The Weekly Forum - 17 April 2025
18 april 2025 | Forum for Democracy Intl
For the last decade, the West has claimed to uphold the ‘rules-based international order’. In reality, of course, it makes up the rules as it goes along and then applies them as it likes. Take, for instance, the plan to confiscate hundreds of billions of euros belonging to Russia. Quite apart from the danger to the European banking system which such an assault on property rights would represent, what rules are being applied here? Apparently the West has suffered damages as a result of the Ukraine war and so the seizure would be a sort of compensation. But, as Pepijn van Houwelingen pointed out recently, the same thing could be said about the 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq which caused huge flows of refugees into Europe (not to mention horrendous deaths in Iraq). By the logic of rules, US or UK assets should be seized. But the mere suggestion of this is so obviously ridiculous that the notion that the West abides by any ‘rules’ is, in turn, simply absurd.
While we are on the subject of double standards, what about Extinction Rebellion which threatened to throw butyric acid into shops across the Netherlands? Such an action would constitute a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population, with the goal of causing disruption and fear. Inhaling the acid can cause irritation to the nose, throat and lungs. Towns targeted by this threat have left it up to the shopkeepers themselves to take the necessary precautions, offloading the fear factor onto the working population. At a time when the security services are contemplating banning right-wing political parties for allegedly causing a lack of confidence in the democratic system, does XR not qualify as an immediate threat to the state of law? And what, if anything, are the forces of law and order going to do about it?
When faced with the dire state of the world today, the question is often put, ‘What can we do about it?’ Thierry Baudet addressed it forcefully in a speech given to The Patriots network in Amsterdam on 15 March, when he said the political change comes not from politics but instead from meta-politics – clubs, media, parallel societies, commercial links and so on. Luckily history gives us some examples of meta-political activity which have been strikingly successful, as Professor Hei Sing Tso of Hong Kong has kindly laid out for us in an exclusive article for us.
Read the professor’s article here
Does Britain control America? Churchill boasted that Britain would be the brain to America’s brawn but it seemed like a vain boast at the time. On The Forum this week, we hosted Kit Klarenberg, Alex Krainer and George Szamuely who think there might be something to it after all.