© Photo by Pepe EscobarSamarkand.
It's tempting to visualize the overwhelming collective West debacle as a rocket, faster than free fall, plunging into the black void maelstrom of complete socio-political breakdown.The End of (Their) History turns out to be a fast-forward historical process bearing staggering ramifications: way more profound than mere self-appointed "elites" - via their messenger boys/girls - dictating a Dystopia engineered by austerity and financialization: what they chose to brand as a Great Reset and then, major fail intervening,
The Great Narrative.
Financialization of everything means total marketization of Life itself. In his latest book,
No-Cosas: Quiebras del Mundo de Hoy (in Spanish, no English translation yet), the foremost German contemporary philosopher (Byung-Chul Han, who happens to be Korean), analyzes how Information Capitalism, unlike industrial capitalism, converts also the immaterial into merchandise: "Life itself acquires the form of merchandise (...) the difference between culture and commerce disappears. Institutions of culture are presented as profitable brands."
The most toxic consequence is that "total commercialization and mercantilization of culture had the effect of destroying the community (...)
Community as merchandise is the end of community."China's foreign policy under Xi Jinping proposes the idea of a
community of shared future for mankind, essentially a geopolitical and geoeconomic project. Yet China still has not amassed enough soft power to translate that culturally, and seduce vast swathes of the world into it: that especially concerns the West, for which Chinese culture, history and philosophies are virtually incomprehensible.
© WikipediaShaki Zinda.
In Inner Asia, where I am now, a revived glorious past may offer other instances of "shared community". A glittering example is the Shaki Zinda necropolis in Samarkand.
Afrasiab - the ancient settlement, pre-Samarkand - had been destroyed by the Genghis Khan hordes in 1221. The only building that was preserved was the city's main shrine: Shaki Zinda.
Much later, in the mid-15th century, star astronomer Ulugh Beg, himself the grandson of Turkic-Mongol "Conqueror of the World" Timur, unleashed no less than a Cultural Renaissance: he summoned architects and craftsmen from all corners of the Timurid empire and the Islamic world to work into what became a de facto creative artistic lab.
The Avenue of 44 Tombs at Shaki Zinda represents the masters of different schools harmoniously creating a unique synthesis of styles in Islamic architecture.
The most remarkable décor at Shaki Zinda are stalactites, hung in clusters in the upper parts of portal niches. An early 18th century traveler described them as "magnificent stalactites, hanging like stars above the mausoleum, make it clear about the eternity of the sky and our frailty." Stalactites in the 15th century were called
muqarnas: that means, figuratively, "starry sky".
Comment: Negotiating with the USA is a non-starter. Any working relationship with Russia flew out the window when Biden stole the election.