[spectre] a terrible day

[Oliver Grau]

Dear Andreas, dear Folks,

getting out of all this terrible development would be possible, if the old idea of bringing Russia into NATO would be readdressed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russia%E2%80%93NATO_relations#Suggestions_of_Russia_joining_NATO
If the corrupt Ukraine has a theoretical chance to get in, then also Russia (not the Putin Regime now, but if the country gets a perspective, things might get better again..)
Already during my last lecture tour throughout the Ukraine the colleagues were split: In the west, they were oriented towards Poland and Austria and Germany, in the Center Kiew approx.. 60:40 pro EU etc. in Charkiv towards Russia. It is sad that the EU could not develop a plan to support the Ukraine becoming a bridge towards Russia, so that the country could have benefitted from both sites.

We have no interest in an authoritarian (capitalist-oligarchic) Russia (almost like the Trump US..) building a superpower block with the dictatorship of the communist party in China, which will now see its chance to attack the democracy of Taiwan..

Best, Oliver



Von: SPECTRE <spectre-bounces at mikrolisten.de> Im Auftrag von Mathias Fuchs
Gesendet: Freitag, 25. Februar 2022 11:13
An: Andreas Broeckmann <ab at mikro.in-berlin.de>; spectre <spectre at mikrolisten.de>
Betreff: Re: [spectre] a terrible day


Dear Andreas,

thanks for your thoughtful reply to my quick email. You have a point there, of course, and I would like to draw back the "not innocent" notion.

When you ask about the "feminist and pacifist response", I can only offer a kind of politics that seems to have gone out of fashion: Neutrality. No weapons pointing towards any neighbouring borders, no membership in any military organisation.

The country that you know I come from made a decision in October 1955 to declare itself as a nation of  "immerwährender Neutralität" (eternal neutrality). Well, this everlasting condition did not last forever, but it at least the agreement kept the US and the USSR from stationing troops in Austria.

And once more: my full sympathies for the Ucranian people who has to suffer now.

Best

Mathias

On 25.02.22 10:13, Andreas Broeckmann wrote:
Dear Mathias,

I hesitate because this argument will change nothing, and more knowledgeable people are making it more elegantly elsewhere, I hope. But I want to shortly respond to your claim that "NATO is not completely innocent of what is going on". From my point of view, this is only true if you regard the Russian claims for its "security" as legitimate and (I find it hard to imagine that you would condone this) if you think that the specific current Russian "response" to the "threat" posed by NATO is therefore in some way justifiable. (What else, from an ethical point of view, could the phrase "not innocent" mean?)

Do you believe that, in order not to become co-responsible for the current situation (what you call "not innocent"), when the Baltic countries requested membership in NATO around 2000, the Western alliance should have said, "no, sorry folks, we cannot do this out of respect for the security concerns of the Russian Federation"?

To the contrary, I would claim that, whatever the circumstances, the Russian military attack on Ukraine, the threats and brutality towards deposing the elected Ukrainian government, the quasi-annexation of the eastern Ukrainian region (and of the Crimean peninsula, we should not forget) are illegitimate, and the misery, death and destruction that this war is bringing to people is unjustifiable and awful.

However, what concerns me more than such weird "shares of guilt" discussions is the question what a feminist and pacifist response or attitude can be in the current situation.

Best regards,

-a


Am 24.02.22 um 19:11 schrieb 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

--

Dr. habil. Mathias Fuchs

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