When the Cold War ended in the early nineties, many observers hailed the end of inter-state competition. One particularly idiotic academic famously proclaimed that “the end of history” had arrived. Competition between the two did end, but only because one of the competitors, Russia, was on its knees. The other competitor, the West, continued to make gains at Russia’s expense. They supported the corrupt drunken buffoon that was Boris Yeltsin, a man who facilitated the transfer of billions of dollars of Russian assets into Western banks, pauperising the Russian people in the process. They expanded their military alliance NATO right up to Russia’s border and incorporated former Soviet Republics such as Estonia and Latvia into the EU.
After Vladimir Putin came to power in 2000, Russia began to regain some of its former strength. Unfortunately for the West, Vladimir Putin was a man who was extremely bitter about the gains the US and the EU had made and perhaps the main characteristic of his foreign policy has been its anti-Western stance. He renewed Russian support for Cuba and allied himself with governments hostile to the West such as Cuba, Venezuela and Iran. When George Bush Jr. announced plans to station missile defence facilities in Eastern Europe, Putin threatened to aim Russia’s nuclear missiles at Europe. Russia’s return to a state of competition with the West was fully confirmed with the invasion and defeat of Georgia, a country whose Washington backed government had attempted to subdue the two Russian speaking breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Then, as now, Russia faced condemnation from the West.
When two great powers compete, it is those in the middle who suffer. The most striking recent example of this has been the war in Syria. Vladimir Putin, with his Cold War mindset, has provided military support to Bashar Al-Assad, a murderous dictator with whom he has long been allied with. The West has provided arms to the rebels, hoping to overthrow an unfriendly government in a region they continue to have imperialist relations with. As the weapons pour in from both sides, peace is unlikely and Syrians will continue to die because Russia and the West are unable to compromise. While the severity of the situation in Ukraine is nothing approaching that of Syria, the same logic applies. The spectre of war hangs over the country and whoever wins the tug of war over Ukraine, the outcome will not be good for Ukrainians. The country is already breaking up and other regions of Ukraine could conceivably follow Crimea and defect to Russia. If the pro-Western government manages to stay in power, Ukrainians can look forward to neo-fascist elements in power and an IMF bailout which will bring with it years of austerity and falling living standards. If somehow pro-Russian elements regain control of the Ukrainian government, the country will endure a repressive authoritarian rule and corrupt kleptocratic government. Either way, Ukrainians will suffer because both Russia and the West believe the country is theirs to squabble over.
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Postscript:
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Since I wrote the above article tensions have somewhat decreased. Despite the military buildup, there appears to be no danger that Russia will invade the rest of Ukraine. We are thus unlikely to see a major war in Europe and all things considered there has been a remarkable lack of violence in what was a very incendiary set of circumstances. That being said, history has shown that any situation involving rival military powers engaging in a tense standoff over the fate of another country poses considerable dangers. When those powers possess the means to incinerate the world several times over the perils are even greater.
Competition is therefore a very dangerous phenomenon in international politics. The 1990s was a decade in which competition between states was not a major feature of the international system. The prime reason for this was that the power of the West was so overwhelming that no other nation could seek to compete with it. The crisis in Crimea has highlighted the fact that this is no longer the case. Russia now feels the confidence to assert its interests in its “near-abroad” and will not hesitate to do so even when those interests clash directly with the interests of the previously all-powerful Western democracies. Add to the mix the increasingly prosperous and powerful China, and nations like Brazil and India who are beginning to see themselves as world powers with their own interests and we have a situation on a global scale not dissimilar from that which existed in Europe on the eve of the First World War. Then, as now, there were several equally matched rival powers existing in a state of competition with each other.
I believe a third world war is thankfully unlikely for the foreseeable future. I would however like to make two points. The first is that very few contemporary observers predicted the outbreak of war in 1914. Indeed, many respected commentators believed that the world was entering into an era of long lasting prosperity and peace. The second point is that the First World War came about because the leaders of the main powers made a series of miscalculations in defence of the perceived interest of their countries. What is clear today is that the main powers of the world have their own interests that their leaders will seek to protect. We should all hope that the capacity of world leaders to miscalculate has lessened somewhat in the one hundred years since the outbreak of World War One.
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Every Generation one man is born with the destiny to lead… the will to live… and the overwhelming desire to rock out to the latest and greatest hits coming at you live on the soundwaves of tomorrow. My father told me that.
Hi, Dave Hennessey here, award-winning DJ (Killarney Beats Festival 2007: most promising newcomer – talk radio heats), entrepreneur and all-round goodtimes guy. I’ve been invited to offer you a little taster of the hot new radio show I’ll be hosting with my genetically-curious co-host Ableton St John Chavez Crunkfort the 16th, or “Crunk” to his friends (if he had any that is. Ooh! Sorry Crunk), but first let me ask you a question: Do you like rocking out? How about current affairs? What about banter? Do you like banter? Ok, no need to answer those because I think we can all agree that the only appropriate response anyway would be: “Dave muchachu, who doesn’t like these things? They’d have to be off their rocker…”
I feel you buddy, I really do, and that’s why I’ve teamed up with Scum Gentry Radio to bring you “Strange Hour with Dave and Crunk” – a smorgasbord radio series where the cheese is great music, the meats are informative and entertaining guests and the plates and knives and forks are your two faithful hosts Dave and Crunk. We’re a little bit nutty, a little bit wild, but with a whole lot of heart in the end when you tune into Strange Hour with Dave and Crunk. (Ouch, somebody get me an editor! Now you know why I went into radio in the first place. Take my wife, please…)
Episode One: “Sentience” goes out on the airwaves April 20th 2014 on thescumgentry.com, where you can tune into your two new best buds Dave and Crunk as we play a selection of pumping, veritably pop-tastic tunes especially selected from the Scum Gentry Radio music archives, as well as get down and dirty with our guests for your own amusement. For episode one we’ll be talking to the poet and good bloke Peter O’Neill about his latest collection “The Elm Tree”; and to Paddy Hayes, a man who claims he was frozen (recently thawed) in Nazi Germany 1944 where he worked as a real-live NAZI! Yikes, that’s going to be a freaky conversation, make no mistake about it. Good thing you have Dave and Crunk onside to look out for you. Oh yeah.
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Ok guys, that’s about all I can manage. I’m off down to the pub for a few “scoops” with the boys and a game of snooker (or ten lol, I love it). See you all on April 20th, for Strange Hour with Dave and Crunk.
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Dave Hennessey
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Strange Hour with Dave and Crunk is the upcoming podcast series from Scum Gentry Radio, available to listen and download at https://thescumgentry.com/Scum-Radio-Strange-Hour.html from April 20th 2014.
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Have you been enjoying The Scum Gentry Alternative Arts and Media E-Zine so far? Still hungry for more? Well now you can get a whole book’s worth of likeminded fare.
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??THE SCUM GENTRY GUIDE TO LIVING FOOLISHLY: ESSAYS, ARTS & FICTION FROM THE DEPTHS OF JESUITS’ HELL” is the debut compilation book from the Scum Gentry, summating the entire first year of demented and deranged Scum Gentryist produce, and it’s available now through the links below.
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Book blurb:
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“The Scum Gentry are the wildest folk in modern Ireland – a rabid host of poets, paupers, artists, truth-speakers, visionaries and full-time ceol agus craic addicts who cut their teeth in the meat jerky of the fallen Celtic Tiger –– and here at last is the collected culmination of all their deranged and outstanding work to date.
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From serious political and cultural reportage to poetry and prose with a taste for the darker, boozier corners of life’s alleyways, and from shocking, surreal and hilarious works of visual art to a selection of tasters from their musical and televised online efforts, The Scum Gentry Guide to Living Foolishly is a showcase of the very best of their work.
Featuring a blend of material from The Scum Gentry online magazine as well as a selection of brand new never-before-published original content, this collection will have you laughing tears of joy and disbelief by the book’s opening pages and ensure that you’ve grown to be a more informed, entertained and creative truth-seeker by the collection’s explosive completion.”
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From the Scum Gentry website
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For customers outside Ireland and the UK
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On Kindle
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Nobody came to the lake very often in the winter, which was a shame because it was as beautiful then as it was at any other time of the year. Especially now, on a day like this, a mid-January day, when there were no clouds above and the sky-blue, though faint, seemed to glow. Francis stood in the breakfast room, the chairs all stacked up on tables around him and the coffee machine humming behind the counter as if poised and ready to serve the guests who were not there. Beyond the condensation of the windows, past the red-brick patio and walls and steps down to the garden that sprawled and stretched all the way out to the water’s edge, the full and crisp beauty of the winter afternoon was before him. The diminished green of the lawn, fragile and rendered stunted with the frost, was cast in golden syrup from the light of the distant sun.
Yes, it was beautiful and if it was only for him to see – him and perhaps Pavel, who was out there somewhere working to keep the gardens spruced despite the absence of visitors – well that would truly be an awful shame.
Smiling faintly to himself, his old lips murmuring some word or two without even his own conscious awareness, Francis turned to run his hand along the leg of a chair, upturned on the table beside him. They were good chairs, well crafted, and they did their part with their matching tables to contribute to the properness of the room, the quaint and welcoming ambience that promised relaxation and recuperation for any and all who might come to the guesthouse to experience the beauty of the lake and spend a while in its timeworn embrace. Behind him the machines continued to hum and with the artificial heat of the room, it was almost as if the sun itself was warming him and the grey filter of winter that seemed to lessen all the colours of the world at this time of year was merely some illusory haze on the eye, that was not real and never would be.
Outside, the buzz of Pavel’s quad rumbled in approach as the gardener travelled across the grass and when Francis turned to the window again the young man and his machine had already entered into the vista of his gaze. Short and stout but muscular from work, Pavel gripped the bars of his vehicle as it slowed and finally stopped a hundred yards or so down the garden. With a gruff shout, he dismounted the saddle and kneeled to examine the machine’s engine.
Francis opened one side of the patio doors and stepped out into the fresh chill of the day. His gait was slow but firm and he walked with the full tallness of his six feet and four inches, the grey flesh beneath his linen shirt and jumper still ropey with the remnants of the muscle of his youth. He had not yet reached the steps when Pavel looked up and called out to him, his hand raised in admonishment. The young man stood up and began walking briskly up the garden towards him, though Francis did not stop and continued towards the steps, reaching the fourth halfway down by the time Pavel had arrived before him.
“It’s cold!” Pavel said.
“Yes,” Francis said, “but warmer than it has been.”
Pavel looked up at him for a moment before speaking again. “I was down at the forest walk,” he said, “some branches had fallen on the path by the bridge. I was on my way back to get the trailer when the engine jammed again. Third time this week, the bloody thing.”
Francis smiled to hear the young man’s passion about something so simple as a failing engine. “We’ll have to get her replaced,” he said.
Pavel did not speak, he peered up at the older man on the steps above him as though changing his mind once or twice before deciding on what to say. “It’s fine,” he said, “just needs a little oil I think.”
Francis waved his hand dismissively, “well there’s time enough yet. I don’t think anybody’s going to be walking down there today.”
The two men beheld each other for a moment.
“Come inside and have some tea,” Francis said.
Pavel blinked. “Oh... no,” he said, “I better get the path cleared right away. Just in case.”
Francis laughed. “Never mind that now,” he said, “Come in and have a tea, or coffee, otherwise it will just go to waste anyway.” Without waiting for an answer he turned on the steps and, reaching out to the railing to steady himself, began climbing again.
Pavel stepped up quickly behind him and put out his hand to help and Francis let out a bark of annoyance that was softened by the smile on his lips.
“Get out with it! I can climb three steps. Make yourself useful and get in there to set up a table.”
Without protest, Pavel continued past him up the steps and on into the breakfast room and when Francis himself entered, the gardener was standing by a table with two chairs taken down in waiting.
“Sit,” Francis said and ambled past him towards the counter. “It’s coffee you take, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Pavel answered, “black, thank you.”
Francis returned to the table with two cups and saucers, a miniature pot of tea and one of coffee, and a plate of soda bread with a selection of jams, butter and marmalades placed decoratively around them. The tray only trembled slightly as he lowered it to the table and he allowed Pavel to help him now.
“Joe is coming today,” Francis said. “Though I doubt he’d want to go down to the forest walk so you may leave it for a while yet. Never much for the outdoors, Joe. I wouldn’t have the strength to go down there myself anyway.”
Pavel waited until Francis had poured his tea and lifted the cup to his lips before preparing his own coffee.
“I haven’t seen Joe around for a while,” he said.
They sipped their drinks in silence. Francis shrugged his old shoulders.
“It’s a long way for him to come down from the city. I had hassle enough getting up there myself for Christmas.”
“How’s his girlfriend? Sara, wasn’t it?”
“They’re not an item anymore.”
Pavel fingered his coffee cup idly and then raised it to sip. “I suppose we’ll have to start laying the new flower beds soon enough,” he said.
“We’ve time yet.”
Behind the counter the machines continued to hum and the air around them was warm and soft from the industrial-grade heating that powered every room of the guesthouse.
“Have a piece of bread,” Francis said, “it’ll only go to waste.”
Pavel took a slice of soda bread to his saucer and began spreading blackberry jam on it with his knife. Francis sipped his tea.
“It’ll not be long now till the spring crowd start coming in,” Pavel said.
“We??
?ll be ready for them.”
They sat in silence for another five or ten minutes, Pavel refilling his coffee cup halfway to empty the pot. Francis had not yet finished his own. After another moment or two, the chimes of the bell rang from the front door and Francis looked up abruptly as a smile, so sudden it was as if it had come from another soul entirely, spread wide across his face.
“Ah,” he said, “that’ll be Joe now!”
He hastened to his feet, forgetting the limitations of his age, and began pushing saucers and cups and cutlery together on the table for no clear discernible reason.
“He came then,” Pavel smiled, “good.” He looked up at Francis above him and their eyes met for a moment. “It’s getting late,” Pavel said, “I wasn’t sure if he’d make it.”
With a faint smile, Francis shook his head slowly, more to himself than to the boy.
“There’ll be more tea on the go yet,” the old man said. “Oh, we’ll make some use of it yet.”
Pavel stood up from the table. “Well,” he said, “I better go and get this motor back up and running.”
“Yes. Good man.” Francis reached out to pat his shoulder as Pavel turned back towards the patio doors. “But take your time of course,” he said, “I’d imagine we’ve another few months yet.”
Pavel nodded and then returned to the garden and his motor, while Francis, stepping out towards the hallway, went to greet his returning son.
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Hoooo Lord!
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Well well well, well… Well looky here? I wasn’t expecting you to make it this far. I guess you’ve got a little more Easter spirit in you than I gave you credit for. It’s only a shame I ain’t the man who gives out medals or pats on the back.