Dr. Burkhard Luber: “We are already beyond the point of no return what the destruction of the Earth is concerned”
Dr. Burkhard Luber. DR.
Mohsen Abdelmoumen: How do you explain the rise of the far right in Europe and elsewhere in the world?
Dr. Burkhard Luber: I see three explanations: A first explanation is that many people are not capable to accept that in the modern global world an increasingly wide spectrum of different cultures, beliefs and values exists. Many people have not learned the virtue of tolerance and the importance to find joint interests with different people, cultures and countries. Persons with such limited tolerance and small understanding of other cultures are always in danger to see foreigners as a threat for their own workplace, for their culture, etc. The right-wing parties and their opinion leaders are exploiting these fears, simplify the problems and offer apparently clear-cut answers like: The migrants are the problem, they deprive us from our saved money, they are threatening our culture etc. If the mainstream parties and even the left-wing parties do not successfully address these problematic thinking in a convincing and non-nationalistic way, the right-wing narrative might even further advance which is dangerous for the future of tolerance in societies for the coherence of societies generally.
A second explanation is the simultaneously rising profits of the big companies and at the same time the rising of poverty of an increasing part of societies. People are looking at the impressive marvelously built headquarters of the top companies and the top salaries of their bosses and they are wondering about the remarkable difference to their own small salaries. And they also see for example that it has become often just impossible for a family with kids to get a decent home in town. No wonder that they become angry and protest against the fact that they earn so little in comparison to the super-rich class. These are topics which the right-wing parties can address for their propaganda.
The third explanation is that the far right exploits the fear of the people about the rise of globalization and digitalization. Though many people are using Smartphones and rely on many other digital products there is a growing fear that digitalization and globalization is tentatively threatening their job, their original culture, their family values. Example: When I met my colleague Maart in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, who as genuine Estonian had participated in the struggle of Estonia against the Soviet dominance, he showed me - after Estonia had become independent - the magnificent market square in Tallinn and turned his finger on the oldest and most gorgeous building there, sighing: “Soon McDonalds will enter there”. I teased him a bit: “Well Maart, why are you so surprised me that after the independence of Estonia now capitalism enters your country too?” This is in a nutshell the ambivalence which strikes many people: They see the many advantages of digitalization and the new IT-culture. Nevertheless, they fear that this digital culture will badly influence their society and they are preoccupied that this it will change traditional values and habits. This fear is aggravated because the people more and more do not see individual actors in the economy like in the 20th century any longer, but actors like Google, Microsoft, Amazon which still have CEOs in the formal sense but in reality, act as conglomerates with global profit interests. Again, the far right is exploiting this fear, claiming that globalization and digitalization is the new enemy and since this new enemy is often without personal faces whom you can make responsible, the far right makes front against “them”: the mainstream politicians, the mass media, the exploiters, the rich people.
Westerners, led by the United States, continue to sell arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which massacred the Yemeni people. Where are the values of “human rights” and “democracy” that these Western countries boast about?
The arms export of the US is - however large in its dimensions - unfortunately only one example of the much broader international “market of death”.
The international arms trade is one of the worst acting against humanity, just as bad as hunger and poverty. That arms companies make profits by the fact that states provide other countries with weapons to fight wars is a scandal. It makes the world and specifically its crisis regions increasingly unstable also because many of these weapons are used against the people inside a country. It is often argued that we must help these governments with our arms deliveries. A completely wrong argument. The more weapons are exported, the more uncertain the world becomes. The so-called Islamic terrorist state could never have risen so badly if it has not been able to get hold of the American military arsenal in Iraq. In the so-called failed states such as Libya, Yemen, Somalia or Sudan there would be no such bloody civil wars if the West and Russia would not - in classical proxy attitude - provide continuously the governments and the rebel opposition with new weapons.
And the arguments of the so-called “security” for delivering the weapons are particularly hypocritical when the weapons are delivered to different locations at different times. So, we have first assisted Iraq in its war against Iran. Then the West has started its war against Iraq led by the propaganda lie that Saddam Hussein allegedly possessed nuclear weapons. And then the IS could loot the American arsenals in Iraq.
Sometimes it is argued: We cannot get out of the contracts on which these arms deals are based upon. But I ask: What matters more, that we pay several thousand Euros to cancel these bad contracts or the lives of many people who are killed with these weapons?
And the arguments by which the arms exporting governments justify these arms exports are as big a scandal as the exports itself. Often when governments justify the export of weapons with the argument that it is necessary to stabilize the governments one turns a blind eye to the undemocratic status and human rights violations of the recipient (for example, Saudi Arabia). Often weapons are exported, which are supposed to be designed for fighting against external enemies, but in reality, the weapons are a potential for intra-societal suppression. The arms exporting governments are hoping naively that the exported weapons remain in the recipient country. Instead, they often circulate soon in other countries. In short: Not only the volume of international arms trade is a scandal, just as scandalous are the arguments how governments legitimize these weapons exports.
One might object: I am thinking too idealistic, arms exports are only means of pragmatic realpolitik. But there exists a very realistic argument against the insanity of arms exports: The world is nowhere safe where weapons are exported which you can see especially in the Middle East and Africa. But our defense exports also hit back at us ourselves. The regions to which we deliver these weapons are just the crisis regions from which the refugees come to Europe. It is often argued that one should tackle the refugee problem where it arises, namely in the countries themselves. Whoever argues in this way should follow this argument right to the end and be against arms exports. Because when we continue our arms exports, we should not be surprised that more and more refugees are fleeing to us.
How do you explain the fact that Western "democracies" unscrupulously support despots in Africa and elsewhere in the world while at the same time advocating for "human rights" and "democracy"?
It exist a remarkable bias between what I call “the holiday sermons” of the politicians (“freedom”, “emancipation”, “welfare” etc) and their concrete political behaviour. The reason for that I see on the one hand, that politicians always need arguments and if they can find them in the so-called “human rights” or other prestigious arguments, they are quite willing to use them, thus disguising what they really do and brainwash the people who watch their speeches on TV. The other point is that politicians can become too much naive: they might in their will and hearts maybe trying to adjust their political acting to the idealistic norms of the UN Charta or their country constitution but are not aware how difficult it is to operationalize a policy which is congruent to these norms. And then norms and political reality inevitably collides.
In Algeria, my people are fighting alone against a regime supported by the Europeans, the United States, the United Arab Emirates, the Saudis, etc. Do not you think that the world powers and some Arab countries are afraid that the Algerian people will triumph by establishing the rule of law and true democracy? If the Algerian people wins through its self-denial, is it not likely to become a model to be followed by all the populations of the region and which would harm the interests of the powers that share the world?
Every emancipation movement is a threat against the existing power status and the actors behind them, for example the emancipation of the East European countries from the Soviet Union or the ex-Portuguese colonies against Portugal, and other emancipation movements. You can go back so far as to the 1st modern uprising, the French Revolution and the persons who came over from England, Germany etc to North America and someday emancipated successfully from their British rulers. Still another example is the revolution which ended the monarchy and the old political hierarchy in Germany after World War I.
The critical point in these upheavals is what are the oppressors doing then: Are their holding with iron grip to their power as long as possible with instruments however violent and bloody they are? Or are they cooperating with the emancipators to find a good compromise in power sharing in order to achieve a stable sustainable situation of the country and society after the emancipation process. I think what happened in RSA around 1990 was a good case where the emancipation movement by Nelson Mandela met a person in Frederik de Klerk who was willing to come to a power sharing compromise in RSA.
Do not the peoples of the South and the North have the same interest in fighting the oligarchic minority that has taken over all the riches of the earth?
The question goes in the right direction but the problem arises when you try to define in detail what exactly “people” and “interest” means. “The people” in the South and the North are by no means a homogeneous community consisting of citizens with all the same interests. In the countries of the South and the North you find a high power hierarchy between the power elites and the marginalized people in the peripheries. Both the “centers” and the “peripheries” have opposing interests. Within countries of the South and the North the power classes have the interest to maintain their power basis and to control the underdogs whereas the interest of the underdogs aims at emancipation from this dominance and for more power sharing. But at the same time of this opposition between top dogs and underdogs within single countries there exists parallel a joint interest of the topdogs classes of various countries worldwide. If you watch closely the diplomats, business persons, political decision makers in countries which are remarkably different like for example, France, Ecuador, Bangladesh or Kenya you will find remarkably identical interests between these topdogs elites in these countries. Though these top dog elites live and act in quite different countries there are nevertheless impressive similarities between these topdogs elites in different countries. Mostly the same high level education in prestigious universities, most of them fluency in speaking English, using the same electronic tools and IT programs, most of them might play tennis or golf, have the same dress code and there is a dense communication and flight traffic between these top dog power centers. This result is a situation where “the people” neither in the South nor in the North have all the same interest in one country and for political analysis and political action one has to carefully analyze which parts of the people of the various countries in South and North have which interests. If you do this you will soon find a considerable harmony of interest between the top dog power elites regardless in which country they are located and also a high amount of opposing interests between the top dogs and underdogs, both internationally and internally within each country and society. These differences in power and interests makes the “fighting” so difficult. In addition, the people in the peripheries in the world have far less ability for communication, coordination and solidarity than the top dog elites with their well-established frequent travelling and communication which enable them coordinating successfully their policy and business strategy. Whoever wants to go deeper into this topic should read from my colleague, the Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung his brilliant essay “A Structural Theory of Imperialism”.
A good example for the simultaneity of different power status (topdogs versus underdogs) and contrasting interests is the so-called European “Union”. Once UK has left the EU, only two top dogs remain in EU: France and Germany which are in competition against each other about which has the final say in the EU. But both have also joint interests like the militarization of the EU, to shape the EU as a fortress against immigrants and to force their supremacy against the other EU countries. The propaganda narrative is, the EU is meeting the interest of its people though remarkably the people have only a very limited control over the EU institutions and their policy. And the latest decisive product of the EU, the Euro, as joint currency, proves that the EU is not serving the interests of the people. The advantage of the Euro for (big) corporations is indeed large: The Euro enables them easier trading, therefore making more turnover and thus generating more profit. In contrast to the advantages of the EU for the corporations, the advantage of the Euro for the EU-citizens is however small: a bit less trouble for money exchange before you start travelling to other countries. That is trivial what the interest of the ordinary people in concerned. The much more important aspect of the Euro are latent, sometimes undetected disadvantages which this joint currency generates for the population. The policy of the former president of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, summarized in his motto “We will defend the Euro whatever it takes” shows how important the joint currency is for the top dog elites in the EU. And this strategy “whatever it takes” has resulted in a previously unimaginable monetary intervention of the ECB summed up in November 2019 to 2673 billion Euros which the ECB holds in shares and bonds (in comparison to only 116 billion in March 2015) thereby creating a tremendous amount of liability for all EU citizens (currently already 200 billion Euros only for the German tax payers). Simultaneously this policy of the ECB has resulted in a massive decrease of the interest rates for the saving accounts of the individuals. So, the population realizes that saving (which has been for decades a virtue) is no longer of any use in the financial planning of the individual. Thus, consequently this policy of the ECB generates more consumption of the people and any bought product generates more profit for the seller. And the advice of the ECB that the persons who are forced - due to the Euro-saving policy of the ECB - to abandon saving money (what they did in previous times) should now buy more shares at the stock exchanges instead, meets directly the interest of the (big) joint-stock companies. Against this background one might ask: What common interest have (for example) four citizens in the EU like a Polish nurse, a fisherman in Sicily, a bank clerk in Budapest and a worker at the car assembly line in Spain? Not very much and nothing really special I assume beyond the two wishes for a decent living and a peaceful surrounding. But to achieve these two aims we did not need the Euro for decades prior to its start in 2002.
The envisaged, much praised so-called “Green Deal” of the EU, presented by von der Leyen recently will unveil the large opposing interests in the EU: Western vs coal-dependent Eastern EU members, industry corporations vs NGOs, EU vs US, rich vs poor people. The “Green Deal” of the EU is a classic example that for a thorough and enlightening political analysis one has to address precisely the power distribution (mostly: unequal) and the different interests (mostly: opposing) within societies and political entities to get a good insight about what is often called just “the people” without any differentiation.
And the next big step of the ECB is already in the pipeline: Based on the climate rescue issue the formerly so much praised independency of the ECB which it lost already with its Euro rescue policy will become in future only a void formula on paper without any longer relevance in the practical economic policy since the ECB will deteriorate to a mere instrument of the EU governments. This will change the ECB into an agency without any autonomy or independence but merely serving as an instrument for the interests of the EU governments. More details on: https://news.gaborsteingart.com/online.php?u=bTEaOKt882
Finally one has to observe that the behaviour against exploitation and oppression does not lead necessarily towards resistance from the side of the people affected but can also possibly lead to acceptance and adoption: Persons watching a rich company might not necessarily think about controlling the company but possibly rather to apply for a job there and persons watching the wealth of the upper class might not necessarily think about a fairer distribution of this wealth but possibly rather: I want to become a member of the upper class too.
How do you explain the rise of inequalities in the world, whether in Western countries or in the countries of the southern hemisphere?
I think the classical pattern by Marx is still essentially valid: the capital accumulates more wealth (Marx calls it “surplus value”) then the workers get from the product. And the curve of inequality is not linear but exponential according to the proverb which addresses the accumulation of wealth: “The most difficult task is to earn the 1st million, but then it is much easier to make the next million”. Persons who own 3 houses are much fitter to get another 3 houses than a person who wants to change from a rented house to become a house proprietor.
In the age of digital-based economy you find another new phenomenon: Due to robotics, AI and other digitalization approaches more or less all products and services need continuously less workers which is of course highly profitable for modern corporations. In the last three decades the productivity and economic output increased considerably in the economic centers of the world but in the same period the income level of families remained the same because this increase in productivity was generated from automatization and digitalization and not from paid human work. And as long as our tax system is still based on taxes from employees ́ work, corporations with IT-based production have to pay less and less taxes which means the state gets less and less income, so the state is becoming more and more unable to address injustice, poverty, health problems, education with its shrinking budget.
The French company Total is carrying out an ecological carnage by extracting shale gas in Algeria, in general silence. Do not you think that companies that harm the environment should be accountable to the courts? Is it moral to be silent about what Total is doing in Algeria? Where are the French ecologists and progressive parties that claim to defend peoples against neo-colonialism and imperialism?
Definitely, companies generating such ecological hazards should be accountable. The task is to find out where one can find in the Algerian law system or in the constitution of Algeria enough legal provisions for such legal actions against the activities of Total in Algeria. The lacking support of the progressive actors in France touches a bit what I have said in my answer above about the harmonies and disharmonies of interests worldwide. I am not so profound in the analysis of the existing or lacking solidarity of French parties and ecologists for Algeria but I guess the preferences of the green movement in France is concentrated foremost on ecological issues in France only instead on those in Algeria. That is not encouraging for progressive persons in Algeria, I know.
Why is shale gas extraction prohibited in France but not in Algeria? Why what they do not permit in France is allowed in Algeria? Do not you think that this attitude is neo-colonialist?
Well, my first question is what is the reason that gas extraction is not prohibited in Algeria? Not adequate law regulations? And if so, why does obviously exist no interest in the Algerian parliament to make regulations which can limit the gas extraction? That would lead to an analysis of the interests in the Algerian parliament. It would require a case study focusing on the question: Which Algerian political and economic interests let the gas extraction in Algeria be done unprohibited? That task in beyond my competence in this interview but is certainly highly essential for addressing your question.
In your opinion, is it possible to live ecology in these consumer societies? Do not you think that human beings have destroyed nature by their irrepressible need for domination and their unlimited quest for wealth?
Having read carefully Wallace-Wells´ book “The Uninhabitable Earth” and Jonathan Franzen recent essay “What if We Stopped Pretending the Climate Apocalypse Can Be Stopped?” my impression is that we are already beyond the point of no return what the destruction of the earth is concerned. If mankind nevertheless wants still address the climate catastrophe, I see only the option to apply a behaviour which causes “structural changes”. What does that mean?
The essential question is why and how "changes" come into existence? The revolution of 1789 in France started because people in France did no longer tolerate the prevailing circumstances. Later "revolutions" were also revolutionary, but partly induced from the outside (Russia 1917) or were successful because they were part of other major political processes. For example, the Eastern European "revolutions" came as a consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union.
An essential difference between the revolution of the type 1789 and the year 2019 is in my opinion that in ancient times the originators of the bad conditions were clearly definable (and therefore also perceived as personally responsible for it). 2019 seems to be more difficult: Who causes today's the growth ideology? The banks? Amazon? Google? Facebook? And even if one wanted to try to make people personally liable today, are the CEOs of those companies not easily interchangeable persons?
Therefore, my argument: Manifestations and appeals which want only address the public opinion have today no longer a substantial impact for "structural" changes. As welcome as the Fridays For Future movement is in its elevating the public opinion, school-free Fridays have no "structural" impact, neither in the school system nor in society. Therefore, the word "strike" associated with FFF is misleading. Strikes had the old classical trade union motto "All wheels stand still when a strong arm wants it". But FFF in its current profile nothing stands still. The missed lessons in the schools are already integrated in the future school year curriculum. One could even ask ironically: How much superfluous stuff is apparently in the current school education that about 20% of it can easily be omitted? I also assume that a lot of FFF people do not mind to take flights to their usual wellness destinations in the school holidays and continue to eat fast food and take Mom's taxi (probably a SUV) even when it rains only a bit. I can observe that impressively when I watch what happens at noon time around the school buildings in my hometown. If FFF would take “striking” really earnest, the situation would change, for example if school students would go on strike for a whole week or several weeks in a row. This would force parents to accept and thereby "legalize" such massive school students strikes. If 200,000 Hamburg school students would go on strike for weeks, that could not be longer domesticated with state enforcement because the police personnel is just too small to enforce a compulsory school attendance from all school children's homes.
The fact that Greta deliberately uses panic in her own words does not convince me. Panic generates anxiety first, then defiance and, later on, counterproductive quick actions. So at least are the findings of collective psychology.
Consequence (my thesis): Because the cause of the fatal growth economy can be addressed not very much directly personally and since the agents of the growth-directed corporations are interchangeable, only denials with noticeable economic impacts can generate structural changes and that would be significantly more than the present FFF movement.
In the same way - as side argument but nevertheless instructive - if the German army despite all its smart propaganda could recruit increasingly fewer soldiers, demilitarization would be done without much disarmament appeals.
Similarly, I imagine successful refusals could be done in other areas, where people can calculate to determine how many persons would be necessary to disturb a company so that sustainable degrowth can be "enforced". For example: How long would a complete refusal to buy at Amazon bring Amazon into bankruptcy? When will low cost airlines go bankrupt if people in large numbers would not book flight any longer? Etc. Already now the boss of H&M, the fashion chain, is highly worried about the decreasing buying attitude of the young generation because of ecological concerns, which decreases of course the profit of H&M.
The comparison of a cost / effect calculation between such denials and traditional forms of protest such as coal power plant blockades is not easy and I cannot do that here. Probably it runs along such evaluation questions like: What is more spectacular, what has more effective mass effects, what requires which mobilization efforts, what hits "the opponent" more etc.?
In this approach, which I just put up for discussion here, I cannot address the question how such mass actions of denial can be effectively organized. However, it is quite clear for me: Refusals and denials (here understood as a "strike" method) are not for free. Such denial "strikes" do not happen without personal restrictions and individual consequences.
This raises the question where does the motivation for such a denial attitude can come from. Religion? For this purpose, the churches as religious agencies are in my opinion too mainstream and too much compliance with state and the banks. Humanistic and ethical arguments? I have my doubts. Even observing the current climate catastrophe many people are thinking: "Ecology? That is not my focus. My car can also drive without forest ". But (the following examples should illustrate the consequences for a degrowth strategy) how many people are willing to pay 5 euro for a liter of gasoline or to pay a ticket for 2000 euro to fly from Frankfurt to Mallorca, how many would tolerate a drastic massive extra taxation on car purchases, a binding construction law that mandatory requires solar panels on the roofs of any building? Can one imagine in Germany to shut down completely all regional airports and leave only Berlin, Hamburg, Munich and Frankfurt?
These may be absurd-sounding examples, but in my opinion a society based on no growth must impose such measures, not to mention other ones like the legal enforcement of a maximum permissible amount of energy (electricity, water, gas) allowed for individual consumption. Could it be that a degrowth society would have to operate with such dirigistic (compulsory) measures by which, in contrast, the old communist regime in East Germany would appear like a lovable pony farm by comparison?
It is good that the climate issue is now higher on the political agenda and the public awareness has become larger for it. But I suspect that the driving actors of capitalism will use this new focus to nevertheless pursue their old aims as usual like: Exploitation of the workforce, tax evasion with offshore companies, propaganda for increasing consumption etc. The spin doctors of capitalism will certainly apply all their fantasy at: “How can we make business as usual within the climate crisis? How can we continue with our policy as we have done before?” And their answer is: “The only change we have to do is to add some new “green” on our traditional actions. With green brainwashing we even can achieve goals which we otherwise would not have achieved.” The shifting focus toward the climate issue will for example end the independence of the European Central Bank. The independence of the ECB has been so far a cornerstone of its mandate and has been an absolute Must for a long time. But now the ECB will be changed by the EU from an independent financial agency to an agency which will perform as new active financial player in the international finance market and will have to act according to the orders of the EU with investing Millions of Euros, all printed as new cash by the money press.
https://www.ft.com/content/61ef385a-1129-11ea-a225-db2f231cfeae
The most absurd example of such green brainwashing so far, I learned during a recent lecture of a professor in Germany about the topic “Military and climate”. When asked what the military could do to address the climate crisis, he hesitated a bit and then answered: “Well I think it would be good if in the future more climate-friendly weapons would be produced and used by the army”. No comment...
You are on the editorial board of two magazines, Das Milieu and Rubikon. In your opinion, do we not need, today more than ever, to have real information and alternative media in a world dominated by mainstream media at the service of the money powers?
Definitely we need that and my hope is that the impressive tools of the Internet where every person can be a journalist and edit her/his newsletter with little money and publish it for an international audience can become more and more a real journalistic alternative counter force against fake news and hate speech.
You are lecturing around the world and are involved in the NGOs. In your opinion, do not some underdeveloped countries have a great need for the support of competent people like you?
There is indeed a large need of NGO work in the world South. To give an example: I work for some years within the Swiss NGO “Bowier Trust Foundation (BTFS)”. BTFS has Liberia as its partner country. Our work is currently a mix of addressing nutrition needs of the population (like establishing wells from which people can get clean drinking water), providing hospitals with necessary but lacking instruments as and empowerment training for the health personnel in hospitals. My colleague and I myself will arrange Capacity Building Trainings for health workers and students in transition to their 1st job, in which we will work with them on topics like small management, effective organizing, public relations etc. Our aims is the classical “help for self-help” approach so that the persons in Liberia can later continue independently from us and apply the things they have learned in our training in their job. I think NGOs have an essential role in the global world. They collect their money as independent agencies without state subsidies and they are also independent from the local elites of the countries in which they are working. That gives NGOs a very good status for their work within they can also raise Concerns, submitting alternatives and addressing problems with constructive criticism. One of my best and most impressive learning fields have been when I worked for a long time in a German NGO on several “hot spots” (like Ex-Yugoslavia, Caucasus, Central Africa, Bogota). This working on the ground has enlarged my political thinking and my conceptualization for peace building intensively and it has been a welcome complementary working field to my university studies.
Do you not think that the hegemonic powers have an interest in ensuring that we, the peoples of the South, remain underdeveloped?
The greed for exploitation of the hegemonic powers is large indeed and unfortunately the interest of the North for the South is orientated along the interest lines of the Northern powers. Still there are niches where the interest of the North does not run completely counter to the interest of the South like for example a certain standard of health and education. But certainly, the power antagonism between North and South will remain as a highly influencing factor in the global international relations. Nevertheless, I have some hope that the new possibilities of the Internet open new chances for more emancipation of the South from the Northern hegemony. I am thinking in this context especially about new opportunities in communication and education. For example, I currently give online a long-distance course for about 100 students in a university of the DR Congo, a highly inspiring enterprise which would never have been possible without the possibilities of the Internet. A smart thinker within this debate of new IT-based chances for the South is Richard Baldwin who describes in his fascinating book “The Great Convergence. Information Technology and the new Globalization” new impressive perspectives for the Internet 2.0 where people, especially workers in the South will have new perspectives to participate in job opportunities as never experienced before which can also serve as emancipator potential for the South.
Do we not need a multipolar world instead of living under US hegemony?
I think that the US hegemony is already no longer so stable and fixed as it might have been in 80ies or so. Here again is my hope that the possibilities of the Internet can contribute to more equalization. Since the “software” area, i.e. information and communication has become more and more equally important as the “hardware” area with its buildings, machines, traffic infrastructure and weapons, the US hegemonial influence of single countries like the US might decrease.
What is your opinion regarding a re-election of Donald Trump?
For a longer time, my hope was that the traditional elite at Capitol Hill in Washington will see through all the sometimes ridiculous, sometimes ugly and even dangerous things Trump has done. But I suspect that Trump will survive the impeachment and since the US are completely split in its political believes it might be so that he will be re-elected. For me Trump is perhaps not the greatest problem but his party which has allowed him to make his career into the White House. It is unbelievable to me how this could happen in Washington. But since it has happened, we can only hope that there are a number of people in the administration who can at least a bit counteract his thinking and acting.
Interview realized by Mohsen Abdelmoumen
Who is the Dr Burkhard Luber?
Dr. Burkhard Luber was graduated with a PhD in Peace research at Frankfurt University and a diploma from the University of Pennsylvania in international politics. He worked two decades for an NGO at various crisis areas (Ex-Yugoslavia, Caucasus, Central Africa, Bogota). Currently he is a guest lecturer at universities in Germany, DR Congo and Liberia teaching international politics and works on the editors´ board of two magazines addressing current affairs.