Karine Gevorgyan, a well-known Russian political scientist and orientalist, gave a great interview to GEOFOR. We publish its third part.
- African continent. 10 years ago Russia was reducing its presence in Africa. Regimes loyal to Russia were falling (the most dramatic example was Muammar Gaddafi in Libya), the legacy of the USSR, which had attached great importance to ties with the Black Continent… was crumbling.
- It was the era of so-called integration, and Russian diplomats did not want to work there. It is not easy to work in Africa and Asia. This is due to the climate, the specifics of these countries, the national cultures. Diplomats want to go to Paris, Vienna, London, Brussels, Washington. One can partly understand them. African studies is the weakest part of Oriental studies. We have only one, two or four Africanists; although our Orientalism was the best in the world, and African studies was very good. Compared to Arabistics, Chinese studies, Iranistics and Turkology, African studies was weaker, but the level was objectively high.
It is the same with the post-Soviet space. Why has all diplomatic work failed? It is all a sheer deception of the leadership that we are cooperating with the elites in the entire post-Soviet space and everything is fine.
Here’s Ukraine, please. Not the worst country, by the way, and we didn’t work there: our diplomats went to anti-Russian events and frolicked at cocktail parties. Everyone saw them. It was clear to everyone that this post-Soviet space was deeply neglected.
It’s the same with Africa. They simply did not want to go there, and why should they? To go to some Libya? It’s not like Vienna, where there’s a famous Opera House. I understand that. It’s life. I wouldn’t mind going to a premiere at the Vienna Opera House myself. One doesn’t cancel the other. I’d be interested in working in Lebanon. The other thing is, no one would send me there. We have wonderful guys who graduated from Maurice Thorez University and studied Armenian, by the way. They are not ethnic Armenians at all. They know the culture, literature, language very well. They were given Armenian as a second language. These guys are really into it. I asked, where do you work? They work with Spanish, French, English. I asked: why these people are not involved in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, why a Japanologist is in charge of Armenia and a Sinologist, who has to go to Singapore, Hong Kong or Beijing, is in charge of the whole Caucasus. He studied Japanese, why should he go to Transcaucasia? But that’s what they decided, so it’s the supreme will. Yes, this is my criticism of our leadership. It’s the same with Africa: I’m afraid people who are not interested in it will be sent there.
- Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin says about cooperation with Africa that there was no such scale under the USSR.
- This is his assessment, and I’m talking about the executors, he can’t clone himself and work in every country.
- And the changing regimes in Africa — how should we treat it?
- It depends on where. I’ll say an unexpected thing. We have a rather tactless way of saying, for example, «If it wasn’t us, Bashar al-Assad would not have been in Damascus». And from 2011 to 2015, how did he survive on his own? He was supported by the Iranians, and a lot of their blood was spilled there. If it wasn’t them, he wouldn’t have held on. We only came in 2015. And the fact that we actually deny the role of the Iranians in this is a big mistake, because they also see that we are ready to attribute everything to ourselves, ignoring their merits — it is impolite and rude in international relations. They are taking note of that.
Has anyone wondered about Iran’s role in Africa? There are up to half a million people there from the Mahdi Corps — pro-Iranian, from different nations. When there was a coup in Niger, the next day Iran’s defense minister was in the Niger capital. Does Iran’s role in these events amount to zero at all? It is present there. And we should not attribute to ourselves and our PMCs more than they deserve. Yes, they are quite respected. But Iran is also active in Africa. And we have only appeals so far.
But at the same time, Africans sympathize with us. They come out with Russian flags. This is great. Iran realizes that it cannot cope alone. Turkey is also working there. There’s a Turkish base in Sudan, in Libya. Turkey is also working very seriously. It’s a real struggle.
- In your opinion, will the BRICS be able to weaken the hegemony of the dollar and contribute to the fact that the dollar is not so much a political stranglehold, but a means of payment, even if it is the main one in this toolkit?
- The world of finance is not in my purview. I only consider the political aspects. I am satisfied that BRICS is still a format and not a serious institution. And thank God! In this regard, some aspects of our foreign and domestic policy are still satisfactory. There is a book «Strategic Uncertainty». We have our own strategic uncertainty, and the BRICS have the same one. Such a turbulent transitional period, when the world has come to a realignment, and it is in full swing. Rigid structures are vulnerable, their joints and nodes are visible, and it is clear how to hit them. It is difficult to do so here. BRICS is a structure and, at the same time, not a structure. BRICS can turn into an alternative to the UN. The West is in a hurry, because in order to maintain its dominance it needs to conquer the whole world, to finally subdue and colonize it.