Ugly truths about the West
It may well be true that my generation, the so-called Millennials, is undergoing a very rude awakening from the neoliberal dream that is slowly turning into an ugly nightmare right before our eyes.
After all these years of being fed "the end of history" dogma, deeply rooted in the Enlightenment's ideal of progress and humankind's universal march toward modernity that is universally liberal democratic, market capitalist, and cosmopolitan in appearance (but only in appearance) - so conveniently taken at face value after the horrors of colonialism and World War II - we have been reminded that nothing should be taken for granted.
The Covid-19 moment does just that by proving that human nature is quite resistant to any meaningful change.
With the virus sweeping the planet, old tendencies have begun coming to the forefront and exposing old Western (European) tendencies to profess its own selfinterest and lust to go to war against one another to defend or extend their national interest (as in the case of vaccine wars closely associated with the phenomenon of so-called vaccine nationalism).
Although this time not with bayonets or tanks, the European Union and its former member state the UK have started an all-out fight over access to vaccines, while many countries outside of the Western orbit and in the Global South (the very part of the world underdeveloped by their imperial practices in the past) are still waiting to secure access.
With Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina still waiting in line to receive their first vaccine shipments, and rollouts in Albania and Northern Macedonia being significantly limited because of the EU's vaccination miscalculations, we are being yet again reminded that the West believes it is the world unto itself and the Rest have to wait patiently for its pitiful acts of mercy driven by political correctness and publicity stunts, or simply perish - all of this, still, in the 21st century.
Although the western Balkan states have joined the COVAX (Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access) program, they have found themselves being marginalized because of their relative wealth as compared with low and middle-income countries covered by the scheme.
"The constant tragedy of the western Balkans is that they are on the fringe," a visiting scholar at
Carnegie Europe, Allison Carragher, told CNN. "They're all aspirational EU members, so they looked at the EU program first, but that has been mangled and delayed by supply-chain issues."
It is therefore perfectly understandable that some countries in the region do not want to take any chances and bet on their citizens' lives, waiting for the EU's knight in shining armor to come to their rescue - considering the pledge to provide them with €70 million (US$85 million) to buy Covid shots still being highly doubtful.
The best example is Serbia, where President Aleksandar Vucic seems to understand the changing world dynamic perfectly and the need to cooperate with all countries around the globe, which has managed to secure vaccine deliveries from China (Sinopharm: 1.5 million doses), Russia (Sputnik V: 90,000 doses) and the US (PfizerBioNTech: 40,950) directly.
"People in the EU are good people, but luckily I had enough experience and knowledge to assume that it would turn out like this," said Vucic. "This is a war for people's lives but also for the future of every country."
President Vucic's pragmatic and open-mined strategy not only allowed him to outperform the EU, but also to offer help to other countries in the region. Moreover, Serbia is also now looking to start local production of the Russian vaccine.
Since Central European countries have recently warned about a surge in Covid-19 cases across the region amid the discovery of new variants of the virus that causes the disease, it makes perfect sense that Hungary also shows pragmatism in diversifying its vaccination strategy by also securing both Russian and Chinese supplies, despite a quite abhorrent smear campaign coming from the West.
"Every day that we would spend waiting for Brussels, we would lose a hundred Hungarian lives," Prime Minister Viktor Orban said, repelling the attacks in an interview with state radio on February 12.
"Why would we think that the Europeans are smarter than we are?" Orban said the same day. "This isn't true. Our professionals are at least as good as any European professional, and I don't trust a [vaccine] analysis in Brussels more than I do in a Hungarian one.