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<p>Dear Andreas,</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>The country that you know I come from made a decision in <span
style="color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">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.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">And once
more: my full sympathies for the Ucranian people who has to
suffer now.</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">Best</span></p>
<p><span style="color: rgb(32, 33, 34); font-family: sans-serif;
font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant-ligatures:
normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: 400;
letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start;
text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness:
initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color:
initial; display: inline !important; float: none;">Mathias<br>
</span></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 25.02.22 10:13, Andreas Broeckmann
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:44d073cb-0077-d195-65e8-dcea9a88fbf1@mikro.in-berlin.de">Dear
Mathias,
<br>
<br>
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?)
<br>
<br>
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"?
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
Best regards,
<br>
<br>
-a
<br>
<br>
<br>
Am 24.02.22 um 19:11 schrieb Mathias Fuchs:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Dear friends and neighbours,
<br>
<br>
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?
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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?
<br>
<br>
<br>
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.
<br>
<br>
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?
<br>
<br>
<br>
Thanks for your thoughts
<br>
<br>
Mathias
<br>
</blockquote>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Dr. habil. Mathias Fuchs
IFK Internationales Forschungszentrum Kulturwissenschaften
Reichsratsstraße 17
1010 Wien, Austria
Institute of Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media (ICAM)
Universitätsstr. 1
21335 Lüneburg
Co-Editor Journal Digital Culture & Society
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.transcript-verlag.de/zeitschriften/digital-culture-und-society/">http://www.transcript-verlag.de/zeitschriften/digital-culture-und-society/</a>
Residential Address: Kleistgasse 9, 1030 Wien, Austria
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://creativegames.org.uk/">http://creativegames.org.uk/</a></pre>
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