Ukraine

We people, also here in Europe, after a Renaissance, an Enlightenment, Modernism, Post-modern, eco-consciousness, after a World War II and a 9/11, we still see the world in black and white. There is the underdeveloped uncivilized East and South versus the developed and civilized West and North, there is the brutish dark terrorist Muslim versus the blue eyed, pure secular white people, there is the evil narrow-minded conservative, versus the open, accepting liberal, and recently, there is the Hitler of the East, namely the Russian people (and not just Putin!) versus the great free West, who is fighting to defend universal human rights and world peace.

Surely, this is what the media wants us to believe, but are we really buying into a binary narrative (again)?! And if this particular narrative is not quite the case, then what is? In times of war, it is extremely difficult not to be carried away by emotions and anger. It is very easy to blame the aggressors. Seeing the big picture and understading the chain of actions and reactions, seeing situations with a cool head and trying to understand the opposing party in order to achieve real peace that actually lasts is time-consuming, far less of an energy boost than anger, and also involves the tiring and painful work of transgressing our own ego-boundaries.

As an intellectual, I have to address the Ukranian war. Mind you, I read a post from a dear colleague recently, in which she writes how much she respects peple who don’t formulate opinion about the things they don’t know enough of. Surely this is an honorable skill to have, and I am just about to dishonor this by writing this entry about Ukraine. But maybe I have an excuse. Although I am not an expert in international relations, there is still one thing I am good at and I can do, in fact I must do: I can go against the binary hate-talk that is dominating the international discourse about the war since – and even before – its outbreak.

The most domineering hate-talk states that Putin is the new Hitler, he is a dictatorial beast, and good-old United States, the watch-tower of world democracy, the most democratic of all countires is protecting world interest by reacting to the murderous rage-fit of the beast. Let me just examine this statement.

Putin is no nice guy. He is a dictator, a former head of KGB, smart, completely ruthless, no sentimentalism, probably paranoid and most likely with the brain of a psychopath. He treats Russian people and minority appalingly, there is no freedom of speech, freedom of self-expression or even the respect of basic human rights in Russia. There is still massive poverty, alcoholism, minorities have a very hard time, oligarchs rule. A considerably percentage of the population longs for the end of the Putin regime. So Putin can easily carry the symbol of the Russian wild bear, the beast.

Now the question is, how do you behave with a dormant wild bear? Do you go to his cave, squeeze him in there, tighter and tighter, while wiggling a bloody piece of meat in front of his nose? Well, this is an option, but maybe you want to think twice before doing that. In the world of global politics, no wars errupt just because any president wakes up one day and feeling like doing war. There is a complex global chain of events and interests that start wars. What might have started this one? And why did it start when it started? Whose interest is this war? Who benefits from it? I think these are the important questions to answer. So here are some possible answers.

The war started because:

a) Putin is a maniac who was eyeing Ukraine for a long time, he wants to become a world-dictator, reestablishing the former borders of the Russian empire Soviet Union

b) Putin wants to save Russian minorities from Ukranians and other oppressing nations, Russia is now strong enough not to be at the mercy of other world powers such as the USA or China, it can grow into an empire

c) The US driven NATO was pushing its borders way too close to Russian borders. Putin expressed his dislike towards this, arguing that this was not part of the WWII agreement, and many more neutral countries are needed between West and East to secure peace. The contract was breached by NATO, NATO support in Ukraine was the last drop, Russia reacted. Read up about this here.

d) Establishing a strong Europe with Russia as its ally would have been a very good economical move for the two parties, but a potential threat for the Unites Stated. With the building of Nord Stream 2, and by bringing Russian gas to Germany as opposed to the Germans buying gas from the Americans, would have meant the growth of a strong business relationship between Europe and Russia, weakening the US. Interestingly, now the Germans will be forced to buy American gas in order to survive until summer.

The sanctions imposed on Russia will result in such economical changes that we have never seen before. Not only Russian people, but the entire world economy will be potentially wracked by them. Furthermore, sanctions often backfire, as they draw further support and can make people change sides or take radical actions. For example, Ivan Kulijak young athlete stood on up in the Doha worldcup wearing a Z sign on his T-shirt. Everybody was outraged and an ethical investiation will start against him. I don’t think his open political statement is unrelated with the fact that while competing, he already knew that Russian athletes will be sanctioned because of the war and banned from competitions. From his perspective, the war can be seen as an event triggered by the west, so Russia as a growing power can be crippled again back to deep poverty.

The problem always with such situtions is that the average people suffer. The poor people, who have nothing to do with world politics fall victim. What is going on in Ukraine is so shocking and heart-braking that it cannot be expressed in words. The refugees, the death, the separation of families, the destruction of homes, businesses, that was in many cases all that their owner had, starting a new life and surviving in broken families is the greatest tragedy that can happen.

Blaming it all on one dictatorial individual is like blaming the entire World War Two on one psychotic paraniod patient. If madmen can take over the world and turn it upside down like this, then is it the madman to blame or everybody else by allowing all this to happen? Again, this does not justify war and does not make the perpetrator innocent. But probably it is high time to start taking real responsiblity.

Here is a very good post from one of the most interesting Hungarian public figures, Tamás Frei about the situation.

And this is a hard core critical perspective from Glen Greenwald, a liberal, gay, Jewish American journalist on the international causes of the war. One of my colleagues shunned this video off, saying that this does not explan the amount of horror Russians impose on Ukraine. I fully agree and there is no excuse for the horrondeous actions.