Author: Jan Campbell – 05/04/2022
I begin writing this post on the eve of the traditional Chinese spring tomb sweeping festival, The Qingming Jie (清明节). It has been celebrated for more than 2500 years in mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia and Thailand. It falls on the first day of the fifth solar period of the traditional Chinese lunar calendar, the 15th day after the spring equinox, either April 4, 5 or 6 of that year. The families visit the tombs of their ancestors, clean their graves, pray and ritually offer gifts, usually traditional dishes, incense and scented paper. The holiday emphasizes the traditional respect for ancestors. In 2008, The Qingming Jie also the festival of purity and brightness in the PRC was declared a national holiday.
As I lived and worked in Southeast Asia I could observe that the overseas Chinese communities in Singapore and Malaysia, take this festival seriously and observe its traditions faithfully. The Qingming festival is very much a solemn family event and, at the same time, a family obligation. In Malaysia and Singapore normally starts early in the morning by paying respect to distant ancestors from China at home altars. This is followed by visiting the graves of close relatives in the country. Some follow the concept of filial piety to the extent of visiting the graves of their ancestors in mainland China. Some rituals and ancestral veneration decorum I observed in Malaysia and Singapore can be dated back to Ming and Qing dynasties.
The celebration of this holiday depicts the work of the prominent 12th-century painter Zhang Zeduan called the Festival of Qingming on the River. In Chinese tea culture, the feast is of great importance, because on this day fresh green teas are sorted out according to the date of their collection. Green teas made from leaves harvested before this date receive the prestigious designation of pre-qingming (清明前), are valued and therefore much more expensive than other teas, for their much lighter and more delicate aroma. The holiday is part of spiritual and religious practices. For example, Buddhism teaches that those who die guilty cannot eat in the afterlife, except on the day of the festival. During the Tang Dynasty, Emperor Xuazong of Tang promoted tug-of-war games that used ropes up to 167 meters long with shorter ropes attached and more than 500 people at each end of the rope. Each side also had its own team of drummers who encouraged the participants of the game – the war.
This year’s celebrations are overshadowed by the zero-covid-19 policy that has saved countless lives, and by the extreme measures needed to fully curb the highly portable variant of Omicron. The measures were adopted on March 28th and are causing restrictions and, for many, other kinds of suffering. Still, I rejoice after the announcement that my ex-student’s wife has given birth to a healthy daughter in Shanghai and that they are doing well at the time of writing.
A former student of the University of Economics in Prague, Anastasia T., is also doing well. I led her diploma thesis on the topic of Dialogue of Selected Civilizations with Russia in the Post-Globalization Period about 10 years ago. In the e-mail letter I received yesterday (4th April), she thanks me for everything I have told her in lectures and during consultations. Why does she thank? Because only today, according to her letter, she realizes the actuality and quality and truthfulness of the content of the diploma thesis. That’s why she decided to ask about some things related to her current work and my assessment of the current situation and events in the world. Of course, I will answer and help within my capabilities, if only because I have described what is happening today with references and quotes from documents in my book Consent not needed. The book (ISBN 978-3-00-052470-7) published in 2016 is sold out. In chapters called Disease of Europe, War and Peace, World Crisis and the World of Cats I described the main causes and consequences of current events. A few books that I took from the printer for myself will be offered to those young interested, as I have been saying – the last shirt has no pockets and in the coffin I will only take with me what someone gives me there.
Ukraine at a fateful crossroads
I don´t know who will give and what will be put in the coffin of Ukraine, whose President Zelensky has called on the UN Security Council to self-dissolve, or at least to expel the Russian Federation from the Security Council. Apparently, the president does not realize, like the politically correct media, the difference between what Russia’s calls a special military operation and the real war. It was declared in the past, today it is not formally declared. But for decades, it has been going on at visible and invisible fronts. However, the tragedy taking place in Ukraine does not yet have the general main features of the military war: the destruction of the General Staff, communication centres, railways, roads and energy infrastructure, the government buildings, including the possible killing of the president or members of the government. The president receives guests and sponsors in Kiev, issues orders for attacks, including attacks on Russian territory, and enjoys the propaganda of Ukraine, which is provided by about 150 British agencies. The General Staff is lit up as if in a celebration, and the President declares wishes, conditions and demands, as if his opponent in the Kremlin were deaf and blind, and the victory of Zelensky and his loyalists over the Russian troops was in his hands.
Since this is not the case, Kazakhstan is approaching a fateful crossroads after a historic defeat. Georgia has replaced the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the EC, in the shadow of events in Ukraine, agreed without dialogue with EU citizens a far-reaching and important document called – A Strategic Compass for Security and Defence – For a European Union that protects its citizens, values and interests. While it should contribute to international peace and security, the Russia loses the information war through its own fault. Despite this fact I expect that the final phase of a visible special military operation in Ukraine will be transformed into a brutal war as there is a saying – Russia cannot lose, because losing is never forgiven in Russia.
My assessment of situations has always been governed by personal experience, historical facts and saying – I’m not looking for the truth, I like to be wrong, and anyone who convinces me with documentary facts that I’m wrong I would be happy to pay for a glass and apologize. According to the mentioned criteria I foresee that President Zelensky will first lose territory inhabited by people who speak and think differently and later it would be followed by the rest of Ukraine. One day Ukraine will find itself in a situation of self-destruction and self-division, especially if Zelensky does not capitulate in advance of the transformation of the special military operation into a real war and thus seal the fate of Ukraine. This opinion is close to the one of the key witness in Trump’s Ukraine affair, former U.S. government official and officer, Alexander Vindman. He predicts the defeat of Ukraine and Western Ukrainian politics.
Kazakhstan at a fateful crossroads
The surrender statement of the Kazakh authorities on compliance with anti-Russian sanctions is due to panic and the admission of their own defeat in pursuing their own so-called multi-vector policy. Panic, confession and multi-vector politics show Russia and the rest of the world not only how many mistakes Russia has made on all fronts of the post-Soviet space over thirty years, but how to get the Kremlin and government to pursue a more sensible, effective and decisive policy.
Kazakhstan is capitulating slowly and surely. This is evidenced, among other things, by the sensitive issue posed by American biotechnology laboratories abroad, especially in the post-Soviet space. A number of laboratories are located in Armenia, Georgia, Kazakhstan and other locations. One of the laboratories with the strictest classification level, BSL4, was last established in the village of Gvardeysky, in the Kordai district of Zhambyl Oblast. Such high secrecy indicates the following: 1) Experiments with the most dangerous strains can be carried out in the laboratory. 2) Local authorities will not be able to control these laboratories in any way, and the population and the area will become a testing ground for military biologists. 3) The activities of the laboratory can be dangerous not only for Russia, but also for other states.
That Kazakhstan is capitulating also indicates the chronology of the main events in Kazakhstan over the past five years. Without analysing them, it is impossible to understand the dramatic and dramatically accelerating events in Kazakhstan against the background of growing and almost official russophobia and the impoverishment of the population after the short military intervention of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in January 2022 and the saving of the life of President Tokayev, the government and the Republic of Kazakhstan.
In 2017, the U.S. seized a Kazakh sovereign wealth fund worth approximately $23 billion. This posed a direct threat to the ruling clans and forced President Nazarbayev to act in the wake of the consolidated West. In 2019, President Nazarbayev was forced to step down as president under pressure from forces he had created himself, and Tokayev, a diplomat and sinologist among others, came to power. He was expected to handle multi-vector policies better than Nazarbayev, especially given his long-standing ties to the PRC. In 2020-2021, mass anti-China rallies were held against the lease of agricultural land and the influence of the PRC in all areas of activity of Kazakhstan. In 2022, an attempted coup d’état took place, which was stopped by the decisive intervention of the CSTO lead by Russia.
Not to see the passivity, mistakes and connection between Moscow’s populist foreign policy and the dramatic events in Kazakhstan, which is constantly and now rapidly turning into a russophobic state, is impossible even for a little knowing person who strives for objectivity. There is nothing to reproach the US for paying attention to the post-Soviet countries with which Russia has the longest borders – Ukraine, Kazakhstan and the Caucasian countries. These were the most obvious target of Western aggression immediately after (and even before) the Rose Revolution in Georgia and the Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. Russia’s soft power, which for decades has stubbornly proved its worthlessness, has proven to be harmful to Russian statehood with the help of the fifth column in government, the vast majority of NGO and also the official press. Nazarbayev, whom I personally knew and could observe for several years during my work on TACIS and as an advisor to PM, was blind and did not see, or could no longer see, that members of his family and clan had become corrupted and completely dependent on the West.
Unfortunately, I cannot publish everything I have experienced and know from my work. Nevertheless, according to my intuition and analysis of documents, including the russophobic decree on the conversion of the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet, Nazarbayev was not a sincere supporter of the Eurasian integration. The removal of Tokayev from the presidency, which I expect in the imaginable time and at the latest when Kazakhstan transforms itself into Central Asian Ukraine, is extremely disadvantageous for Russia and President Putin. However, it is beneficial for the collective West because it will strengthen the instability of the border of the Russian Federation and the investments of the PRC in the Republic of Kazakhstan.
Kyrgyzstan at a fateful crossroads
Military operations in Kazakhstan and Ukraine have overshadowed many other important issues. Yet there are occasional reports that invites us reflect on the West’s mantra: Russia has virtually no allies. Video footage from a rally in Kyrgyzstan, in which an ardent young man explained the need to withdraw support for Russia, leave the EEU and CSTO and quickly show loyalty to the West and the US, was widely circulated. The young Kyrgyz’s main cause of concern was the sanctions that the powerful West could declare against his poor country in a strategic location. The young man may not even know that Kyrgyzstan is not economically dependent so much on the West as on the Russian Federation, and even more so on the money transfers from Moscow sent to Kyrgyzstan by fellow countryman. Therefore, the Kyrgyz, who work in Russia, do not rush to condemn their young man. They, too, are expressing concern that Russian migrants from Donbass will take their jobs and the Kyrgyz, will have to go home. This shows well the dependence of Kyrgyzstan and the Kyrgyz themselves on the Russian labour market and, at the same time, the saleability and even corruption of the Kyrgyz Congress, which remains silent as the night.
War development at a fateful crossroads
The official Western media has long been preparing the public for the use of Russian weapons of mass destruction, the threat from the use of nuclear and, last but not least, biochemical and similar weapons. They pay disproportionately little attention to the deadliest weapons, which are being developed and tested in the aforementioned biotech laboratories in Kazakhstan, Armenia, Georgia and elsewhere in the post-Soviet space, including recently in Ukraine. Among the deadliest weapons are gene-altering biological products, including vaccines, drugs, and the scientific method CRISPR. It is a genetic engineering technique in molecular biology that can be modified by the genomes of living organisms, based on a simplified version of the bacterial CRISPR – Cas9 antiviral defence system.
The technique is considered highly important in biotechnology and medicine because it allows genome editing in vivo with extremely high precision, cheaply and easily. In 2020, the authors of this method, American scientist J. Doudna (1964) and French scientist E. Charpentier (19680), received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The Czech Martin Jínek, who previously worked in Jennifer Doudna’s team, also has a share in the discovery.
The insidiousness of gene-altering biological weapons is that psychological persuasion (fear) is used to spread them. This is nothing more than a public scam. In real life, it is obscured by the necessary prevention against the virus, or the treatment of the disease. Not only can these weapons wipe out billions of people, but they can end the cycle of human life as we know it and in its place reshape a whole new kind of lab-modified (non-) human beings. It would be fair, if the Russians would provide evidence related to the reported findings in the underground biotech facilities. It is therefore important to realize that whenever science or technology uses any method to interfere with the human genome, whether intentionally or unintentionally, and man-made material is transferred directly to the nucleus of a human cell, causing genetic changes and changing the composition of the body’s original DNA, it is catalogued as a biological weapon.
Under the 1975 Biological Weapons Treaty, all biological weapons are illegal. Such biological weapons are an ingenious strategy for waging war, because they can render the population unusable on the basis of the impossibility of being aware of things. In addition, there is never a safe and compelling reason to use biotechnology in vaccines or drugs.
In the context of war events, secret biotech laboratories with extraterritorial legislation, in this case in Kazakhstan, the call for an accelerated expression of loyalty to the West and the US, in this case in Kyrgyzstan, the facts stated in this paper in my view de facto mean the bankruptcy of the ideas of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). EEU is needed by the Central Asian republics governed by corrupted elites only as a tool to obtain advantages from the Russian Federation, i.e. access to banks, credit lines, the labour market, goods and raw materials. Declaration on the East-West Trans-Caspian Corridor, i.e. cooperation in the field of energy flows alternative to Russian ones, signed by Kazakhstan and Georgia, also belongs to the category of challenges and risks the Russian Federation and the Kremlin will have to deal with sooner rather than later. I want to believe that the solution will not be war, but peace.
Peace at the Fateful Crossroads – Paxology
Peace is a state in relations between states, peoples and humanity, characterized by peaceful and friendly coexistence, the solution of disputed problems by negotiation and agreement, without the use of armed, physical violence or psychological coercion. For the preservation of peace, it is important to respect state sovereignty, human dignity, preserve the right of peoples to determine their own development. The theory of peace that deals with these questions is called paxology. ICL (Institute of the Czech Left) decided to help implement an international project dedicated to the theory of peace in conjunction with the introduction into paxology in the previously mentioned book Consent not needed and emerging book in Czech language Paxologie, written by Felix Černoch and to be published by Olympia publishing house in 2022. Thanks to the existence of military sciences, which elaborate on the theory of wars, we have inherited not only their definition and formulation of their essence, but also a springboard for a homogeneous and equal assessment of peace. If war is the continuation of another policy (Clausewitz), namely, by violent means (Lenin), then peace is a policy conducted by non-violent means. Consent not needed. (Prague, 05.04.2022)
Jan Campbell (1946) – studied construction engineering, architecture and philosophy; post-gradually also biocybernetics, Islamic banking and insurance. Professionally he was active during mid and long term in several countries including Great Britain, Italy, Switzerland, Malaysia, ex-USSR, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Russian Federation, Czech Republic and Germany, of which he is a citizen. Professional activities and experiences allowed to accept positions like a Head of EC Co-ordinating for TACIS programme, personal advisor to PM and analyst of political – economic risks including issues of Science diplomacy and work designated for narrow professional and public audiences, including university students. He obtained an honorary professor’s degree at the Ural State Agrarian University. In Slovakia he was awarded the Golden Biatec for 2014 for humanizing society through publishing about the development and solutions of civilizational problems and global priorities.