2025: My views and my contribution to the debate

 10 January 2025

A year that calls for common sense, clarity and a lot of courage

Victor Angelo

 

In this first text of the new year, I seek to share some of my vision on the major global challenges that we will have to face in the next twelve months. Some of these challenges come as a continuation of the immense political difficulties that marked the international scene in 2024. Their trajectory in 2025 appears to continue in the direction of worsening. I see the stakes on moderation and peace as extremely complex and difficult, but absolutely necessary.

Added to these concerns are new problems, among which the following stand out: 1) the inequities and madness that the Donald Trump/Elon Musk Administration will introduce into international relations; 2) the acceleration of the use of Artificial Intelligence to respond to the designs and control of the strategic agenda by various imperialisms; and 3) access to power in several Western democracies, and elsewhere, by ultra-reactionary parties inspired by Nazis, fascists or simply xenophobic influences. Austria was, this week, the most recent example of this trend, that is, of the shift in public opinion towards populism and extremist nationalism. Herbert Kickl, leader of the far-right FPÖ party (symbolically called the National Social Party, an appellation inspired by the party of a certain Adolf Hitler), was invited to form a government.

This kind of perspective requires clear and courageous ambitions. Most of our leaders talk a lot, but their statements are vague, even incomprehensible in some cases. They do not understand the current context, nor can they imagine the future. They use the media to sell us the past and to maintain the illusions on which their power is based. It is up to us to combat these attitudes, but it is not easy. Access to the market for realistic and humanist ideas is increasingly narrow. Just look at who has access to airtime to understand how difficult it is to see on any screen who has the courage to dismantle the illusory contexts that serve as a basis of support for the bosses of the main political parties or for the leaders of some regional or global powers.

Anyone who has influence and authority should have at least five major ambitions.

First, peace. It's 2025, not the past. The great powers, but also each one of us, must abandon the idea that problems can be resolved by force of arms and ultimatums. With technological advances, wars only serve to cause the cruellest human suffering.

Second, the preservation of universal values. International law has made enormous progress since 1945. Its principles must be respected. With balance, equally, whether it is country A or B. Double standards lead to the discredit of universal ethics.

Third, respect for the life and fundamental rights of each person. This is the issue that receives the most emphasis when talking to the inhabitants of the most forgotten areas of the world, in the regions where many of the conflicts occur.

Fourth, reduce the underdevelopment gap. After several years of success, we are now moving in the opposite direction. The increase in economic and social disparities is, on the one hand, a source of tension, instability, hostility towards more developed countries, uncontrolled migration and environmental deterioration. On the other hand, it generates racism, xenophobia, contempt and indifference towards the poverty of many.

Fifth, contribute to the revival of the political role of the UN. I do not want to enter the debate about the Secretary-General's room for manoeuvre. But I cannot help but remember the importance of the United Nations Charter. We must insist, repeatedly, on absolute respect for the principles defined there.

The defence of Europe's democracies will certainly be a central issue in 2025. However, reducing the issue to the expansion of our defence industries is a mistake. It is also unrealistic and destabilizing to demand spending that would represent 5% of each State's GDP out of hand. The real challenge is to be able to build a coherent and shared European defence policy, which recognises the main dangers and considers, in a consensual manner, the possible contribution of each country.

This is essentially a political issue. There will be States whose current leaders will feel closer to the enemy than to our regimes of freedom. This year’s debate cannot ignore this reality. We will have to define a common position towards these individuals. There is another key question: to review and update the relations between the US and other NATO members – a subject that deserves a very detailed reflection at the appropriate time.

Vladimir Putin, Ukraine and all of us

When fascism enters our homes

Victor Ângelo

 

In its essence, the fascism of today coincides with that of the last century: in the existence of an autocrat, in the dictatorial power, in the ultra-nationalism, in the continuous exaltation of the homeland and traditional values, from religion to family, and in an inhuman vision of the use of force, either to maintain the internal order and crush the opposition, or to create problems abroad. The dictator manipulates the narrative of his people's past with glorious words, in an idealised way, as if the nation had a historical and civilisational, as well as divine, mission. He sees himself as the personification of the noble national destiny. He places himself on a pedestal above everyone else. He treats the members of his immediate circle theatrically, with arrogance, cynicism, and an iron hand, in order to obtain subservience and flattery. On the international stage, he only respects the rules that suit him. It seeks to impose fear but ends up being treated with mistrust and aversion. Its only foreign allies are found in the puppet elites of vassal countries, in extreme right-wing movements, in others who advocate totalitarian modes of governance, or even in fools.

Fascist dictators are a danger to democracies as well as to international peace. Indeed, as Vladimir Putin reminds us today, fascism leads to war. 

Putin is at the head of a great nation, which throughout history has made a remarkable contribution to European civilisation and culture. A heroic people, who played a decisive role in the defeat of Nazism. A people that belongs fully to the "European house", the great strategic partnership between the EU and Russia, dreamt of in 2003, with the ambition of building an area of freedom and cooperation from Lisbon to Vladivostok.

We are now a long way from that dream. The nightmare come true of the violation of Ukraine's sovereignty, its invasion, the menacing language used by Putin, the verbal threats against our part of Europe and the unacceptable demands, place all of us Europeans in a very serious confrontation. Conflicts, once started, usually get out of control. We know when they start, but we do not know when they end, nor what the damage, the level of suffering and the consequences will be. Not to mention the internal policy Putin conducts, it must be clear that the external one, towards Ukraine and his country's European neighbourhood, is unacceptable and criminal. It is completely outside established norms.

It is time to return to the international legal framework, which has been built since 1945. In that sense, the statement made by António Guterres, on the events of this week, is highly significant and courageous. It will go down in the record of his tenure as a memorable moment. Guterres said, "The decision of the Russian Federation to recognise the so-called "independence" of certain areas of Donetsk and Lugansk is a violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Ukraine." He added that the decision contradicts the principles of the United Nations Charter, as well as the General Assembly Declaration on Relations of Friendship and Cooperation between States and the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice. He repeated the same words again, in a deeply concerned manner once the invasion was consummated.

Never in the history of the UN had a Secretary-General dared to be so clear in condemning a large-scale illegality practised by one of the permanent members of the Security Council. U Thant, who was in charge of the organisation between 1961 and 1971, referred several times to the United States and its unjust war in Vietnam, but did not go that far.

Meanwhile, the EU must respond to this immense crisis with all the diplomatic, financial, and economic arsenal at its disposal. And with a strengthening of its defence architecture.  The aim is to isolate, weaken, punish the dictatorship in power in Moscow and force a return to peace. At the time of writing the measures that will be adopted are not yet known. They should, however, make it clear that a fascist, warlike regime in Europe is morally and politically unacceptable. It will not pass, not now, not ever again. 

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper. Edition dated 25 February 2022)

 

 

Marine Le Pen and her little brothers elsewhere

Le Pen and our pains

Victor Angelo

 

Marine Le Pen came to Portugal to support his ideological relative. In France, she is the most visible and fierce face of right-wing extremism. Her party, the Rassemblement National (RN), is a collection of backwards, neo-fascists, racists, ruffians, antiglobalists, as well as several political orphans and other resentful people. The mixture includes part of the new poor, a proletariat which the modernisation and internationalisation of the economy have pushed to the suburbs of politics and life. The RN represents a little over 20% of the electorate, a revealing percentage of a France full of contradictions, frustrations, inequalities, and hatreds. On the party scene in the country, Le Pen and his people are regarded, including by the conservative right, as not at all recommendable, people one should not be associated with.

In 2017, Le Pen went to the second round of the presidential elections against Emmanuel Macron. She emerged unequivocally defeated and with an image of incompetence. In the television debate against her opponent, she got lost when discussing issues of substance. She could not go beyond the stereotypical plates. This confirmed that her ideology was hollow, lined with primary ultranationalism, nostalgy of the past, xenophobia and unbridled personal ambition.

She is now preparing for the presidential elections of 2022. A part of the conservative right knows that a new clash between Macron and Le Pen will bring a new defeat. Therefore they have tried to find a more credible alternative, but without achieving it. Marine Le Pen and the local deployment of RN leave no room for such manoeuvres. The face of right-wing extremism remains hers. But after the failure of 2017, she has learned that power is not won in a politically mature society with mere slogans and banalities. In the interview with the Diário de Notícias (10/1/2021), she made it clear that her campaign will focus on four themes - security, immigration, traditional family values and employment. This means that in order to win votes, she will seek to exploit fears and weaknesses, especially the fear of what is foreign, feelings of precariousness and social injustice, as well as prejudices stemming from an old-fashioned view of relations between people.

In essence, the main strategy of Le Pen and all the extremists is to demonise a category of citizens, to create an internal enemy, which becomes the visible and repeated focus of all attacks. In the French case, it is easy to identify this target - the Muslims. They are euphemistically referred to as "immigrants" and concentrate all the fire that the RN brings into combat. To this is added a rhetoric of economic nationalism, which swears to defend the jobs of the French. This is how the slogans against Islam, immigration, globalisation, and strongly anti-EU appear, as well as the flags of patriotism and Western civilisation as understood by the RN. 

It was this dreadful character who came to support the Portuguese "cousin". During her stay, she may have noticed that the Portuguese extremists’ opportunities for growth are practically non-existent. Our nervous extremists lack a social group that can be effectively referred to as a threat to the security of society and the preservation of national culture. Without a target that can generate fear, radical movements do not gain strength. In the absence of serious national fractures, the "Portuguese cousin" had no choice but to focus on the only social group that presents some differences from the generality of citizens. But this group - the Roma community - is not seen by the rest of the Portuguese, despite the existence of images and prejudices that come from far away, as an existential national threat. On the contrary, they are people considered vulnerable and powerless. The truth is that the extremists of the Portuguese right, unlike in other European countries, have little political space, because there is no identity that can be exploited and defined as an enemy.

This does not mean that one should not be attentive. On the contrary. Here, as in the rest of Europe, there will be major social crises in the coming years following the pandemic. And major crises often open the door to the emergence of so-called saviours of the homeland, who, history teaches us, have always sunk it.

 

(Automatic translation of the opinion piece I published today in the Diário de Notícias, the old and prestigious Lisbon newspaper)

 

The extreme right and its tactics

The extreme right is like a hodgepodge of ideas. That explains part of its current strength.

 I have looked at their political programmes, statements and slogans. They bring together racist views and ultranationalist feelings with proposals they stole from the left or even from the far left. That is their way of casting the net wide and catching different categories of voters, from the very traditionalist type, the old style bourgeois, to the working class people, that are impressed by the radical promises the extreme right makes in terms of lower taxes, jobs for the citizens, tariffs at the borders, and so on, including the hate posture against international trade and supranational institutions.

They have an agenda that is far from being coherent. But they do not care about consistency and logical sets of proposals. They care about being as populist as they can.

It is not a protest posture, contrary to what many say. It is a deliberate assemblage of impossibilities to attract as many voters as they can. And if they can add to that a smart leader, a sweet talker, and tough discourse, they increase their chances of being supported.

That’s what we have seen today in some EU countries.

Estonia's turn to the far-right

We do not pay too much attention to politics in Estonia. The received wisdom, in Brussels and in the Western part of the EU, is that the country is doing well and springs as an example of e-government and the connected society.

But these days, there are some less tranquilising news coming from Tallinn. The Prime Minister’s Centre Party, a member of the centre-right European family, has now decided, against all pledges, to establish a governing alliance with the extremists on the far-right and offer them five Cabinet positions.

EKRE, that’s the name of the extremist party, is not good political company. Some of its banners are inspired by white supremacist ideas and old-time national-socialist nightmares. 

Estonia is following the same path Austria has already taken. And others. That is certainly not an encouraging development for the rest of the EU. It shows the populists keep gaining access to power in different corners of the Union. European leaders cannot remain silent when these types of coalitions are put in place.  

Time to be very clear

The campaign for the final round of the French presidential election – to be held on May 7 – has started. The actions so far show a country that is deeply divided. And also, leaders that have lost their sense of direction and above all, the courage to be clear about what is at stake. We are confronted with a terribly dangerous mix of abysmal personal resentment with a large and widespread dose of political confusion.

It is obvious this is a time that calls for profound changes in the way politics are conducted in France.

Le Pen´s camp belongs to the old order. It represents the past in so many ways. Certainly, not the future.

Furthermore, I see a lot of rage in the ranks of her supporters.

And Le Pen's political style and posture reminds me of the caudillos of another era.

We should not be blind to the way she conducts her public performances and deaf to what she says. This candidate and her words are animated by feelings of intolerance, resentment, negative passions, and violence against the opponents. 

These destructive attitudes and beliefs should be exposed relentlessly. 

Our fascists are very happy

The fascist leaders of extreme right parties, in a small number of EU countries, spent the weekend in Koblenz, Germany, celebrating the victory of Donald Trump and strategizing. Trump´s election is seen with great delight by the most reactionary segments of our societies. And the fascist are convinced this time they can make it to power, as we go for elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany.

In view of this, we have to be even more convinced they will not get there. And be clear in our political combat against them. Europe has experienced fascism in the past and we should remind ourselves of the terrible pain we got then. It happened in Germany, of course, in Italy as well, but also in Portugal and Spain and some other places, when local extremist parties aligned themselves with the Nazis and their fellow collaborationists.

It´s time to be politically tough. Any mild approach to the fascist leaders will end up by encouraging them further. They might look good on TV. They might be more civil in their manners and speech than their brutal American friend. But they are just dangerous wolves in sheep´s clothing. 

Who is in charge?

The journalist from Macao asked me who in the EU is taking the lead in the fight against populist and xenophobic ideas. It was a genuine question with a serious touch of apprehension. For someone from afar two things seemed to be obvious: that there is a growing extremist political wave in Europe and that some personalities are for sure fully engaged in combatting such trend.

Well, for me, the first part is indeed obvious. The current radicalism combined with old fashioned nationalistic fantasies is a matter of concern, for sure. But the other dimension – who is taking the lead and proposing a more generous and democratic alternative that would make the European dream great again, as someone would say – the answer is not so easy. Actually, I am still looking for an answer.

Auschwitz is a powerful symbol

Today´s celebrations at Auschwitz should be emphasised. Europe needs to be confronted with the horrors of the recent past – people who suffered at that death camp are still with us – and be reminded that we can commit atrocities against our next door neighbour if, for a start, we do not respect him or her, if we do not accept that Europe is diverse and that diversity is enriching for all of us.

We mention so often the European values. Good. But then we should take into account that cultural tolerance is one of the defining principles that shape our system of values. 

Beware of extremist ideas in Europe

Based in the UK, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) is an independent think tank that is spending quite a bit of its resources on research about the extreme right movements in Europe. The research is also used to make policy recommendations.

It is worth to look at its webpage at:

 http://www.strategicdialogue.org

The right-wing extremism is one of the growing concerns in certain EU countries. Racism, xenophobia, radical nationalism and anti-liberal authoritarianism are its key features. In addition, there is also the risk of violence related to religious fanaticism.

It would be a serious mistake to pretend EU is immune to that kind of violent ideas. Actually, as we get closer to the European elections we can see that ultra-right parties are gaining ground in several countries.

It is critical to fight them politically. But in some cases, they are just a matter of law and order. Their leaders should be brought to the book.