Not World War III, It's The End of Liberalism Instead

 “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” George Santayana said. Nerve war between Russia versus Europe and United States of America, on the background of getting Ukraine as the new member of NATO, has turned to be a full-fledged weapons conflict since February 24^th, 2022. Russian President Vladimir Putin keeps affirming that the aim of Russia’s special military ops is “denazification” and “demilitarization” Ukraine arm forces, eliminating the ideology and ultranationalist minions that have spread terror over thousands of Russians in Ukraine. Particularly, the residents of Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republic (DLPR) that have fallen victims since 2014. The world seems close its eyes for the human rights abuses over the years, until Russia decides to obliterate Ukraine military facilities while avoid civilian casualties.

Who and what is the far-right extremist group that overly being accused as the virus for Ukraine society? A source links its existence to the excess of a mass demonstration, which ended with the dismissal of Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in 2014, commonly known as Euromaidan. With regard of its history as ex-Soviet Union territory, the West tends to see Euromaidan as Ukrainians’ “moment of victory” over foreign authority, since Yanukovych was pro-Russia. Protracted within the euphoria of being free from Russia’s influence, a group of young Ukrainians who used to be the Euromaidan’s driving forces have turned to be predacious mob without any strong figure to lead them.

Long story short, Ukraine’s nationalism slogan changed its course to ultranationalism. Such as a group that called itself “The Right Sector.” It was not only boasting its pride of the Ukraine’s identity, but also hate speech against feminists, LGBT, and foreigners. Nevertheless, the Ukrainian far-right root had begun to grow since 1929 with the establishment of the Ukrainian Nationalist Organization (OUN), which became more radical during its war against Poland. OUN was later split into two separate organisations; OUN(b) under Stepan Bandera and OUN(m) headed by Andrii Mel'nyk. Two leaders with totalitarian attitudes, anti-Semites and fascists alike. With the expansion of the Nazis in Ukraine, OUN (m) pledged its loyalty to Adolf Hitler. Just some moments after the Euromaidan, Ukraine’s nationalist government rewrote its history, such as deletion of Soviet Russia figures from its history books and the designation of fascist figure like Stepan Bandera as Ukrainian national heroes.

 

History repeats itself

The European Union and United States, eventually, fulfilled their vows to restrict Russia by economic means if President Putin (and he did) took drastic steps to deploy Russian military forces in Ukraine. Since the start of its special military operation in Ukraine, Russia has accepted thousands of sanctions and restrictions cover up from economic, trade, financial, technology, information/ mass-media, energy, and flight ban over made in Russia planes and its airlines. Restrictions have spread to certain free political zones, such as art, literature and sports. As anti-Russian sentiment has grown throughout the world, Russian endemic cats and dogs are prohibited from taking part in pet competition. Social media, which was previously committed to freedom of expression, allowed hate messaging against Russia on their platforms.   

This phenomenon is almost a repetition of shameful history happened in early 20^th century, as Nazi nailed its grip upon German soil. On behalf cramped nationalism built upon ethnicity, Nazi had imposed an anti-Jews law. Hundreds of thousands Jews were fired from jobs, their assets were frozen and seized, including their business and companies. Jewish artists and athletes were banned from public appearance, when as well as education shut down for the Jewish children. Along with Russians, Poles and Romanians, Jewish communities were put in concentration camps for forced slavery before the Nazis took their lives.

The tragedy of the modern era, widely known as the Holocaust, has inspired numerous movies and novels, some of which have won international recognition. Nonetheless, these works of art have also inspired some groups of people to choose a path like the New Nazi Age. Anti-racist unity and slogans are powerless and have failed to stay neutral in the face of the Ukrainian conflict. Under the enormous international pressures, some countries such as China, India, Israel, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, Serbia, Pakistan, Cuba, Belarus, Mexico, Myanmar, and most of Central Asia countries have asserted that they will not impose sanctions to and will maintain their diplomatic relationships with Russia. A blend of countries with a "unique" and diverse history. However, the general public, mostly the West, is doubting this prospective alliance on how long they are willing to stand and face threats, pressures, and unilateral sanctions by United States and the gang. One thing is certain, Russia iscommited not to change its stance, as confirmed by Foreign Minister Deputy Sergey Vershinin.

 

The end of an era

Just prior to the COVID-19 outbreak, Industrial Revolution 4.0 discourse became a trend in some countries. The term Industrial Revolution 4.0 itself was popularised thanks to and contributed by Klaus Schwab, the founder of the World Economic Forum, in 2015. It is a rapid shift in technology, industry, and social models and processes in the 21st century driven by increased interconnectivity and smart automation. The changes have taken the form of artificial intelligence, genetic editing, advanced robotics, which replaces the human power being enhanced industrial efficiency. The digital stride of era to the creation of the metaverse, as it aims to bring forward the communication and as a mean to know and interact with the entire universe around us, are just a few examples of the outcome of Industrial Revolution 4.0.  

With increased efficiency, there will be more products or goods ready for sale in a relatively short time compared to conventional production techniques with human resources. Despite this, production growth is not always directly proportional to rising demand. Industrial participants constantly need new consumers and new markets to buy their products, and companies will ultimately gain more revenue. Commercial competition anywhere is a common case, however, and that is entirely normal. It turns out that this is not normal because they involve in the company monopoly the forcible purge of rivals.

The intent to remove Russia (and China) from the international trade arena has indeed been seen for a long time. We can see it from the unilateral increase in tariffs that the United States has imposed on China in 2019, or the US effort to use CAATSA to scare various countries that want to buy Russian-made military products. When various Russian products disappear from the market, the ones that replace them are most likely business competitors with monopoly tendencies to increase revenues.

"But capitalism doesn't just stay in its youth, it grows, gets bigger, increases, and ages... Capitalism is no longer in the "Aufstieg (Rise)" era, but "Niedergang (down)" instead... Now the weak have been swept away from the earth's surface, or have merged into a great alliance with one another; the great one. Now even the greatest associations have ended their struggle with the others; now only monopool (monopoly) bodies are facing each other. Vrij concurentie (free competition) is over, it’s no longer needed. What is necessary is to keep the monopool giants upright. Therefore, liberalism and parlementaire democratie (parliamentary democracy) were then “out of business”… Liberalism was thrown away, condemned as an old-fashioned system that no longer worked … and a new system was born that was compatible with keeping the monopool upright. A new system which is of course monopool … this is the fascism system!” (Quoted from "Under the Flag of the Revolution" by Ir. Soekarno, 1959).