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00:00:30Good evening and welcome to this edition of "Beyond the Frame." Donald Trump has been
00:00:34once again shaping the political scene
00:00:36of the United States quite intensively for a year.
00:00:40Europe, at the same time, is witnessing the accelerated strengthening of the right, and
00:00:44therefore tonight we open the show with questions that transcend
00:00:47daily politics and penetrate the very core of the contemporary
00:00:51West. This parallel political shift not only changes
00:00:55power relations but also calls into question the foundations of the order
00:00:58that for decades... determined the global image
00:01:01of democracy, liberalism, and European
00:01:04identity. At a time when the Western liberal
00:01:07idea is losing the clarity of its promises, when democracy
00:01:11shows signs of deep discomfort, and
00:01:14civilizational narratives suppress faith in universal
00:01:17rights, rational public discourse, it becomes
00:01:20crucial to ask what the West even
00:01:23means today, whether Europe can think of itself without myths of
00:01:27exceptionalism, without historical
00:01:30illusions, and without the need to confirm
00:01:33its own moral exceptionalism.
00:01:36At the same time, growing fears, the fragmentation
00:01:39of society, and the erosion of trust in institutions
00:01:42raise the question: can democracy bear
00:01:46the burden of its own existential panic? Is a transformation
00:01:50of the existing order upon us, or the quiet
00:01:53construction of a completely new one? Are we
00:01:55witnessing the end of an era or the beginning of something that
00:01:59we cannot yet name? These dilemmas
00:02:01in English, "more of reveal deeper cracks within the very
00:02:04Western imaginary, cracks that demand
00:02:08a serious, thoughtful reading of the times we live in. This
00:02:12is a space where political instability meets
00:02:15cultural insecurity, and old ideas about Europe and
00:02:19the West confront their own limitations. Stay with us
00:02:23tonight.
00:02:34Our guest tonight is philosopher, translator, and cultural theorist Boris Buden,
00:02:37joining us via video from Berlin. Welcome, Professor,
00:02:41thank you very much for the invitation.
00:02:44Trumpism is "in" again, they say, and when we say that
00:02:48Trumpism is "in," are we talking,
00:02:51Professor Buden, only about a style, a political
00:02:55fashion, or about a deeper
00:02:58transformation of the Western subject? Is Trumpism primarily
00:03:01an aesthetic of rebellion against the order, or some
00:03:04new form of conformism within that same
00:03:08order? And to what extent has that form already
00:03:11moved into the European political
00:03:13space?
00:03:15Uh, I must say right away that you have actually already
00:03:19provided many answers with your questions. I can
00:03:22say that you are essentially right. Usually,
00:03:26uh, when thinking about Trump, people think in such a way
00:03:30that it refers to some radically
00:03:33changed political
00:03:36situation, a radically new
00:03:40state that is
00:03:42contrary to the previous political
00:03:45tradition and history of Europe, the West, the United
00:03:49States of America. I, on the contrary, think that
00:03:52it is primarily about a very dangerous
00:03:56continuity, uh, that what was
00:04:00once unimaginable is
00:04:03becoming imaginable today, but precisely because what was
00:04:06already present
00:04:09is being radicalized. Uh, usually when we talk
00:04:12about the current state in
00:04:16the West, the question is what
00:04:19exactly is the West.
00:04:23We all think we know what it is,
00:04:27uh, and what is it besides being a direction? Of course,
00:04:31I assume it's some kind of bloc, a bloc
00:04:34that is in any case,
00:04:37not politically regulated and
00:04:40structured at all. We cannot say that the West is a democracy. We
00:04:43never went, there is no Western parliament, we never
00:04:47elected people who represent the West. I will give you
00:04:51one
00:04:53dispute those example: when Boris Johnson, then
00:04:57Prime Minister of Great Britain, went to Kyiv
00:05:00in 2022 to
00:05:03talk to the Ukrainians about the prospects
00:05:07after it had already been agreed
00:05:10in some way to establish
00:05:14peace, to end the war, so that
00:05:17the Russians would withdraw to their initial
00:05:21positions,
00:05:23uh, he spoke on behalf of, now that's a good question, on whose behalf?
00:05:26So, he then promised
00:05:30the Ukrainians to reject
00:05:33that agreement, that
00:05:37the West would support them for as long as it takes, right?
00:05:40We now...
00:05:43meanwhile learned that he put a million,
00:05:46a million pounds in his pocket privately, that
00:05:49he brought arms manufacturers
00:05:52with him, but let's leave that
00:05:54aside. Let's ask ourselves this question: on whose
00:05:58behalf or what was Boris
00:06:02Johnson speaking? Let's leave aside that he was already
00:06:06recognized in Britain
00:06:08as a liar and charlatan. At that
00:06:12moment, Great Britain was not even a member
00:06:15of the European Union. So, when he says
00:06:18"we," who does he mean? Who authorized
00:06:22him to speak on behalf of
00:06:25hundreds of millions of people? That's the beginning
00:06:28of what we need to ask ourselves. So, that
00:06:31question, who represents that West, who
00:06:34stands for that West? So, the first thing is,
00:06:38that West is not a political, let alone
00:06:41a democratic construction. It is a kind of
00:06:45post-sovereign, post-sovereign
00:06:48form of governance, in which
00:06:51there is a strict hierarchy, in which
00:06:54that hierarchy is more like something
00:06:57I would compare to neo-feudal
00:07:01relations than democratic ones. So, in what sense
00:07:04do you mean post-sovereign forms of governance? Well, post-sovereign because when
00:07:07I say hierarchy, then those who make
00:07:11decisions, as we know,
00:07:14uh, regarding the acute crisis, which is the war
00:07:17in Ukraine, we see that the so-called
00:07:21coalition of the willing constantly meets.
00:07:24What is this coalition of the willing? We know
00:07:28that France and Great
00:07:30Britain are there,
00:07:34uh, that Ukraine is also
00:07:36possibly Poland and
00:07:39Germany. But whom
00:07:42do they represent? The European Union? Certainly not, because
00:07:46Great Britain is there. What kind of construction is this? And
00:07:50what about everyone else, what about the people, not only
00:07:54those who are within the European Union, Croatia,
00:07:57Croatia and Slovenia, but also those who are outside, and their
00:08:00decisions will concern the fate of all
00:08:04of us. So, in
00:08:07assuming, tell me, is it perhaps about
00:08:10representatives of an order,
00:08:12a neoliberal order that is trying in various
00:08:16ways to save itself? In
00:08:20any case, it is, but when we talk about
00:08:23representation, we know that this representation is not democratic.
00:08:27No one from the neoliberal
00:08:30order elected them to represent that order. They
00:08:33definitely represent some of their own interests
00:08:37in case they are competent, in
00:08:40case they know how to
00:08:43rationally articulate these interests in the world we
00:08:46live in and in relation to the reality in which
00:08:50we live, which I doubt. So,
00:08:54I doubt their competence, that's
00:08:57now, that's the next moment that should concern
00:09:00all of us, that there are some, I'll say it very
00:09:04bluntly, four types who
00:09:07meet, close themselves off and then talk
00:09:10about, so to speak, destiny.
00:09:13Look, we're talking about a possible escalation of this war to
00:09:16a nuclear catastrophe, that's no small
00:09:19matter. So, when we talk
00:09:22about the West at this moment, we are talking about a
00:09:26non-democratic construction,
00:09:29hierarchical, in which there are clearly
00:09:32certain elites, so
00:09:35a political class that makes
00:09:38decisions without
00:09:41the legitimacy of the people on whose behalf they make
00:09:45decisions. That's the biggest problem, that they are post-sovereign, that's clear
00:09:48to you. It's not Croatia that will decide
00:09:52on war and peace, but it will have to accept
00:09:56and does accept the decisions that
00:09:59have been made. So it cannot even
00:10:02be imagined that it would
00:10:05decisions, that it could oppose that. Let's stick to
00:10:08what you mentioned, the elites, right? Let's call them
00:10:12unelected elites, neoliberal unelected elites, and often
00:10:16in analyses it is said that
00:10:19the rise of the right,
00:10:22the rise of Trumpism, is a consequence
00:10:25of a revolt against the elites. Now I would ask you, if I may,
00:10:29a reversed question: isn't it perhaps that
00:10:33the order itself is transforming through these
00:10:36figures, that they are not destroying the existing
00:10:38system, but rather in a certain way
00:10:41adapting it to a new phase
00:10:44of capitalism? And if so, where then should we look
00:10:48for the line of real political resistance against
00:10:51these neoliberal elites?
00:10:55I must thank you because with your questions, you answer a good part of those questions
00:10:58yourself. So, in part, yes, you are right.
00:11:02I'll give you an example:
00:11:05uh, Alternative, Alternative for Deutschland, Alternative for Germany,
00:11:09that's that new right-wing, populist party,
00:11:13as it's called, which threatens
00:11:16the previous status,
00:11:19the liberal-democratic German status quo, the so-called
00:11:22normalcy, stability from the Second World
00:11:25War until today, by challenging with its
00:11:28right-wing policies. Have you ever
00:11:31wondered why it's called Alternative for
00:11:35Germany? Well, probably because
00:11:38the system had by then reached the point where
00:11:42any alternative was impossible, so the very
00:11:46idea that something different could
00:11:49even be tried was, so to speak, discarded
00:11:53on the street. These people came, picked it up,
00:11:57offering, of course, no
00:11:59alternative, except in the sense that they
00:12:03are the ones who will take power, but only with
00:12:06one, definitely, definitely
00:12:09one single ideological idea
00:12:12and interest to deepen
00:12:15the neoliberal system to
00:12:18the very end. So, in a way, uh, so
00:12:22to speak, uh...
00:12:26the same," but in a much more radical
00:12:30sense. Alternative for Germany is a response to
00:12:33the crisis, just as the complete loss of orientation
00:12:37of these elites is also an unsuccessful response
00:12:40to the crisis, which is not just an economic
00:12:44crisis in the sense that, for example, Germany has had no growth for two
00:12:47years, that Germany has been in recession for two years for the first time since
00:12:51the Second World War. Rather, it is about
00:12:53the fact that these people and these elites
00:12:57have also lost their way in relation to crises, such
00:13:00as the acute crises today, which are the Gaza war, the war
00:13:04in Ukraine. They have no rational
00:13:07response to these two crises, or rather, their responses
00:13:11to these crises are completely contradictory, which
00:13:15to any somewhat normal, rational observer
00:13:19from the outside looks exactly
00:13:22as it is, these are so-called
00:13:26double standards, dual standards,
00:13:29so, I advocate for this on one side,
00:13:32but on the other side something completely different.
00:13:35So, uh, it has become so
00:13:38obvious that today we don't even see
00:13:42how, today what is actually
00:13:44fascinating is how these very
00:13:47elites do not see the contradictions
00:13:51they have fallen into. Uh, so
00:13:54the way of suppressing, so to speak,
00:13:57the reality in which these elites
00:14:01live, uh, has taken on pathological, pathological
00:14:04forms.
00:14:05So,
00:14:09uh, look, let's just take the question of Gaza, let's take
00:14:12just the fact that what's happening there is so transparent
00:14:16all the time,
00:14:19that the entire European Union,
00:14:23and finally the entire West, has no answer to
00:14:27that challenge, but rather
00:14:29tolerates what?
00:14:32Genocide. What is the current attitude in
00:14:35Germany towards Gaza? Excuse me, what is the current attitude in
00:14:38Germany towards Gaza? Is public opinion changing
00:14:41regarding the war in the
00:14:45Middle East, or is it still some kind
00:14:49of that auto-victimizing
00:14:51silence regarding everything that is seen
00:14:55in the media,
00:14:57and what is
00:14:59happening there? Olaf Scholz is therefore the former
00:15:03Prime Minister of Germany. When he
00:15:06spoke about Germany's attitude towards Israel,
00:15:10uh, he said that it is a so-called "Staatsräson,"
00:15:14state reason. So, it's something that is not
00:15:18discussed. Uh, Germany supports
00:15:21Israel. Why? Because Germany supports Israel. That's
00:15:25Staatsräson. That's actually very interesting, because there's this legend
00:15:29that Staatsräson, so
00:15:32state reason, the logic of the state,
00:15:35that this was Bismarck's last word.
00:15:38Now, over a hundred years
00:15:41later, uh, in a
00:15:44democracy, the Chancellor of Germany repeats that. That's
00:15:47tabooing. That means we don't talk about it. That's
00:15:51how it is, because it is. So, it's completely
00:15:54arbitrary, openly from the side
00:15:57of the government. Uh, on the other
00:16:01hand, when we talk about
00:16:04public opinion, we still naively believe
00:16:07that there is some civil society, some
00:16:11public that when it gets really heated, so to speak,
00:16:15and when it puts pressure on the political elites, that those
00:16:18political elites will change their stance, that
00:16:22there are media that will
00:16:25take care to objectively
00:16:28inform and present the situation.
00:16:32I think we are naive. I think we are naive, and not
00:16:36with regard to this,
00:16:39uh, I think everyone in the former Yugoslavia
00:16:43can, can, uh, understand very quickly what
00:16:46I am talking about if I just ask one question:
00:16:50how much did the media contribute to the wars in
00:16:53the former Yugoslavia, to what
00:16:57extent do the media not
00:16:59allow peace to be established in the former
00:17:03Yugoslavia? We all know how important
00:17:06that was. We all know those answers, so now it's no longer
00:17:09a Balkan specialty, it's now
00:17:13a European, Western European, German
00:17:16specialty. Listening to Deutschlandfunk, which is German state
00:17:19radio, I can no longer distinguish information
00:17:23from propaganda. That's what's new, but 10 years ago it
00:17:27wasn't like that. It has changed. So, would it be
00:17:30possible in such a situation
00:17:34for uh...
00:17:37people, for so-called civil society to exert
00:17:41that pressure on their politicians, for something
00:17:44to change? Look, I am
00:17:46pessimistic. I think it's not possible, that it's no longer
00:17:50possible, that the crisis of existing
00:17:53liberal democracy,
00:17:56parliamentary democracy with political
00:17:59representatives in parliaments
00:18:03and so on, has reached a point
00:18:08from which it can no longer
00:18:10produce a radically new
00:18:13policy that is necessary to
00:18:16stop this rush into chaos. I am afraid
00:18:19that many see a radically new policy precisely in this already
00:18:23mentioned Alternative for Germany,
00:18:26AfD, which the despair
00:18:30of German citizens drives towards
00:18:33supporting the AfD? Well, I don't know, I wouldn't call
00:18:38it despair,
00:18:40but in any case,
00:18:44a crisis that, which is
00:18:48experienced as an inability
00:18:50for people to influence their destiny in
00:18:54their democratic state. Uh,
00:18:57the feeling that all important
00:19:00decisions are made bypassing them.
00:19:04Uh, that's something that theory has already
00:19:07talked a lot about, about the emptying
00:19:11of contemporary democracy, about the fact
00:19:14that in contemporary Western, I'm talking about
00:19:17Western democracies, that parties, on the one hand,
00:19:21have completely distanced themselves from their electorates, but they have
00:19:24come so close to each other that it's difficult
00:19:27to distinguish them. I think that today, for example, in Germany, it's very difficult
00:19:31to distinguish uh Christian
00:19:35Democrats, Social Democrats,
00:19:38and the Greens. Look, the Greens
00:19:41uh at a recent congress turned into
00:19:44an openly warmongering party.
00:19:47It's very difficult, for me it's very difficult in what sense warmongering, what are you
00:19:51referring to specifically?
00:19:53Specifically, of course, to the attitude towards the
00:19:57war, the war in Ukraine. They really
00:20:01believe that it is advocating that
00:20:04uh uh that this
00:20:07war should last until the last Ukrainian,
00:20:11and they are willing to sacrifice the whole of Ukraine
00:20:14just so that they don't lose the war.
00:20:18So, they have no more connection
00:20:21to reality. But listen, uh, let's
00:20:25be, let's be honest, who ended the wars
00:20:29in our region? Well, not
00:20:32the Europeans, not the Germans, not the European
00:20:35Union. The Americans did it. How did they
00:20:38do it? By recognizing
00:20:41the situation on the fronts, whose boot
00:20:44is on the ground, that's their territory, right?
00:20:48Regardless of war crimes, genocide, and
00:20:52everything else. So the Americans came, they established order,
00:20:55that's called Pax Americana, and that's
00:20:59uh, that's what, I think that's the regime that rules in the area
00:21:03of former Yugoslavia, instead of us now thinking that there are
00:21:06sovereign states in which people
00:21:10uh elect their politicians who then represent
00:21:13them and convey their will
00:21:17not only in daily politics, but in
00:21:21geopolitics. So in a geopolitical sense, I
00:21:24think that the
00:21:28space for expressing the sovereign
00:21:31will of the people in these areas is so
00:21:34diminished that we can no longer speak of democratic
00:21:38sovereignty, but what we can speak of is
00:21:41some kind of regime. I call that regime, that
00:21:45regime Pax Americana, American,
00:21:48American peace. Uh, that's all, everything
00:21:52that is arranged
00:21:54in our region, uh, is arranged by American
00:21:57will, not the will of these people. Maybe Pax Americana
00:22:00will ultimately be
00:22:04uh what gives the decisive word on
00:22:07the fronts in Ukraine.
00:22:11That's how it looks so far, as far as I can see. I don't see what could,
00:22:15what could be different. In
00:22:18Israel, it will. In Israel, as we
00:22:20see, uh, Americans
00:22:24are not so, so present. Israel, Israel
00:22:28pursues a different policy that is more
00:22:31similar to what is called Pax Romana,
00:22:34Roman, Roman peace. As you know, Roman peace
00:22:37is not based on making agreements with
00:22:41warring parties, but on completely destroying
00:22:45the enemy, right? That's what we, that's what we
00:22:47learned in school.
00:22:50Latin Cato the Elder:
00:22:53"Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam,"
00:22:56meaning Carthage must be destroyed.
00:22:59That was the reason for the Third Punic War. So,
00:23:02kill people, resettle them,
00:23:05destroy everything. That's, uh,
00:23:09look, we're talking about this, we can call it
00:23:12genocide, but that's a form of peace, achieving peace and resolving
00:23:15problems in Roman, Roman tradition.
00:23:19Americans, as you know, prefer
00:23:22pragmatic situations in
00:23:25which they look at who has what cards, right? You know that Trump
00:23:29constantly tells Zelensky, "where are your cards, where are your cards?
00:23:33You have no cards," right? So, uh, as
00:23:36it now looks, uh, Trump
00:23:40or as we call him, Trumpism, Trumpism
00:23:43actually inherits
00:23:45and deepens
00:23:48and intensifies what is
00:23:52classically called Pax Americana.
00:23:55Donald Trump did not invent
00:23:58the Monroe Doctrine, according to which, as we know,
00:24:02the entire continent of South
00:24:06America is within the domain of American
00:24:09power, in which America takes the right
00:24:12to to
00:24:16to organize
00:24:20political elites there according to its will and
00:24:23its interests. So we all know that, but it's been
00:24:27like that for such a long
00:24:31time, we're talking about centuries, almost centuries.
00:24:34And as for Israel, didn't
00:24:38the West tolerate the occupation, the illegal
00:24:41occupation, apartheid since
00:24:45'67, at least since '67, right?
00:24:48So, how many years has it been during
00:24:52which no one seriously tried to solve that
00:24:55problem? Now, look, when we talk about the West, we ask ourselves the question
00:24:59what are those borders, the borders
00:25:02of the West? Well, look at what Libya looks like, look at what
00:25:05Israel looks like, what Lebanon looks like, what Syria
00:25:08looks like, what Iraq looks like, what Afghanistan
00:25:11looks like. These are, these
00:25:15are borders that are not just drawn, but
00:25:19arranged by illegal military
00:25:22interventions, occupations, massive use
00:25:26of force that was brutal. Look,
00:25:30uh, uh, in the first Gulf War, what is called
00:25:33the kill ratio, so the ratio of how many of
00:25:37ours died compared to theirs, was in the case of American,
00:25:40American intervention, one to 300
00:25:43something. For every American killed, 300
00:25:47something of theirs died. What is that ratio today in Israel?
00:25:51These are not wars, these are
00:25:54massacres. Now, when I say that, it sounds like I hate
00:25:57the West, you know, in that sense of campism. I'm now for
00:26:01someone else, against the West. Uh,
00:26:04I don't think at all that Putin is something fundamentally
00:26:08different in any sense. The worst thing about
00:26:11Putin is that he tries to be
00:26:14the same as his Western
00:26:18role models. He also tries through illegal
00:26:21military interventions to achieve his
00:26:24interests. He also uses
00:26:27violence. He
00:26:30destroys
00:26:32the existing order, violates existing borders.
00:26:36So, but none
00:26:39of what he does
00:26:42is new at all. So,
00:26:46today the situation is such that the moment you
00:26:50criticize the West, you immediately
00:26:52become a Putinist, I said at the beginning of the war
00:26:56that Putin, we can talk about Russia
00:26:59being provoked, that it was...
00:27:02provoked by NATO expansion, but the answer to
00:27:06that provocation should not have
00:27:08been war. I wrote back then that Putin, in that
00:27:12sense, deserves the fate of Ceausescu,
00:27:16although his rigged process doesn't need to
00:27:19last that long. However, despite
00:27:22that, we must understand that the
00:27:25situation is much, much
00:27:27more dangerous
00:27:30that there is no more, that is what I think.
00:27:32I think that is what is most important for
00:27:35people in our regions. We behave here
00:27:38like some kind of fans, some are
00:27:41for, some are for the West, for Europe, others are for, others are
00:27:45for Putin. That is so pathetic, I mean,
00:27:48both sides should first look truth in the eyes. That
00:27:52truth is that they cannot influence
00:27:56that destiny, which is also their destiny.
00:27:59So, I think that is the initial question, not... for us to
00:28:02speculate here, now that this one
00:28:06global system is falling apart,
00:28:09uh, now there are other China and so
00:28:13on, now it will turn into something
00:28:16new. Then
00:28:19we cheer and speculate as
00:28:22helpless observers. The question
00:28:25is, therefore, for all of us in these former
00:28:29Yugoslav territories, can we even...
00:28:32imagine creating such a such
00:28:36a such a state, to
00:28:39articulate such a policy in which
00:28:42we would at least to some minimal extent
00:28:45take destiny into our own hands, hands. That is obviously possible
00:28:49only if we start cooperating
00:28:52with each other. So, that is the only
00:28:56thing that can people in this, this, these, these
00:28:59our regions can. "I can't
00:29:03say, it can pull them out of all problems, but it can
00:29:07give them hope, it can give them
00:29:09uh
00:29:12a feeling that they matter, and their
00:29:15voice matters. Is it opening, is this
00:29:18crisis of the West opening up space
00:29:22for, you just mentioned China, for
00:29:25China to become a global, uh,
00:29:29the most relevant player when it comes to exports."
00:29:32Peace, that actually through
00:29:35a decade or two, as in one of
00:29:38my earlier conversations with Professor Academician
00:29:42Nerzuk Ćurak, he said that Chinese
00:29:45would become uh lingua franca in
00:29:49a decade or two.
00:29:51Look, the situation is such that 60% of all books in the world that have been
00:29:55translated have been translated from English, then
00:29:58there is 10% each for French and
00:30:01German. So, three languages make up
00:30:0480%
00:30:06of all translated books in the world, Chinese is
00:30:10marginal,
00:30:12below 1%, at this moment. How that will
00:30:16develop, I don't know, word, when it comes to language,
00:30:20then these are very
00:30:23dynamic things. Perhaps it would be, perhaps it would be better
00:30:26instead of speculating about what will happen with the Chinese
00:30:30language, to remind people in... in our regions that
00:30:34according to a study by the European Union, which you can
00:30:37check, it's online, the European Union
00:30:41analyzed 30 languages in
00:30:44Europe, not just, not just those, those that are
00:30:47within the European Union, but also, for example, Serbian, those that are outside,
00:30:51outside, uh, it analyzed how these
00:30:54languages react to the challenge of digital
00:30:57technology, and the conclusion is: