Putin's war and Saramago's prophecy

Two men walk past a residential building damaged in the shelling of the city of Chernihiv, Ukraine. DIMITAR DILKOFF (AFP)

In the week of conversations that I had in 1998 with the late Portuguese Nobel laureate in Literature, José Saramago, at his home in the Canary Islands, collected in my book

(

, 1998), I was struck by a kind of prophecy he cast as evening fell.

“Juan”, he told me, “sometimes it is built more with the no than with the yes”.

That prediction by Saramago has come back to me these days when the drums of what could end up being a Third World War are resounding around the world.

The analyzes of the development of the war between Moscow and Ukraine are confusing even the greatest analysts of international politics.

The surprise is to see little Ukraine and its young leader Zelenskiy scare the great Russian empire and disrupt the global political and war deck, to the point of openly talking about Putin and Russia losing their global prestige and strength, even though they may win the war on Ukraine.

What is happening in the world and that few expected is that Saramago's prophecy could be coming true that sometimes in history a “no” can end up being more constructive and effective than a “yes”.

And that “no”, this time, perhaps against all odds on the eve of the conflict, is Europe's and almost the entire world's “no” to Putin's madness of wanting to swallow Ukraine.

A “no” that is positively changing the face of the world.

The vote at the last NATO meeting on Russia's war against Ukraine was emblematic.

Only the dictatorships of North Korea, Eritrea and Syria voted for the Russian dictator.

The rest of the world responded with a “no”.

Even the Brazilian right-wing extremist Jair Bolsonaro, a personal friend of Putin, to whom, weeks ago, during a handshake in Moscow, he said: "Brazil is with you."

Every day, according to a glance at the world press and the analysis of the greatest geopolitical experts, the conviction that Putin's days or months could be numbered is growing.

As he destroys Ukraine he begins to seem abandoned even by his own compatriots who are risking jail with their street protests.

"A war that is won by losing seems to be the fate of Vladimir Putin's Russia in its military escalation against Ukraine," Merval Pereira, the political commentator for the newspaper

, a member of the Academy of Language, has just written here in Brazil.

And in the newspaper

, one of the world's greatest analysts, the American Thomas L. Fridman, writes: "Every day that Putin refuses to stop, we come closer to the gates of hell."

And he adds: "It is frightening to perceive how little Putin thought about how that war was going to end."

And it points to the possibility that the Russian leader could be deposed by his own, since Russia is realizing that it is getting poorer with each passing minute, that its currency has been depreciated and humiliated and that the great financial tycoons of the country are today swamped, cornered and humiliated by harsh global sanctions against them.

For the first time after the last World War, Europe reveals itself more united than ever against Russian oppression.

Europe is feeling proud of its awakening in solidarity with the Ukrainians fleeing the war.

And the organisms that were born as a result of the last world conflict, that appeared as rust, backward, and sometimes even useless, from the UN to NATO, have suddenly been resurrected.

It is as if all world politics were waking up while warning of the imperative to renew itself and to be able to face a new World War that we all know that, this time, it would not be just another war, but a true Apocalypse, "never seen before". ” as the Russian dictator has threateningly prophesied.

This time, the United States, Europe and even China are beginning to be aware that we are not facing another war, but rather a possible global cataclysm that can only be stopped with that "no" that Saramago said could be much more constructive than a "yes."

A no to barbarism, to the destruction of the Planet, to the end of History, to which every day more forces are added that are at the same time convinced that this happy prophecy involves the disappearance of Putin, which is beginning to reveal itself, one continent to another, like a cornered and humiliated beast whose power could have its days numbered despite its arrogance and challenges.

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