Category: Blog Entries

By: Adam Paquin

In the early days of February 1980 Germany would make a deal with the devil and sign a contract with Russia a deal that would prove to result in major repercussions down the road. This deal would look like a small negotiation for the supply of Russian oil into Germany. With Germany to supply the material such as pipelines and other industrial goods Russia would in turn supply Germany with crude oil for years to come. After warning signs from NATO Germany assured the rest of the world that they would remain far from reliant on Russia for oil and only receive no more than ten percent of their nations supply from the country. This ten percent would end up slowly rising over the coming years. This brings us to present day Germany where more than half of the countries supply of crude oil is imported from Russia which places them in a very dangerous place.

Not only simply because it is Russia which over the past several decades has been proven to be a very unstable country socially and economically. But through Germany’s reliance on Russian oil can prove to put them in a very unsettling position especially for the general public living in the country. This became even more of a problem beginning at the start of the year. With the current war in Ukraine, many other countries within NATO have been cutting off their supply of Russian oil and other resources that have been coming out of the country. But this may not be as easily settled with Germany and their situation, if they were to completely cut off their supply of oil this would create a lot of chaos and confusion in the country. Especially in the coming months leading up to this coming winter this would lead to many cold homes with rely on natural gas for survival. This puts Germany in a very unsettling place because as of right now they do not have the ability to just shut off their connection with Russia without disturbing many households throughout the country.

Germany over the past several years has become known for their anti-nuclear protocols and their use of natural gas since the Chernobyl catastrophe in 1986. As many other countries searched for other alternatives for clean renewable energy such as wind, solar or nuclear. This along with the chancellor of the free democrats in 2009 decided to begin what they called a phase out of nuclear power. This would begin the process of shutting down a large amount of the nuclear reactors in the country with remaining to be completely closed by 2022. Germany although doing other research into several forms of clean energy as well, appears to be reliant on a future of natural gas heating their homes and fueling their cars.

Which brings us back to why Germany is so dependent on oil from Russia, if they were to cut off their entire supply of oil from Russia as many other countries have done in the midst of the war on Ukraine. This would severely hurt the German economy and people more than it would have any actual effect on the Russian Economy. It would end up shutting down large corporations and factories which have a heavy dependence on natural gas and put several gigantic companies out of commission. Now in the recent months they have been working with United States and other NATO countries to secure energy partnerships. This has actually resulted in them lowering their dependence on Russian oil by as much as fifteen percent. Which shows that a massive amount of work has been in the works to aid in the worldwide ban on Russian products, but this is only a start. But many are hesitant in completely cutting off the supply chain with their neighboring country Russia as this has been a major part of their economy for the past fifty years.

So needless to say, with all the debates between positives of cutting off a massive country with is in the middle of self-provoked war on a smaller neighboring country. A country that has for the past year been creating catastrophe and chaos under the leadership of an insane dictator. While they may have been essentially keeping your country afloat for the last half century being the largest supply of power to your economy. It can certainly be a large decision and a very difficult one at that. But a decision that needs to be made and cannot simply be put on the back burner for this could potentially create a rather large problem down the road both politically and economically. Ones that may leave the citizens of the country into literal dark and cold times.

‘We were all wrong’: how Germany got hooked on Russian energy | Germany | The Guardian

How Germany Became so Dependent on Russian Natural Gas (businessinsider.com)

Germany’s Reliance on Russian Energy Forces a Nearly Impossible Choice (businessinsider.com)

Why is Germany so reliant on Russian gas? Investment Monitor

Germany is Dependent on Russian Gas, Oil and Coal: Here’s Why – The New York Times (nytimes.com)

By: Cyrus Hutnyk

As of September of 2022, the Nationalist Brothers of Italy party in Italy are looking bound to make the move into power as a prominently far-right group looking to lead the nation, a party with its history attached to infamous fascist Mussolini and his fascist rule nearing one hundred years ago. The leader of the Nationalist Brothers of Italy party Giorgia Meloni has a reputation as being against the European Union, migrants, and Italy’s ties to the west among other things, and she and her party are spreading these concerns and beliefs nationally. Despite winning with over a quarter of all votes for Meloni’s party this year, in the past the Nationalist Brothers of Italy has failed to amass anywhere near this much attention, indicative of Italian’s growing attention for far-right or otherwise nationalist ideology or movement. Furthermore it is known that individuals associated with Meloni are supporters or otherwise admirers of Putin which draws troubling parallels and creates anxiety over the future of the relationship between nations.

Benito Mussolini was a politician and journalist who eventually founded and was leader of the National Fascist Party, to then become Prime Minister of Italy up until his removal in 1943 during World War II. Initially Mussolini was a socialist and a member of the Italian Socialist Party, but was removed for his opinions and avocation for military and violent intervention during the events of World War I. This train of thought and ideology eventually led to his now well known fascist rule opposing egalitarianism and class conflict and supporting an extreme nationalism. While the movement that he led was based in radicalism and conservatism, what shone through was taking violent action. Arguments and debate surrounding opposition to fascism began to become silent through constant imprisonment, exile, and removal of people via deadly force. Divides in ideas concerning the implications of fascism arose in the period between World War I and World War II when it became clear the ideology was the difference between being involved in war or not.

Beyond what is or has happened in Italy or other nations across the water, the West can be found to have its own form of right leaning ideologies and politics through its own leaders. Trump has cemented himself in history through his term as president of the United States. His campaign was created and run based on a powerful sense of nationalism crafted through techniques of promising a restoration of the nation to a mystical former glory that it supposedly once held in its shockingly short history. To remedy the problems present and brought up by earlier leadership as well as promise of being above or tearing down supposed enemies of the nation are the tools that can be identified in any other instance of fascist or far-right rule beyond Mussolini or potentially Meloni.

With the impacts and lessons that can be learned from Trump’s time in office, western powers as well as European ones are fearful of a far-right rise, evident in the fervent support of Ukraine in it’s budding territory war with Russia. Liberal powers taking this action also creates the contrast and connection between opposing ideologies and right leaning ideology, not being in support of a foreign war becomes being against the potential of far-right rise, and so on and so forth to republicans becoming more and more far-right or even extremist.

Fascism and far-right ideology is not something that will ever completely disappear, people will always have a diversity of thoughts and ideas, and that should be welcomed and fostered. That being said its about understanding the limits to controversial thought and understanding where the line is that moves into ideas harming people, which is exactly what fascism promises to do historically.

By: Adam Paquin

The readings from this week have several things in common in my opinion and that centers around the changing of the tides of European politics shortly after the second world war. During a time of recovery, there are several individual things going on, one of which is a changing of not only extreme right views but to an extent left views as well. We see this in the Biess article when he writes about all the changes going on throughout the system many similar to their past tactics some may argue were verging totalitarianism, while some state they were just rebuilding a destroyed economy from the dirt.

He also goes in depth into the student riots/protest that go on and how out of hand they become. He gives many quotes to insight the true extreme of the events that unfolded. I kind of blew me away the intensity that it was driven to with the police not only working on a protective basis. But in fact, beating and shooting the students to the extent that one is shot in the back while running away from the chaos. When reading this article, it becomes obvious that although the country of Germany was obviously hurting after the war. Many of the people in authority during the time of the Nazi regime could have very possibly still been in power. And article such as this one sort of tell the public that it was certainly time for a change in tactics to weave out the corrupt people in power.

By Cyrus Hutnyk

This week’s discussion primarily concerned Nazism, moreover the lasting impacts and aftermath that the ultimately devastating ideology had. The authors of this week’s readings each touched on Germany’s experience in this post-war environment and how they had a serious mess to clean up, having to do the the terrible consequences of their former leader’s actions, the massive debts placed on the nation post-war, as well as simply addressing the many atrocities committed. The process of “denazification” as Werner Sollers described it, garnered international attention. Alongside this experience for the Germans was the experience for the tremendously traumatized Jews. Mary Fulbrook describes how Holocaust survivors moved from extreme scrutiny to empathy. These two perspectives offer a valuable insight into either side of this move away from Nazism and how it impacted different groups who were ultimately part of the experience.

This highlight on victim’s testimonies is one that is very interesting and holds modern parallels, both obvious ones with the ongoing presence of Nazi behaviours and far right sentiment in the United States, but equally with the scrutiny of already marginalized communities globally, whether on a basis of sex, race, gender, etc. Perhaps we will continue to see this sort of transformation into societies that value empathy and trust of those victimized in the future, the positive change and strictness that we see in modern Germany can be mirrored elsewhere without a doubt.