Weekly Mind Dump, 11/19-11/25, 2023: Another Democracy Succumbs to Right-Wing Populism - Implications for Ukraine
Will the West abandon Ukraine? A former U.S. diplomat is arrested for hate crimes.
Is the World Turning Right-Wing Populist? If so, Great News for Putin
My wife, who is Dutch, has been distraught this week over parliamentary elections which have far-right politician Geert Wilders and his Party for Freedom winning the most seats. Same goes for her family members, who are traditional Dutch liberals. After all, Wilders has advocated pulling out of the EU, greatly restricting immigration, banning Islamic institutions and halting aid to Ukraine. He is often referred to as the “Dutch Trump.”
At this point, we shouldn’t panic since Wilders’s party will control only 37 out of 150 parliamentary seats. He now faces the hard task of cobbling together a coalition government of which he actually may not be prime minister. And he’s already backpedaling on some of his most extreme positions, even pledging he would be “a prime minister for all Dutch people.”
The surge of right-wing populism clearly is showing no signs of abating, with the Netherlands joining Hungary, Slovakia, Italy, Argentina and India under nationalist populist leadership. That said, however, the good news is that Brazilians and Poles have voted out their Trumpy leaders, Spaniards recently rejected such politicians at the polls, as, of course, did Americans in 2020. But anything goes in future elections in France, Germany and the U.S.
Apart from the threat to democracy, my main worry is potentially waning support for Ukraine. The Netherlands, for example, a NATO ally with a population of only 18 million, ranks as seventh largest provider of military aid to Kyiv — surpassing Canada with more than twice the population. Up until leftist Robert Fico won the prime ministership in October on a pro-Russian, anti-American platform, little Slovakia’s aid to Ukraine was disproportionate to its size. Hungary’s Viktor Orban, by all appearances acting like he’s on Putin’s payroll, has been vetoing repeated EU aid packages to help Ukraine fight Russian aggression. In a troubling sign, all 109 Conservative lawmakers in Canada’s House of Commons voted against a free trade bill with Kyiv that had unanimous support from other parties in a preliminary vote on Nov. 21. Fortunately, Italy’s right-wing Giorgia Meloni bucks the trend and much of her political coalition by being a strong supporter of Ukraine.
As for U.S. Republicans, see my piece, “Why Do Republicans Hate Ukraine.”
More Moscow-friendly Western leaders assuming power and the 2024 U.S. elections possibly a toss-up feed into Vladimir Putin’s strategy of waiting out the West, anticipating aid fatigue and more appeasers of the Kremlin. Remember Neville Chamberlain and “peace in our time”? How did that go? Expect a replay of history should Putin’s strategy succeed.
A Fellow Ex-Diplomat Disgraces the Profession
Retired U.S. Foreign Service officer (FSO) Stuart Seldowitz was caught on video hurling abuse at a young Egyptian immigrant street food vendor this week. His vile, anti-Muslim remarks included the hope that the young man would be tortured by the Egyptian security service “when they deport you back to Egypt;” asking if he raped his daughter “like Mohammed did” and stating, “If we killed 4,000 Palestinian kids, it wasn’t enough.”
New York City police arrested Seldowitz on Wednesday, charging him with hate crimes. At the same time, New Yorkers rallied around the young immigrant in a demonstration of their vaunted tolerance and welcoming of newcomers to the country.
Seldowitz has emotional and legal baggage, having also been filmed harassing a Russian diplomat and having been found guilty of falsifying travel vouchers when still with the State Department for which he had to reimburse the government for $15,000. Otherwise, he had led a successful 30-year diplomatic career, reaching the senior ranks and having served at the White House on Israel-Palestine affairs, of all things. The DC lobbying firm he had worked for terminated his employment.
All professions have their share of miscreants, jerks and downright a—holes, the Foreign Service being no exception. But a Foreign Service career is by definition multicultural. If you lack curiosity in and fascination and respect for other cultures, you have no business being a diplomat. This includes learning foreign languages and diving into unfamiliar societies to find out what makes them tick as you explore exotic cuisines and customs. In my own case, this included eating raw turtle eggs and grilled tarantulas in Thailand, guzzling moonshine in Laos, riding camels with Afghans, singing folk songs with Cubans, dancing polkas with Austrians and introducing my young children to kids in a shanty township in South Africa. FSO’s do this with gusto and aplomb (well, mostly), making friends and learning in the process. It’s also humbling as you come to learn that we don’t have all the answers, that other cultures have much to teach us about life.
Clearly, Mr. Seldowitz was an outlier, impervious to all that I describe, a blight on the diplomatic profession and closet misanthrope who does nothing but bring shame on himself and the Foreign Service. He’ll have plenty of time to ponder his attitudes and behavior in a NYC jail.
The opinions and characterizations in this article are those of the author, and do not necessarily represent official positions of the U.S. government.
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