A few days ago I wrote an article about China and Iran. Two countries that ahve been more intensively trading off late and also doing diplomacy with Russia and in which little miracles happened. I won’t say that comes directly from Russia, but how would you think the promise of building a good and stable economy would work out for a country? I have more examples today and I will let you judge if I possibly saw it right or not.
Here is my article about China and Iran. This morning I spotted a tweet from the Russian Tass Agency about Russia now tying economic relationships with Mauritania. The first thought I had in my just awaken head was: there you have it again. Many countries are happy to work with the Russians and maybe that is because they are stable, fair and they don’t interfere with the political situation in their allies’ countries. From friends, a long time before I became a journalist, I heard already that a country like Algeria and also Turkey does quite intensive trading with Russia. The Russians are tough but fair, they told me then. In Algeria just a few years later the Berbers finally got their rights and without violence. In Turkey nothing changed, but that is a complicated country and it’s the only where nothing changed.
What the Russians do, is simple: they tell you they want long and stable relationships and so they propose a deal to import or export goods for let’s say 15 years in more or less the same quantity and for a fixed price. That was also the reason why the Netherlands had cheap natural gas for decades. A long-term trade contract was the secret and paying in time was secret number 2. The Russians never interfered with any politics in the Netherlands, with the exception of some hackers’ clubs maybe, but those didn’t have any ties to the Russian government. Yet a lot of countries do grow a lot in their economies when they start trading with Russia. It’s not the same as with the Chinese, who are totally cold fish. They just say: “So many kilos of product for so many euros” and that’s it. But the Russians also have this soft diplomacy with their trading allies. I don’t know if you have ever noticed it.
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Russian diplomacy
I will give you an example just from my own life. A girl at my son’s school was about 8 years old and suddenly came to school with a hijab. Everybody was visibly shocked, but no-one dared to say a word. But then a father, also a Muslim, walked up to the girl’s father, taking him apart and walked home with him. He talked to him about the religion, the Prophet, the rules and asked what the first father feared that made him put a hijab on his daughter. The man answered that the Netherlands weren’t a Muslim country and that he feared his daughter would become all to free and western. Then the other father answered that a hijab is not the way to guide his little girl into a life as he saw right for her and that she would have to decide by herself if she would wear it or not – at a much later age. Next day …. what do you think? The hijab was off and everyone was happy.
This is exactly what the Russians do if they see a country they trade with, has an issue with something. Iran for example has this problem that they are way too far gone in the religion and that the Americans and Europeans are right to criticise them. Thing is only that they don’t have the right way to say it and they become hostile instead of just calmly talking about it. So Iran raised its spines in defence and now can’t relax. Western countries don’t have the patience to sit and talk with leaders of countries; they just order them what to do and if they don’t comply, it starts raining sanctions. That way misunderstandings are created very fast and easily. The Russians now take advantage of the western mistakes and help countries that are in economic troubles – partially because of the west and its greed – grow to stand on their own feet.
How do the Americans do it?
Something that the west did definitely really, really wrong is that they force any country that wants to trade with them to be loyal AND to take huge loans at the Worldbank or one of their other huge international banks for developing their country. They act as if that is normal and fair, but in fact they push those countries into enormous financial troubles. They can’t pay back the loans, because the Americans and Europeans don’t give them a real chance to develop a stable economy. The westerners poke their nose into their political system, calling it undemocratic and then they force them to reform it. That costs a heck of a lot of money and so trading with western countries never really helps third countries to grow independent. Even half of Europe is still just as poor as they were before joining the EU.
Even the European countries that after a lot of American coercion became almost a European United States, are falling down now. Why? Because Mr. America suddenly chose for war with Russia and now they don’t let Europe trade with that country anymore. The sanctions they put in working have a devastating effect on Europe, but the Americans don’t care. They only think of themselves: the war against the Russians in Ukraine provices them with a full treasury, since the Europeans (and others as well) have to buy their weapons in order to give them to Ukraine. And why is all that? To prove their loyalty to the Big Uncle in the West.
But what did that Big Uncle actually do for Europe? Of course, doing business is a very good thing and it’s no problem at all. What is a problem, is that loyalty that the US insists on having from their trading partners. Like Ukraine that wanted to trade both with Americans and Russians. Well, that cost them their government and their President in 2014. The government was overthrown and since then they had a civil war within their country. Only for wanting to trade with west and east.
And if we would look at the Netherlands, the country where we live? We would see that a lot of influences we have, come from the US. Like Coca-Cola, like watching movies with commercials every 5 minutes, like having layers full of managers in companies but also schools and the rest of the government like ministries and so on and which costs tons of money for nothing. We have big, big trouble with pedophilia, we have a country full of people who have doubts about their identity and who feel discriminated in a country that is not an immigration country like the US. We have the American system at university with bachelors and masters, which makes it very difficult for poor students to have a sound education, while the old Dutch system with ‘doctoraal’ at university and bachelor studies at a professional school called hbo or academie before the Americans came, was way better. Much better education, no woke nonsense and cheaper studies. Now universities must look at other countries to fill their places, because studying has become unaffordable. I could mention many other examples, but I think you get what I mean to say.
Trading with west and east
Trading with the west compells countries to hold back and be totally loyal, even in their elections. Both Europeans and Americans have this nasty little trait of controlling the outcome of elections in countries they have relations with, because they are so afraid those will outgrow them. Russia doesn’t have that complex and just let anyone develop themselves. They do come for help when there is trouble, but never overthrow any government and they will always confront others with their own responsibilities.
A good example is Brazil, where there was clear fraud in their elections of last October. Yet the Russian government never said anything about it and just continues working with the new president. It’s not easy and not so fair in the case of the Kurds who do need to have their country back from four occupiers (Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Iran), which seems impossible without war, but that is who the Russians are. And even the Kurds can trade with Russia for their own benefit to have a stable economy and who knows some day they too will have their country back in their own hands. There is no other way.
The western countries always talk about “the international community”, but what is that actually? What are the western countries? Well … the US, Canada, the whole of Europe except Russia, Serbia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and a bit Hungary and further Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The whole of Asia, Africa and South America are not western and form a lot larger area. That what makes the west so powerful is their maffioso way of demanding loyalty in order to “grow economically”, a promise that has never been made reality for any country that has worked with that international community.
This is really not a lovesong to the Russians. They aren’t easy and are quite tough in trading, but I do think their way is the best we have at the moment if we want a better world in which countries can be souvereign and free. One last example if you allow me: the Arab peninsula. The countries there – Saudi Arabia, UAE, Qatar, Oman and Yemen – are strict Muslim and very hostile to the rest of the world. That is however because they are afraid the Americans or their vassals from Europe will force them to comply just like they did to so many other countries. That is why they are so stubborn and withdrawn in a medieval way of living and believing in God. But if they don’t need to have that fear anymore, because they don’t need to keep the west at a distance, they can come out of their shell and modernise. Things aren’t always as they appear. Many times you have to look deeper into them to see the truth. The Russians aren’t the devil. They are just people like everyone and they have their way of doing, which isn’t perfect at all, but a lot healthier than many American ways nowadays.
