and no light at the end of the tunnel …

guest author Jaak Peeters 26.05.2025

Glenn Diesen

The Norwegian political scientist Prof. Glenn Diesen regularly brings conversations with interesting people from the West and the East.

Some people take the latter amiss, because he dares to let ‘even Russian speakers’ speak. According to these people, he is guilty of collaborating with Russian propaganda.

Anyone who has been following Diesen for some time knows how empty this reproach is, because Diesen brings people from all over the world.

In what follows, we bring some reflections on recent statements by Varoufakis in a conversation with Diesen and then with Jeffrey Sachs.

Varoufakis’ Blame

Yanis Varoufakis is an economist, former Greek finance minister, professor at several universities and avid motorcyclist.

The flamboyant Varoufakis, who is known for not mincing his words, told Diesen that the former US-centric economic model has had its day and that the US is restructuring the international economic architecture to gain a favourable position. China is the main rival in this new system, while the Europeans are becoming an impoverished appendage of the US. The Europeans can chart a more favourable path forward, but there is a lack of economic insight, political imagination and leadership.

And Jeffrey Sachs’

Diesen also gave the well-known Columbia professor Sachs a chance to speak. The contribution by Jeffrey Sachs cited here is entitled: “The strange death of Europe”. And, all things considered, Varoufakis is actually saying the same thing: if Europe does not quickly take reality as its starting point, Europe will sink into complete meaninglessness.

Such is characteristic that Sachs is very clear about the fact that Europe had developed a social, intellectual and social model until a quarter of a century ago, which could be an example for the whole world.

A slap in the face

The European elites are given a good slap in the face by both gentlemen, from a primarily economic point of view by Varoufakis and from a cultural-political point of view by Sachs.

The economist Varoufakis confronts us with the economic facts: a colossal national debt, which is downright disastrous. Such a debt mass will nevertheless have to be paid off at some point, but that is simply being passed on to our descendants.

We are unable to make ends meet and many would rather demonstrate or strike than face the facts. It is very human that one does not want to let the advantage slip out of one’s hands. But it is equally human to think of all those who come after us and to take personal responsibility for that.

That is even a lot more difficult than the issue of expensive, antisocial and out-of-control immigration, because that problem has a certain distance. According to the calculations of Prof. Paul Collier, that immigration is a major, additional loss item.

This makes it very difficult for the generation that comes after us to rise above the water. People are therefore wondering whether Europe can position itself in the new, global structure that is about to come.

Our education has long been taken over by Asians, who have also taken over our top position in science.

Socio-economically, things are also going wrong. Sachs is clear about this. We had progressed so far that we could hope that all European peoples would have developed sufficiently good living conditions to make almost everyone outside Europe jealous. This requires financial capacity. But there are countless people who have to find an additional job – just to make ends meet. And no one can even begin to estimate how great the hidden poverty is, often among people who suffer from a chronic illness. People are living longer and so pensions have to be paid, but in the meantime everyone is digging in their heels.

So things are getting worse and there is no sign of change.

Incidentally, this line of thought also applies to the EU itself, which is engaged in a continental impoverishment process through its fight against climate change. While we all know that the climate has never done anything but change, simply because all natural processes follow a sinusoidal course.

Muddling along, killing our culture

What is it with Europe? The observer no longer sees a vision, a mission, a deep conviction, a will to excel. It is just muddling along. It is occupied with trivialities and is in the grip of irrationality. It seems like a real kakistocracy. A malgoverno. Dancing in an unreal theatre. Jeffrey Sachs repeatedly shakes his head in incomprehension.

A very strange image emerges that makes the observer shiver: it seems far too much that Europe is in the hands of a deep state elite – Sachs’ term – that pushes through its own agenda at all costs and that dismisses any resistance from the people as extreme right or dangerous or simply accuses it of conspiracy with the Russian enemy – a very transparent technique. The people in question must remain silent and submit, if necessary with the help of such monstrosities as a digital services act, which is nothing more than general censorship under the guise of security. And that in the continent where freedom of speech was fought for so long and where a Voltaire wrote that he would fight until his death so that someone could say his opinion!

We must realize what is happening here: it is about more than economics or the creation of a European state. The elite of this continent is in the process of destroying the old culture of Europe. That culture revolved around a hard-won humanism – stamped by Christianity but also shared by non-believers. And around an Enlightenment, for which the spiritual and political emancipation of everyone who wants it is sacred. Sapere aude! Dare to think! Use your own mind! How do you reconcile that with the EU war against “fake news” or the pressure on the media to fall in line politically?

At the moment, the EU seems to be preparing for a war with Russia. It is not inconceivable that it will end disastrously for us and will accelerate the impoverishment of our peoples. Such a war will certainly have a severe impact on all of our incomes. The war in Ukraine for which the EU is “freeing up” mountains of money to implement sanctions. These do not harm the Russian economy – Russia’s GDP grew by 4.3% in 2024 – in the midst of war! No European country comes close to this figure.

On top of that, there is the human loss: in the Thirty Years’ War (1618-1648), almost a third of the population lost their lives in many regions. And to recover, we need those people…

The forgotten essence

Older writers, such as Just Havelaar in 1920, have seen science much less as something that serves the purpose of making money, but as conquering research. A struggle for an insight that progresses over time. Building towards a goal that will perhaps never be achieved, where the reward lies in the exercise of one of man’s greatest potentials: understanding reality and himself.

Man is a seeker. That characterizes him. That search is inspired by the doubt that already arose among the Ancient Greeks when they looked at the magnificent firmament and wondered with admiration what it all means and what the place of man is in this world.

But in our days even universities are dependent on subsidies from the economic world.

Nevertheless, it is the aforementioned doubt that teaches us modesty and above all: that makes us realize that life is more than a career or making money. However, we have become real slaves. Slaves to our own greed, slaves to our own fears, slaves to our own desire for comfort and superficiality, slaves to our own lust for pleasure. And we hate everything that must necessarily precede this: the will to create good life prospects for each of us through work and social purpose.

We have also forgotten that a state must serve its people. A state must certainly not be an institution in the hands of the powerful, and these are globalists today. Democracy has become more than ever an empty word. A paralyzing situation.

And then: the lost culture

What is being said here is nothing other than that Europeans have lost their culture. Culture is often understood as the world of art and literature, history and philosophy. In his ‘The Hidden Life of Culture’ Max Wildiers ends as follows: “But in today’s society, technology occupies such a large place that every call for more culture also contains an invitation to transform the supremacy of technology into a contribution to man’s ascent to a life of harmony and beauty.” Max Wildiers could not foresee how the consequences of this pervasive technology would also take hold of our worldview, our desires, our faith.

We must therefore focus on the development of human qualities as individuals and as responsible members of the peoples of our continent.

But wedged between the power of the intrusive technology, the striving for power in the usual sense, the power over the population to be controlled and the petty humanities such as the desire for personal status, the leaders of our continent are not able to give shape to the old ideals of humanism and enlightenment in a culturally driven restructuring of our countries.

That is nevertheless what makes Europe Europe: that symbiosis of a deep-rooted humanism and an almost holy enlightenment.

We are occupied with wokism and all kinds of other fantasies that in no way make the average European a better person, but rather make him an object of ridicule in the eyes of the outside world.
And culture: that seems to be the opposite of popular culture.

Back to our roots.

If Europe wants to reposition itself in the new world order, it must therefore reflect on itself.

In order to draw up a coherent, coherent political plan, one must know where one stands and where one wants to go. This requires a clear picture of what or who one wants to be. Only a clear picture of the contribution one thinks one can make creates the possibility of formulating priorities and coherent action plans.

Europe once had something to offer the world that, for example, fundamentally deviates from the American urge to be the boss everywhere and always and shows that diversity can indeed be wealth. Europe could show that ‘progress’ can be something human and that an attractive life for the vast majority does not have to remain a dream. And it could show that, in order to make all this possible, one must conduct policy with intelligence and vision.

Even though a lot went wrong then too – errare humanum est -: Europe could show that it can offer a model of society in which people can not only live comfortably and in good health, but in which personal freedom and development are possible at the same time.

That is what Jeffrey Sachs misses.

Conclusion: a completely different war

If we ever really want to move forward again, a simple copy of the US in the form of the VSE will really not suffice – on the contrary, even though the elite is fully committed to a kind of European unity mash.

We will have to put back at the centre what made our ancestors so special: the belief in the liberating power of the human spirit, oiled by a lived humanism and concretely implemented in as many different ways as Europe housed peoples.

That task is a lot more difficult than a war against a country that has not only always been part of Europe, but could perhaps one day become an extremely useful ally.

So it really looks like we will have to fight a completely different war than most politicians tell us.

Jaak Peeters
Doorstroming
Een andere oorlog
May 2025

A somewhat different version of this text was published on www.dwarsliggers.eu