Since the 11 September 2001 attacks and the passage of the repressive Patriot Act, the US and the so-called liberal democracies of Western Europe, which followed suit with their own repressive laws, have expanded their already significant policing powers over their own populations, while broadening the justifications for their imperialist wars around the globe.

The post-9/11 surveillance mechanisms instituted in the “West” expanded again during the Covid pandemic 2020-2022, further shrinking liberal rights and “freedoms”. The third wave in the consolidation of police states in these “democracies” began with the suppression of opinions that countered mainstream dogma on the Russia-Ukraine war in February 2022.

Civil society institutions, including universities, cultural institutions, orchestras, art galleries, and the press, all actively participated in this suppression by targeting Russian cultural figures, including opera singers and orchestra conductors.

Attempts to eliminate the centrality of the Russian language and literature, including courses on Dostoevsky, in university Slavic and Russian departments and programmes reached apoplectic proportions, though not yet their maximalist potential.

That point was reached after the Palestinian Al-Aqsa Flood operation and the ongoing Israeli genocide that has killed and injured a quarter of a million Palestinians since October 2023.