Confronting and countering the psychological hold of neo-liberalism

Turkey’s Vatan Party has started an Initiative on the New International Order (NINTO) and organized an international symposium. 38 distinguished speakers representing 24 countries from 6 continents parcipated in the symposium, among them various experts of United World International.

Participants debated a wide range of issues from the end of the unipolar world to the crisis of neoliberalism, from identity politics to alternative concepts of security alliances and political economy.

UWI will present in the coming days the speeches held in the symposium in the hope of encouraging the debate on the emerging new world order.

Today we document the speech held by Dr. Marcus Papadopoulos, Historian, analyst and author specialising in Russia and ex-USSR, PhD in Russian history; expert on ex-Yugoslavia. editor of Politics First.

Subheadings were set by United World International

Ladies and Gentleman, distinguished speakers, colleagues.

I would like to commence by congratulating Vatan for having organised today’s timely and much-needed symposium on the neo-liberal international order.  Further, I would like to convey my gratitude to Vatan for having me as one of today’s speakers.

Notwithstanding the actuality that the world has never experienced a golden period in its human history, it is painfully evident today that not only is the world ailing and becoming ever-more unwell as each year passes by but that the world is facing a most dangerous menace which, if not halted and then vanquished, will devour mankind and civilisation.  And the disease which is at the root of the world’s ill-health today is neo-liberalism, an ideology which began to take shape, as we know it today, in the period following the demise of Soviet communism. 

“Current Neo-liberals make true and great liberals turn in their graves”

Neo-liberalism is not to be equated, in any way whatsoever, with classical liberalism because the two are completely distinct from one another.  It is with great sadness and regret that the word liberalism has become terribly tainted over the last three decades or so because of how the word has been hijacked by people whose values and convictions are profoundly incompatible with the tenets of authentic liberalism.  Indeed, neo-liberals such as Bill Clinton, Hilary Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden or Tony Blair must be making the true and great liberals of the past, David Lloyd George or Henry Asquith, for instance, turn in their graves at the knowledge that the aforesaid neo-liberals are some of the key standard-bearers in the world today of ‘liberalism’. 

It must also be said, too, that neo-liberalism is utterly alien to socialism, communism and Marxism.  Irrespective of whether one is an advocate or opponent to the ideology of the genuine left, one need only familiarise one’s self with the works of Karl Marx, or Peter Engels, or Vladimir Lenin, or Mao Zedong, to learn that neo-liberalism is as foreign to socialism, communism and Marxism as the latter three are to capitalism.  One can only imagine what the response of the Communist Party of Cuba would be to the notion that, for example, Obama or Blair are socialists; I suspect that the reaction of the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba to this idea would be no different to how they would react to being told that two plus two equals five.

So that raises a highly pertinent question: If neo-liberalism is neither liberal nor left, then what precisely is it?  What is the nature of this accursed ideology which has caused untold suffering in all four corners of the world and yet purports to be a force for good and morality?  What is this ideology which professes to be one of equality, diversity of thought, progressiveness and peace and yet, in truth, is a malignant cancer devouring the fundamental pillars of human existence and enslaving hundreds of millions of people in the process? 

“Neo-liberalism an is intellecutally-devoid, morally-bereft and intolerant ideology”

Well, the term neo-liberalism has its roots in the early 1980s when it started off as a set of economic principles, as was being constructed, implemented and promoted, at the time, by Ronald Reagan in America and Margaret Thatcher in Britain.  Since then, and especially over the last quarter of a century, neo-liberalism has taken on a very different meaning and appearance, and it is this actuality that I base my definition on of this ideology.  Accordingly, in 2021, I would describe neo-liberalism as an intellectually-devoid, morally-bereft, intolerant ideology.  One which extols hatred of religion, culture and national identity, and seeks their annihilation.  One which champions the destruction of education, intellectualism, free-thinking and critical-thinking.  One which advocates the eradication of human identity, including of the male and female genders.  One which encourages the systematic erosion of the rights of both women and children.  One which constructs tyranny through political correctness.  One which calls for a lawless society, partly through defunding the police.  One which has appropriated and distorted words and concepts such as democracy, freedom, human rights, equality, racism, progressiveness, tolerance and diversity, and has used these to suppress and enslave people.  And one which advances moral degeneracy, depravity and debauchery, including the promotion of drugs and sexual perversion.

Whilst the ideological tenets and objectives of neo-liberalism are, at the very best, unhinged, and, at the very worst, diabolical in the strictest sense of the word, nonetheless, a very large percentage of the global population, especially in the West, are either oblivious to the ramifications of the neo-liberal order for themselves and their families, or are unaware of the existence of this ideology in the day-to-day lives of themselves and their families, or are hoping that this ideology will go away on its own.  And therein lies arguably the most dangerous aspect to neo-liberalism; in that a deranged or devilish agenda has been successfully and rapidly implemented, in public, throughout societies across the world, through programming people in such a way that they do not, either consciously or sub-consciously, act in accord with their self-interest or the self-interest of their children or grandchildren or fellow citizens.  So, for example, today in the UK, many Britons are failing to take action to safeguard British culture, due, in large measure, to their fear of being labelled by either neo-liberal politicians, or neo-liberal mainstream journalists, or neo-liberal lobbyists, or neo-liberal activists, either on television or in print, or, indeed, on social media, as ‘racist’.  In short, the global advance of neo-liberalism is, and I say these words without a doubt of hesitation, one of most astonishing achievements in human history, and one of the most heinous that the human race has ever been afflicted with. 

America and Britain are “nerve centres” of neo-liberalism

Now, the nerve centre of neo-liberalism is in America and in Britain, and it is from these two countries that this cancerous ideology infected Europe, mainly but not exclusively the western part of the continent.  From there, neo-liberalism’s tentacles have extended to other parts of the world, including Asia.  And the tools which the neo-liberal elites have used to spread and implement the neo-liberal agenda globally are Western mainstream media, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), the European Union (EU), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB), and the World Trade Organisation (WTO).  Those groups are some of the most powerful and dangerous the world has ever seen assembled, and they are the drivers, whether officially or unofficially, of the horrendous damage which has been inflicted on very many societies across the world in the name of ‘democracy’, ‘human rights’, ‘equality’ and ‘diversity’, to name but a few.  Further to that, there is no society in the world that is not, potentially at least, menaced by Western mainstream media, NATO, the EU, the IMF, the WB and the WTO.

The psychological indoctrination techniques of neo-liberalism have been remarkably successful, even amongst people who can be considered as mildly intelligent.  There are two examples I wish to cite here.  First, neo-liberals in Britain have, over decades now, imposed multi-culturalism on the British people, partly because of their loathing of culture, and partly because they realise that by destroying a people’s culture, this destroys their national identity thus making their minds easier to control.  To deter Britons from opposing the imposition of multi-culturalism in Britain, neo-liberal elites forcefully and relentlessly warn that it is racist to disagree with multi-culturalism but it is not racist to erode and replace a people’s culture with multi-culturalism.  Now, that is a wholly perverse, idiotic and utterly flawed argument.  But despite that, the argument has achieved its desired outcome.  Alas, vast numbers of Britons today remain passive as their national identity is systematically eroded in front of their very own eyes by neo-liberalism.  The second example concerns the ongoing conflict in Syria.  The image of a dead Syrian child refugee washed up on a beach in Greece, in the summer of 2015, was used by neo-liberals to justify their view that the existence of national borders causes the deaths of innocents hence countries should abolish their borders.  Such a disgraceful act of child exploitation sadly influenced considerable numbers of people in Western countries into thinking that by supporting the existence of borders, this was tantamount to being complicit in the deaths of refugees.  It should be said, at this point, that the real reason as to why neo-liberals seek the dismantlement of national borders is to allow the tentacles of neo-liberalism to extend from one country to another unchecked.  Now, the official neo-liberal argument about borders is, quite simply, absurdity at its most absurd. Because foreign states arming terrorist groups in Syria is what, ultimately, caused the death of the Syrian child in 2015, and this arming was – and continues to be – implemented and supported by neo-liberal elites in America and in Britain.   

It is at this point that I wish to address the Turkish people.  Whilst I have many disagreements with the Turkish state, so, for instance, over the conflict in Syria, the Turkish state is not Turkey, just how the British state is not Britain.  Thus, I respect the Turkish people’s love of God, their love of Turkish culture, and their pride in being Turkish.  But, do not think, for even one moment, that what the world is witnessing in Britain, in America and in other Western countries, namely, the erosion of societies there by neo-liberalism, would never be replicated in Turkey.  Because it is that delusion, that complacency which has, in large part, placed the British people in the peril which they find themselves in today as a consequence of neo-liberalism. “Too unthinkable to believe would happen” has happened in Britain and in many other countries, too. 

Time to say “Yes to God, Yes to culture, Yes to national identity, and Yes to free and critical-thinking”

History teaches us that all is impermanent; that the world goes through phases. The world, today, in particular in the West, is in a dreadful condition, largely on account of the neo-liberal international order. But this does not mean that neo-liberalism is a permanent reality. Whilst neo-liberalism remains intact in the Western world and elsewhere, it has become a weakened force, as more and more people awake to the realisation that their day-to-day lives have been infected by an ideology which not only seeks to destroy the very pillars of civilisation but also the very pillars of human existence. But neo-liberalism will not fade out on its own accord; for the ideology’s elite, and its rank and file, are fiercely committed and driven to see the world subdued and dominated by neo-liberal tenets. Further, the quest to liberate the world from the abominable neo-liberal creed will not be a straightforward one. What is required, to start with, is for peoples, cultures and religions from across the world to form a metaphoric chain between themselves and defy the diktats of neo-liberalism by saying, in public, No to political correctness, Yes to God, Yes to culture, Yes to national identity, and Yes to free and critical-thinking, and by boycotting Western mainstream media in its entirety, which would involve not watching mainstream news channels, not reading mainstream newspapers, and not visiting the websites of both these. Once people lose the fear of what they might be accused of being by neo-liberal elites and by neo-liberal rank and file, and once they cease in exposing themselves to the poisonous propaganda of Western mainstream media, then the neo-liberal order will have lost its psychological hold over the minds of hundreds of millions of people in the world.  Then and only then will the neo-liberal international order, which has cast a dark and dangerous spell over mankind and civilisation, be ripe for collapse.  

Thank you for listening.      

Dr Marcus Papadopoulos