Prague, Sept 22 (CTK) – Western populists, including Czech President Milos Zeman and his predecessor Vaclav Klaus, show “unanimous” fascination with Russia, evidently for its eastern quasi-totalitarian style of which they dream themselves, Tomas Sedlacek writes in daily Hospodarske noviny (HN) yesterday.
These Western leaders, who are quasi-totalitarian themselves, share their opposition to refugees, criticism of the EU and the eyeing of Moscow, Sedlacek writes.
Apart from Zeman and Klaus, they include the U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump, French ultra-national politician Marie Le Pen, Hungarian PM Viktor Orban and the present Polish government, he writes.
Both Zeman and Klaus have repeatedly complained that Brussels is “trying to dictate” positions to them and that the Czechs might be stripped of freedom inconspicuously, Sedlacek writes.
None of Zeman or Klaus’s media statements or critical comments has ever aimed against Moscow. This can hardly be a sheer accident, otherwise the West would have been making one mistake after another, wrong views would have been espoused by a number of European countries as well as the USA, and the Western press would have been completely manipulated, while the Russian media would be the only objective source of information, Sedlacek writes with irony.
Has Moscow made not a single mistake for years? Has the EU really done nothing but making mistakes? he asks.
Before the 1989 fall of communism in Czechoslovakia, the country was influenced by the Russian propaganda which presented all good things as coming from Moscow and all evils as originating in the West, Sedlacek writes.
The propaganda was so vehement and overblown that even Sedlacek, a 10-year-old boy at the time, could recognise its fabricated nature, he writes.
He finds the present situation similar. He does not believe that the views promoted by Zeman and Klaus as president are authentic views of a free man with a critical thinking. They cannot be, as they are too unicolour, too unilaterally orientated, too a priori formulated (anything from the West is bad, anything from Moscow is brilliant) and too simple, Sedlacek writes.
On the other hand, Zeman and Klaus use all opportunities to subject the EU and the USA, which are Prague’s allies, to thorough criticism, Sedlacek writes.
He writes a western commentator has told him that Czech leaders have an easy choice, since the Czechs will either side with the West or with the East, and they can never play the role of an independent country. Similarly, not even Switzerland can choose independence, Sedlacek writes, citing The Financial Times’ commentator Martin Wolf.
The lesson the world learnt from George W. Bush is that not even a really sovereign state such as the USA can do what it likes to. In order not to end abandoned by all, even the strongest country must seek “a coalition of the willing,” including necessary compromises, Sedlacek writes.
That is why Trump’s anti-NATO rhetoric is naive, though it sounds amazing, like all his “solutions.” The USA does not need NATO because of the latter’s strength or money, but because of cooperation and support, Sedlacek writes.
At present, a country’s strength does not depend on its force so much, but on its capability of looking friendly, seeking joint solutions, negotiating with others and forming coalitions, Sedlacek writes.
What fascinates some Western leaders about Russia? It is definitely neither its leftist orientation (most present populists are right wingers) nor freedom (it is really extremely audacious to present Russia as a country of freedom), let alone technological progress, business environment, slim bureaucracy, low corruption or freedom of speech, Sedlacek writes.
Why are they fascinated by Russia and not by Finland or Canada, for example? What is so attractive about Russia, and why do its admirers shun mentioning this quality? Maybe because they are attracted by the eastern quasi-totalitarian style and governance of which they dream themselves, Sedlacek concludes.
