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- Herausgeber: Pushkin Press
- Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
- Sprache: Englisch
HOW DO YOU DEFEND DEMOCRACY WHEN THE RULES HAVE CHANGED?Presidents turning into monarchs. Tech tycoons and autocrats intent on global regime change. Armies of cyber trolls. The old order is at an end. The Hour of the Predator has come. Former political advisor Giuliano da Empoli takes us on an insider's journey through this new reality, from the Glass Palace of the UN to the Riyadh Ritz-Carlton, from top secret meetings to violent power struggles. We encounter dictators and tyrants, strongmen and AI billionaires - geopolitical predators, and the flailing leaders who desperately try to appease them. Just as in the age of the Borgias or the conquistadors, cynical scheming and brute force increasingly determine the course of international affairs. This is an urgent guide to our new world, and our uncertain future. PRAISE FOR THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR 'In a masterful, evocative narrative, he captures the worst aspects of the conquest led by men like Donald Trump and Sam Altman' ― L'Express 'Da Empoli is the chronicler of our troubled times [and] weaves a narrative as compelling as a novel or a Greek tragedy'―Le Monde 'Details with a grim lucidity the many ills afflicting our new world' ― Nouvel Obs 'A dark and dazzling book that lays bare the 'predators' of our age' ― La Tribune PRAISE FOR THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN 'A great book, casting light on the creatures that crawl and slither behind the Kremlin's walls, on the mineral hardness of Putin, on the chaos engine that is his way of hurting us. Read this book and you will understand the Russian mind-fuck. Read it' ― John Sweeney 'A captivating novel that sails close, perhaps too close, to reality' ― Financial Times, Books of the Year 'His novel has become a guide - devoured by many western politicians - to the mindset of the Kremlin ― Simon Kuper, Lunch with the FT, Financial Times 'You need to be credible, to get into a character's head and present their point of view... But it has to be entertaining, and it has to be convincing. His book succeeds on both measures ― Peter Conradi, Sunday Times 'I doubt I have anywhere seen a cleverer portrayal of the Russian view of power, politics and the world, or a better explanation of how the colourless, secret police bureaucrat Putin swelled into the monstrous, fascinating thing he has become... Take this magical mystery tour of the Kremlin and see if it does not make you think. And what pleasure is greater than that? ― Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail 'A chilling perspective on Putin's Russia... I am a dyed-in-the-wool Russophile, so this novel is right in my sweet spot. It called to mind Emmanuel Carrère's Limonov, the nonfiction of Peter Pomerantsev, the political thrillers of Robert Harris, the documentary films of Adam Curtis, and the cold-hearted logic of Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Grand Inquisitor. I loved Baranov's company, his pitch-black cynicism, his self-awareness and his sharp political analysis' ― Marcel Theroux, Guardian
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iPRAISE FOR
THE HOUR OF THE PREDATOR
‘A dark but dazzling account of the current political and geostrategic upheavals’
Le Figaro
‘A gripping account of how Western elites handed over the keys of power to the new tech conquistadors’
Les Echos
‘Giuliano da Empoli charts the rise of a chilling new world, forged through an unprecedented alliance between unabashed autocrats in the Trump mould and tech titans like Elon Musk’
La Croix
‘In a masterful, evocative narrative, he captures the worst aspects of the conquest led by men like Donald Trump and Sam Altman’
L’Express
‘A luminous thinker, Giuliano da Empoli is the chronicler of our troubled times [and] weaves a narrative as compelling as a novel or a Greek tragedy’
Le Monde
‘He details with a grim lucidity the many ills afflicting our new world’
Nouvel Obs
‘A dark and dazzling book that lays bare the “predators” of our age’
La Tribuneii
iiiPRAISE FOR
THE WIZARD OF THE KREMLIN
‘A great book, casting light on the creatures that crawl and slither behind the Kremlin’s walls, on the mineral hardness of Putin, on the chaos engine that is his way of hurting us. Read this book and you will understand the Russian mindfuck. Read it’
John Sweeney
‘A captivating novel that sails close, perhaps too close, to reality’
FinancialTimes, Books of the Year
‘His novel has become a guide—devoured by many western politicians—to the mindset of the Kremlin’
Simon Kuper, LunchwiththeFT
‘You need to be credible, to get into a character’s head and present their point of view… But it has to be entertaining, and it has to be convincing. His book succeeds on both measures’
Peter Conradi, Sunday Times
‘I doubt I have anywhere seen… a better explanation of how the colourless, secret police bureaucrat Putin swelled into the monstrous, fascinating thing he has become’
Peter Hitchens, Daily Mail
‘A chilling perspective on Putin’s Russia… It called to mind Emmanuel Carrère’s Limonov, the nonfiction of Peter Pomerantsev, the political thrillers of Robert Harris, the documentary films of Adam Curtis, and the cold-hearted logic of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Grand Inquisitor’
Marcel Theroux, Guardian iv
vvi
GIULIANO DA EMPOLI
THE HOUROF THE PREDATOR
ENCOUNTERS WITH THE AUTOCRATS AND TECH BILLIONAIRES TAKING OVER THE WORLD
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY SAM TAYLOR
PUSHKIN PRESS
vii‘Among the heroes whose exemplary lives Plutarch recounts, there are very few gentlemen.’
curzio malaparte viii
CONTENTS
1
When news of Hernán Cortés’s arrival first reached the capital of the Aztec Empire, Moctezuma II immediately summoned his closest advisors. How should they react to these unexpected visitors who had appeared out of the blue aboard their strange floating cities?
Some said he should drive back the intruders at once. It wouldn’t take the imperial troops long to put an end to a few hundred insolent foreigners who had dared to set foot in the territory of the Triple Alliance. ‘Yes, but…’ said others. According to the first reports of these foreigners, they seemed to possess supernatural powers: they were completely covered in metal, so that even the sharpest arrows bounced off them. They rode giant deer-like beasts that obeyed their every command. And, most importantly, they had special blowpipes that spat fire and thunder, killing all who opposed their will. What if these beings were not barbarians at all, but gods? And what if their chief—white-skinned, bearded, 2wearing a shiny helmet—was actually the banished god, the feathered serpent Quetzalcóatl, returning to reclaim his lands?
Caught between these opposing views, the emperor did what politicians throughout human history have done in this sort of situation: he decided not to decide. He sent an embassy to greet the foreigners with gifts, to impress them with the splendour of his reign, but to forbid them to march on the capital. The result of this hesitancy was the same as it has been throughout human history: by risking dishonour in an attempt to avoid war, Moctezuma was left with both war and dishonour.
During the last three decades, the political leaders of Western democracies have, when confronted with the new conquistadors of technology, behaved in exactly the same way as those sixteenth-century Aztecs. Faced with the fire and thunder of the internet, social media and artificial intelligence, they have bowed down—in the hope that some of that magical fairy dust might be sprinkled upon them too.
I cannot tell you the number of times I have witnessed such rituals of degradation. In every capital across the world, the same scene is repeated. The oligarch descends from his private jet, annoyed at being forced to waste his time with this obsolete tribal chief when it could be 3more usefully employed in some lofty post-human pursuit. After welcoming the oligarch amid great pomp and circumstance, the politician spends a large part of their brief private discussion begging him to build a research centre or an AI laboratory on his territory, before settling for a quick selfie.
As with Moctezuma, their servility has not been enough to ensure our rulers’ survival. While pretending to respect the politicians’ authority for as long as they found themselves in a position of inferiority, the conquistadors have gradually built their empire. Now the hour of the predator is at hand. And, in this new world, everything that needs to be settled will be settled by fire and sword.
This little book is an account of these events, written from the viewpoint of, and in the style of, an Aztec scribe—using images rather than concepts to capture the dying breath of one world as it sinks into the abyss, and the icy grip of another which will take its place. 4
NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 2024
Four men dressed in brown are accompanying the president of the Palestinian Authority. One of them is a little taller than the others, another is a little fatter, but they all have the same grey hair, the same coarse skin, the same worn features of a bureaucrat or a former soldier turned bureaucrat. When they sit down, the hems of their brown trousers rise up to reveal short grey socks that disappear into cheap shoes. While Mahmoud Abbas launches into his monologue on the unfolding tragedy, the men in brown remain perfectly still, their four faces sharing the same expression of vague regret. At a given moment, their boss draws a parallel with the wars of 1948 and 1967, which forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians into exile. Nobody knows what happened to them then. Some were newborns, then teenagers, tossed 6who-knows-where by the crashing waves of history. The men’s expressions don’t change; they are too tired. Nor do they change when the French president begins to speak. One or two of them, perhaps, understand French; the others must wait for the interpreter’s translation. But nothing seems to pierce the wall of their exhaustion, even when the conversation between the two heads of state grows more animated.
They remain like that until one particular word is spoken. A single word, unexpected in the flood of all these formulaic phrases, the thousands of words that are habitually spoken in such meetings. When they hear this word, the men in brown become suddenly animated. Their slumped bodies straighten, their dull eyes shine as they look up at the two presidents. The four of them take out little notebooks and start to write, exchanging furtive glances and looking almost happy.
Lula, the president of Brazil, is the ultimate modern embodiment of what Mérimée once observed in Lord Palmerston: ‘that mixture of a statesman and a small child’. He gets muddled, calling Macron ‘Sarkozy’, and he—like the men in brown—has seen too much of life: a metalworker in his teens, thirty years of struggle, prison, then two terms as president, during which he created the Bolsa Família that helped millions of Brazilians out of 7desperate poverty. And then the fall: prison again, for an absurd scandal, before being acquitted and resurrecting his political career, climaxing with a third term as president at the age of seventy-six. No other world leader can boast of a career like that. Lula is a joker, a world-weary provocateur, but he is still capable of brilliance; he can make his audience laugh and he can make them cry; he can enter a room full of heads of state and bend it to his will.
At the end of the meeting, he mentions Haiti, with its gang-controlled capital, and promises to take care of it. The French president introduces him to the Haitian-Canadian writer Dany Laferrière. Lula smiles enthusiastically, hugging Dany and patting him on the back like some long-lost friend. ‘And this is another writer,’ Macron tells him, gesturing at me.
A little embarrassed, I say: ‘But I’m just an Italian.’ Lula laughs, and gives me a consolatory hug.
The Iranian president’s bodyguard stands in front of the door to the small room where his boss is in discussion with the French president. An employee of the Élysée Palace’s security team goes over to him: ‘Sir, you can’t stand there.’ The Iranian doesn’t so much as blink. The Frenchman insists: ‘Sir, I can see that you’re armed. That’s not acceptable. You are on French territory here.’ 8
The Iranian stares at him: ‘My president is inside there.’
‘So is mine,’ the Frenchman replies. ‘I can assure you that he is not at risk.’
The Iranian agrees to move a few inches away.
Now it’s the turn of the American secret service agent to intervene. ‘Sir, you’re not allowed to stand there.’ Again, the Iranian doesn’t blink. ‘And I can see that you’re armed. That’s not acceptable. You are on American territory here.’
For a second, the Frenchman looks lost.
The Iranian steps back to his original position in front of the door.
‘Sir, you can’t stand there!’
And we’re back to square one.
Like the Battle of Waterloo as viewed through the eyes of Fabrice del Dongo in Stendhal’s TheCharterhouseofParma, the General Assembly of the United Nations is not something that can be seen in its entirety. You need multiple viewpoints to perceive it fully. First, the perspective of the leaders, convinced that they are ruling the world, but more often than not at the mercy of necessity; occasionally they are capable of creating history, but not always in a positive way. Next, the perspective of the negotiators and advisors, or ‘sherpas’, who weave their webs while exchanging complicit looks, because they know the before 9and the after, what happens on stage and in the wings. Finally, the perspective of the bodyguards, who stare coldly at each other and struggle with the reality that the whole idea of a security perimeter here is essentially meaningless.
Now, consider these three levels—the leaders, the advisors and the bodyguards—and multiply them by ninety-three, the number of national delegations present at the General Assembly. Each of them utterly convinced that their country is the centre of the world. Yes, even the delegation from Tuvalu. And the one from East Timor. Now you will start to understand why the United Nations cannot function. But perhaps also why we can’t do without it.
‘On this earth, there is something terrible, and it’s the fact that everybody has their reasons.’ This observation, from the Jean Renoir film TheRulesoftheGame, finds concrete form in an institution whose purpose is to bring all these reasons into contact with one another. But this is not a theoretical process. The UN General Assembly is, above all, a question of bodies.
The bodies of leaders, accustomed to the vast spaces of the palaces where they normally reside, find themselves squeezed into the narrow corridors and cramped rooms of the misleadingly named Glass Palace. The bodies of advisors and sherpas, perched on their folding seats, 10listening out for the single word, among all the ritual phrases, that will enable them to move forward, despite the odds stacked against them. And the bodies of bodyguards, frustrated at being prevented from doing their job, tensing with irritation or relaxing with philosophical acceptance, running to keep close to their boss, slamming into other bodies.
The body of a powerful person is an abstract entity. Immersed in the pomp of ceremonies that punctuate its existence—the golden sheen of palaces, the sirens of motorcades—it becomes a symbol, the incarnation of a collective entity: the nation, the state. But for this metamorphosis to work, for a simple human body to become the incarnation of millions of others, space is required: the ‘dimensions too considerable for the small number of their guests’, the silence and the ‘motionless luxury’ that Flaubert observed in royal residences.
In Ancient Egypt, the steps leading up to the feet of the pharaoh were higher than necessary so that those who climbed them would feel their inferiority. In Berlin, the New Reich Chancellery built for Hitler by Albert Speer consisted essentially of a corridor almost 500 feet in length that visitors had to walk through before reaching the office with blood-red walls where the Führer awaited them. 11
Distance, inaccessibility: the more remote the individual, the greater the power of the abstract symbol over the physical body. But the spaces inside the UN’s headquarters are too hemmed in, too crowded with powerful people: this year, there are eighty-seven heads of state and twenty-eight government leaders, not to mention all the ministers, ambassadors, heads of international organizations, the European Union, NATO. Consequently, the transfiguration cannot take place, and what remains is the physical body.
The UN General Assembly is the moment, occurring once every year, when the world’s most powerful people become mere bodies again.
And all these bodies are in movement. They run through corridors so they can make it to their meetings on time, or at least not be too late. They cram into lifts because they don’t want to be left behind. They shove their way through forests of microphones and cameras to reach the packed room where something might be happening. Something they could tell their grandchildren about. Or, more likely, something they’ll already have forgotten about by tomorrow morning.
You wait or you run; there is no in-between. This is the rhythm of the General Assembly, and of politics in 12general. It is deadly boring: as Woody Allen said, ninety per cent of success in life is just showing up. Being there. And then, from time to time, you must pounce.
The provocative theory put forward by the Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset about the state’s origins in sport is here startlingly confirmed. Testosterone levels are so elevated that physical confrontations are far from rare.
Particularly since the bodies in question are almost all male. Less than ten per cent of participants in the General Assembly are women. The UN’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, deplores this fact once again in his speech, but it is highly unlikely that the situation will change any time soon: the UN itself has never chosen a female leader. Moreover, the men who end up here are not ordinary men. If politics is the continuation of war by other means, it is hardly surprising that this activity tends to attract the most violent characters, people who find meaning in life only when they are in conflict.
Two delegations—each with its leader, its sherpas, its protocol officer, its bodyguards, its secret service agent—charge through a narrow corridor. Each is the centre of the world. Each has a vital meeting that they must (and cannot possibly) attend. They run in opposite directions. They collide. Each delegation expects the other to move 13out of the way. None of these men are used to yielding; they are accustomed to guards of honour, to roads being closed to traffic, to police cordons sealing them off from any possible hindrance. There are raised voices, outraged expressions. The tension mounts. Hands grab. Shoulders barge. Nostrils flare. Suddenly, the leaders recognize each other. Boric, the Chilean president, is a small wild boar of a man who moves everywhere with such fierce determination that you immediately sense he is incapable of taking a sideways step. He and Macron hug. The conflict is temporarily defused. The delegations go on their way.
*
Ten years ago, when I used to accompany the Italian prime minister on his trips around the world, there was a stupid game that I would play with his spokesman, who was, like me, a big fan of political TV shows. Back then, such series fell into three main categories. The first, which we might describe as heroic, included productions such as TheWestWing, which represented politics as a virtuous competition between generally competent and well-intentioned people. The second sort of show was darker, depicting politics as a Hobbesian jungle in which nobody is innocent and the only law is survival. This category included HouseofCards, extremely popular 14among politicians because it portrayed them as brilliant, unscrupulous Machiavellian characters, leading a fascinating life of intrigues and dirty tricks. The third category, on the other hand, which included sitcoms such as TheThickofItand Veep
