How Europe Committed Seppuku
(Trump’s Return, NATO’s Humiliation, and the Vassals Who Love Their Chains)
As I wrote in several articles, my sojourn in Europe was a revelation, a culture shock on many levels. The most profound was how Europeans separate their rhetoric from their actions. To them, there seems to be no problem with saying things that are refuted by what they do. Which makes it possible for European (Western) leaders to proclaim that they are for peace while they wage brutal wars. I guessed this made it possible for Europeans to reduce human beings to chattel while proclaiming that they were on a mission to civilise. Or why they could bomb and destroy whole countries while professing true love.
In the chapter “The Rhetorical Function of Christian Ethics”, Dr. Francis Cress Welsing brilliantly captured this in her seminal work, The Isis Papers.
Although not an easy read, please do yourself the favor of getting and reading that book. I did not understand racism and its dynamics until I read the book.
Another thing that agitated my mind was Europeans' profound and widespread insularity and provincialism, even among the well-traveled, well-read, and even those considered experts on Africa.
I cringed as I listened to European experts on Africa pontificating seriously on subjects they knew nothing about. It was a great shock that the knowledge of the lady professor who taught African history did not go beyond Basil Davidson’s books. The “experts” who create the echo chambers in which Europeans live and operate. They are considered Gurus on the low-level analyses they dispel. Each voice reinforces and validates the other. The ignorant views wrapped in high-falutin' grammar are celebrated as high scholarship.
It was difficult for me to imagine how such pathetically ignorant people succeeded in conquering the world.
Let me begin this piece with an ancient African proverb: “When the fool is dancing naked in the market, it is not madness if his kinsmen are clapping.”
Today, we see a transatlantic market square where European elite - shameless, groveling, and permanently bent at the waist - have taken to prancing about naked. The only sound louder than the crashing of European economies and social fabric is the applause from the Overlords in Washington.
A few weeks ago in Canada, we saw Europe back at it—on its knees, groveling like a satiated dog, smiling at the narcissistic orange man in a red cap who doesn’t even pretend to respect them. A few days later, Trump was back in the saddle in The Hague, and the NATO poodles couldn’t be happier.
The servility was revolting.
Many Dutch friends said that they felt like puking as they watched their former PM and now NATO SecGen Rutter called Trump Daddy!
The perceptive Sartre wrote that Europe once made history; today, history is being made of it. Once upon a time, European Emperors wore robes. Today, the leaders wear ill-fitting suits, read from teleprompters, and fly to Washington like medieval envoys begging Caesar for permission to breathe.
Could anyone tell us what produces the cringy facial expression we see on that Italian lady PM?
Oh, Europe, how the mighty have fallen.
Who would have thought that we would live to see a Europe reduced to a confederacy of compliant client-states run by political marionettes whose strings are pulled from across the Atlantic? What is NATO today, if not a glorified military Tinder for the United States to swipe right on war and swipe left on peace? The law enforcement arm of the American Empire.
Donald Trump, for all his faults and all his crude, blustering, narcissistic vulgarity, has done something no European leader had the guts to do - he told the truth. Not the kind that comes with footnotes and think tank applause. No. The brutal, chest-thumping, gut-punching truth, even if the thinking is positively juvenile.
In his copyright banality, he shouted: “If Europe won’t pay, maybe Russia should do what it wants.”
Trump’s harsh rhetoric was not a diplomatic whisper. It was a direct threat - a Mafia-style ultimatum from the Capo Di Tutti Capi of the American war machine, aka the Military Industrial Complex. The Alpha Male always proudly proclaims his Boss of Bosses Masculinity.
And how did the brave leaders of the EU members of NATO respond?
They whimpered. They shuffled and smiled awkwardly like butlers who had dropped the champagne tray and were now apologizing, cap in hand, beseeching the Boss with tears. They promised the 5% target their masters demanded, even though they knew their collapsing economies could not meet it.
It is so pathetic, so humiliating.
Even the intellectual and physical Lilliputian, Emmanuel Macron, who once talked about NATO’s “brain death,” is now wagging his little Gaullist tail and barking “Oui, Monsieur!” at every American command.
Charles de Gaulle must be screaming in his grave.
It is funny to watch Europe, which once fancied itself the center of the world, which placed itself in the middle of every world map, and the rest of us - Africans, Asians, Latin Americans - were tiny, disposable afterthoughts, reduced to complete vassalage, an unimportant outpost of the American Empire.
We can all see today that the center has collapsed. The world of Europe has crashed. Europe is now the unpaid intern in Washington’s imperial startup - expected to work overtime, bring coffee, and thank the CEO for every slap across the face.
Those who pay attention to global geopolitics should know it didn’t have to be this way.
Europe had options. In March 2022, Russia and Ukraine were on the brink of a peace deal. There was an agreement - brokered quietly, supported cautiously, and sabotaged completely. And the saboteur was Boris Johnson - sent like a 21st-century colonial overseer to Kyiv with strict orders from Uncle Sam: “No peace!”
If war stops, who would buy American overpriced arms? And like a whipped dog, Europe obeyed.
Germany, France, Poland, and the rest of the gang could have screamed, protested, or withheld support. Instead, they clapped. They clapped as peace was strangled in its crib and wondered why their economies had gone South, and why their citizens now burn firewood to survive the winters. The people who proclaim that they are the only rational human beings have slaughtered their economies in pursuit of a crazed ideology. With little resources and dwindling influence, Europe dusted off old prejudices and pursued the insane policy of seeking the strategic defeat of Russia.
In ancient Japan, disgraced warriors would perform seppuku - a ritual suicide carried out with honor, to reclaim dignity lost in battle.
But Europe’s suicide? No ritual. No sword. No dignity. Europe gutted itself without fanfare; it went silently to its grave.
Just gas shortages, runaway inflation, deindustrialization at a dizzying space, and a deepening dependence on an America Slumlord that treats them like tenants in a leaky basement.
Factories shuttered. Pensioners froze. Farmers rioted. And what did the uneducated and uncultured EU elite do?
They waved their little Ukrainian and LGBTQRDEWKVX flags, sang “Ode to Joy,” and bought overpriced American LNG at quadruple the cost of Russian gas. They also buy from the Indians, who didn’t hide the fact that they buy from the Russians.
Talk about crass strategic stupidity.
Europe committed economic suicide, not for freedom or justice or even strategic necessity, but to prove its obedience to Washington’s war priests.
With Trump’s shadow now looming large over Washington—and the Democratic Party looking more like a retirement home than a government-in-waiting—the Europeans sup up to Washington DC, the new holy city of Western vassalage.
Trump, who once shoved Montenegro’s president aside like an annoying fly, now openly tells NATO allies: “Pay up or shut up.” In his encounter with them, his vice president dressed down EU leaders.
Trump speaks to EU leaders like a landlord speaks to squatters. And they love it. Because what they fear more than humiliation is irrelevance.
Ursula von der Leyen - the unimaginative and corrupt gynecologist who fancies herself a grandmaster in geopolitics and Mother of Europe - now serves as the courier of American military fantasies, delivering NATO’s latest wish list like a medieval scribe. Before his ignominious departure, Olaf Scholz, the gray ghost of Berlin, shuffles into Washington looking for instructions. His successor was a Blackrock man. That should tell you everything.
Despite all the humiliation, EU leaders grovel to Trump, and he continue to ridicule them. Recently, he shrugged when asked about NATO’s future: “We might not even need them. Maybe they need us more.”
Of course they do. Europe doesn’t even have ammunition left. Britain admitted it can only fight a war for three days. In the days of empire, Britain ruled half the globe. Today, it can’t even secure the English Channel without a call to Langley. France can’t even secure Burkina Faso. It has lost out in the Sahel.
Germany, once the proud engine of Europe, is now a coughing, sputtering jalopy running on fumes. Over 4,000 industrial facilities—Volkswagen, BASF, Siemens—have shut down or fled to the U.S. and China. The illiterate Nazi revanchists in power in Germany failed to grasp the fact that German industry is about as useful without cheap Russian gas as a solar-powered fridge in Alaska.
Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines and sabotaged Germany’s lifeline?
As they ask in detective books. : cui bono? Who benefits?
Certainly not Germany, Europe, and Dresden's poor, freezing citizens, who now rely on firewood while their leaders sip champagne at Davos. The American writer, Seymour Hersh, said the Biden administration did it. No one has seriously refuted him.
Europe’s great betrayal was not external—it was internal. Europe betrayed itself.
Rather than build a European Bloc as an independent counterweight to the American and Chinese Behemoths, EU leaders stupidly tied themselves to NATO, which is not a defense alliance but a U.S.-led war cartel dressed in freedom’s clothing. Europe enthusiastically joined the American battle wagon without asking what was in it for the old, crumbling empire.
Americans use Europe as NATO’s ammo dump and cannon fodder supplier.
Three years into the Ukraine conflict, Russia controls more territory than ever. Meanwhile, NATO runs out of shells, out of ideas, and out of credibility.
Meanwhile, as Europe grovels for crumbs at Washington’s table, the rest of the world has moved on.
BRICS+ has surpassed the G7 in global GDP share. China builds roads, Russia sells cheap oil, India grows stronger, Brazil reasserts itself, and Africa-yes, even Africa—is beginning to speak with its voice. No one remembers to invite Europe.
Meanwhile, Europe is still sanctimoniously lecturing us about human rights while selling weapons to Israel, enabling genocide in Gaza.
Even former colonies no longer fear them. Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso have expelled the French and hoisted the flag of sovereignty. The Empire has no clothes.
So, where does Europe go from here? Nowhere. It has no plan, no spine, no leadership. The EU is a technocratic madhouse where unelected bureaucrats issue regulations about the size of cucumbers and the shape of tomatoes while Rome burns.
And EU foreign policy? Whatever Uncle Sam says. Their military policy? Whatever the Pentagon approves. Their economic policy? Bend over and accept U.S. LNG and inflation.
Even their democracy is a farce. Have you seen the recent European elections? A collection of far-right fanatics, green neoliberals, and technocratic zombies battling for relevance in a house that is already on fire.
As Trump has made clear, he has clarified that Europe is not an ally. Europe is a customer - and not a very good one. He has also told the Island of Iniquities, which calls itself Great Britain, that there is nothing special about their relationship.
Let us not mourn for Europe. Let us not waste our tears on a continent that once enslaved the world, raped Africa, plundered Asia, and today finds itself abandoned by its imperial gods.
Let us reserve our sympathy for the oppressed, not for the oppressors who blew up their gas pipelines and called it freedom.
Europe has committed Seppuku, but unlike the samurai, it did not do so with honor.
It was not a clean death. It was a messy, cowardly, undignified implosion of a civilization that still believes it runs the world while its own streets rot, its youth riot, and its leaders beg for a pat on the head from Donald Trump.
©️ Fẹ̀mi Akọ̀mọ̀làfẹ̀
(Farmer, Writer, Published Author, Essayist, Polemicist, Satirist, Social Commentator, Chronicler of collapsing empires.)
My Mission: Stultitia Delenda Est - Stupidity Must be Destroyed!
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Femi, this sums it all up perfectly.. we are watching Europe’s fall from I power in real time.. and I feel a strange sense of satisfaction.. Europe is a paper tiger, weak and frail lecturing us all on “human rights” while continuing to fund Israel so that it can commit its genocide in Gaza…that kind of hypocrisy is evident, at least to me, and to others
What can one say. This sums it all up succinctly. Watching the fall of power, while fascinating, somehow fulfilling, and satisfying depending on the excesses committed by that power, still, if you have any humanity, leave you a little diminished by the failures of that humanity .....