Ignacio Ramonet, director of Le Monde Diplomatique in Spanish
The journalist Ignacio Ramonet (Redondela, 1943), visited La Casa Encendida (Madrid) at the beginning of the summer, where he gave the conference “Geopolitics 2024. Anatomy of a policrisis.” Before, he attended MUNDO NEGRO.
He has passed through Madrid to talk, among other topics, about two of the big issues that occupy the political and media agendas: Ukraine and Gaza.
The press dwells on these two topics every day, but the objective is to talk about what I call the polycrisis. I am referring to four or five other major global crises, such as the fact that capitalism operates without a pilot; that we do not have credible international institutions; a climate crisis that can be disastrous for humanity; that an important part of societies has been set in motion, with migrations, as has never been seen before; and, finally, the effects produced by new technologies that we do not master, in particular, what networks are producing, artificial intelligence… All of this together means that some elements that seem to be of a social nature have a lot to do with politics or geopolitics. For example, the fact that there is migration generates more minorities in developed countries, and the arrival and installation of these minorities causes the xenophobic extreme right to rise and that, in turn, changes the political structure of some countries, such as we are. watching right now in Europe. So, this polycrisis is made up of several elements that are not isolated, but articulated.
Many of them, directly or indirectly, have to do with the African continent, starting with migrations. The Pact on Migration and Asylum aims, above all, to make borders waterproof.
Yes, indeed. We already know that the Mediterranean is a great maritime cemetery. (In the EU) There is no immigration policy, there is a rejection policy. To the extent that political organizations, particularly on the extreme right, have made xenophobia a very important issue, little by little all parties are taking an attitude of rejection or control of migrant populations. Sometimes with very important contradictions: for example, countries like Italy or Spain, which are not capable of renewing their population for demographic reasons, need millions of immigrants in 20 or 30 years if they do not want to see their countries practically disappear. Instead of having a reception policy, what we have in Europe is a discourse of rejection, although in practice they are countries where there are more and more immigrants.
Right and left, both in Brussels and in Spain, differ very little in immigration policy.
The extreme right parties, which govern few countries, but do so in many cities and regions, come with a discourse of limiting immigration. However, they then have many difficulties because European laws do not allow them to implement xenophobic or racist measures.
Do you think that this far-right discourse is compatible with the objective need for migration that we have on the continent?
I think so, although that is where the ethnic phenomenon is going to come in. For example, no one has raised any objection to the fact that countries like Spain, Portugal, France and others have accepted hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians in a very short time, and the extreme right has not denounced their presence. It may happen that the extreme right defines what a foreigner is from an ethnic or cultural point of view. Someone who is not of the same religion or, I don’t know, does not comply with any type of protocol that allows establishing a racial difference. Spain, from that point of view, has taken measures that could be seen that way. For example, the idea of considering, according to various laws, that descendants of Spaniards in Latin America have the right to request an identity document. This makes Spain, in fact, open to the arrival of hundreds of thousands, or millions, of Latin Americans who arrive with the Spanish language and a Christian culture. These people are easier to assimilate into the dominant group than those who arrive without knowing the language and without that Christian culture. I think the extreme right can go in that direction. What you cannot do is ignore immigrants.
Another of the scenarios he alludes to is the institutional crisis and the United Nations in particular. What role can or should the UN play? Is the reformulation of your Security Council viable?
No, the United Nations does not work and will not work, especially not now. The world changed definitively with the war in Ukraine and now we have to think about what it will be like afterwards. In my opinion, just as was done after World War II, new rules of the game will have to be established. In fact, a series of countries are determined that the world is not governed only by the UN, but by another type of institution: it is what we call the BRICS. These nations have decided to govern themselves in many aspects, including, now, financially, with the creation of the Shanghai Development Bank. Because? Because the United Nations does not work, because it is essentially at the service of the permanent members of the Security Council and, globally, it is dominated by the United States and its interests. We have just seen it with the question of Palestine. It seems that the Spanish Government has taken an exceptional measure (the Council of Ministers recognized the State of Palestine on May 28), of course it is welcome, obviously, but there is nothing exceptional about it at a global level. It is exceptional for Europe, but not outside. In the world, almost 150 countries, of the 195 on the planet, recognize Palestine. In other words, the norm is to recognize Palestine. That a country joins what is already normal should not constitute a phenomenon, not even journalistic.
He spoke of the false exceptionality of Spain’s passage. Is South Africa taking Israel to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) more exceptional?
Of course. The fact that South Africa, the country that suffered apartheidbehaves like a normal state, that is scandalized because 35,000 or 40,000 people are massacred, including women and children, which should be a scandal for any human being, the fact that Africans put it on the table and say that the king is naked, is a manifestation of this new world that is coming. And of course, we can imagine the pressure he must have received from the United States and Israel’s allies not to take that step…, but he has taken it.
It is significant that only one country raises its voice in this way.
Well, you have had several allies, right? Brazil and Mexico joined together, and there are a number of countries that have supported that cause. Algeria… The ICJ is recent. In fact, it was created to condemn the Rwandan genocide, then it retrospectively condemned the Holocaust, the genocide of the Jewish community of Europe, but it condemned it. Until now, the international community considered that ICJ decisions should be applied and respected. But when these concern a country that is considered a member of that international community, a developed, Western, democratic country, all that in quotes, many difficulties and doubts arise, but that is what is going to test the real existence of the ICJ.
The BRICS, which are now joined by, among others, Egypt and Ethiopia, are going to have a great demographic and global GDP weight. Can they be a valid way to rethink global society?
Yes, and above all they are the expression of the UN crisis. I don’t know what the future of the BRICS will be, because they can work like a snowball and accumulate countries. This is kind of his vocation. The number of countries that have expressed their desire to join the BRICS is enormous. Now there are 11, but probably at the next summit, which will take place in Kazan (Russia) in October, other countries will join, no longer as full members, but as partners, and these partners will allow the arrival of dozens of countries who have been victims of colonization, in one way or another, or who have known abuse by dominant countries. This changes the world, yes.
Is the desire of these new partners or members of the BRICS more conditioned by economic issues or by the need to have political influence in the world?
I don’t think it’s because of the economy, although there must also be an economic dimension, which is why the Development Bank has been created. But there are countries in this new round of integration, such as Saudi Arabia, which from this point of view would rather act as a lender. There is also the United Arab Emirates… There are very rich countries that are integrating there. I think it is due to the fact of leaving the circle of colonial domination, direct or indirect, real or symbolic.
In the Sahel, several countries have shown a more or less explicit rejection of France. How is this movement seen from Paris?
There are two speeches. The official is a speech of feeling of loss and also of accusation of these countries of going astray. It is as if African countries are unaware that being close to France is good for them and that moving away means having an irresponsible position. This is the official speech by the Government. Within national political life, France Insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s party, is very much in favor of this turn, because it denounces the neo-colonization movement that France has been carrying out for a long time. In any case, what has happened in Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger is historic, it is the end of the end of colonization. It is very significant, it is the end of more than a century of French presence, including military, in these regions. The fact that governments that emerged from military coups d’état do so does not modify, in my opinion, the historical dimension of the events, because they are movements demanded by societies. The fact that they have carried out coups d’état can be questioned, but we must also question what type of democracies have fallen with these uprisings.
In Senegal, without a coup d’état, citizens have also expressed their desire for less French interference.
Clear. In Senegal, first (Macky Sall, the previous president) tried to postpone the elections because it was seen that a very demanding, very oppositional popular movement was arriving, but finally the operation failed. The candidate who represented this popular movement (Ousmane Sonko) was prevented from being a candidate, but the one he nominated (Bassirou Diomaye Faye) was elected. In Senegal, without a military uprising, we have a movement that goes in the same direction as what is happening throughout sub-Saharan Africa.
France leaves and Russia enters. Is it a change for the worse?
I think that Russia is not adapted to acclimatize, so to speak, to Africa. All these countries we are talking about have a problem, among a thousand others, which is the fight against radical Islamism, and what they need at first, I think, is more radical military aid than what both France and the United States could propose. western allies. Russia’s mission, in my opinion, is purely military. I don’t see it as a replacement for colonial power.
A mere security agreement in exchange for resources?
Yes, it has been said a lot that Wagner, now Africa Corps, are actually looking for African mines. It is possible, although I don’t know, but since it is a mercenary relationship, it will have to be paid in some way. And what some African countries have is their wealth, like any other country.
If Western military aid has failed and those countries need “more radical” support, do you think weapons are the solution?
First, I believe that Russia is a country that has direct experience with Islam. A large part of the citizens of Russia, or the Russian Federation, are Muslims. And Moscow has had to deal with several radical Islamist insurrections, particularly in Chechnya. That’s why they see it as a kind of reference. Can the Chechen model, which, by the way, is the one Israel is using in Gaza, be applied to sub-Saharan Africa? Personally I don’t think so. Russia is not adapted for a guerrilla war. He demonstrated it in Afghanistan, where he perhaps gained some experience, but it was not enough to win the war and he had to leave. I don’t think Russia is adapted for this. It is a resource, but fighting the Islamic insurrection involves more than a military dimension.
