How the West Unpersons Its Critics:

Or about the Kafkaesque Europe

“The Trial” — Wolfgang Lettl 1981

A passage from Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale has been haunting me: “That was when they suspended the Constitution. They said it would be temporary. There wasn’t even any rioting in the streets. People stayed home at night, watching television, looking for some direction. There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on.” From time to time, something suddenly crystallizes in my mind, something that can be explained precisely in these terms, only to fade again, until it resurfaces later with renewed force. At the heart of this thought lies silence: the unquestioning acceptance of the erosion of freedom, passivity, and the zombification of society. I deliberately say society, even masses, because these are no longer citizens in the meaningful sense of the word. From today’s perspective, the difference is largely technological. We no longer stare at TV screens; instead, we scroll endlessly on our phones, jumping from one sensation to the next, from one distraction to another. And unlike Atwood’s fictional moment, today we do have enemies—sometimes an entire menu to choose from: Russia, China, Venezuela, Iran, or Hamas.

The immediate trigger for this text is the introduction of so-called “restrictive measures” (an innovation associated with Kaja Kallas), together with Ursula von der Leyen’s much-advertised “Democracy Shield.” I call this a trigger because the phenomenon itself, the quiet, extrajudicial punishment of individuals and groups, has been with us for some time. We were simply watching TV then, or scrolling just as passively as we do now. The most recent case that disturbed part of the alternative intellectual and media scene concerns a Swiss citizen: a retired intelligence officer and frequent guest on podcasts discussing the war in Ukraine. He is not an exception. He is merely one name among nearly sixty individuals who have already been subjected to sanctions. What differs is that outrage tends to erupt only when someone from “our” supposedly law-based, civilized world is targeted by measures that defy not only common sense, but the very idea of law itself.

Alongside Jacques Baud, several other EU citizens have been sanctioned. For those unfamiliar with what this entails: these individuals are prohibited from working—or even speaking publicly for remuneration—anywhere within the EU; their freedom of movement, including within the Union, is revoked; and all their income and assets are frozen, from bank accounts to movable and immovable property. To grasp the cruelty of this punishment, one need only imagine oneself in their position. How does one survive without access to one’s own money, without the right to work, and without the ability to cross borders—depending on where the “restrictive measures” happened to catch you? Orwell had a term for such people in 1984: unperson.

Seen from the perspective of those now branded as security threats simply because they speak and analyze—and against the backdrop of the EU’s carefully cultivated self-image as a value-based community, even a global exporter of values—it is legitimate to ask: how did we reach a point where virtually every public, critical, or outspoken intellectual has become a potential target? The EU’s long arm has already extended to citizens of third countries who do not even reside on its territory. The conclusions of the most recent EU–Western Balkans summit implicitly demand that similar measures be introduced domestically if these countries wish to be fully aligned with EU foreign and security policy. In short, some of us are potential unpersons.

The unpersons enjoy no legal protection whatsoever. Astonishingly, decisions of the EU Council in the realm of foreign and security policy are exempt from judicial review, leaving affected individuals without any effective legal remedy. They are enemies—and for enemies, the rule of law no longer applies, if one allows oneself a moment of cynical clarity. The Balkans inherited a proverb from Ottoman times that captures this logic perfectly: the kadi accuses you, the kadi judges you (kadija te tuži, kadija te sudi). All of this occurs for acts that are not defined in any criminal code—such as “spreading disinformation” or promoting “pro-Russian narratives.”

You don’t need to be a seasoned jurist to recognize the systematic breach of fundamental legal principles, many of which trace back to Roman law. Not only is an incompetent authority issuing punishments, but these punishments target acts that are not even defined as criminal offenses (Nullum crimen, nulla poena sine lege). The presumption of innocence has been discarded (Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat), the protection of personal liberty is ignored (Habeas corpus), and procedural safeguards—including the right to appeal (Recursus) and limits on the duration of sanctions—are absent. In short, the very pillars of justice have been undermined. Citizens are treated as if they were already guilty, stripped of their rights, and rendered powerless before arbitrary authority. The result is a Kafkaesque reality in which law exists only as a performative façade, while liberty, due process, and human dignity are suspended.

To demonstrate that this fascistoid (some would say feudal) logic of governance, shared not only by the EU but also by the UK and the United States, is nothing new requires little effort. One need not even begin with Assange; merely invoking his name should suffice to recall why he was unlawfully imprisoned. Perhaps younger generations have already forgotten. Only weeks ago, Yanis Varoufakis published a brilliant piece on a related case involving French judge Nicolas Guillou of the ICC, sanctioned by the Trump administration for authorizing arrest warrants against Israel’s prime minister and former defense minister over war crimes in Gaza.

Varoufakis describes a Europe that has lost all sovereignty—unable and unwilling to protect its own citizens. The same applies to the French state, so proud of its revolutionary slogans. We may also recall the ban imposed by Germany on Varoufakis’ participation in a debate on genocide, as well as similar threats directed at Francesca Albanese. With Kallas’ restrictive measures, the EU has moved even closer to Trump’s punitive model—indeed, it has refined it by sanctioning its own citizens alongside Russians and Ukrainians. At one point, we mocked Ukrainian authorities when they compiled target lists of allegedly pro-Russian individuals. Today, the EU has effectively “Ukrainized” itself—copying and upgrading these practices rather than restraining Ukraine’s kleptocratic and militant elites.

Most disturbing of all is that we do not even know how many people have already fallen victim to this Kafkaesque machinery, nor how many procedures have taken place in silence. Recently, a friend from the EU shared an eerily familiar story: years before October 7, 2023, her foundation had all its funds frozen due to cooperation with peace groups from Iran and Palestine. Look at who is targeted today, even dragged before courts, for alleged terrorist activities, merely for wearing a keffiyeh or expressing solidarity with Gaza. Countless people have lost their jobs, including in universities, for similarly benign acts.

The fault lies with us. We react only to isolated cases, usually only when the threat approaches us personally. Yet the problem is systemic. This is systemic violence against rights and freedoms—against what makes a human being human. And it continues relentlessly, as in the famous warning: “First they came for…”

I live in what can only be described as a semi-colony of the US or the EU (sorry, lately the distinction has become increasingly blurred). What I do know is that in our cursed avliya, the enclosed courtyard borrowed from Ivo Andrić’s Prokleta avlija; in English translation known as The Damned Yard) constitutional sovereignty was taken from us collectively. Very few protested. Cancelling is a routine. People mutter in the old servant mentality: stay quiet, it could be worse. And now the visible worst arrives: the Kafkaesque soft power of the UK and the EU, operating as part of a so-called Coalition of the Willing.

Narratives are imposed through NGOs under the benevolent banner of supporting democratic institutions. I will not recount the three externally imposed agreements that reshaped our political system—that is a long and painful story. Through USAID, NED, and similar foundations, young minds are molded. One telling example: one of my best students—deeply indoctrinated—received an award from the German Embassy just days ago for excellence in human rights knowledge, precisely as “restrictive measures” were unfolding. This cannot be invented. Naturally, he already imagines himself as a future leader, a loyal priest of the new faith, entirely silent on the suspension of rights within the EU.

Even more alarming is when these measures are internalized and implemented by those in power at home. The rhetoric has shifted gradually: first “hybrid threats” (which no one can clearly define), then “disinformation,” followed by “malign influences,” “third power centers,” and “resilience.” Most recently, the Macedonian parliament passed a resolution effectively banning the opposition from spreading “disinformation”—a euphemism for censorship. This operates on multiple, interconnected levels.

Years ago, an NGO specializing in media studies launched a project called SHTETNA (ШТЕТНА), a wordplay combining “harmful” (штета) and “narratives” (наративи) or Harm-Tive, aimed at identifying narratives allegedly undermining trust in democratic institutions, despite the reality of a captured, disintegrating state. More recently, the British ambassador and the TRACE project’s director announced a new two-year project TRACE along similar lines, in the presence of a smiling prime minister. The irony is almost unbearable: Macedonian society has long been silenced; intellectuals have retreated into mouse holes or ivory towers; the media self-censor efficiently; the people scroll.

Figures such as Jacques Baud or Judge Nicolas Guillou matter not as individuals, but as warnings—signals of what awaits anyone who refuses to remain silent as Europe marches toward a third world war, or as the dragon of Zionism devours an entire nation, beginning with its children. (It does not mean we should not solidarize with them.) Months ago, during the formation of a global, multipolar peace network, I suggested that mechanisms of solidarity would be necessary; commitment to peace has become a dangerous act. Some Western colleagues likely thought I was cowardly or paranoid. They did not know that my second name is Cassandra—the one who foresaw the fall of Troy. Two months later, we all ask the same question: what now?

The greatest irony is this: people like me learned courage, critical thinking, and intellectual honesty under “communism,” in socialist Yugoslavia. That was my father’s ethos; it is mine. For me, the role of the public intellectual is to speak uncomfortable truths to power—at any cost. And now, those raised in “democracy” are shocked that their beloved EU has descended into fascistoid practices. I taught European political systems for decades and always knew it was an empty shell of corporate, colonial, and imperial power—draped in the rhetoric of peace, welfare, and justice. Not because I am particularly clever, but because I retained the childlike freedom to say when the emperor has no clothes.

Now that we all see the emperor naked, will we do anything? Or will we hide and remain silent until they come for us too?