA as Pearl Harbor had on AFC.
History won't be kind to show the KKK, AFC, and MAGA as anything other than softer and cuter forms of the same troglodyte venom.
Inversely, the silencing of starving and dying civilians by discriminatorily and ignorantly, and outright lying with fabricated stories, painting an entire people as barbaric monsters by falsely weaponizing cultural sacred lambs like the Holocaust is another form of evil that threatens both Judaism and Zionism.
However, none of this is going to happen because federal politics is pretty much completely deadlocked at this point. We can't even pass regular legislation on critical matters reliably, never mind constitutional amendments.
Do not fall into the trap blaming a demagogue, where did they come from? Why?
Not much to do with politics, much to do with culture
After Trump: America is over if Trump gets re-elected, for realsies this time
He was a bad and incompetent president and a loose enough screw to make anything happen, but the liberal imagination has a tendency to be hyperbolic.
eg "stand back and stand by"; cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_6_United_States_Capito...
At least the SA pretended not to be a paramilitary organisation, but masqueraded as a "gymnastics club" before they got into power: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung#:~:text=More%20...
I'm not saying that all or even most Trump voters are like that. But there are definitely quite a few people like that basically just sitting and waiting for a clear go-ahead signal from someone whom they trust, and they are already well-armed and somewhat organized. And they all seem to trust Trump.
What changed for you?