M
and guest looks jovial, lucid, healthy (despite the ailments
, clarifies). He confesses that he spends the rest of his time reading, thinking, and practicing tai-chi exercises. The guest was born in a European country 92 years ago, he arrived in Mexico in the middle of the last century, and in the chair or in journalism he kept an eye on the march of the world
Europe in particular.
The invitation came at a social gathering, after hearing his curious theory about the european temperament
inspired by the four humors
that the doctors of Greece used to diagnose the health of their patients: sanguine
, phlegmatic
, melancholic
Y choleric
. And that, he explained, would have prevailed since the end of World War II, in periods of 20 years. Let’s see.
1946-66. Temper sanguine
(hopeful, optimistic, tolerant). Years of the Nuremberg Trial against high-ranking war criminals of Nazism, of the cold War, and solidarity between the communist countries. Creation of the CIA, the IMF and the Marshall Plan for European reconstruction. Years of clear ideologies among social democrats, Christian democrats, socialists, communists, liberals, conservatives, and with leaders of the stature of Konrad Adenauer, Dwight Eisenhower, Charles De Gaulle, John Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev.
1967-87. Temper phlegmatic
(indifferent, calm, content). years in which the third party
De Gaulle vetoes the entry of the United Kingdom (1967) into the European Economic Community, from the encyclical populorum progressio, the French May, and large peace movements. End of the Bretton Woods monetary system and creation of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Disarmament treaties between the United States and the Soviet Union. End of the dictatorship of the colonels in Greece and Francoism in Spain. carnation revolution
in Portugal, beginning of the pontificate of John Paul II, conservative victory of Margaret Thatcher, star Wars by Ronald Regan, perestroika in the USSR. Still, great respect for leaders like Willy Brandt and Olof Palme (Social Democrats) and François Mitterrand (Socialist).
1988-2008. Temper melancholic
(downcast, drowsy, depressed). end of the cold War, the USSR and the bloc of socialist countries. Reunification of Germany and institutional chaos in Russia. Vertiginous development of computers and the Internet. NATO attack on Yugoslavia, and terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York. US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. Creation of the European Union (EU) and the World Trade Organization (WTO). Centrifugation of ideologies, advances of the extreme right, and of Islamic fundamentalism. But there are no longer respectable leaders: only captive leaders of financial capital: Bill Clinton, Helmut Kohl, the Bushes, Barak Obama, Tony Blair, Felipe González, Silvio Berlusconi, José María Aznar…
The guest takes a deep breath, stating that in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis, Europe fell prey to an undeniable temper choleric
(easy to anger, irrational, aggressive). In part, due to a certain consensual impotence that strategically and economically subordinates it to Washington. And partly because she remains convinced that her lights
they invented The humanity
. Omitting that they also invented colonialism, the scientific racism
euthanasia, the Lombrosian theory and the extermination camps designed by engineers and technicians of academic excellence
.
I ask the guest how his comment fits into the war in the Ukraine. He answers: “It is as if Europe, in addition to the four aforementioned humours, cultivated historical amnesia. Wasn’t 100 million dead in the wars of the last century enough? Yet there you have the EU leaders. They talk about war as if it were a Play Station game. Look at the EU chancellor, Josep Borrell. The only thing he knows how to say is ‘war!’ Isn’t his position supposed to be ‘diplomatic’? And everyone applauding the neo-Nazi clown who presides over Ukraine.”
He adds: “For the third time in 100 years, Ukraine has become the scene of fierce and ruthless battles without quarter: those from 1918 to 1924 against the Bolshevik revolution; those from 1939 to 1945 for having underestimated Nazi-fascism, and the current one, fired by Washington to settle the internal politics between Republicans and Democrats. The truth is obvious: under the pretext of ending the autocracy
of Putin, Europe is indebted, again, with the economic corporations of the United States.
Ends: Russia is our natural partner, while China is America’s ultimate target in Ukraine. A lot of warmongering dementia, right? Next Sunday the ballot will take place in France. Pray that Emmanuel Macron wins! Macron… a neoliberal conservative. The only one who, perhaps, could stop the extreme right and neo-Nazis in Europe! Are we doing harakiri?
