The worst part is probably that I understand what Putin is trying to do.
Maybe some background here first: I major in International Relations in college, so I spent basically four years of my life reading about states, international laws, organizations, diplomacy, and history, most of all. I understand, I dare say more than most people, how our world is built on bullshit piled on top of bullshit, actually. But these are meaningful bullshit, bullshit that ends up more binding than anything that came before because we believe in it.
Sorry, this isn’t making any sense. I’ll just leave you this quote from Sir Terry Pratchett:
“All right,” said Susan. “I’m not stupid. You’re saying humans need… fantasies to make life bearable.”
REALLY? AS IF IT WAS SOME KIND OF PINK PILL? NO. HUMANS NEED FANTASY TO BE HUMAN. TO BE THE PLACE WHERE THE FALLING ANGEL MEETS THE RISING APE.
“Tooth fairies? Hogfathers? Little—”
YES. AS PRACTICE. YOU HAVE TO START OUT LEARNING TO BELIEVE THE LITTLE LIES.
“So we can believe the big ones?”
YES. JUSTICE. MERCY. DUTY. THAT SORT OF THING.
“They’re not the same at all!”
YOU THINK SO? THEN TAKE THE UNIVERSE AND GRIND IT DOWN TO THE FINEST POWDER AND SIEVE IT THROUGH THE FINEST SIEVE AND THEN SHOW ME ONE ATOM OF JUSTICE, ONE MOLECULE OF MERCY. AND YET—Death waved a hand. AND YET YOU ACT AS IF THERE IS SOME IDEAL ORDER IN THE WORLD, AS IF THERE IS SOME…SOME RIGHTNESS IN THE UNIVERSE BY WHICH IT MAY BE JUDGED.
“Yes, but people have got to believe that, or what’s the point—”
MY POINT EXACTLY.”
Hogfather (1996)
The concepts of nation-states, of sovereignty, of war crimes, of national borders, there’s not an atom of them in the universe, but they’re no less true. The world is built on trust, on faith, that we’ll all honour this agreement. That we’ll think of each other, of other nations as equals. That we won’t breach the national borders we’ve created, this parcelling-out of authority, for the sake of peace.
Everyone is saying Putin’s action, of declaring war against Ukraine and sending military action, is a desecration of this agreement. Here’s the thing though: don’t take this as fact, as this is just my strong feelings, but I think, the only reason he breached this trust, that he’s willing to topple the world over and point out the bullshits as bullshits, is because, for him, and maybe for his people, for the people around him, this trust has already been breached.
It was breached by the United States’ unparalleled, unchecked, military power. It was breached by the stranglehold that the “western” powers have over global governance. It was breached by the cultural hegemony of the United States.
But unlike many other countries also forced to live under the shadow of this hegemony—unlike Africa, still struggling to feed its own people, unlike Southeast Asia, still crawling upward in mimicry of the west—Russia has a Gun. And unlike everyone else, they’re willing to point that Gun at someone else.
I keep thinking of this statement made by Kenya during the UN Security Council meeting.
Here’s the part that really struck me.
10. Kenya, and almost every African country, was birthed by the ending of empire. Our borders were not of our own drawing. They were drawn in the distant colonial metropoles of London, Paris, and Lisbon with no regard for the ancient nations that they cleaved apart.
11. Today, across the border of every single African country live our countrymen with whom we share deep historical, cultural, and linguistic bonds.
12. At independence, had we chosen to pursue states on the basis of ethnic, racial or religious homogeneity, we would still be waging bloody wars these many decade later.
13. Instead, we agreed that we would settle for the borders that we inherited. But we would still pursue continental political, economic and legal integration. Rather than form nations that looked ever backward into history with a dangerous nostalgia, we chose to look forward to a greatness none of our many nations and people had ever known.
14. We chose to follow the rules of the OAU and the United Nations Charter not because our borders satisfied us but because we wanted something greater forged in peace.
Statement from Kenya (9pm, 21st of February 2022)
Kenya is just as angry at the western powers as Russia is. If anything, what happened to Russia is absolutely fucking nothing to all the shit that the African countries have to put up with throughout the years. But they’re willing to look past that. They recognize that everything they’ve agreed to since their independence was merely concessions. We could be better than this. We could make and believe in better lies than all these lines on the map that the colonizers have made. But we accept it because that’s the price for peace. Someday, we’ll find ways to make better lies.
Compared to this, Russia’s action is that of a child. A child, unfortunately, armed with a gun.
I don’t know how to end this blog post. This shit sucks. And I’ve read enough history to know this isn’t going to end well for anyone, not in the short-term.
I understand where Putin is coming from. You can’t just sit still and do nothing when you’re being trampled. Silence in the face of a status quo is support for that status quo. It sucks that I understand where Putin is coming from, and it sucks shit that I can’t honestly condemn Russia’s action in its entirety. Kenya’s words are powerful, but they’re just words. Maybe we do need to someone to load their Gun and point out at how the whole world is built on lies.
But that’s horrible. So many people are going to die. The world might be built on lies, but those lies keep us alive. We’ve created so many mechanisms just to keep us all alive, throughout the centuries. They’re not perfect but… someone loading their Gun is not what we need right now. Good God. We still have the climate crisis to take care of.
I don’t know how to end this blog post. I don’t know what to think. History repeats, time is a flat circle, et cetera et cetera, but dear God, I hope we learned something from all the shit we inherited from the past.
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