The “American model” is now only about maintaining Washington’s global dominance, the Russian leader claims
Russian President Vladimir Putin addresses the plenary session of the Valdai Discussion Club forum in the Moscow region on October 27, 2022. © Sergei KARPUKHIN / AFP
The US no longer has a model which is inspiring to the rest of the world and instead is maintaining its global dominance by throwing its weight around, Russian President Vladimir Putin asserted on Thursday. He added that Washington elites were now even bullying supposed allies who dissent from their neoliberal worldview.
The Russian leader voiced his opinion that “liberal democracy” has changed beyond recognition and has transformed from a vehicle to promote freedom of speech and expression, to demanding the ‘cancelation’ of anyone with a different perspective.
He was making his regular annual appearance at the Valdai Discussion Club, which was held in Moscow rather than Sochi, this year.
“They [American leaders] now have no creative ideas to promote positive development,” Putin argued. “They simply have nothing to offer the world, beyond maintaining their dominance.”
Putin also noted that the US-led West has continued its policy of escalating tensions across the globe, and is trying to subjugate the world under its “rules-based order.”
He added that it remains unclear who invented these rules, what they are based on, or what exactly they even are. The only thing that is understood, according to the president, is that the concept is meant to allow those who hold global power to live “without any rules at all,” and allow them to get away with doing whatever they want.
“The West in recent years and especially in recent months has taken a number of steps towards escalation. They always play for escalation; there is nothing new here. This includes the incitement of war in Ukraine, provocations regarding Taiwan, and the destabilization of the world food and energy markets,” he said.
Read more
Humanity now basically has two paths it can pursue, Putin stated. It can either be fractured and keep accumulating problems that will eventually bury it, or try to find “not ideal, but working” solutions to common issues.
The president went on to stress the importance of preserving cultural diversity in the world, stating that the West is trying to flatten everything out to be identical and is blocking the “free creative development” of other civilizations and imposing its own style of development.
“Simplification and the erasure of any and all differences have become almost the essence of the modern West. What is behind this simplification? First of all, this is the disappearance of the creative potential of the West itself,” Putin said.
Meanwhile, Russian culture has become a target of “cancel culture,” or “the cancelation of culture,” according to the president, who noted that even during the Cold War, neither the US nor the USSR wished to deny the culture and achievements of the other side.
“Book burnings was something that the Nazis resorted to during their time. Now, the works of Dostoyevsky and Tchaikovsky are being banned by the creators of this liberal society,” Putin said, adding that this “cancelation of culture” mows down everything living and creative.
Nevertheless, he believes that “history will put everything in its place,” and the names Dostoyevsky, Tchaikovsky, and Pushkin will continue to live on, unlike the names of those who today try to dismiss the achievements of Russia’s greatest thinkers, and believe they have the right to dispose of the world’s cultures as they see fit.
