Marek Sierant: The expression «collective West» is a Sovietism

Marek Sierant

Because the West makes decisions through debates, opinions, and sharing views

Recently, we often hear the expression «collective West». What kind of beast is this? Does it exist? Marek Sierant, correspondent of Polish Radio ZET, shared his opinion with the Newssky correspondent.

In your opinion, does there exist a collective West?

In my opinion, a collective West does not exist and has never existed. Even during the Cold War. The states were in a completely different situation than before the times of the Soviet Union.

Say, Sweden, is it part of Western culture and the West? Yes. But she was not in the NATO, although she should have been.

Germany, France, and even Ireland, which was not typically mentioned, how much ‘West’ are they?

And even the USA and Canada.

They differ in their customs, opinions, and conclusions about their role in the world. The same can be told about France, regarding its place in global processes, and the place of the USA in them.

We usually say that the West is united by certain values…

I would emphasize the Euro-Atlantic values of the West, but it cannot be called collective. It is not collective because we accept that it is some kind of West.

For Ukraine, of course, Poland is already part of the West, while for a Pole, the West is just some kind of cultural association. For us, the West has always been Germany or even the USA. That is, the perception of the West depends on who speaks about it. So, for a Pole, Poland is not the West.

Are Bulgaria and Romania the West for a Ukrainian? In my opinion, they aren’t. Greece is also a paradox. According to its history, according to traditions, it was one of the foundations, the keystone of Europe according to its culture, because a lot was taken from the Greeks. Eastern and Southern Europe took a lot from Byzantium, that is, from Greek culture. And what? Is Greece considered part of the collective West? No. Therefore, it is not possible to talk about the collective West here.

The spokeswoman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, Maria Zakharova, has been talking about the collective West for more than ten years. How do you feel about it?

I would talk about some Western states in a different context. We should talk about states in the context of the Euro-Atlantic trend. The concept of «collective West» is Sovietism, because the West makes decisions through debates, opinions, and sharing views. And it is not an easy process to find a compromise, and more often a consensus, which is even more difficult. This process shows that there is no collective West, no single body.

Europe can sometimes be one body when it comes to Europe, on the other hand, among the rest of the continents, it has always stood out for its individualism, Europeans are individualists, atoms, I would say. And this also applies to the culture of some countries. For instance, France, the standards of which contain certain words emphasizing these ideas.

Great Britain is a monarchy, but it is tied to democratic values and adheres to them more than the French Republic. The same can be said about the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Kingdom of Belgium, the Kingdom of Sweden, the Kingdom of Denmark, and the Kingdom of Norway. Poland is a republic, and Spain is a kingdom. Italy is a republic. That is, in a political sense, Europe is not a monolith.

Of course, there is the European Union and NATO, but they unite different states. And in these associations, decisions are not made so quickly. And about the Euro-Atlantic issue, we must also be careful, because we should not forget that in this system there is Turkey, which interprets democracy and democratic values somewhat differently than the countries of the West.

Therefore, in my opinion, there is no such entity as a collective West for several reasons — political, historical, cultural, as well as because, due to their experience and traditions, some states treat all processes differently. They work out a joint solution through compromises and consensus. And then, when this happens, we can say that the West works together. But is it a collective West?

We can only talk about certain elements of collectively — collective defense, collective economy, collective environmental measures, and collective currency, on the other hand, not even everyone in Europe uses the euro. That is, there are certain elements of a collective West, but there are no grounds to say that a collective West exists.

Maryna Kovalchuk, Newssky’s correspondent (Europe and Canada), head of the V5 Media project, and deputy editor-in-chief, contributed.

Українською