It was about 10 AM in Marrakesh Morocco. Overcast, light washed onto the courtyard deep blue and white clean and bright through a large flag or panel with a print of what resembled Olympic rings (to me). It shielded the courtyard from too much sunlight. Karabek was making tea in the kitchen.
Upon entry, the light filtered through the wrought-iron panel of blue hearts giving way to swirls. There was a tall divider that separated the entryway and the kitchen. On the other side, kitchen items were stored; tea, coffee, etc.
Maria: (holding phone) Can I read you an article on Medium?
Karabek: (making tea in white linens) What is this?
Maria: It’s a publication online…
Karabek: (at the stove) Who wrote this?
Maria: Benjamin Sledge.
Karabek: (stacking plates) Interesting.
Maria: (reads) “Geopolitics is a sexy word tossed around by news commentators and people who want to appear smart, but many have no idea what the word actually means.”
Karabek: (laughs)
Maria: “It’s the study of how geography, natural land and water formations, and human history…”
Karabek: Yeah.
Maria: “…often dictate politics and international relations.”
Karabek: Yeah, can I add something to that please?
Maria: Yeah.
Karabek: (stove behind him) Because this is so true, if you look on the map, right? Just an example—China. There are the mountains of central Asia; the Pamir, and Mount Everest to go to Tibet. Tibet is a central border to China. It didn’t let people come inside, this natural Chinese wall. Next to China is Afghanistan. Below China is Pakistan. They have such different cultures even if they are next to each other because they weren’t in touch for centuries because of the mountains. This is geopolitics.
Maria: (reads) “Most people get caught up with the here and now of a crisis, instead of looking to the past and unchanging geography to predict future behavior.”
But now, because of the way our world works…
Karabek: (pours tea)
Maria: I wonder how the internet has changed that…
Karabek: Hm.
Maria: It’s not the same geography?
Karabek: No, that’s a big problem. That’s not a problem, that’s the theme which humanity has to face how to deal with it. We think we did it. We created social media. This is a new character, just too quick.
Just imagine 10 people.
One of them is naturally gifted with good legs and he’s running. These Men—they have different skills—are waiting, for what? It’s not solving anything. One country is running, another is still poor. More technologies are coming that they have to implement in their culture but they don’t know how.
Maria: Is Russia on the brink of collapse?
Karabek: They are not in a collapse but the economy of now is going to collapse. Some countries are prepared, some others are no. We see that there are crypto and digital currencies. You know, the SWIFT technology which allows the world to enter trade? This SWIFT banking system is ruled by a family of serfs.
Maria: What?
Karabek: The Federal Reserve. Countries who are dependent on this SWIFT to trade like China—a big trader in the world—have prepared themselves for centuries for this moment. They were just waiting to step out of this current economy…eh…
Maria: Framework…
Karabek: The Federal Reserve controls foreign currencies. A few hundred billion dollars of Russian assets are frozen, but they were prepared for that. This is what I’m saying.
It looks (in our Western civilization media) like it’s collapsing, but they have to step out of the SWIFT system. Otherwise, you can always sanction them. This is not cool.
Maria: Now there’s weapons…
Karabek: So many sophisticated weapons. It’s all about specific missiles, inter-continental workers who can fly and whatever. In the end, who cares? This is typical human being—always threatening with someone with death. This is the art of pressure (laughs). I know I am going to die one day, what do you want to tell me?
(Microwave beeps, pours himself more Moroccan tea) _
What about the article? What happened? Can I just have a look at which media…
Maria: Medium.
Karabek: Which newspaper is…?
Maria: Uh, half of them, do you pick...so, okay.
Karabek: Hm hm.
Maria: “Last night, I spoke to my neighbor who is Russian.”
Karabek: Hm hm. Hm.
Maria: “Within our own family…people think he’s a dictator…”
Karabek: Hm hm…
Maria: “…using propaganda...”
Karabek: Yeah yeah…
Maria: “…into believing Russia is freeing the Ukraine…”
Karabek: Hm hm…
Maria: Okay, so he’s….
Karabek: (pause)
Maria: So, he’s um…
Karabek: Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Maria: …manipulating the people…
Karabek: (grabs the silver tea pot)
Yeah, but who doesn’t? Whoever is in this position, there’s a good book written probably eight years ago. How to Control the Mass, you know? If you are president of a leadership, then you have to be someone who has these skills…
Maria: (reads) “The reason Russia needs to expand its borders has everything to do with natural resources, port cities, mountainous borders to keep other countries from…”
Karabek: Yeah, yeah…
Maria: The US has pulled out of countries like Syria, Iraq, Libya, right?
Karabek: Yeah yeah yeah.
Maria: (reads) “Even the Russians played around in Syria.”
Karabek: Yeah. Yeah.
Maria: Hm hm.
Karabek: Yeah.
Maria: (reads) “The icing on the cake was the US evacuation in Afghanistan last year…”
Karabek: Hm…
Maria: “…that became an international embarrassment…”
Karabek: Yeah…
Maria: “…and a human rights crisis…”
Karabek: And the Russians used that moment of weakness in the US. The United States was running a lot of companies for natural resources in the Ukraine, you know? It’s also like a thing.
Maria: …Right.
Karabek: It’s always the same shit. They can tell us whatever they want (laughs), it’s always the same thing. About natural resources…
Maria: Listen to this.
Karabek: Okay.
Maria: (reads) “Given Putin’s threat of readying his nuclear defense…”
Karabek: Yeah yeah.
Maria: “…People have assumed we’ve not taken action because of the threat of mutually assured destruction.”
Karabek: Hm, hm.
Maria: “I’m old enough, however, to remember the Cold War…”
Karabek: Hm.
Maria: “and hiding under my plywood desk…”
Karabek: (Clears his throat)
Maria: “…during nuclear drills at my elementary school.”
Karabek: (sips his tea)
Maria: (reads) “Throughout the Cold War, President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev made similar sentiments, which led to posturing without action.”
Karabek: Yeah.
Maria: “Instead we secretly fought the Russians in the Afghan-Soviet War by training…”
Karabek: The Mujahideen and Taliban?
Maria: “…and also ran our own media propaganda.”
Karabek: Hm hm.
Maria: (reads) “With the globalization that’s occurred, the current threat is the removal of resources and sanctions. If Russia really wanted to hurt Europe, they wouldn’t threaten with nukes.”
Karabek: Hm.
Maria: (reads) “They would just shut off their gas…”
Karabek: Yeah, can I just add something? They say in our media that Europe is taking gas from Russia; just forty percent of European gas. They’re getting ninety percent of their gas from Russia. Imagine? Media says forty, but this is a lie. That’s why they have to invade the Ukraine.
Maria: Russia is one of the top three exporters of wheat…
Karabek: Yeah, yeah…you know, Morocco.
(Grabs a roll)
Look at this bread, this is Russia wheat probably. Russia is the world’s supplier of wheat…
(Smokes his rolled cigarette)
Even the US was getting gas from Russia. Now they are asking Venezuela and Iran for gas—the US. Imagine. They’re always saying—OH, Venezuela, this country; dictatorship, communist—blah, blah blah. Ok, why are you asking for gas now?
Iran, the same. For forty years, blah these terrorists. They’ve tried to coup Venezuela for who knows how many years because there’s good gas. Iran has good gas. They don’t have cheap, bad gas. What’s true now? Iran is getting rich. If Iran wants, they already has nuclear weapons. They are selling all this gas to China now. First of all, it’s very close to China, one.
(He grabs a plate)
Last year, they made a straight deal of a foreign billion dollars for the next twenty years. Iran supplies China with all its gas. It’s like a message to the outside.
Maria: What’s the message?
Karabek: We’re together now—China and Russia. Iran is also included. They want to kick out NATO out of the entire region; military bases, NATO companies that exploit their natural resources. Iran is targeting and fighting America bases in Syria and Iraq. For weeks now. They are not showing it in the media.
This coalition of three are doing big operations now in Asia. They don’t show it. The Ukraine thing, it’s also a thing they did, just to take the world’s attention.
You know the method of Troy? The horse? Something like this. They invaded the Ukraine—all the attention is there. The same thing is going on in Iraq, Syria, and Kazakhstan….did you hear? Russia did the same thing in the Ukraine. They cleaned up Kazakhstan in three days.
Maria: What do you mean?
Marco: (enters) So who’s doing the mountains tomorrow?
Karabek: I think I’m not going to do it. I have to buy shoes and this is too complicated.
Marco: I can lend you gym shoes if you’d like.
Karabek: (laughs) Gym shoes? What do you mean by that?
Marco: Like sneakers, running shoes…