Since the onset of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russian athletes and national teams have been widely excluded from international sport.
Yet the pressure to reintegrate them never really disappeared, and Russian athletes are increasingly allowed back into international competition. First, under neutral status in selected disciplines, following
© Nicolas Ortega
Military expenditure as a share of GDP is a key stress test of national priorities. While the US and China lead in raw dollars, the ranking changes dramatically when adjusted for economic size. Here are the top 20 countries where defense takes the biggest bite out of the economy
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© Amina Gingold for The New York Times
With focus suddenly very much on Terceira island, in the Azores – home to Lajes Air Base, heavily used by the Americans – minister for foreign affairs Paulo Rangel has
The post Portugal’s agreement over U.S. use of Lajes Air Base to be reviewed appeared first on Portugal Resident.
El 84% del presupuesto de la CPI viene de potencias imperialistas, que dictan sus investigaciones y protegen a sus aliados.
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Para perseguir a gobernantes incómodos para el imperialismo, la CPI pasó por encima de su norma básica: limitar su actuación a los países que ratificaron el Estatuto de Roma. Sin embargo, mientras la Libia de Gadafi y la Rusia de Putin fueron víctimas de la CPI, Estados Unidos continúa impune. Y ha demostrado que, aun sin formar parte de la Corte, es quien verdaderamente manda en ella.
Cuando Bensouda intentó investigar los crímenes de guerra en Afganistán —sin limitar su investigación a la actuación del Talibán y del Estado Islámico, sino incluyendo a lo que ella consideraba los mayores criminales de aquella guerra (el ejército estadounidense y la CIA)—, sufrió una fuerte presión desde Washington, hasta el punto de resultar en sanciones gubernamentales. Sus cuentas bancarias y las de sus familiares fueron congeladas, y su marido fue espiado.
Finalmente, Bensouda fue sustituida por un nuevo fiscal dócil a Estados Unidos. Karim Khan modificó el enfoque de las investigaciones sobre Afganistán, declarando que daría prioridad al Talibán y al ISIS y retiraría la prioridad de Estados Unidos, alegando falta de recursos para una investigación más amplia.
Durante una de las muchas intervenciones militares francesas en África en este siglo (entre 2013 y 2016), soldados violaron y abusaron sexualmente de niños en campos de desplazados en la República Centroafricana. La ONU, aunque prestó una atención limitada al caso, fue acusada de una “grave falla institucional” por una comisión independiente, al haber permitido que las atrocidades continuaran. La CPI —que podría haber intervenido, dado que Francia es un Estado Parte y los magistrados franceses no lograron condenar a ningún soldado por una supuesta insuficiencia de pruebas— prefirió guardar silencio al respecto.
Durante el mismo período, en su intervención en el Sahel, soldados franceses —incluidos mercenarios de la Legión Extranjera— fueron acusados de asesinar civiles y de entrenar y armar fuerzas de seguridad responsables de masacres, ejecuciones sumarias y violaciones. Los gobernantes franceses tampoco tuvieron de qué preocuparse.
Por otro lado, la CPI incluso fingió examinar los crímenes de guerra cometidos por el Reino Unido en Irak, incluidas torturas contra prisioneros. Pero justificó el cierre del caso alegando que las autoridades británicas ya estaban llevando a cabo investigaciones internas, aun cuando la propia Oficina del Fiscal de la CPI reconoció que existía una “base razonable” para creer que tropas británicas habían cometido crímenes de guerra.
El Reino Unido no castigó a ningún oficial, aunque una investigación pública posterior concluyó que hubo violencia generalizada y un silencio corporativo —es decir, una responsabilidad de altos mandos militares—. Como el Reino Unido realmente no había sido capaz de concluir el caso, la CPI podría haber intervenido, ya que Londres integra el Estatuto de Roma. Pero la CPI volvió a lavarse las manos.
Ahora, como reveló Bensouda, Israel también está protegido, y no solo por las sanciones estadounidenses, sino también por la actuación de una burocracia de la CPI confabulada con el Mossad, que permite la injerencia directa e ilegal de Israel sin hacer absolutamente nada al respecto.
Una estructura dominada por las naciones imperialistas
De acuerdo con los datos disponibles en el último balance financiero de la CPI, correspondiente a 2024 y publicado en julio de 2025, es posible calcular que alrededor del 84% de toda su financiación proviene de países imperialistas y asociados (miembros de la OTAN, Suiza, Austria, Japón, Corea del Sur, Australia y Nueva Zelanda). Sin embargo, en conjunto representan apenas el 28% de los Estados Parte del organismo. Mientras tanto, el resto de los países (72%) aportan solamente el 16% de su presupuesto.
Existe un claro desequilibrio estructural en la financiación de la CPI. Naturalmente, esto está directamente relacionado con la actuación parcial de la Corte. Como dice el dicho, quien paga manda.
La propia CPI considera que el 60% de los países africanos que la integran están “no representados” o “subrepresentados” en su estructura interna. Es decir, apenas el 40% cuenta con algún tipo de representación. Para los países latinoamericanos y caribeños, ese porcentaje es todavía menor: solo el 14% de los integrantes de la Corte están adecuadamente representados. En los países de Asia-Pacífico, la cifra es del 28%. En cambio, la mitad de los países imperialistas y asociados sí están debidamente representados, un porcentaje muy superior al de las demás regiones.
Según un informe de la Asamblea de los Estados Parte, el 56% de los funcionarios de la CPI en 2024 provenían del grupo compuesto por países de Europa Occidental y relacionados. Apenas el 16% eran africanos, el 11% provenían de Europa Oriental, el 8% de Asia-Pacífico y el 8% de América Latina y el Caribe.
Entre los 18 jueces actuales de la Corte, ocho pertenecen a países imperialistas y asociados, y cinco mantienen vínculos académicos y/o profesionales con instituciones hegemónicas de esos países. Los demás son altos burócratas estatales, generalmente de países cuya burocracia estatal es intrínsecamente dependiente del imperialismo.
De esta forma, queda claro que las víctimas de la CPI siempre serán los dirigentes incómodos para las potencias imperialistas. Mientras incluso Putin ha tenido una orden de arresto emitida por el organismo y los gobiernos africanos continúan siendo su objetivo favorito, ningún país de la OTAN ha sido jamás seriamente molestado por procesos de la CPI.
Los bombardeos con armas prohibidas en Yugoslavia en 1999, las torturas en Abu Ghraib y Guantánamo, las masacres en Irak y Afganistán, las violaciones en África o, más recientemente, la masacre en la escuela de Minab y los asesinatos semanales de pescadores en el Caribe y el Pacífico Oriental, no preocupan a los jueces de la CPI.
Precisamente por ello, la mayoría de los países soberanos que no se arrodillan ante el imperialismo jamás se adhirieron a la CPI. Cuba acusó al organismo de tener una política “selectiva contra los países en desarrollo”. Corea del Norte calificó sus maniobras como “un producto de fuerzas hostiles”.
Pero, junto con la declaración de Burundi, quizás la mejor definición de lo que es la CPI fue dada por el vicesecretario del Consejo de Seguridad de Rusia, Alexander Venediktov: “Un títere obediente en manos del Occidente colectivo.”
By Chris HEDGES
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
The war on Iran has not only ended in a humiliating defeat for the United States, but resulted in a dramatic shift in the balance of power in the Middle East and the Global South.
The humiliating defeat of Israel and the United States in their war on Iran, along with the savagery of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, are ushering in a new world order.
This order is one where voices of reason and stability emanate not from the West — which spent tens of billions of dollars sustaining Israel’s genocide — but from the Global South, including China. It is an order where alliances are being rapidly reconfigured to protect countries from a rogue American state that lashes out like a wounded beast, as it spirals toward terminal decline.
The end of the U.S. Empire, led by an impetuous and clueless Donald Trump, is irreversible.
The U.S. has lost its sixth war in the Middle East in 25 years. Iran’s power has been enhanced not only because it — along with Oman — controls the Strait of Hormuz — where roughly 25 percent of the world’s seaborne oil and 20 percent of the world’s seaborne liquified natural gas pass through — but because it has delivered a stark message, with its drones and missiles, to U.S. allies and bases in the region, while sending the global economy into a tailspin.
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who reportedly lured Trump into the war with Alice-in-Wonderland visions of easy regime change in Iran following the decapitation strikes against the country on Feb. 28, which included the assassination of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other political and military figures, along with 168 school children and their teachers — may strike Iran again.
They are desperate. But a renewed bombing of Iran will not work. Iran’s mosaic defense strategy ensures all political and military commanders are easily replaced.
Iran can strangle the world economy by closing the Strait of Hormuz. It can accelerate the pain by getting its Yemeni allies — Ansar Allah — to close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the Red Sea, just as they did to Israel-bound ships when defending Palestinians after Oct. 7.
This could result in a complete blockade. Saudi Arabia, with the Bab el-Mandeb Strait open, is able to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and export 5 million barrels a day through its pipeline to tankers in the Red Sea port of Yanbu.
Satellite photo of Bab-el-Mandeb, the strait between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. (WorldWind software/Wikimedia Commons/ Public Domain)
If a ceasefire between the U.S. and Iran is not reached soon, the global economy will crash, perhaps within weeks. The U.S. and its allies, such as Japan, have released some of their extensive strategic oil reserves, however they will not be able to cushion markets indefinitely.
Stockpiles in America’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve are near their lowest in more than 40 years. Once these reserves are depleted, the price of fuel will skyrocket. If a barrel of oil shoots up to $200, the price at the pump could climb as high as $10 per gallon. This, coupled with shortages of other petroleum-based products, along with nitrogen fertilizer, aluminum and helium — an indispensable element in the production of MRI machines and semiconductors — are already shutting down vital industries and driving up prices on basic commodities.
The World Bank projects a 31 percent increase in the cost of nitrogen fertilizers alone — which are produced in the Persian Gulf and transit through the Strait of Hormuz — if the war continues. This will mean a steep rise in the price of food.
Trump is like a dog being pushed unwillingly into a crate. When it appears a deal with Iran is close, he snarls and barks, sabotaging the proposed 30-to-60-day ceasefire agreement. Netanyahu’s apoplectic fits about any agreement that would halt Israeli attacks against Lebanon, along with the potential release of some of Iran’s estimated $100 billion in frozen assets, spurs Trump’s momentary defiance.
But the clock is ticking. There is little time left. And the longer Trump waits, the worse it will get. Neither Trump, nor Netanyahu, are the masters of this game. Iran holds the cards.
Israel’s dream of formalizing its hegemony over the Middle East, codified in the Abraham Accords during Trump’s first term — which normalized relations between Israel and regional states — is dead. This war and the genocide in Gaza killed it.
Trump is attempting to revive them by inserting them into a deal to end the war on Iran. He has demanded states previously uninvolved with the Abraham Accords, such as Pakistan and eventually, Iran, sign up to normalize relations with Israel. Pakistan — the only state to publicly respond — rejected the invitation due to what it called a clash with the country’s “fundamental ideologies.” Every other state Trump appealed to reacted with bewildered silence.
Netanyahu, left, and Trump on Sept. 15, 2020, the signing ceremony day for the Abraham Accords among Israel, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. (White House, Andrea Hanks)
Iran demands the removal of sanctions and an end to the naval blockade — which the Central Intelligence Agency concluded Iran can endure for months before it experiences severe economic hardship — in exchange for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. The proposed agreement makes no mention of Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal, which U.S. military and intelligence officials believe remains at 70 percent pre-war levels, according to The New York Times.
Iran, Pakistan, Turkey and Qatar — a lead negotiator with Hamas — are the new powerbrokers in the region.
Pakistan not only signed a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia in 2025, it deployed troops, jets and air defense systems to the Gulf dictatorship in April. It has also been hosting ceasefire talks between Trump’s Dumb and Dumber duo of lead negotiators — his feckless son-in-law Jared Kushner and fellow real estate developer and golfing partner, Steve Witkoff.
The war has enhanced the prestige and power of China, which compared to Washington is seen globally as embodying rational, prudent and stable leadership. Iran, in a sign of the new global order, permits Chinese and Pakistani tankers, along with other ships not allied with Israel and the U.S., to travel through the Strait.
The Strait of Hormuz connects the Gulf of Oman, left, with the Persian Gulf, right. The waterway also separates nation of Iran, bottom, from the Arabian Peninsula nations of Oman, United Arab Emirates, and Qatar, top left to right. (NASA Johnson / Flickr/CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Israel, unable to convince the U.S. to do its dirty work of bombing Iran into a failed state, will, I expect, strike out with renewed fury against Gaza, perhaps occupying the remaining 30 percent of what is left of the besieged territory. It will continue its Gaza-like policy of turning every structure south of Lebanon’s Litani River into rubble, which it bombs daily despite Iran stating that attacks on Lebanon violate the current ceasefire agreement.
Trump’s savagery and bluster – he threatened to “blow up” Oman if it fails to “behave” after reports of Oman jointly charging tolls with Iran for ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz – cannot mask the impotence of the U.S.
The refusal by America’s allies to heed Trump’s call to help him reopen the Strait, along with the economic misery visited on nations struggling to cope with shortages and the rising costs of energy and fertilizer supplies, are stark evidence of Washington’s pariah status.
Empires, blinded by the myth of their own omnipotence and military superiority, blunder at the final stages into conflicts with little understanding of where they are headed. They alienate their allies. They stumble from one military fiasco to the next, as the U.S. has done for over two decades in the Middle East.
The British Empire in 1956, already in precipitous decline, was humiliated when it conspired with France and Israel to seize the Suez Canal, which Gamal Abdel Nasser had nationalized. The U.S. forced all three countries to halt the invasion. Britain’s pound sterling gave way to the petrodollar. It signaled the last chapter of the British Empire.
The war on Iran is Washington’s Suez Crisis.
This may not be the end of the American Empire, but it is the beginning of the end.
Original article: consortiumnews.com
By Ron PAUL
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
Not since the notorious 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) provided for indefinite detention of American citizens, has the annual funding bill been as misused as this year. Embedded in the bill is an insult to every American who values our national sovereignty. The NDAA’s Section 224, the “United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative,” would “integrate” the Israeli military with our own, fusing technology, production, intelligence-sharing, and more.
As Ben Freeman wrote last week in Responsible Statecraft:
“The US and Israel already work together heavily on missile defense, but this provision would greatly expand coordination to seemingly every area of defense tech, including AI, quantum, autonomous systems, directed energy, cyber, biotech, and many more. It also proposes ‘network integration’ and ‘data fusion.’ In other words, the US military’s data could soon be the Israeli military’s data.”
It is hard to think of a more “America last” position than handing the keys to the Pentagon (and our intelligence community) to a foreign country.
The insanity of Section 224 is made even more clear with news over the weekend that the Pentagon has raised to “critical” the threat level of Israel spying on the United States and its officials!
We should not “integrate” our military with any foreign country or organization, but integrating with a country that is a “critical” espionage threat to our national security? How does this make any sense?
The “problem” for American lawmakers is that after the killing in Gaza and now Lebanon, the American people – particularly younger Americans – have turned sharply against the US relationship with Israel. This foreign entanglement has sucked billions from the US treasury over the decades, and it has sucked us into endless conflict in the Middle East, including the current US war on Iran.
Rather than listen to the will of their constituents, Congress has decided to defy the wishes of Americans in favor of the wishes of a foreign government. AIPAC largely controls our Congress and passing Section 224 would be a great victory for the foreign lobby.
It should come as no surprise that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu endorses Section 224. He may have written it for all we know!
Should Section 224 remain in the NDAA, it would essentially remove future Congresses from any role in determining what level of support, cooperation, and oversight should be included in the US relationship with Israel. It would be worse even than President Obama’s 10 year guaranteed US financial support for Israel. Funding would not only be on autopilot, but the US would be further drawn into Israel’s multiple wars with its neighbors. Worse even than backing up Israel in its regional wars, the wars themselves would become ours.
Americans must speak out against plans to integrate our military with any foreign country. What we should be doing is disentangling from these overseas obligations, whether they be NATO or support for Ukraine or backing Taiwan against China.
We already spend more than a trillion dollars a year on our own military and our national debt is nearing $40 trillion. Taking on the obligation to fight even more wars overseas will hasten our bankruptcy. Section 224 must be stricken from the NDAA and it is up to every American who cares about our sovereignty to demand that Congress do so.
Original article: ronpaulinstitute.org
Contact us: info@strategic-culture.su
The global public is waiting for the NATO Summit to be held in our capital, Ankara, on 7–8 July.
At the summit, of course, imperialist aggression against Iran and the latest developments in the Russia–Ukraine war will likely be the main issues. But the real key headline is the target of member countries spending 5 percent of their Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on defense.
Except for Spain, all allies have pledged to reach the 5 percent defense spending target by 2035. We had previously written about the burden this would place on countries’ national economies and the possible consequences, especially cuts in social spending. (Source)
However, NATO is, as expected, carrying out its preparations for the so-called ‘big war’—which is now effectively an open secret—through a multi-layered program. The alliance is preparing for the historic summit and the transformation that will take place in the summer through committee and various subcommittee meetings.
Another threshold in this preparation was crossed recently in North Macedonia. This critical development, which did not receive much media coverage, is focused on preparing member states’ health systems as well for the expected ‘big war.’
Who organized the meeting?
The meeting was organized by the NATO Committee of Chiefs of Military Medical Services (COMEDS).
Its origins go back to EUROMED, established in 1970 by the medical services leadership of EUROGROUP, which itself was founded in 1968 for the purpose of logistical coordination among NATO’s European members.
By the 1990s, all EUROGROUP activities except EUROMED were transferred to the Western European Union (WEU)—which would be dissolved in 2011—while EUROMED joined NATO. EUROMED was then institutionalized by the NATO Military Committee in the 1993–1994 period and transformed into today’s COMEDS structure.
Since then, this structure has worked on organizing health services for military personnel, as well as on medical evacuation and related fields. But this structure is also tasked with operating in civilian areas, not only military ones. Epidemics in member countries, natural disasters, emergencies, and the like… In all of these ‘civilian’ events too, this committee is responsible for providing ‘coordination’ on highly sensitive matters such as medical supplies and patient transport.
What was discussed at the meeting?
The meeting, recorded as the NATO COMEDS 65th Plenary Meeting, was held in Skopje, North Macedonia, on 1–4 June.
From the statements made by senior officials speaking at the meeting, it appears that two points were emphasized.
The first of these is accelerating the treatment of the wounded and their return to the front.
In his opening remarks, Belgian Major General Luc Vanbockryck, Director of NATO’s Logistics and Resources Division, said that medical support should be regarded as “a critical capability equivalent to any weapons system.”
Norwegian Brigadier General Petter Iversen, who holds the committee’s chairmanship, also described “a new reality” and stated:
“Military medical services are no longer just a broad support domain; they are becoming a fundamental element just like any weapons system. We must accelerate the process of returning soldiers to the front. This has strategic importance.”
In other words, NATO sees its wounded soldiers not merely as patients, but as resources that need to be “repaired” as quickly as possible. This stance is also an indication that NATO anticipates serious losses in the event of a possible war.
Work on the NATO Medical Action Plan (MAP), which entered into force in January 2025, was also one of the main topics at the meeting. Due to the decision on ‘confidentiality,’ the full text of this action plan has not yet been made public, but we can infer the main trends in the plan from meetings of this kind and from the statements of officials.
And this brings us to the second important point:
Civil-military health integration
According to official documents, NATO explicitly describes the MAP through a “Whole-of-government, whole-of-society” approach. In other words, these plans involve not only the military health system, but also the health capacity of the state and society.
We also learn what this integration looks like in practice from NATO documents open to the public.
At NATO’s first joint military-civilian health meeting, held on 7 December 2023, the issues discussed with COMEDS were striking:
National health authorities; mass casualty planning, supply security for blood and blood products and medical countermeasures, patient evacuation and transfer…
The following year, in discussions between COMEDS and NATO’s Joint Health Group, the main topic was again civil-military cooperation.
The most striking aspect of this meeting was NATO’s assessment that “civilian authorities’ civilian health systems need to be able to function for longer in a conflict environment.” In other words, NATO is not aiming to expand the military system in the health field; it is aiming to make civilian health capacity directly resilient to war conditions.
The guidelines contained in the alliance’s health manuals point exactly to the place we are highlighting:
Strategic stocks, shared access arrangements in civilian/military medicine, joint disease/health surveillance, communication lines, and more…
What does all this mean?
The best way to understand the effect of all these regulations and proposed regulations on the public is through a kind of written simulation.
Based entirely on NATO documents, let us imagine that NATO, led by the United States, together with member countries, has started a hot war against a “great enemy,” and that our country is also involved in this war with its military power.
In such a scenario, what will happen in the field of medicine can be summarized as follows:
When our country is involved in any total war of NATO, the first break occurs first in the supply chain, transport, and communications; all of these sectors come under intense pressure. In other words, the war moves from the front to the cities very rapidly, and public services are instantly paralyzed.
The expected picture in Turkey in such a war would be, in addition to injuries and deaths, a contraction in access to health services, shortages of medicines and medical supplies, psychological trauma, migration and internal displacement, price increases, disruptions in transport and communication, and the diversion of public resources to the war.
Turkey’s health infrastructure is redesigned at great speed according to the tempo of war, not according to the needs of the public. City hospitals, state hospitals, military hospitals, university hospitals, and private health chains learn whom they will serve and how not according to the country, but according to the alliance and the laws of the war it is in.
From this point on, the matter is no longer merely a question of medical capacity; it becomes directly a question of sovereignty. Because in wartime, health is not just about “saving the wounded,” but about deciding who will be treated, which wounded person will be moved first, which medicine will be given to whom, and which hospital will operate according to military priorities.
For example, in its medical situation assessment prepared at the center in the first moments of war, COMEDS determines in which countries the health system is under strain, in which regions patient transfer is possible, and in which areas civil-military coordination is needed.
According to the plan to be created under the MAP, some allied countries will take on advanced surgery and intensive care capacity, while others will assume the role of evacuation, rehabilitation, blood products, medicine delivery, or logistics hub. So who will distribute these roles? The answer is again in NATO documents: “Lead nations,” that is, leading countries…
The question not answered in NATO documents is this: On what basis will the division of tasks be made? On military power? On political power? On a country’s place within the alliance? Or according to the Atlantic-centered strategic reflexes that give the alliance its true character?
Let us continue with NATO documents… If military medical services are insufficient on their own—which is expected to be the case—COMEDS begins cooperation with civilian health authorities. This cooperation, which NATO explains through seemingly “health-focused” concepts such as supply security and patient referral and transfer, has one more frightening requirement: the use of national and regional stockpiles.
In other words, when NATO deems it necessary, it can, for example, use the blood stock held by civilian health services for military personnel. This is actually a law applicable in every country. But it is much more than a state’s ability to use its own stock within the country for the sake of its own army and its own interests in war.
In short, let us think about health services, which are at the center of human life…
When health services, militarized by officials who consider them equivalent in importance to weapons systems, are quickly transformed from “burden sharing” into “resource sharing” in wartime due to NATO membership, how much of them will reach whom?
And let us imagine a country…
A country that is not among the “upper ranks” of the imperialist-capitalist system, yet is kept within the alliance by governments at any cost; whose economy is extremely fragile; whose public services, especially health, already run sluggishly; but which has a large military/civilian population. In such a scenario, how many years—not years, but months—could it hold on, and which of its “allies” would have the courage to shoulder the burden of rescuing such a wreck?
© Khaled Desouki/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Ferdinando BOERO
Ho fatto un sogno rivelatore, mi sono svegliato e ho scritto questo neologismo. Una parola volutamente sgraziata, che rende evidente la deformazione del benessere in qualcosa d’altro
Molte parole inglesi sono diventate italiane. Nessuno si preoccupa di sostituire computer, weekend, marketing, smartphone o welfare con equivalenti italiani. Sono parole che, a un certo punto, hanno smesso di apparire straniere. Anche welfare è ormai una parola italiana. Eppure la traduzione esiste: significa benessere, oppure stato sociale. Deriva da well-fare, “andare bene”, prosperare, vivere bene, in condizioni favorevoli. Da qualche tempo si sta affermando un’altra parola inglese: warfare. E si parla apertamente del passaggio dal welfare state al warfare state. Un cambiamento politico, economico e culturale in via di programmazione.
Le parole conducono messaggi e modellano la percezione della realtà. Il New Green Deal europeo proponeva una transizione ecologica fondata su investimenti pubblici, innovazione, protezione ambientale e sociale, trasformazione energetica. Un’idea di futuro legata al welfare. Oggi, invece, il linguaggio dominante è sempre più quello della sicurezza, della deterrenza, della preparazione strategica e del riarmo. Il programma inizialmente chiamato ReArm Europe, però, è stato ribattezzato Readiness 2030. L’obiettivo non cambia: aumento delle spese militari, rafforzamento dell’industria bellica, mobilitazione di centinaia di miliardi di euro per prepararsi a possibili conflitti. Ma il messaggio cambia eccome. “Riarmare l’Europa” suona aggressivo. “Prontezza 2030” sembra prudente, responsabile, quasi rassicurante. È il potere delle parole. “Preparazione” attenua ciò che “riarmo” rende evidente. Le parole inglesi, inoltre, hanno spesso un effetto anestetico: suonano tecniche, neutre. Warfare state suona quasi come una formula da think tank. “Società organizzata attorno alla guerra” suonerebbe molto più inquietante.
Scrivendo del passaggio da welfare a warfare, nel mio libro Le piume di Darwin, sentivo la necessità di rendere evidente il significato di quella transizione, e una notte ho sognato la parola. In sogno elaboriamo quel che pensiamo durante la veglia. Ho un taccuino accanto al letto e quando ho fatto il sogno rivelatore mi sono svegliato e ho scritto il neologismo: guerressere.
Una parola volutamente sgraziata, quasi fastidiosa, perché deve rompere la neutralizzazione linguistica. Deve rendere evidente la deformazione del benessere in qualcosa d’altro. Basta cambiare poche lettere: da well a war. Dal benessere al guerressere. Dal bene di benessere alla guerra di guerressere. Si può essere favorevoli al warfare senza comprenderne davvero il significato. Ma chi direbbe apertamente di essere favorevole alla guerra? Chi direbbe: voglio che la mia società si organizzi preventivamente attorno al conflitto permanente? Eppure è questo che sta accadendo. I politici lo hanno capito quando hanno cambiato Rearm in Readiness.
Gli Stati Uniti non sono mai stati un welfare state di tipo europeo. Non esiste una sanità pubblica universale. L’istruzione universitaria ha costi proibitivi per gran parte della popolazione. I senzatetto sono una componente strutturale delle città americane. In compenso gli Stati Uniti investono enormi risorse nella difesa, nell’apparato militare e nell’industria della sicurezza. Sono, in questo senso, un warfare state. Dopo aver conosciuto sulla propria pelle le devastazioni della guerra, l’ Unione Europea aveva costruito sistemi sanitari pubblici, istruzione accessibile, protezione sociale, diritti del lavoro. Il benessere collettivo era l’infrastruttura della stabilità politica. Ora vogliamo diventare altro.
E il cambiamento avviene anche attraverso il linguaggio. Le parole non descrivono soltanto la realtà: contribuiscono a costruirla. Se dici Readiness 2030 stai già rendendo più accettabile ciò che ReArm Europe rendeva troppo evidente. Se dici warfare invece di guerra, attenui il significato del termine. E quindi ecco una parola nuova, persino sgradevole, per capire meglio cosa stiamo programmando. Guerressere. Non è accattivante, come petaloso, nasce per essere disturbante.
La società progressivamente si organizza mentalmente, economicamente e culturalmente attorno all’idea permanente del conflitto. Una società che sposta risorse dalla salute, dall’istruzione, dalla ricerca, dagli ecosistemi, verso la sicurezza e la preparazione militare. Come se gli arsenali potessero proteggerci dal collasso climatico, dalla degradazione degli ecosistemi, dalla perdita delle condizioni biofisiche che rendono possibile il benessere stesso. Il Green Deal riconosceva che non può esistere welfare senza gli ecosistemi che lo rendono possibile.
Nel welfare il cittadino è qualcuno da proteggere. Nel guerressere è qualcuno da mobilitare; è inquietante che il passaggio dal welfare, dal benessere, al guerressere sia presentato come inevitabile, quasi naturale. Non lo è. È una scelta politica, economica e culturale gigantesca. E le parole che scegliamo servono anche a decidere se vogliamo davvero accorgercene. Nel Green Deal il nemico da battere erano sistemi produttivi che minano le nostre prospettive di benessere, e l’Unione Europea si metteva all’avanguardia in questa decisione di responsabilità, spronando tutta l’umanità a contribuire. Col passaggio al guerressere i nemici sono gli “altri” e la soluzione è armarci fino ai denti. Siamo sicuri che sia questo quello che vogliamo?
Articolo originale ilfattoquotidiano.it
© Arash Khamooshi/Polaris for The New York Times
© Dakota Santiago for The New York Times
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