Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Russia-Ukraine and the Strange Ideological Convergence

russia conquered east europe after world war 2. many hoped communism would be progressive; it was oppressive, and those populations rose up in defiance of tanks, in czechoslovakia, hungary, and ultimately all the states the russians conquered.

the problem with salimonu's version is that it excludes from its history the actual intentions and aggressiveness of russia. if the monroe doctrine was real and bad, so what? the american and european missiles that surround russia are countered by an equal number of missiles pointed right back. an equal number, and putinesque idiots are happy to have a world on the brink of destruction from weapons on both sides.

the risk of missiles from ukraine are irrelevant. mutual assured destruction is already there, with missiles distributed all over the world, on aircraft and missiles and submarines, that can't be stopped, on both sides.

there is a notion of truth that has to rise above facts to point of view. the point of view here is to say only one side represents a threat to others. that is not true. both sides are defending themselves by pointing weapons at the other, equally risking all of our lives.

it is time to embrace that truth and argue that both sides need to embrace restraint and eliminate their weapons. they are not doing it; putin is especially doing the opposite now.

that's what should animate our thinking, not retreating to blaming the west for everything when all our lives are at stake.

ken

kenneth harrow

professor emeritus

dept of english

michigan state university

517 803-8839

harrow@msu.edu

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, March 9, 2022 9:02 AM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Russia-Ukraine and the Strange Ideological Convergence

 

​Whenever dogs see danger approaching and start charging and barking to ward off the danger, goats sighting the same danger will look unconcerned until they end up in the port of soup. We, Africans, are extremely moderate when it concerns any danger to our lives or wellbeings. That is why we always attribute our persecutions and exploitations by our traducers to the will of God. The Caucasian world love to slap Africans at will because they know we will always turn the other side. Everybody knows who were taken as slaves to work in plantations in America and sang blues while toiling. Russia's leader is not like an African leader and no one should expect him to behave like an African leader when the security of his nation is at stake.

Even if Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin should demand spheres of influence around his country, he will not be the first in history to demand or apply such policy. The President of the U.S., James Monroe, in 1823 declared what became known as Monroe Doctrine which had no recognition in International Law, but stood on the basis of a policy or a doctrine. Monroe Doctrine which is still applicable today maintained that a large portion of the American continent, including the Latin States of Central and South America and certain adjacent islands, fall within the sphere of influence of the United States. The Doctrine, in particular, contained a warning to European Powers : We owe it to candour and the amicable relations existing between the United States and those Powers (European Powers) to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to every portion of the hemisphere as DANGEROUS TO OUR PEACE AND SAFETY. It was the Monroe Doctrine that the U.S: proclaimed in 1962 when she compelled the Soviet Union to dismantle their missile base in Cuba. Unlike the U.S., Russia is not asking for a sphere of influence around her but non-deployment of NATO (US) missile base in Ukraine which, if activated, would take five minutes to reach Moscow, the capital of Russia. Against Russian fear of being encircled by the U.S./NATO missiles, the extreme moderates are proclaiming the right of Ukraine to choose to belong to any military alliance she wants, as if to say there are many military alliances in Europe and not just one.

The question which the extreme moderates should answer is, what justified the continued existence and expansion of NATO military alliance after WASAW, its counterforce, was dissolved in 1990 by Michail Gorbachev of the then USSR? Before then there were Eastern Block and Western Block. Gorbachev did not want Europe divided along two opposed forces from the East and West. Gorbachev naively believed that once he dissolved WASAW pact millitary alliance and permitted the unification of divided Germany, NATO millitary alliance would die a natural death because there would no longer be an enemy for it to justify its existence. For the real peace initiatiative he took in Europe, Michail Gorbachev was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990. Nine years later NATO military alliance admitted Poland, Hungary and Czech Republic as members and in 2004, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania Slovakia and Slovania became members of NATO. All of them from Eastern Europe were members of the disbanded WASAW military alliance. Who is now the declared enemy of U.S./NATO military alliance? Russia seeing that she has been declared an enemy by the U.S./NATO military alliance drew a red line in Ukraine for their expansion.

In his unreserved support for Ukraine, Moses wrote : The country has had multiple elections and parliamentary votes that express clearly that they want to choose a Western path and want to leave Russia's orbit. Moses would have been an impartial and anti-war arbiter if he had claimed that the Ukraine 'want to choose a Western path and want to leave Eastern path'  which should have implied choosing the Western military block and leaving the Eastern military block. But there is only Western military block, NATO led by the U.S., and there is no Eastern military block led by Russia. To conceal the truth, Moses says that Ukraine wants to leave imaginary Russia's orbit. Furthermore, Moses wrote, "They (Ukrainians) even had a revolution that sacked a government perceived to be too cozy with Putin and too reluctant and slow to pursue EU membership." The truth is that Victor Yanukovych was elected the President of Ukraine in 2010. In 2014, he was violently and unconstitutionally overthrown in a bloody coup that claimed many lives. To call the bloody overthrow of President Victor Yanukovch in 2014, a revolution amounts to tragic reluctance to confront the truth in this case when it matters most.​

https://www.armscontrol.org/act/1997-06/arms-control-today/opposition-nato-expansion 

S.Kadiri

 

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Moses Ebe Ochonu <meochonu@gmail.com>
Sent: 07 March 2022 17:03
To: USAAfricaDialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Russia-Ukraine and the Strange Ideological Convergence

 

 

 

Russian Aggression Against Ukraine and the Strange Left-Right Ideological Convergence

 

By Moses E. Ochonu

 

 

Far-left commentators say the West is to blame for Ukraine's troubles in the hands of Putin because the West allegedly wooed/goaded/baited/lured/blackmailed/forced/recruited Ukraine away from Russia's orbit and into the West's.

 

The argument is that the West should have made Ukraine neutral and reconfigured it as a buffer between Russia and the West. 

 

Another strand of the far-Left argument alleges that the West reneged on an agreement not to expand NATO to Ukraine, never mind that there is no such agreement, just a set of understandings which required that Russia respect the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the West reciprocate by keeping Ukraine out of NATO. 

 

Needless to say, Russia's invasion and annexation of Crimea in 2014, and its proxy secessionist war in three other regions of Ukraine have rubbished those mutual security assurances. It was after that annexation that the Ukrainians and the Americans, feeling released from the non-binding requirements of the Budapest memo by Russia's actions, began to take steps to fortify Ukraine's defenses. It was also after Crimea that the Ukrainians began to actively seek NATO's membership as a measure of self-preservation against Russia's aggression.

 

Yet another genre of the far-Left pro-Russia argument claims that the West provoked Putin by pushing Ukraine away from him and closer to the West.

 

Far-right commentators, for their part, argue that Putin should simply be given what he desires, a demilitarized Ukraine (whatever that means), Crimea, Luhansk, Donbas, and Donetsk, and should be allowed to have his way and weaken Ukraine's economically, politically, and militarily.

 

The far-Right people are mostly Putin's cheerleaders, being admirers of strongman fascism, so it's not surprising that they simply want the Ukrainians to roll over and surrender their country to the powerful bully next door.

 

The far-Right folks also blame the West for allegedly making false promises to Ukraine, leading them on, seducing them away from Russia, and using them as a pawn against Putin, only to abandon them when a provoked Putin pounced on them. They argue that, having tragically tricked Ukraine, the West should prevail on it to appease Putin by giving in to his demands.

 

Although motivated by different ideological leanings and political instincts, the two positions have two things in common. They tend to blame the victim for provoking the imperialist invader while casting the aggressor as the victim. More importantly, the two discourses infantalize the Ukrainians, seeing them as people who lack the capacity to choose for themselves, people for whom decisions have been made by others and should be made by others — the West and Russia.

 

Both narratives cast Ukraine as a robotic automaton being programmed and reprogrammed by Russia and the West, with no thought, preference, or interest of its own, and with no capacity to rationally consider its options and make an informed decision about what alliances and futures to pursue.

 

Why is it that the Ukrainians are being stripped of agency and voice? Does it not matter what the Ukrainians want or express about what kind of country they want to be and who they want to align with?

 

Why do these two aforementioned narratives begin from the premise that the Ukrainians are simply tools in the hands of others, or minors who don't know what's best for them and are being pushed and pulled and led by the nose?

 

Why have we not bothered to ask what the Ukrainians want in terms of their relations with the rest of the world? Is it not paternalistic soft bigotry to dismiss or ignore the clearly expressed preference of the Ukrainian people or to subordinate this preference to the whim and interests of Russia or the West?

 

The country has had multiple elections and parliamentary votes that express clearly that they want to choose a Western path and want to leave Russia's orbit. They even had a revolution that sacked a government perceived to be too cozy with Putin and too reluctant and slow to pursue EU membership.

 

Why is it so difficult for commentators in the West, Left or Right, to accept the sovereign will and rational preference of non-Western people? 

 

Even if we invalidate these prior expressions of a pro-Western bent, has it not emerged clearly from the reaction of the Ukrainians to the Russian invasion that they want nothing to do with Putin's Russia and instead want to join the Western alliance? Again, do the expressed interest and will of the Ukrainian people mean anything in our hifalutin ideological analysis?

 

The trope of agency denial and infantalization is familiar to me because, as an Africanist and African scholar, I know how Africa and Africans are routinely infantalized by both Left and Right discourses as entities to be paternalistically cuddled and protected from ideas or influences emanating from the West or the East —  or Right and Left.

 

Each group of commentators talks about Africa and her peoples in broad strokes and in abstract terms as part of some high-level geopolitical permutations, but no group references or centers what African peoples and countries themselves want in its analysis and calculus.

 

It is a technique of erasure and power exhibited by people who arrogantly think they know what's in the best interest of Africans and what's in their worst interest. 

 

That's the analytical technique being applied to the people of Ukraine, who are not being consulted or given a chance to contribute to the discussion of what's in their best or worst interest, who they should befriend or avoid, and the geopolitical positioning that would best suit them. 

 

Why can't we humbly defer to the Ukrainian people themselves to tell us what they want and to educate us on why they want that path and not the alternative?

 

The strange convergence of Far-Left and Far-Right commentary on the themes of victim-blaming and victim-silencing is one of the revealing takeaways from this war. What the Ukrainian people themselves might think of the various prognosis and "solutions" being advanced seems to have been completely discounted in the haste to proffer how Ukraine might save itself and gain peace and prosperity while existing in the geographical firmament of an increasingly bellicose nation ruled by a paranoid imperial bully. 

 

The voice of the Ukrainians is not granted entry into the conversation, much less allowed to determine the trajectory of so-called solutions. The question of whether the Ukrainians should have a consequential if not a decisive say in their own future is never posed, let alone answered. 

 

It's ironic that some of this analysis pretends to condemn external interferences in Ukrainian affairs and purports to protect the Ukrainians from such incendiary external meddling and yet doesn't realize that an analysis that does not take into account the choices, interests, and desires of the Ukrainians is itself a form of external intrusion and arrogant imposition.

 

Nothing exemplifies this irritating analytical arrogance and the tendency to usurp the voice and will of perceived inferiors than the notion that Ukraine's best geopolitical position is as a neutral buffer between the West and Russia. 

 

Which nation simply wants to be a buffer between two identity formations instead of being its own entity with its own self-fashioned identity informed and underpinned by its own choices?

 

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