Johanna Steijlen |

Author: Marie Thérèse ter Haar
Foreword: Prof. dr. Karel van Wolferen
Publisher The Blue Tiger (2017);

The book has 132 pages, including a list of recommended reading and websites, to confirm the proven facts mentioned in this book

Johanna Steijlen, member of the WFBN, made this summary. Her visit in May 2022 to Marie-Thérèse ter Haar at the office of the Russia Academy gave the impetus for this.

Marie-Thérèse ter Haar is a Russia expert and founder of the Russia & Eastern Europe Academy. She has lived, worked and studied in the Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine in her life. She speaks these languages fluently and she is a sublime interpreter of Russian culture in particular. In fact, you can only talk about a country and write a book about it if you have experienced the primal nature of a national character by living among and with the people there.

The WFBN has invited Marie-Thérèse several times in the early 2000s to update us and inform us about the special developments taking place in Russia.

Mrs. Ter Haar is an enthusiastic, helpful employee on the way to a new World Order, with a special mission to integrate Russia and the Eastern European countries with the Western European countries. She writes and says with full conviction: “Russia belongs to Europe; we need each other to lead the rest of the global world to peace and prosperity”. Her great knowledge and lived experiences are of great value and she brings them into the evolutionary processes especially for the transmission of Europe. Her motto is therefore: “wars solve nothing and strengthen hatred and power – but enter into dialogue, keep talking, negotiate until the last opponent is convinced”. Given the current escalation / invasion of Russia in Ukraine, Marie Thérèse calls on her readers and listeners to investigate the 'other side of the story' objectively. Especially the role of politics and journalism, on both sides, is not objective, but propagandistic and misleading.

The first page of her book begins with a statement by Homer: “Lack of knowledge is the root of all evil”. I would like to offer our readers a few passages from her book; not to form an opinion right away, but to first think deeply and scientifically about the content of the book that provides us with a lot of penetrating information, and of which we may not have known and are not yet aware! Every consequence has a deeper cause. Every outbreak of violence – also individual – and of every war, often finds its cause far back in an unresolved conflict; a conflict that ignores the rights of people, organisations and nations. Such unresolved conflicts become hotbeds that – without taking steps to recognise and resolve 'old injustice' – will one day explode. Those directly responsible for the outbreak of violence are then nailed to the pillory, but the perpetrators remain out of the game! That is why Marie Thérèse advocates (and Homer is also right) – research via the right path to ultimate knowledge.

The introduction begins with the quote: “The secret of doing politics in Europe? Make a good treaty with Russia” – Otto von Bismarck.

In 1991, almost 75 years after Lenin had proclaimed the world's first communist state, the USSR ceased to exist. Capitalism had finally triumphed over communism and the 'free market' and 'democracy' were preached everywhere in Russia. However, the large-scale import of mainstream Western ideas into Russia and Ukraine and many other former Soviet republics did not lead to freedom and prosperity for the population, but to a kind of - mafia-ruled - society in which self-evident social certainties disappeared like snow in the sun. Initially, after the fall of communism, a new world order seemed to emerge in which the tensions between East and West would no longer determine world politics. But in recent years, tensions have increased again and Russia is often portrayed in the West as the aggressor. How did it get to this point? Is everything really as black and white as the media and politicians want us to believe? The propaganda machine in the West got going and it was shocking to see how facts were distorted. Important matters were omitted and everything was judged with a 'Western hat'. In general, the German media are a positive exception when it comes to nuanced reporting on Russia. The Germans questioned the geopolitical course and the unstoppable expansion drive of the EU and whether the EU had not gone too far by bringing Ukraine into the European sphere of influence without acknowledging Russia and Russian interests in this. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt had previously expressed fierce criticism of the one-sided view of the European Commission on Russia. Volker Ruhe, former Minister of Defence and member of the European Leadership Network (a think tank of former ministers from various European countries), also expressed his concerns about the threat of war that could come our way. He acknowledged that there had been insufficient communication between the Russians and NATO, also about all the 'frozen' conflicts such as in Transnistria, Moldova and Abkhazia. Direct military confrontations (he said this before 2017!) are very conceivable and could even lead to a war with nuclear weapons. At the NATO summit in Warsaw in July 2016, a significant military expansion in Eastern Europe was decided upon. Secretary General Stoltenberg spoke the following words on the first day: “The best defense of the NATO alliance is to permanently threaten Russia with nuclear war, to ensure that every local conflict involving Russia in Eastern Europe is immediately transformed into an all-out conflict between Russia and NATO as a whole. Mikhail Gorbachev responded to this on Russian television: NATO leaders only talk about defense, about defense, but in fact they are preparing offensive operations. All that rhetoric in Warsaw has no other purpose than to declare war on Russia. With the emergence of new world economies, it is all the more important that the tension between the West and Russia decreases. We Western 'missionaries' are also guilty of judging everything through our 'Western hat'. The opportunities we have missed in recent years to get closer to Russia are discussed in detail in this book. We could have involved Russia much more in the dialogue and in NATO. We could have had a stronger EU bloc with a separate status for Russia within the European Christian world. Russia has more similarities with the Western world than we generally think. Russia is not China, India, Asia or an Islamic country. Russia is an old Christian country with traditionally many ties with Europe. The US and the EU have passed Russia by too often in recent decades and partly because of this we have ended up in such a 'Cold War atmosphere', and in the meantime Russia is turning its gaze to the East. The Kremlin focuses on China, the Asian world, the BRICS countries (the emerging economies Brazil, India, China and South Africa). However, to master all the hotbeds in the world, Russia and the West need each other.

The nineties: mafia dictatorship

While we cheered in the nineties because Russia had finally been liberated from communism, could finally become a democratic country with a market economy based on Western models, the Russian reality in those years was a lot less rosy. In reality, the mafia was in charge in Russia; crime and lawlessness were rampant in a country that was almost bankrupt. And what do freedom and democracy mean if you no longer have a job, food, education or medical care, if every sense of security has disappeared? Instead of the communist party leadership, prostitutes, AIDS, street children, bandits and oligarchs who ruled the country determined the social image. Democracy degenerated, in the name of a drunken Yeltsin, into a criminal gang. For most Russians, it was chaos at its peak, a Wild West situation, a country without God, which meant that many of the victims only longed for some stability and security, and for decent norms and values. There were no political or economic institutions where you could claim your rights and property rights only applied to the very richest. I remember well – writes Marie Thérèse – how millions of Russians could be evicted from their homes at that time. The state was no longer the owner and the first real estate mafiosi could strike. Russians do not remember this period as 'privatization' but as 'piracy'. There was no longer a police force to protect you; they were sitting at home unpaid. The first shopkeepers were also attacked by 'krisha men', who demanded a large percentage of the profits. If you did not give them, your kiosk or shop would go up in flames. It was almost impossible to claim your rights at a court or other institution. Hospitals no longer functioned because there was no heating or equipment. Schools were closed because teachers were no longer paid. Marriages had difficulty surviving because of all the tensions and there were thousands of children who sought refuge on the streets.

The very richest of those times are called oligarchs in Russia. For a song, they got all the oil wells and gas fields in their possession in ten years, as well as a large part of the banks, industry and real estate sector. In addition, they got almost all the political power during these Yeltsin years. Yeltsin's re-election in 1996 was financed by the oligarchs and Western interests in Russia. They helped Yeltsin into the saddle for another four years and in return they demanded control over all the economic crown jewels of the state (oil, gas, etc.). In this context, the Russians speak of the 'greatest robbery of all time'. They hold it very against Yeltsin that these oligarchs were able to enrich themselves so extremely and that the average citizen had fallen into deep poverty.

An important reason for the Western lack of understanding of Russia in 2017 is that we have too little knowledge of that – for the Russians – traumatic Wild West period, with all the accompanying distressing situations. This lack of (historical) knowledge does not, however, prevent us from being fully prepared with our judgment on matters that have not yet been arranged in Russia as we believe they should be.

After Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin took over in the year 2000; a strong leader who ensured order and stability. The state finances were put in order, a new tax system started working and a start was made with collecting tax arrears from the oligarchs who had remained in Russia. Wages and pensions were the first to be paid from the state treasury. The schools and hospitals started working again and the police reappeared on the streets. The mafia that extorted shopkeepers were promised severe punishments and a lot of work was done on a new political and economic institutional structure. Even the IMF attributed the improvements to a good macro-economic policy. With many more socially positive developments, the Russians generally had a better life. Although an overly free democracy was restricted and a guided democracy was introduced, most Russians at that time were not so concerned about that. In the Wild West years they had had enough 'democracy', they thought. For the first time in Russian history, a real middle class emerged. For the first time, Russians had the opportunity to buy a car or a kitchen. Many Russians are therefore of the opinion that a democratic system is not suitable for their country for the time being. Another factor is that making your voice heard through political parties was and often still is something unknown to Russians. It is deeply ingrained in the Russian national character that you can easily blame the tsar or president for your misery and that you can be grateful to him in good times. As normal as we find it to talk about politics and election programs, it is strange to most Russians. The entire democratic system is still in its infancy in Russia! It is true that in the two major cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, the younger generation has already made considerable progress in embracing liberal norms.

And as for corruption in Russia and in the whole world, writes Marie Thérèse – as long as there is still greed in man and also in our small country the Netherlands, fighting it is a matter of having a 'long breath'. In the immensely large Russia where thousands of things still have to be done and where corruption is part of everyday life, it will still be a big job to banish corruption – but a start has been made in that fight in the past ten years.

To conclude this summary, I will let former President Gorbachev speak (page 129 of the book). On November 9, 2014, at the commemoration of the fall of the Berlin Wall, he warned of a new Cold War and criticized Western sanctions against Russia. He said that the West was thereby jeopardizing all the progress of the past twenty-five years and that the West had abused Russia's weakened position.

In Russia itself, Gorbachev has made himself heard several times in recent years. One of his television speeches was about his deep disappointment in Western leaders, who had assured him 25 years ago that there were 'multiple chambers' in Europe. Another speech was about his bitterness about NATO expansion. He kept repeating that the West had given him the guarantee at the time that NATO would not expand further if East and West Germany were reunited. In some Western media we could read that this remark was 'nonsense', but the fact is that the West also made many other conr