Emmanuel Macron does not exclude the use of soldiers on the ground Ukrainethe President of the European Council Charles Michel warns that “if we want peace, let’s prepare for war” and the president of the EU Commission Ursula von der Leyen he calls for Europe to arm itself because “war is not impossible”. What European leaders have been carrying out in recent weeks is a “very worrying communication escalation”, according to Stefano Cristantefull professor of Sociology of cultural and communicative processes atUniversity of Salento. “No threatened wars they are much closer to real war than one diplomatic solution invoked loudly – he explains – They bring us closer to something as senseless as the acceptance of the possibility of a nuclear conflict, a dangerous ridge”. It’s a coincidence that this is happening in a year that is bringing billions of people around the world to vote Russia all’European Union up to United States? “There’s a adrenaline-filled climate between leader of the world, this increases the risk of a widespread salvinismof a ‘let’s see who can shoot the biggest blow’, the consequences of which are unpredictable”.
What profound message are the EU leaders sending?
When the tone is raised there can be a dual purpose: to seriously threaten actions or reactions, or an attempt to intimidate in the hope that it will be enough. At this moment I think we are still on the second option. But communication is part of the universal language of sapiens, so it is also part of the war. An escalation of communication is very worrying. Threatened wars are much closer to real war than a loudly advocated diplomatic solution. They bring us closer to something as senseless as accepting the possibility of nuclear conflict, a dangerous edge. I hope that it is the result of careful reasoning that aims to keep Vladimir Putin’s desire for protagonism in a corner, making him understand that the European leadership is willing to go all the way. But European public opinion doesn’t believe it is and this creates a strong contradiction, which in democratic countries can create many problems. A risk that authoritarian regimes like the Russian one must not take, as demonstrated by a vote which, although certainly orchestrated, did not affect the Kremlin in the slightest.
Speaking of the polls, are the positions of European leaders linked to the upcoming elections?
Some national public opinions, I am thinking of the Baltic countries, are certainly very close to Volodymyr Zelensky’s line. Elsewhere, although Putin’s attitude does not appeal except to small minorities, the replacement of proxy war with pure war is a sentiment espoused by very few. In France as in Germany and Spain. But this year there will be voting in Europe and the United States and thus an adrenaline-filled climate has been created among world leaders. This increases the risk of widespread Salvinism, of “let’s see who can shoot the hardest”, the consequences of which are unpredictable.
Has contemplating rearmament and the real possibility of war at home become a ‘value’ for European politics?
It is possible that some of the early pro-European countries, I am thinking of France, want to take advantage of the current context to unblock the issue of the centralization of defense in the EU, a piece of a more united and stronger Europe that has always remained behind without a valid reason . And then there is the question of the spirit of the times: pacifism has been mocked in the last two, three years. We arrived at its deconstruction as an intellectual movement by arguing that declaring oneself a pacifist is equivalent to being Putinian. This vision can only leave a wound and create a vulnerability in the public debate. The majority attitude has led to a diminishing of the pacifist voice.
Even the Pope ended up in this context of conflict.
Whose attitude aimed at “non-violence” is trivially intrinsic to his figure. Yet even his opinions, although commented with the respect due to great authorities, have been despised on their merits. Demolishing, piece by piece, all the opinions and movements that could lead to a deescalation as a response to the use of violence, moreover prepared with lies by Putin, who denied the invasion until a few hours before, can trigger two reactions in public opinion: even democracies don’t tell the truth, democracies tell the truth and therefore they are serious.
How complicated is the moment for Western democracies?
In recent years we have gone from democracies to authoritarian democracies in different parts of the world and they are almost all centered on nationalism. The Cold War period was in some ways simpler: we all knew what the world order was, the two leaders raised their voices but were aware that they could not start a war between them. Now weaker leaderships proceed with continuous attempts to defuse situations and dictators who risk starting the fire. The crumbling of the twentieth-century ideological conflict has created an objective difficulty for Western democracies, aggravated by the fact that they have yet to amend the lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the myth of the export of democracy. Furthermore, more and more often, they also seem weaker because they are undermined from within: from Orban’s Hungary to Trump’s United States, there are forces in the field that use undemocratic tones and contents.
How much does the absence of strong, authoritative and non-divisive US leadership weigh in this situation?
The last was Barack Obama, a point of reference and a symbol for progressives all over the world, but paradoxically also the one who in some way, with his foreign policy, opened the door to what happened next. Now the return of Donald Trump is possible, which would strengthen the harmony with those forms of authoritarian democracy that are making their way around the world. It is a particular, serious moment, characterized above all by a world of media that now effectively coincides with social media.
What risk do you see in this?
The Internet, the greatest opportunity for concentrated knowledge, has been colonized by a few participatory media that have allowed disintermediation between decision makers and public opinion. In parallel to the delicate geopolitical issue, there is the problem of humanity living on social media, a particularly flammable ecosystem heavily polluted by fake news, echo-chambers and monstrous virality. Like the demonization of pacifism, I find the deconstruction of the environmental movement very worrying, with climate change increasingly seen as a secondary issue. It’s as if they were telling us that it is possible to survive without doing anything about wars and the environmental crisis. This is an obscene thought, in the sense that it shouldn’t have entered the scene and instead it did.
In the event that the agitated specters do not materialize, how will the leaders emerge from a communication point of view?
We always invent something, I don’t think the problem with our leadership is rhetoric. Rather, the absence of a long vision is dramatic. Democracy cannot be just a pluralistic procedure, but should still aim for greater rights and social justice. The plastic representation of myopia is the demonization of the demands of American movements. A great leadership should ask itself why a growing number of young people are approaching a vision that is in some ways socialist in a country that has always demonized it. We should listen and address these requests, accepting the risk that part of public opinion may not understand. Not doing so, in the long term, could trigger loose cannons of more authoritarianism and a consequent, umpteenth, spiral of violence.