This is a transcript of a video interview
Today, I'm joined by a very, very special guest which is an honor to have here at Europe Matters. He's calling in from Tucson, Arizona. It's incredible that he accepted this invitation to talk about very, very important topics like what we learned from the pandemic, what the future of Europe will look like, and how we can save humankind. These very high topics and very important topics will be discussed together with the one and only Noam Chomsky.
Noam, thank you very much for joining in and accepting this invitation. Very pleased to be with you. These are very, very interesting times, as well troubling times. We see that we're coming out of a world pandemic which is we could slowly say becoming an endemic. However, everywhere around the world has been struggling with how to deal with it and how to go forward. One of the main problems that you have also talked about is vaccination and the fact that only the richer countries, which come from the West, have access or full access to vaccinations. I wanted to know what you think about the way that the USA, as well as Europe, have handled the whole vaccination situation and how they have handled it with upcoming economies from south.
Well, that's a major scandal well understood but it continues. The wealthy countries have pretty much monopolized the vaccines for themselves and rather dramatically to a significant extent, have even refused to use them. In the United States, which is the outlier in this case, barely 60% of the population is vaccinated, which is why the United States is suffering so severe even as compared with other wealthy countries, but there's a strong campaign against vaccination which has impeded efforts to deal with the crisis. This is also true to an extent in Europe. For example, in Europe, in early 2020, the main countries, Germany, France had pretty much controlled the early stages of the disease, but then Europeans decided they wanted to take their summer vacations. They went off partying, having fun, going to the beach. Naturally there was a big surge afterwards. This has happened repeatedly.
Nevertheless back to your point, the rich countries have monopolized the vaccine. Regions like Africa, vaccination is very low. India has appeared to have a relatively low rate of infection, but that's very recently been challenged by Indian researchers who have discovered that there may have been about 3 million or so deaths in India, far beyond what's been reported just because of lack of reporting and so on. When there's a pool of unvaccinated people, first of all, they're great many deaths, so it's very cruel, but also it's suicidal for the West because it's well understood that this is a pool for mutations to take place. There be could severe Delta and Omicron, for example, and they'll feedback to the West, so it's a cruel and suicidal policy of myself first.
Now there have been popular efforts to develop what's called a People's Vaccine to ensure that vaccines will be available to everyone. There's an organization, Covax, international organization which is devoted to this, but it's come nowhere near meeting the conditions that it hoped to. Now there are several factors in this, one of them is the insistence on the wealthy countries, with Germany in the lead in this case, to protect the exorbitant patent rights of the big pharmaceutical corporations. The World Trade Organization agreements, the so-called Neoliberal Globalization provided extraordinary protections for major corporations, a patent regime which had never existed in the past. These are called Free Trade Agreements that are in fact highly interventionists of the trips set part called Intellectual Property Rights, patents basically, not only patents the product, but also the processes for constructing them and for a very long period. If these regulations had been enforced in earlier centuries, countries like England and the United States would never have developed, they were robbing superior technology of countries like India, China, low countries, and so on. Well the protecting the process by which the vaccines are manufactured prevents pharmaceutical industries in other countries from producing them. There are many that could. India has a huge pharmaceutical industry, South Africa, Iran has a forward pharmaceutical industry. Many others could be producing them on their own.
Now there is a slight breakthrough in this. There's a very well-known health immunologist in Texas, Peter Hotez, his group at Texas University, along with a hospital, has apparently developed a vaccine comparable to Moderna and Pfizer, and they're offering it free, no conditions. Indian manufacturers have apparently begun to produce it. This could be a breakthrough, but what is shocking is the unwillingness of the wealthy countries to facilitate vaccination on a large scale throughout the global south, cruel and savage in itself and suicidal because of the consequences.
One of the things that is being said as well is that the expertise is a major issue in reproducing the MRNA vaccines, and that that's also one of the big impediments to reproduce it on a larger scale because it's only being developed mostly we could say by private companies, and that's one of the arguments that the industry says "Yes, that's why we cannot bring it everywhere because we don't have the people to be able to share it around."
Solution to that is simple, you let other countries produce them. They have facilities, they have engineers. They may even be able to improve the processes. Brains are not concentrated in rich Western countries.
What do you think about the fact that there's been very big deals with the pharmaceutical companies which have not been very transparent. A lot of governments have invested into vaccines and at least my deduction is that the No-Vax movement has been also partially fueled by the fact that these trade agreements have not been transparent at all. It's not only about a political ideology about not vaccinating, but I think as well a voice of concern about how governments deal with these very big corporations.
Not transparent is an understatement. The trade agreements, the radically anti-free trade trade agreements mean that you provide the corporations with the right to keep secret totally secret the means for producing whatever they're producing. It's well beyond lack of transparency, it's control over the process. If this was released, others could produce them. As I say, this is historically unprecedented. These trade agreements are radically interventionist in a way beyond earlier trade regimes. Ludicrously they're called Free Trade Agreements.
_This process of control over the process, if I can link this to what's happening right now on the Ukrainian border, we've seen that there's talks about-- between Russia and the USA, and the first people to be actually on talks are the USA and Russia and not Europe, in this case. In this case, the USA is again controlling the process of how to deal with the diplomacy aspect of international affairs. _
Well, it goes deep. A large part of the conflict goes back to the decision of the United States first by George W. Bush, 2008, and reaffirmed by Obama to invite Ukraine to enter NATO. No Russian leader is likely to accept that. Ukraine is far too great to a strategic significance and also historical significance and cultural significance to Russia for Russian leaders, Putin or anyone else, to accept incorporation of Ukraine within a hostile military alliance. Long background to this. Now, this effort by the United States was vetoed by France and Germany, but that didn't mean anything. The United States proceeds with it. Now, there is an agreement, the Minsk-2 agreement, it's France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine, if the terms of that agreement were implemented, the crisis would be dampened, it probably would not be taking place. Now, neither Ukraine nor Donbas, the Russian region have implemented the agreement. The United States has not pressed Ukraine to implement the agreement. There's problems on all sides, but if Europe had a really independent role in world affairs, it could be acting in such a way as to bring this Minsk-2 agreement into operation that would probably resolve the crisis. There's very good scholarship on this. One of the main scholars of the region Anatol Lieven has just written several articles about it pointing out in detail how implementation of Minsk-2 could very likely resolve the crisis. Of course, that would mean withdrawal of the US call for Ukraine to join NATO. It would mean that Ukraine would have Austrian-style neutrality, the kind that Austria had right through the Cold War, not part of any military alliance. It would mean that there'd be some kind of federation in Ukraine which would provide degree of autonomy to the Donbas region, demilitarization, a couple of other conditions. All of this is quite feasible and is very likely that it would simply end the crisis. It's not what's happening. The United States under strong internal pressure from the right-wing and also centrist opinion is moving towards intensifying the crisis, so is Putin, by putting troops surrounding Ukraine, a hundred thousand of them. As Avan himself says, "This is the most dangerous crisis in the world right now, and also the most easily settled." It's both.
Now, this goes back much farther to the question of the means by which NATO was expanded. You go back to the collapse of the Soviet Union. There were several conceptions of how the Eurasia region should be organized. One of them, which was advanced by Mikhail Gorbachev and by Hans-Dietrich Genscher, the German foreign minister, both of them proposed an Eurasian security system with no military blocks, Lisbon to Vladivostok singles region no military blocks. While that was rejected by the United States, was actually supported by Germany. A core part of this was unification of Germany, which the Germans of course wanted. The question was how this could take place. Now remember for Russia, unification of Germany is not a trivial matter. Germany alone had virtually destroyed Russia several times during the past century. For Russia to agree, as Gorbachev did, to agree to allowing Germany to be unified within NATO hostile military alliance was quite a concession, but there was a condition, condition was that NATO would not expand to the East. The phrase that was used was not one inch to the East, that meant East-Germany nobody was contemplating broader expansion, at least in public, maybe privately they were. Well, NATO did advance to East-Germany under Bush and under Clinton, it moved all the way to the Russian border, Baltic states, other states Balkan states. it could have been done in a way which would have eliminated and certainly eased tensions. There was what was called the Partnership For Peace in the 1990s which was a pretty sensible approach that contemplated expanding NATO or another general alliance to include the East European states, but to do it in stages with varying from country to country depending on the circumstances, taking Russian concerns into consideration, even contemplating bringing Russia itself into this system. As incidentally Putin has suggested, these were all possibilities. They were abandoned in favor of what was called the Clinton Doctrine, let's just expand militarily right to the border of Russia, militarizing, bring them NATO, weapon systems that are called defensive, but of course, threatened Russia. All of this was done in a manner which was almost guaranteed to increase tensions. We're now facing it, Ukraine as a central part and what's happening as Avan correctly says is extremely dangerous, but also has a solution one in which Europe would play a central role, but that of course, requires that Europe take up the option, which has already has had, to become an independent force in world affairs. Europe has that option, it's rejected it. It's chosen to be subordinate to the United States and as long as Europe does that, we'll be in serious danger.
What do you envision as a way that Europe could become more independent? Should it become a United States of Europe, or should it try a new form of at least-- The European Union and as we know it now is very bureaucratic, complicated, and actually led by technocrats and the elite of the European nations. In order to become really independent on the world's stage, should it at least try to become a federation?
Well, the European Union has serious flaws, but also significant achievements. One achievement is that there's a radical change from centuries of European history. For centuries, Europe was the most savage, brutal place in the world. The main task of European countries was to slaughter one another. This goes back centuries. The 30 years war in the 17th century, probably a third or more of the population of Germany was killed, and this continued through the-- and after review of what happened in the 20th century, Europe virtually destroyed itself. Well, since 1945, that hasn't happened. That's a pretty significant change. There are plenty of problems but nevertheless, the move towards some kind of federation had a major success. Europeans are not slaughtering one another, not a small point. Things like the Schengen Agreement have been very valuable. The fact that you can travel from France to Poland and god knows without going through a border, or a student in Italy can study in Germany, all of this is a great step forward.
On the other hand, what you said is correct. The bureaucratization has been extremely harmful and it has had very negative effects. Fundamental decisions have been moved from the individual countries, Italy, France, and so on, to a bureaucracy in Brussels. The Troika unelected, European Commission unelected, European Central Bank, of course, unelected. IMF naturally. These unelected bureaucracies are setting the major policies for Europe and it's causing plenty of anger and resentment, what are called the populist reactions or in substantial part, a reaction to the fact that deciding the kinds of policies that govern your own society has been taken out of your hands. It's radically undemocratic. Some of these policies, they were sturdy policies, have been quite destructive and harmful. They were somewhat relaxed when the dangers that they were creating was beginning to be recognized, but we should bear in mind that to create a federation of separate states is no easy matter.
Take the United States. For the first long 80 years of its history, the United States was not a single country, it was a plurality of countries. The United States or not the United States is many languages, that's the way it's still described. It wasn't until the Civil War that the United States became basically a single country of the states. It was a brutal, vicious war. Outside of China, the worst war of the 19th century. A hundreds of thousands of people killed in this destruction. That was the effort to create a federation in a region which was pretty much at peace, except for the wars against the native populations. Of course, the United States has never been at peace. United States is one of the few countries in the world that's been at aggressive war almost every year since its founding. We don't describe it that way, but the country was founded and immediately went to war against the indigenous societies which were devastated and destroyed. Among the colonist themselves they were not at war. Nevertheless, to turn from a federation to a more unified society was a bitter brutal battle. In Europe it won't be easy.
Now there were steps towards. There were De Gaull's proposals and Willy Brandt's Ostpolitik tentative efforts, then after the collapse of the Soviet Union, there were the Gorbachev Genscher Initiatives which were stopped by US power. The US wanted to maintain an Atlanta System in which the US would be dominant over Europe. This battle has been in one or another way, its conflict has continued right to the present. We see it in all kinds of ways. Take say Iran. When the United States pulled out of the joint agreement JCPOA with Iran, the Europe was furious. Europe wanted to maintain the agreement which was working very effectively. Iran was living up to the terms of the agreement. International inspectors, including US Intelligence completely agreed with this. It was working fine. United States destroyed it and imposed very harsh sanctions on Iran to punish Iran because the United States had destroyed the agreement. You go back to when this happened, Europe was furious. They said, "We're going to continue with the agreement. We're not going to observe the sanctions. We're going to set up our own means to trade with Iran." That didn't last very long. Europe quickly dropped it, decided to succumb to US pressure and joined the United States reluctantly in imposing the extremely hoarse sanctions, withdrawing from trade and bringing about another extremely dangerous situation. You can call it cowardice. You can call it something else, but that's what happened.
This is happening all the time. It's happening right now with China. Will Europe join with the US effort to prevent Chinese development and increase hostilities with provocative actions, or will Europe play the role it could play as a mediating force in world affairs? Europe has plenty of potential, bigger population than the United States, enormous economy, culturally more advanced than the United States in many ways, socially more advanced. Remember, the United States is extremely powerful, has many positive characteristics, but socially speaking, it's a backwater. If what's called radical in the United States would be called centrist in Europe. Take Bernie Sanders, in the United States, he's considered so radical that you can't even contemplate his proposals. The editor of the Financial Times, world's leading business journal, a couple of months ago observed, this is partially a joke but serious, that if Bernie Sanders is living in Germany, he could be running on the Christian Democrat Program, which is correct.
Was it Martin Wolf from the Financial Times?
Martin Wolf said the same thing. This was Martin Wolf said pretty much the same, but it's still correct. If you look at his proposals like universal healthcare, nobody questions that in Europe, it's routine. Free higher education. Germany has it, Finland, Mexico has it. Something as simple as maternal leave – time for women to be with a baby after it's born – everybody has that. The only countries that don't have it are the United States and a couple of Pacific Islands that are ruled by the United States. For the United States itself it's an enormous problem. The healthcare system in the United States is a disaster, has the most advanced healthcare in the world, but some of the worst statistics on maternal mortality, infant mortality and many other measures. It is way behind. It's costs are about twice as high as other OECD countries because it's privatized, heavily bureaucratized. You go to an emergency room in the United States, severe problems, first thing you have to do is fill out a ton of forms to determine whether your insurance company's going to cover it or what they'll cover then later it turns out they won't cover it. None of this happens in Europe or most of the world.
All of this means that Europe is in a position, has long been a position to play an independent role in world affairs and a constructive role. It's been unwilling to do it for many reasons, but these are becoming very serious problems. Right now Ukraine is the most dramatic example.
Noam, do you think that the Brexit, that the fact that the UK left the European Union, has that actually given more space for flexibility and independence for the European Union to maybe on a later stage or in the future, to take things on their own and actually going away from the USA control?
My feeling is that Brexit, the departure of Britain from the European Union, will severely harm Britain, but it's also harming the European Union. That's taking out of the European Union a major economy, a major force for potential European unification. I think this will turn Britain into even more of a subordinate state to the United States than it has been already. We're already seeing the early signs of harm to Britain, it'll also weaken Europe, but it does, as you say, open the possibility for Europe to take a more independent stance without the role of Britain as a proxy of the United States, which it was. There are possibilities, but there very few signs of this developing in Europe, some but not much. Even on things like the sanctions on Iran, which Europe is strongly opposed, it's unwilling to take a step. Of course, the United States has weapons. The United States could throw Europe out of the international financial system which is run from the United States. It's threatening to do that with Russia right now, it's already done in with Iran and others.
One last thing about these very political aspects, not very just strategic aspects, do you think if Julian Assange would've been in an embassy within Europe outside of Britain, would he still have had the same outcome as he is now where he has to be extradited to do the United States?
Well, the treatment of Assange is a major scandal. Just imagine that some journalist in China was being treated like this, we'd be not only outraged, we probably might even break relations with them because it would be so hideous. The entire West is cooperating in this passively. United States is insisting on extradition, Britain has agreed to the US demands, it has also kept Assange in a high security prison under horrible conditions, it's destroying him. Even his years in the Ecuador Embassy were near torture. I visited him there, the Ecuador embassy it's an apartment, you're stuck inside an apartment. You can't go outside and look at the sky for years. Finally the right-wing Ecuador government kicked him out, the British put him in a high security prison. He is being destroyed as a human being all because he exposed secrets that people should know and that the US government didn't want them to know. That's what's happening. Suppose he had been in Europe, would Europe have been more courageous? Hard to know. We have some background in Europe. Evo Morales was travelling from Russia to Bolivia on a plane that had diplomatic community, they stopped for refueling in Germany, United States wanted him taken out, Germanys cooperated. Europe does not have a much of a record of integrity and courage in acting in international affairs. It has willingly subordinated itself to US power.
Does then Europe need a leader to have a voice within Europe itself to be able to bring together all those concerns and actually being able to voice them? As I mentioned before, United States of Europe would that give enough potential to Europe to actually break free from those chains that it has with the USA?
These are European decisions. It would be significant rupture in world affairs, I don't suggest it's easy. As I say, the United States has weapons, it does control the global financial system and military force, of course, it vastly overwhelms anyone else. The ties between Europe and the United States economic, cultural and others are very, very dense; investment, so much else it can't just break these. It would have to be a step that is taken with some kind of mutual accommodation, and that's not easy either in Europe or the United States. Within the United States, the conception that the United States must dominate the world is very strongly held. You find very little criticism of it shows up in one way or another.
Do you think then climate change could be the turning point in the way the USA has maintained its imperialism?
What is euphemistically called climate change, meaning destruction of the global environment is a threat so severe that if we don't deal with it in the next couple of decades, everything else is moot. We have a few decades to try to save organized human life on earth from severe deterioration, ultimate destruction, and ultimate is not far off. We will soon reach irreversible tipping points which doesn't mean everybody dies tomorrow, it just means things become-- we've got to a point where we're moving inexorably towards destruction of the prospects for organized human life on earth with very severe consequences, even in the short term future. Tens if not hundreds of millions of refugees, for example, as South Asia and Africa and parts of the Middle East become virtually uninhabitable. The disaster is indescribable. Even in the wealthy countries like the United States, the consequences are severe. Where I'm living, Southwest Tucson, there's a very unprecedented drought, we're losing our water resources. Well, the United States is a super-rich country, you can probably find ways to fend this off for a while, but with severe costs, and there are dangers that we don't know if they'll happen, but they could happen. Take, say Antarctica, there's a major huge glacier called the Thwaites Glacier, it's beginning to melt. If it continues to melt, sea level rises could be quite significant. They could be in meters over the next century. That's impossible to imagine what effect that would have on the world. It's just indescribable.
For example, I live in the Netherlands, which is below sea level. That would be one of the first places on earth together with Bangladesh and, of course, the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which would be then completely washed out.
Bangladesh is a low coastal plain, hundreds of millions of people. India, in many areas, is becoming almost too hot to survive. Rajasthan reached 50 degrees Celsius over the last summer. Well, rich country like the United States can survive that, poor countries like India can't. We're facing indescribable disasters. Now, will anything be done? Sorry, prospects are not very auspicious. There was just the COP26 meetings in Glasgow late October where the latest international effort to try to address the crisis was pretty pathetic. The major decision was to meet next year to see if we can do something while the earth burns. There are countries that are taking reasonable steps, others that are not. The general global reaction is nowhere near what has to be done to meet this crisis to overcome it. The good side is that we know how to do it. There are quite feasible proposals easily within range that could mitigate or overcome the crisis but it is not being implemented, and next November may be a final disaster. Next November, the Republican Party in the United States is likely to regain power to take Congress. This is a political organization that is committed, dedicated to destroying organized human life as quickly as possible. They are a denialist party, either denying that global warming is taking place or saying we shouldn't do anything about it. During the four years of Trump, the United States not only pulled out of the international negotiations, but used every means possible to maximize the use of fossil fuels, including the most dangerous of them, and to eliminate the regulatory apparatus that somewhat mitigated their effects. If they're back in power, in the richest most powerful state in world history, the prospects are very grim for the world, and it's very likely to happen. We're facing very serious problems worldwide. There are solutions to them. Ukraine, China, global warming, pandemic, there are solutions, but you have to take them. They're not going to work by themselves, and that requires the kinds of dedication among the population, kinds of education and understanding, the kinds of statesmanship, which unfortunately, are lacking, can be overcome, but there's not much time. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go off to another meeting.
Noam, thank you so so much. This has been a wonderful talk and also very inspiring.