Erdogan Bares His Fangs on Europe.

by Eze Eluchie,

When the survival of an individual becomes the fulcrum of a country’s foreign policy, such country’s foreign policy and interests become tumultuous and oddities become the norm. The foregoing statement fully captures the situation of Turkey under Tayyip Erdogan.

At a time ‘the sovereign’ felt that Islamic State terrorists will help him decimate his sworn enemies (the Kurds), he conveniently turns the other way as ISIS descended on Kobani right on the Turkish border, at times chipping in some support to the terrorists in the form of free-passage of aspiring terrorists and provision of slush funds in the form of payment for ‘blood crude oil’; and when that ploy fails, he without any qualms, makes a 180 degree turn-around, develops a sudden phobia for ISIS, invades portions of Syria, under the guise of ensuring that ISIS is kept far away from Turkish borders.

Under different circumstances when ‘the sovereign’ again felt like drawing NATO into the Syrian war against Russian forces to ensure that whatsoever efforts being made to defeat ISIS and stabilize and sustain the Al Bashir regime failed, there was no hesitation in gunning down a Russian military jet, in the process killing some Russian airmen. The West saw through the scam and refused to be dragged into a conflict they were least prepared for. ‘The sovereign’ responded with some public grandstanding whilst in private reaching out to appease the Russians; On the converse, when it was clear that Western leaders tacitly hoped for the success of the 2016 coup in Turkey, there was no hesitation in ‘the sovereign’ grovelling back to Moscow, to create a semblance of rapprochement with the Russian leader, who certainly had not forgotten how 2 of his airmen were wasted whilst in Syrian airspace.

As ‘the sovereign’ now prepares to bamboozle his countrymen, via a referendum scheduled for April 2017, to hand over Turkish sovereignty to his personal whims and caprices, nothing is being spared, inclusive of vulgar abuses to Turkey’s allies in NATO, deprecating erstwhile friendly states in Europe, rubbishing any hopes of Turkey joining the European Union in the near future and infantile threats against equally endowed states in Europe (particularly The Netherlands and Germany).  It is clear that in the view of ‘the sovereign’, no cost is too great for Turkey to bear in the pursuit of ‘the sovereign’s’ self-aggrandizement.

Predictably, as he did with efforts at making peace with Russia after the murder of 2 Russian military pilots deliberately and provocatively shot down over Syrian airspace, it can be expected that Turkey’s sovereign, Tayyip Erdogan, will soon after he has succeeded in badgering his fellow Turks into surrendering their sovereignty to him (Erdogan) in the April referendum, embark upon ‘fence-mending’ visits to The Netherlands and other European countries, countries ‘the sovereign’ is currently taking personal delight in castigating – urging European countries, who appear to be eternally mesmerized by his Othoman-charm and a near-fatalistic desire to retain Turkeys within the NATO fold to have access to her strategic geographical position for military purposes.

Has anyone bothered to wonder why, of the 3 countries which denied Erdogan’s appointees access to address political rallies on their soil (Germany, Austria and The Netherlands), The Netherlands is the current recipient of ‘the sovereigns’ verbal assaults? Well, the Dutch are having election first, today, to be exact. What better way to influence the outcomes of Dutch elections and the Turkish referendum than to stir up a spat that will stoke up ethnic/nationalistic fervour. Focus will subsequently be shifted to other western Euroean countries as their respective elections draw near.

As they ponder ways to tackle their new nightmare, one thought that will continue to plague European leaders as they roll on their lonely beds in Presidential palaces, be it in Den Hague, Berlin, Paris or wheresoever, is  was there anything they could have done to differently on the 15^th July 2016? Is there something that can be done to prevent the descent of Turkey into a dictatorship with the capacity to threaten European peace and stability?

Clearly, the times have changed. Unlike in the past when it was the sole preserve of Western countries to influence and determine the outcomes of elections in other parts of the world, elections in the West, hitherto, was purely an internal affair of the individual country concerned, are now routinely influenced by external forces. The US elections were successfully influenced by Russia; the Dutch election holding today is being influenced by Turkeys sovereign. Who will influence the forthcoming French and German elections scheduled for later in the year?

Picture: Turkeys sovereign, Tayyip Erdogan.

Is Donald Trump a Mikhail Gorbachev?

by Eze Eluchie,

Young and bright, with a meteoric rise on the leadership ladder of the Communist Party of the former Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, spending a mere 6 years from when he became a member of the Politiburo (1979), to when he became the Party’s General Secretary (1985) the selection of Mikhail Gorbachev as the  Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviets (an election that had been predicted by some influential western media outlets over a decade ago) proved to be a monumental landmark in the history of the modern world.

After months of promoting ‘freedoms’ and ‘liberal’ approach to governance under ‘Glassnot’(openness) and ‘Perestroika’ (‘economic’ restructuring), to a people who  had known lifetimes of authoritarian rule and were used to strong central authority, it was clear to discerning observers that Mikhail Gorbachev had ideas which were very distant from those of the founding fathers and leadership (Politiburo) of the Soviet Union. As the consequences of Glassnot and Perestroika unravelled, the world watched in astonishment as the alternate ‘super-power’, the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics {USSR}, which has often times served as a counter-balancing factor in global affairs, disintegrated with stunning rapidity.

Within a period of 6 years, from his ascendance into office as President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev had incredulously achieved the destruction of what had taken previous occupants of the Presidency of the USSR over 70 years to accomplish – the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence in its place of 15 Republics, with more agitation for more divisions.

In all his exploits, Mikhail Gorbachev, who in his later life has severally regretted his ignoble role in the destruction of the Soviet Union, had maintained close friendship with then United States President, Ronald Reagan.

Fast-forward to Year 2017. A President emerges in the United States, who has little to no experience of the workings of the democratic structures and governance mechanisms, and who in his own words, has enormous ‘respect’ and affinity with the Russian leader. Like Gorbachev before him, new US President Donald Trump, with great haste, embarks on courses of action that go to challenge the very fundamentals of the American system,: attacking Free-Trade and Globalization with relish (withdrawing from mutually agreed international treaties and discountenancing rules of free trade); promoting discriminatory and divisive policies (exhibiting mannerisms which inspire increased racist and xenophobic sentiments); utter disregard for the Media and freedom of speech(constantly railing against the media for publishing ‘uncomfortable truths’); holding the Judiciary and Judges in disdain and odium (mocks Judges who arrive at decisions he finds inconvenient) and so on.

Already as a result of the policies and action of President Trump, talks of a split from the United States by some of its constituent States (particularly California) are already been insinuated. If the current trajectory is maintained, the future will certainly become murkier.  

The similarities in mannerisms, antecedents and activities of US President Donald Trump and former leader of the Soviet Union are so worrisomely close that one wonders if indeed the same outcomes are indeed the desired objectives.

With benefit of hindsight and the goings on across the Middle East, it can be successfully argued that the  overall utility of the disintegration of the Soviet Union to the international community is at the very least, questionable, and very likely unfortunate. A repeat of a collapse of a super power should at all costs be avoided.

Picture: Mikhail Gorbachev and Donald Trump

Playing Ostrich as the Earth Quakes: African Rulers Reaction to Changes in the EU and the USA.

by Eze Eluchie,

When the first tremors occurred with the resounding resolve of the British electorate to pull their country out of the European Union, some optimists had wrongly calculated the Brexit votes was merely an aberration that would be internally reversed by efforts of some desperados to have a second Referendum Vote or prolonged delaying tactics that would make the commencement of the exit of Britain from the EU so long drawn out that it would not even ever be initiated. This wishful thinking has since been dispelled with the hardline posture of the new British Prime Minister, May, towards extricating Britain from the EU – a hardline posture that is garnering increasing support from across the increasingly populist and powerful extremist right-wing political actors that now dominate the European landscape.

A greater tremor, that would have registered a 10.0 on the Richter political scale, occurred with the election of a man who campaigned clearly on a pedestal to have an America-centric approach to global affairs; with promises to constrict some of the major life-lines that provide succour to millions of peoples in the African continent (remittances from Africans in diaspora); and threats to shut down global governance and arbitration mechanisms which has  been of immense life-sustaining benefit to Africa. 

To the emerging right-wing political changes in Europe and the emergence of a President Donald Trump in the US, the rulers of Africa, who it must be realized are mainly geriatrics who might be oblivious of the monumental impact the changes at the international arena will mean for their countries, have maintained unholy silence, nonchalance and an uncanny things-will-continue-as-usual attitude. One clear fact, however, is this: things will certainly not continue as usual!

Whilst countries in Asia, the Middle East and Latin America are strategizing and preparing themselves for the fallouts of nationalistic fervour, akin to extreme racism, across Europe and an inwards-focused United States where everything will be about ‘America First’ and hitherto presumed trite facts upon which the global order had been based, free trade and liberalization, were to be discountenanced, the rulers of African states continue to maintain an extremely irrational ostrich-like disposition to fundamental changes in global affairs, wallowing in the presumption that the loot they are able to stash away in Europe and the Americas will continue to act as cushion, shielding them from the angst of the millions of Europeans and Americans whose disenchantment with the current global order has led to the rise in right-wing nationalism and the ongoing change in global order.

Recent meetings of the African Union (AU), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) held in the course of the past few months since the quakes started with Brexit, have taken place without any formal recognition of the imminent collapse of the European Union and its implications for the various protocols and agreements entered between the various intra African organizations jointly or severally, with the EU. Rather than discuss unified continental approaches to addressing changes in Europe and the Americas or even preparing their populations for the oncoming quakes, it’s been business as usual at the various Summits of the AU, ECOWAS, SADC and the EAC, with the focus being the usual mundane communiqués which by now most close watchers of these intra-African organizations can recite off hand.

Some of the questions which should be agitating the minds of African states as the new dawn manifests ought to include: what becomes of the European Union-African Caribbean Pacific  (EU-ACP) Economic Partnership Agreements {the Cotonou Agreements) upon which the bulk of trade between the African continent and Europe is undertaken; and what becomes of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) a carrot routinely dangled across the face of African countries, by the US, as a means of access to the lucrative American market? Amongst other issues.  

Ordinarily, one would have expected African states to seize upon the unravelling of Europe to strive to extricate their economies from the stranglehold of the Cotonou Agreements which basically undermined the value commodities which represent the main contributions of African countries to global commerce whilst foisting slave-era practices on African states to compel purchase of exorbitant European products. US President Donald Trump’s insistence on ensuring ‘America First’, such as when he announced at his Florida ‘campaign-style’ rally that he approved the construction of contentious pipeline projects under the sole condition that the pipes to be used in the projects were manufactured in the USA, should, wherever possible, spur an equal Afro-centric insistence in use of domestically produced goods and services and reliance on indigenous personnel in all international contractual agreements with the US.

If sufficient proactive measures are not taken by African states to unshackle the continent and its over-exploited peoples from the burdens and chains foisted by past agreements with the EU which are weighed against Africa, Africa may merely be consigning itself to another lengthy bout of victimhood, of being serially raped, used and dumped under the guise of international trade agreements. Wake up Africa! The dawn of a new beginning is set.

Picture: Ostrich with heads in the sand.