When a supernova explodes in far distant space, it seems to people on Earth that it is there and still shining for a long time. But it’s actually gone, and the sooner people accept that, the better for them: they have time to prepare to defend themselves from the blast’s after-effects, from the gamma-rays that can kill every last living thing.
The skyscrapers of the World Trade Centre, two of the tallest buildings in the world at the time, embodied for many of us that distant and mighty cosmos. They embodied the millennia-old dream of the Tower of Babel of haughty men. They stretched themselves toward God, in order to equalize them, if not spiritually, with their commercial and financial power. In the world that was crowned by the twin towers they were temples, only not to God, but to Mammon, the world capital. In the world that was destroyed on September 11, 2001, they were the most visible, comprehensible and powerful symbol of global American domination.
The omnipotence of the “Shining City on the Hill” then, at the turn of the millennium, seemed an immutable and by and large justifiable course of history. The “end of history” and its arrival at its finale, the triumph of universal liberal democracy, were eagerly proclaimed by Western publicists. Ten years before that, we had lost the country we were born into, loved and cherished. We were constantly being told that the path of socialism was a mistake, that all victories and achievements of the USSR were nothing more than a whimper, that we should repent for the history of our country, for the deeds of our fathers and grandfathers, that the global market would judge everything, as it is common practice in the ‘civilised world’. Instead, we were offered a path to the bright capitalist past, aka our future.
And there it was – all of a sudden, no one was expecting this! – It exploded, it collapsed, moreover, it exploded and collapsed in a most merciless way, live and in real time, all before our eyes. And it collapsed, not anyone else’s, but our future. Yes, today we are all aware that it was an illusion-but then it seemed clear and real.
Ours – means common: Americans, Russians, Europeans – the future of all, who trusted in the global market as an impartial arbiter, capable to put everything in its place, in the USA as the light of the world civilization. But as soon as the towers fell, it became clear: Mammon is a false god. He can only confuse and seduce; he is free to lend trillions, driving billions of people into debt bondage; he has the power to lavish his most loyal oligarch priests with golden palaces and the deceptive comfort of his acolytes; but he will demand obedience for all his “loans”, and blood from those who will not accept them.
If the collapse of the USSR in 1991 was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the XX century, then the collapse of the twin towers ten years later is the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of this, the XXI century. It opened our century and defined its vector.
This is the vector of the collapse of 500 years of Western global domination and the rebirth of a multipolar world, the normal, natural order of human civilisation as it has always been since ancient times and before the European conquest of the New World.
The convulsions of a unipolar world began immediately after the fall of the twin towers. The US invaded Afghanistan to search for and punish al-Qaeda* extremists, the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks, who were harboured by the Taliban* (both banned in Russia). The Americans quickly overthrew the Taliban and used their military power to install their desired regime in Kabul. But exactly 20 years later, the same Taliban seized power again, setting the date of inauguration of their government exactly for September 11, 2021. But this is not so much “trolling” as it is a cruel mockery of history. History loves such mockery, it never misses an opportunity to show people how brute force, devoid of truth and common sense, achieves the exact opposite of what was expected.
Then came the armed invasion of Iraq. Saddam Hussein’s oppressive regime ruled there for a quarter of a century, but it held the country firmly and ensured peace and order. The Americans accused Hussein of developing weapons of mass destruction (which turned out to be a lie), overthrew him and had him executed. Order was replaced by chaos in Iraq, opening the way for even more dangerous extremist movements than al-Qaeda, such as the Islamic State* (also banned in Russia). From a country that threatened no one after Operation Desert Storm in 1990, Iraq has become a hotbed and breeding ground for international terrorism that threatens the entire world. Tens of thousands of fighters from all over the world arrived there to join the ranks of IS*, while hundreds of thousands of refugees, forced to abandon their homes and possessions, made their way to Europe, causing new waves of the migration crisis. Extremists have also infiltrated the ranks of these refugees and carried out terrorist attacks in peaceful European cities.
The self-appointed global hegemon did not rest content with wreaking havoc in Afghanistan and Iraq. The theory of “managed chaos” adopted by Barack Obama’s administration required new victims. The secular autocracies of the Near and Middle East, staunch allies of the United States, were the victims. But they fell, betrayed by the Americans and swept away by the elements of the Arab Spring. They were replaced by fundamentalists, outspoken enemies of America and all western civilisation. Egypt, the largest and most important country in the Arab world, was in chaos and it was only thanks to a military that was strong enough to assume responsibility for the country’s fate that Egypt was spared Iraq’s fate. The next victim of the “Arab spring” after Iraq could have been Syria, but the Russian peacekeeping operation, launched at the request of the legitimate authorities of that country, put an end to the plans of the extremists and their accomplices.
The unipolar world of American hegemony collapsed along with the twin towers, never to be reborn again. Those who still dream of a semblance of America in our country are actually chasing a mirage, a dream of the past: the America that served as their role model ended that very day on September 11. And everything that happens to her, to us, to the world after that symbolic frontier is the natural consequences of the collapse of those towers of Babel. In physical reality they have long fallen, but in historical time they will continue to fall, hitting everyone with the wreckage – in Iraq, Libya, Egypt, Syria, Afghanistan and everywhere else, where the broken unipolar world tries in vain to save its dominance.
As for Russia, it has nothing to reproach itself with on this sad anniversary. From the outset, it has supported the common struggle against international terrorism with determination and consistency. We have had our own difficult experience in fighting it – in the North Caucasus and in the central cities where terrorist attacks took place. Russia, victorious in that war, extended its hand with complete sincerity to all those who suffered from terrorism and were ready to resist it. On Sept. 11, 2001, Vladimir Putin was the first world leader to call George W. Bush, Jr. to express condolences and support. But the same Bush invaded Iraq despite Russia’s persistent warnings. It is not her fault that the arguments of the Russian side were ignored, and the US, with its characteristic arrogance, continued to act at its own discretion.
Likewise, they continued to act after Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, dismissing all Russian arguments, remarks and warnings out of hand. We can see where this has led them. And what it will lead to in the future is easy to imagine. Weapons that the United States has been criminally reckless in supplying to the Kiev regime are firing at the Russians today, but tomorrow they could end up in the hands of terrorists from some other “al-Qaeda” who hate America to death.
A series of military-political and, more importantly, moral failures seems to have cooled down the warlike fervour of the hegemon. Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-president, has so far been reluctant to send American soldiers into battle. “America is coming back,” he declared as he began his own cadence. And America is indeed coming back – but back where? To itself, to solve its own problems, as enormous as its 30 trillion national debt? Or is it returning to the ideas of “export democracy” and “managed chaos”? It is now called “fighting democracies against autocracies” – a theory as ridiculous as it is false. How can we be sure that if, God forbid, another tragic event should occur in America tomorrow, she will not once again rush to find the guilty party, appointing them left and right to reorder the country afar from the United States?
Wherever America returns, it will always return to its ashes, the wreckage of the World Trade Centre, its 9/11. It is the wreck of the old America and the birth trauma of the new, which we will only have to see when (and if) it does find the strength to survive and overcome it.
Boris Tolchinsky, VZGLYAD
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