Pino Arlacchi
Pino Arlacchi was Under-Secretary General of the UN and Executive Director of UN Office on Drugs and Crime in 1997−2002. He is a leading authority and a scholar in the field of organized crime, illegal markets and global security. He was a member of the European Parliament in 2009−2014, and Rapporteur for the New EU strategy for Afghanistan. His research and policy prescriptions against organized crime, corruption and money laundering have been extensively drawn upon in Italy, Russia, the European Union, Asia and Latin America. In Italy, as Senior Adviser to the Ministry of the Interior, Pino Arlacchi was responsible for the creation in 1991 of the DIA, a police agency specialized in the investigation of major crime. He survived a mafia assassination attempt in 1993. Pino Arlacchi is full professor of Sociology at the School of Political Science of the University of Sassari, was a visiting professor at Columbia University (New York) and at several EU universities. Pino Arlacchi was born in Calabria in 1951, and lives in Rome.
The 75th anniversary of the Victory in World War II is an opportunity to reinvigorate the fight over nazism and fascism under the present circumstances. My assessment concerning the risk of revival of far-right ideologies in the world and in Italy today is that we must learn to recognize their new, insidious disguises. And we must be ready to fight these scourges with the same energy and determination of our fathers and grandfathers 80 years ago.
The attempts to launch a new cold war against Russia and China, and to revise the role of the Soviet Union in the Victory over fascism in WWII come from the same source: a disinformation machine based in the United States with its collaborating networks in Europe, Japan and elsewhere. The firepower of this machine is increasing as history accelerates its course in projecting us in the post-American multipolar world.
The disinformation complex operates to distort the current historical processes. The rise of Asia as a global economic power is transformed into a source of apprehension, instability and conflict. The figures regarding China’s military modernization are inflated beyond measure and their meaning is twisted to fit the narrative of an evil China hell-bent on overtaking the world.
The attempts to launch a new cold war against Russia and China, and to revise the role of the Soviet Union in the Victory over fascism in WWII come from the same source: a disinformation machine based in the United States with its collaborating networks in Europe, Japan and elsewhere. The firepower of this machine is increasing as history accelerates its course in projecting us in the post-American multipolar world.
The disinformation complex operates to distort the current historical processes. The rise of Asia as a global economic power is transformed into a source of apprehension, instability and conflict. The figures regarding China’s military modernization are inflated beyond measure and their meaning is twisted to fit the narrative of an evil China hell-bent on overtaking the world.
And Europeans are invited to increase their military expenditure in order to be ready to face the enemy looming around the corner, that never materializes
The great recovery of Russia after the frightening crisis of the 1990s, its abandonment of the US sponsored era of money laundering and mafia capitalism, and its return to a foreign policy of peaceful multilateral cooperation, was saluted by the lords of deception as a threat posed by a tyrannical regime to the international system. The mediatic intoxication was partially successful, because the Putin-bashing trend found some backing even among the European left.
Vilifying the Russian President and his alleged authoritarianism is a sport that began in 1999, when Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia to put an end to a decade of humiliation and caos. This trend was further consolidated in the summer of 2008 on the occasion of the Georgian crisis, and culminated after the 2014 anti-Russian coup in Ukraine. The attack was fomented by the US with the complicity of a European Union in shameful contrast with its basic inclinations and values.
We are rapidly moving towards — and in many respects we already live in — a multipolar, more peaceful world where a number of new players are shaping international relations.
After the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing — much more dangerous — crisis of the entire capitalist world economy, the temptation to stop or to rewind the wheels of history is getting stronger.
The epicentre of this syndrome is the western media-political-academic establishment. Not all, but a significant part of it is currently busy warning against the rise of "illiberal democracies" like China and Russia, and weeping about the good old days of a rule-based multilateral order that existed only in their fantasy. This is not to deny that an American-led postwar global system ever existed. It did. But that order was born with the exclusion of the main winner of the same war, with the subsequent "invention of the Cold War", and with the division of Europe in two opposing fronts until 1989.
The polestar of this disinformation machine has always been the mantra created by the British imperialist theoretician Harold Mackinder: preventing any form of unification of the European continent, from the Urals to the Atlantic, at any cost. Which translated into practice means dividing and pitting Russia and Western Europe one against the other.
Vilifying the Russian President and his alleged authoritarianism is a sport that began in 1999, when Vladimir Putin came to power in Russia to put an end to a decade of humiliation and caos. This trend was further consolidated in the summer of 2008 on the occasion of the Georgian crisis, and culminated after the 2014 anti-Russian coup in Ukraine. The attack was fomented by the US with the complicity of a European Union in shameful contrast with its basic inclinations and values.
We are rapidly moving towards — and in many respects we already live in — a multipolar, more peaceful world where a number of new players are shaping international relations.
After the coronavirus pandemic and the ongoing — much more dangerous — crisis of the entire capitalist world economy, the temptation to stop or to rewind the wheels of history is getting stronger.
The epicentre of this syndrome is the western media-political-academic establishment. Not all, but a significant part of it is currently busy warning against the rise of "illiberal democracies" like China and Russia, and weeping about the good old days of a rule-based multilateral order that existed only in their fantasy. This is not to deny that an American-led postwar global system ever existed. It did. But that order was born with the exclusion of the main winner of the same war, with the subsequent "invention of the Cold War", and with the division of Europe in two opposing fronts until 1989.
The polestar of this disinformation machine has always been the mantra created by the British imperialist theoretician Harold Mackinder: preventing any form of unification of the European continent, from the Urals to the Atlantic, at any cost. Which translated into practice means dividing and pitting Russia and Western Europe one against the other.
The entire foreign policy of the United States after the Second World War — regardless of Presidents, Congresses and political seasons — has been built on the pillar of impeding any rapproachement between the two halves of our continent
It is not a matter of Communism against Capitalism, or Autocracy against Democracy. It is a matter of who is going to govern the planet.
After the rise of post-Deng Xiaoping China and the inception of the Belt and Road project, the Mackinderian nightmare became even more incumbent. A rapproachement between the EU and Russia is not just a step towards the intra-continental unification as called for by the founding fathers of the European Union in the 1950s. At stake now there is larger goal: the process of a truly Eurasian integration.
The birth of a great Eurasian world as an area of political, cultural and economic cooperation stretching from Portugal to Shanghai is the nightmare that keeps the Atlanticists awake at night. And more so today than ever before.
The making of the Eurasian super-continent is a long durèe movement, as described by French historian Fernand Braudel. In its core is a re-integration of a bicontinental connectivity that had existed for three thousands years before being weakened and hindered by the 16th century transatlantic expansion of Europe and the creation of overseas colonial empires.
Is it possible for anyone to really believe that such a colossal movement in world history can be stopped or even slowed down in a significant way?
Can a recurrent wave of trivial anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda manufactured by the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and the likes roll back the advancement of a new world order?
Surely not.
But beware. What has been said so far does not imply that the drums of hatred and anguish are not sounding again, especially in Europe, or that their sound is just an episodic nuisance.
After the rise of post-Deng Xiaoping China and the inception of the Belt and Road project, the Mackinderian nightmare became even more incumbent. A rapproachement between the EU and Russia is not just a step towards the intra-continental unification as called for by the founding fathers of the European Union in the 1950s. At stake now there is larger goal: the process of a truly Eurasian integration.
The birth of a great Eurasian world as an area of political, cultural and economic cooperation stretching from Portugal to Shanghai is the nightmare that keeps the Atlanticists awake at night. And more so today than ever before.
The making of the Eurasian super-continent is a long durèe movement, as described by French historian Fernand Braudel. In its core is a re-integration of a bicontinental connectivity that had existed for three thousands years before being weakened and hindered by the 16th century transatlantic expansion of Europe and the creation of overseas colonial empires.
Is it possible for anyone to really believe that such a colossal movement in world history can be stopped or even slowed down in a significant way?
Can a recurrent wave of trivial anti-Russian and anti-Chinese propaganda manufactured by the State Department, Pentagon, CIA and the likes roll back the advancement of a new world order?
Surely not.
But beware. What has been said so far does not imply that the drums of hatred and anguish are not sounding again, especially in Europe, or that their sound is just an episodic nuisance.
Those drums are still dangerous. The Victory accomplished 75 years ago represents a landmark achievement in the ethical and political progress of humanity, but it did not vaccinate us against the evil of war and oppression
A new imperialist world power has since then continued to perpetrate the usual pattern of armed aggression and exploitation of weaker countries.
In Europe russophobic, chinophobic and xenophobic mentalities are still spread. And even if those voices pertain to a minority of the people and of the political system, we should never overlook this reality.
The struggle against fascism, racism, anti-semitism, militarism and interference in the affairs of states is a recurring feature in our history - as is our ability to react. So, sursum corda! — Lift up your hearts!
In Europe russophobic, chinophobic and xenophobic mentalities are still spread. And even if those voices pertain to a minority of the people and of the political system, we should never overlook this reality.
The struggle against fascism, racism, anti-semitism, militarism and interference in the affairs of states is a recurring feature in our history - as is our ability to react. So, sursum corda! — Lift up your hearts!
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All materials on this website are available under license from Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International and may be reproduced for non-commercial purposes, provided the source is acknowledged.
Demonstration of Nazi and fascist paraphernalia or symbols on this resource is related only to the description of the historical context of the events of the 1930−1940s, is not its propaganda and does not justify the crimes of fascist Germany.
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