Inconsistent Surprises

This world of complex human societies, often with conflicting outlooks, but all with the same basic needs, occasionally – well, quite often actually when I think about it – throws up some unexpected direction of thought from some unanticipated sector which is difficult to logically fit in – at first view – with the known characteristics floated around that particular portion of the perhaps only recently formed and constantly amended image we have built up of how our world thinks and aligns itself.

I was quite stunned when I read this just now…

‘Finnish president urges West not to try to change how BRICS members think’ – TASS – August 22, 2023

What? How many questions does that statement stir up in the mind when one considers that Finland has only recently thrown in its lot with the NATO organisation, a voracious adversary of one (more than one actually) of the foundational members of the BRICS community? What is the Finnish President Sauli Niinistö thinking? Well, let’s have a look at it.

Firstly, it is a refreshing position (perhaps he hasn’t finished reading the NATO book of rules yet) from that side of the global divide. We are not, I hope, going to fight about the fact that there is a global division, are we?

Using words that are not generally permitted by NATO when speaking of those across that divide, a more expansive view of Niinistö’s expressed statement is, from this TASS quote –

“We must closely monitor what new initiatives the BRICS countries will put forward. Perhaps the West will not be happy with all of them. There is a battle for the souls of nations… Our contribution should not only consist of pointing out the shortcomings in the thinking of others. We must show, through words and actions, why others should see certain issues differently. In doing so, we do not always have to strive to change the mindset of other people. Sometimes it is equally important to show respect,”

Finnish President Sauli Niinistö, quote from TASS article

Further to that, Niinistö is also reported to have said –

“Many countries would like to join the BRICS group” and “the creation of a force to counter the West … is not without its merits.”

I don’t know how every reader will see those statements but I find it quite astonishing. The man has a heart. He may, unlike many of his new ‘friends’, be actually human in nature. And, he makes a good point. A point of view for which he will undoubtedly receive a dressing down, followed by some NATO ‘advice’ or even re-education as to how such things are to be viewed. He could even be – what’s the term much used nowadays – ‘cancelled? Such statements are both anathema and heresy to NATO thinking.

NATO is, of course, just a continuation of European Nazism, supposedly defeated in 1945 but actually a new home for many of the fanatical Nazi remnants of that period. Engaged for the new ‘Cold War’ against Russia by those who had previously relied on that nation to form the main destructive element against the upstart German forces of the early 1940’s (whom the west both financially and materially supported in the between World Wars period) which, as it developed pace, threatened the West’s own plans for global supremacy. The western allies needed the Germans as ‘useful idiots’ to weaken the Russians, but their chosen ‘tool’ became all too powerful and harboured their own dominance plans. They had to be taken down, hence the change of support towards Russia as the new chosen tool to accomplish that task for them. The western powers knew they could not overcome Russia by themselves. They had tried that in two unsuccessful and aborted invasions at either end of that vast country in 1918. They obviously thought a country weakened by the First World War and also split by its own internal revolution of 1917 would be a shoe-in for allied conquerors. They were wrong back then, they were wrong to think they could weaken Russia and outpace it in military technology through the ‘Cold War’ years, and they are wrong now (as is slowly dawning on their clouded intelligence) to think they can crush Russia in a modern conflict today.

There, that is a little history lesson of which I doubt many will be aware. But they are the facts – more or less.

Finland has obviously learned nothing from the events of the 20th century. Or the almost two point three decades so far of the current one. Perhaps years of supposed neutrality has dulled their senses. But it is good to see there is still hope that some humanity is still lingering somewhere among the Finns. What on earth possessed them to align with the side the majority world now sees as the ‘baddies’ and the ‘bullies’ who have for so long held sway as the most powerful cultures (if that word is appropriate to describe what the West is) of the past century. Is it not obvious that age is now passing the ‘baton’ of power to another, more collaborative and peacefully cooperative group of nations that seeks to embrace all nations as equals? I speak of BRICS of course, just one of a group of such cooperative endeavours coming together with ever wider recognition among many nations that this is the way in which the world, a more assertive world, a much more enlightened and educated world, actually wants to progress now.

And what of the west? Will they simply curl up in some form of isolated decline, still clinging to the failed dreams of their own self-granted destiny to rule a subjugated world organised by some warped version of liberal democracy? Or will they escape that fate, relinquishing all ideas such as NATO and western supremacy, to join in the new and fast developing direction? Or will they, seeing their dreams fast slipping away, react objectionably and abominably to try to end the fun for everyone in some big bang event (which would cause some damage but fail miserably in its objectives – since they are so far behind now in technology matters that it would be not much more than a self-destructive gesture)?

A choice will be made at some stage? There is no point speculating on it. Whatever will be, will be.

And the world will carry on.

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