Opinion / Columnist
The paradigm of war and interests
28 Feb 2022 at 05:29hrs | Views
The unbalanced informational diet from western media outlets makes it seem so ordinary, normal, and even natural that President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, is the real devil in all this.
Western spies, pundits and scholars are frantically circulating a bold but fragile narrative of Putin and his Russian establishment as the anti-Christ that is causing trouble in paradise, making a bloody war in our peaceful world.
Slavoj Zizek pictures Putin as an incorrigible rapist that violates Ukraine against the wisdom of the entire planet and supplications from all corners of the world to "stop it."
Garden of Eden stories are told of a Russian monster that has suddenly come out of its dark cave to disturb treasured world peace and threaten World War III even.
The stubborn truth is far away from these linear narratives and simplistic tales of good versus evil and demons versus angels.
That Russia has for many years watched in a mixture of fear and anger, as the NATO military alliance led by the USA surrounded it with military bases in client countries in Eastern Europe is treated as a matter but not of fact. One by one former Warsaw Pact States and former Soviet Republics that surround Russia have been joining NATO and creating a vivid security menace around the country that has always nursed debilitating suspicion of things western and American.
To the Russian ego and the meta-reality of the country which Putin has come to personify from a point of drama to spectacle; it was a declaration of war for Ukraine to express willingness to join NATO and for the USA and Europe to encourage the request as if to have sponsored it in the very first place.
Professor Arthur Mutambara of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) in the University of Johannesburg is correct that geopolitical realities of the past, present and future world may not permit any country to allow itself to be surrounded to a point of suffocation by enemies and other suspects.
In that way, ever the Machiavellian, knowing that "there is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy," The Zelensky establishment in Ukraine succeeded the dethroned Yanukovich regime that was seen to be pro-Russia and against the west European and NATO military imperialism into Eastern Europe.
Clearly, since the Cold War, a geopolitical struggle has been going on and, led by Russia, it has just turned military.
The fear of Third World War and nuclear warfare has never been more real.
Cry havoc and silence from the top
In the days before Russia attacked Ukraine in earnest it is the American government guided by intelligence reports that warned the world that a war is afoot.
Russia, the supposed aggressor kept on denying any intention to attack Ukraine until the day Putin announced that Russia will recognise Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states that must be protected from the genocide of Ukraine and its western allies.
From the Americans and their NATO allies came strong threats of "decisive action" in shape of sanctions that are expected to cripple the Russian economy and polity.
From the UK Boris Johnson loudly screamed about the brazen violation of International Law by Russia. In Ukraine Zelensky expected NATO to intervene militarily, even if it was to be the beginning of World War III in veracity, a war of all against all.
But facts have proven rather too hard, dry, and cold for Ukraine.
On 24 February 2022, Zelensky addressed the nation in pathos: "Today I asked the 27 leaders of Europe whether Ukraine will be in NATO. I asked directly. Everyone is afraid. They do not answer."
The irony is that those that were certain Russia will invade Ukraine and promised a strong reaction have not intervened except in lousy sanctions, and Russia that denied intending to invade its neighbour has surely occupied the country.
The tragedy of the moment is that the innocents are dying and have suddenly been sentenced to much suffering and misery.
Fear has enveloped Ukraine and refugees are flocking out, some of them curiously headed for Russia.
The real merchants of war at the top, among the super-powers of both sides of the divide, are silent and seemingly surprised that things have gone this far.
What has always looked like peace between Russia, China and the NATO alliance has always been silence that is always deceptive, the proverbial clam before the storm.
The complicity of the USA and NATO alliance in the war in Ukraine, their criminality even, remains a subject not discussed and therefore not understood.
The tonnes and tonnes of weapons in shape of guns, missiles, bombs, and tankers that the USA and Europe have been donating to Ukraine are being collected by Russian troops, abandoned in the streets and alleys by fleeing Ukrainian soldiers and military reservists.
The fleeing, dying, and suffering soldiers and civilians are not presented as evidence of American and western evil but as victims of imperialist and tyrannical Russia that is annexing former Soviet Republics, one by one.
That Russia annexed the Crimea Peninsula part of Ukraine in 2014 because the NATO gang were using it to block the Russian economic route of the Black Sea are facts that are not written or spoken of by Euro-American spies, journalists, politicians, and the scholars.
The truth and the commonsense that we are fed of is that of Putin and Russia as the Anti-christ.
The paradigm of war and interests
To pen-off I quote a leading media scholar, Last Madiwa Moyo, in a terse Facebook post: "When we criticise Russia, we have an obligation to know the history, Eurasia politics, the West, and NATO beyond CNN and BBC soundbites of the known utopic registers of national sovereignty, global peace, and global justice.
If we get these right, we could all be Putins." Things, otherwise, are not what they seem to be in this throw-away world.
Victims, those without the power and those like Russia that have the power to defend themselves are normally and naturally presented as victimisers, haters, racists, tribalists, warmongers and other Lucifers, yet in truth, they are not.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, Pretoria, in South Africa. Contacts: decoloniality2019@gmail.com
Western spies, pundits and scholars are frantically circulating a bold but fragile narrative of Putin and his Russian establishment as the anti-Christ that is causing trouble in paradise, making a bloody war in our peaceful world.
Slavoj Zizek pictures Putin as an incorrigible rapist that violates Ukraine against the wisdom of the entire planet and supplications from all corners of the world to "stop it."
Garden of Eden stories are told of a Russian monster that has suddenly come out of its dark cave to disturb treasured world peace and threaten World War III even.
The stubborn truth is far away from these linear narratives and simplistic tales of good versus evil and demons versus angels.
That Russia has for many years watched in a mixture of fear and anger, as the NATO military alliance led by the USA surrounded it with military bases in client countries in Eastern Europe is treated as a matter but not of fact. One by one former Warsaw Pact States and former Soviet Republics that surround Russia have been joining NATO and creating a vivid security menace around the country that has always nursed debilitating suspicion of things western and American.
To the Russian ego and the meta-reality of the country which Putin has come to personify from a point of drama to spectacle; it was a declaration of war for Ukraine to express willingness to join NATO and for the USA and Europe to encourage the request as if to have sponsored it in the very first place.
Professor Arthur Mutambara of the Institute for the Future of Knowledge (IFK) in the University of Johannesburg is correct that geopolitical realities of the past, present and future world may not permit any country to allow itself to be surrounded to a point of suffocation by enemies and other suspects.
In that way, ever the Machiavellian, knowing that "there is no avoiding war, it can only be postponed to the advantage of your enemy," The Zelensky establishment in Ukraine succeeded the dethroned Yanukovich regime that was seen to be pro-Russia and against the west European and NATO military imperialism into Eastern Europe.
Clearly, since the Cold War, a geopolitical struggle has been going on and, led by Russia, it has just turned military.
The fear of Third World War and nuclear warfare has never been more real.
Cry havoc and silence from the top
In the days before Russia attacked Ukraine in earnest it is the American government guided by intelligence reports that warned the world that a war is afoot.
Russia, the supposed aggressor kept on denying any intention to attack Ukraine until the day Putin announced that Russia will recognise Donetsk and Luhansk as independent states that must be protected from the genocide of Ukraine and its western allies.
From the Americans and their NATO allies came strong threats of "decisive action" in shape of sanctions that are expected to cripple the Russian economy and polity.
From the UK Boris Johnson loudly screamed about the brazen violation of International Law by Russia. In Ukraine Zelensky expected NATO to intervene militarily, even if it was to be the beginning of World War III in veracity, a war of all against all.
But facts have proven rather too hard, dry, and cold for Ukraine.
On 24 February 2022, Zelensky addressed the nation in pathos: "Today I asked the 27 leaders of Europe whether Ukraine will be in NATO. I asked directly. Everyone is afraid. They do not answer."
The irony is that those that were certain Russia will invade Ukraine and promised a strong reaction have not intervened except in lousy sanctions, and Russia that denied intending to invade its neighbour has surely occupied the country.
The tragedy of the moment is that the innocents are dying and have suddenly been sentenced to much suffering and misery.
Fear has enveloped Ukraine and refugees are flocking out, some of them curiously headed for Russia.
The real merchants of war at the top, among the super-powers of both sides of the divide, are silent and seemingly surprised that things have gone this far.
What has always looked like peace between Russia, China and the NATO alliance has always been silence that is always deceptive, the proverbial clam before the storm.
The complicity of the USA and NATO alliance in the war in Ukraine, their criminality even, remains a subject not discussed and therefore not understood.
The tonnes and tonnes of weapons in shape of guns, missiles, bombs, and tankers that the USA and Europe have been donating to Ukraine are being collected by Russian troops, abandoned in the streets and alleys by fleeing Ukrainian soldiers and military reservists.
The fleeing, dying, and suffering soldiers and civilians are not presented as evidence of American and western evil but as victims of imperialist and tyrannical Russia that is annexing former Soviet Republics, one by one.
That Russia annexed the Crimea Peninsula part of Ukraine in 2014 because the NATO gang were using it to block the Russian economic route of the Black Sea are facts that are not written or spoken of by Euro-American spies, journalists, politicians, and the scholars.
The truth and the commonsense that we are fed of is that of Putin and Russia as the Anti-christ.
The paradigm of war and interests
To pen-off I quote a leading media scholar, Last Madiwa Moyo, in a terse Facebook post: "When we criticise Russia, we have an obligation to know the history, Eurasia politics, the West, and NATO beyond CNN and BBC soundbites of the known utopic registers of national sovereignty, global peace, and global justice.
If we get these right, we could all be Putins." Things, otherwise, are not what they seem to be in this throw-away world.
Victims, those without the power and those like Russia that have the power to defend themselves are normally and naturally presented as victimisers, haters, racists, tribalists, warmongers and other Lucifers, yet in truth, they are not.
Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, Pretoria, in South Africa. Contacts: decoloniality2019@gmail.com
Source - The Sunday News
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