Une bonne défense de la position russe

Depuis l’épisode délirant (selon le terme psychiatrique) sur la “nouvelle Guerre froide” à-cause-du-méchant-Poutine qui a illustré l’avant-G8, de la part d’une presse MSM occidentale déchaînée et heureuse de sembler y comprendre quelque chose, divers commentateurs tentent de remettre les choses dans leur évidente perspective. Ainsi en est-il d’un commentaire de Anatole Kaletsky, le 7 juin dans le Times, qui présente la position de la Russie en exhortant ses lecteurs à accepter l’évidence : comment voudrait-on que les Russes ne se sentent pas menacés par les manœuvres occidentales?

Poutine est populaire en Russie. Ses prises de position anti-occidentales sont également populaires. Pourquoi? Un conseil de Kaletsky qui ne fait, en l’occurrence, que reproduire celui du fameux stratège chinois Sun Zi (Sun Tzu pour les anglophones ?), — dont on ne sait d’ailleurs s’il est le véritable auteur de l’œuvre qu’on lui prête, si ce ne serait pas son oncle, le vénérable Sun Wi, — enfin passons… Conseil qui est de nous dire : mettez-vous donc à la place de votre ennemi et, peut-être, le comprendrez-vous mieux.

Voici un extrait significatif du texte de Kaletsky, à lire à la lumière de Sun Zi/Sun Wi :

«Why is hostility to the West so popular in Russia? Let us try to look at the West through Russian eyes. Despite all the past sentimental rhetoric of Western politicians describing Russia as a friend and “strategic partner”, US and European behaviour has consistently treated Russia more as an enemy than an ally. Russia has been told it could never join Nato or the EU and Mr Putin’s invitation to G8 summits is scant consolation for the denial of WTO membership and the continuation of US trade sanctions dating back to the Cold War. On human rights and extrajudicial assassinations, Russia’s record may be deplorable, but its abuses pale in comparison with those of Western friends such as Saudi Arabia and China, not to mention President Bush’s “boil them in oil” ally, Uzbekistan.

»But far more serious from the Russian standpoint than any diplomatic conflicts is what the West has done to their country’s territorial integrity. Ever since the first Bush Administration undermined Mikhail Gorbachev by denying him the financial assistance of the International Monetary Fund and then encouraged the dissolution of the Soviet Union under Boris Yeltsin, the West has appeared, at least from Moscow’s standpoint, to seize every opportunity to weaken, isolate and encircle Russia.

»Not only has Russia lost its Eastern European satellites, but the homeland itself has been dismembered. No reasonable Russian could object to the independence of Poland, Hungary and even the Baltic states, which were forcibly annexed into the Soviet Union after the Second World War. But the loss of the Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasus and central Asia are a different matter. These areas – or at least large swaths of them – were integral parts of the Russian “motherland” long before Texas and California belonged to the United States. For Russians, the separation with Ukraine and Belarus in particular is at least as emotionally wrenching as Welsh and Scottish independence would be to Britain or Catalonian and Basque secession would be to Spain.

»While Westerners see Russian resentment about these territorial losses as a throwback to 19th-century imperialist thinking, consider how the process might look when viewed from the Russian side. What Russians see is a powerful and wealthy empire expanding steadily on their Western border and swallowing all the intervening countries, first into the EU’s economic and political arrangements and then into the Nato military structure. Consider from the Russian standpoint the EU’s explicit vocation to keep growing until it embraces every European country with the sole exception of Russia itself, and the almost automatic Nato membership now granted to EU countries. Is it so very unreasonable to view this EU-Nato juggernaut as the world’s last remaining expansionist empire, or even the natural successor to previous German and French expansions that were considerably less benign?

»Western politicians may ridicule such fantasies as Russian nationalist paranoia. But why shouldn’t the Russians worry about Western armies and missiles on their borders, when these contribute to a process of territorial encroachment similar to what Napoleon and Hitler failed to achieve by cruder means?

»America and Europe, regardless of their warm words about Russia, are treating it objectively as an enemy, taking every opportunity to cut it down to size. After 15 years of this experience, is it really surprising if the Russians, emboldened by their newfound oil wealth, now respond in kind? In other words, it is not Russia but America and Europe that have restarted the Cold War.

»The West may well be right to treat Russia as a natural enemy – that is certainly the attitude in Estonia and Poland. But if we are going to treat the Russians as enemies, let us at least try to see the world from their point of view.»

Mis en ligne le 11 juin 2007 à 15H17