[spectre] a terrible day

[Mathias Fuchs]

Dear friends and neighbours,

with all shared emotions about the horrible things that happen in the 
Ukraine and with particular sympathies for the victims of Russia's 
invasion, might I still put up a thought for discussion?

I saw elderly ladies in the streets of Berlin today carrying signs 
saying "Fuck Putin". This is maybe understandable at a private level of 
anger, but it underanalysis what is going on there.

Putin is not an individual devil who wants to destroy a nation. The 
actions taking are in my view a reaction to international politics that 
are a well coordinated maneuvres of Russian Intelligence, Russian 
Business and Russian Military. Not Putin as a person.

The Capitalist West has expanded zones of monetary interest and of 
military influence towards the East since 1991. NATO countries are at 
the border of Russia. This is as if Russia would have installed missiles 
in Canada, Cuba, and Mexico. Do you remember the histeria when the 
Soviet Union set up missiles in Cuba?


I hope that this conflict will be solved without costs of life and the 
Ukrainian friends have my full sympathies, but we should not fool 
ourselves into "Putin did it". This is a much more complex issue and the 
NATO is not completely innocent of what is going on there.

Do you remember that NATO is short for "North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization"? Is the Ukraine on the North Atlantic? Why does NATO want 
to expand to control the entire continent? Could you consider to be a 
Russian citizen and be frightened by a military organisation trying to 
take over the whole of Europe?


Thanks for your thoughts

Mathias




On 24.02.22 11:41, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
> Dear friends,
>
> after the build-up of the last days and weeks, this morning we woke up 
> to a terrible new situation. The Russian attack on Ukraine is a 
> catastrophe, for the people and the country of Ukraine, and thus for 
> Europe, and I believe also for Russia. This war will not only bring 
> futile and awful destruction, but it will also change many things, not 
> only in the Ukrainian territories now under attack.
>
> I'm writing to open up this space for debate. You may have other 
> channels for such discussions elsewhere (... it has been more than 
> twenty years ago that the Syndicate list, the precursor to Spectre, 
> was an important channel for such discussions during the conflict in 
> Kosovo and the NATO attacks on Serbia). But this list, with its legacy 
> of reflecting the diversity and solidarity of artists and cultural 
> practitioners in "Deep Europe" and beyond, is certainly available for 
> exchange, analysis and coordination if required.
>
> If there are people here on the list who can report about the 
> situation in Ukraine, they may want to inform their international 
> colleagues about what forms of help and solidarity might be useful.
>
> And if there are people (especially in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, etc.) 
> who would like to write anonymously, please, feel free to write to me 
> and I will anonymise and forward any reasonable messages.
>
> Andreas
> ______________________________________________
> SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
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-- 
Dr. habil. Mathias Fuchs
IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften
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Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM)
  Universitätsstr. 1
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Co-Editor Journal Digital Culture & Society
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