Slava Ukraini

The drums sound across the continent, the politicians call for it, and the media echoes the call, they boom their rhythmic sounds.

The Russians, they say, they are coming for us, and they are made from a cloth of evil not seen on this continent for eighty-years. Now they say we must prepare ourselves, after all we are only defending ourselves, our homes, our families, our freedoms. The drums beat, all across Europe debates are being held, debates about whether we should be arming ourselves, more than we already were. Conscription to be brought back from a bygone era, increasing troop presence on the very edges of the continent, men sent miles away from their homes, but trust me (whoever may read this), the voices heard in these debates are not of those who would ever be subject to the consequences of such rhetoric.

The drums are beating louder, the sanctions are not working. Our politicians, whose only understanding in this world is that of personal wealth and greed, they understandably attack ’them’ in a way in which they themselves would be most afraid of. They sanction the elite, the masterminds behind this terrible war, and when that’s not enough, they sanction their families, and then their friends, and then anyone who dares share an opinion against the great European state! But they lack understanding. They can take away their toys, but not their tools, this angers them, they need another solution.

The drums are beating faster, the Russians they say are evil, they are stealing children, they are murdering POW’s, mass graves in the likes of which we’ve not seen since The Second World War, chaos in the streets, apartments being blown up by cruise missiles! And all this, all of this unprovoked. The West, being the ever benevolent and peaceable of peoples, were violently and unabashedly attacked, surprising everyone, by the evil others just east of the border. (At least, that is the narrative being woven.) They will have people believe that the others are doing this as part of some kind of 19th century imperial expansion, something akin to the same sins that our own forefathers are guilty of, but neglect to mention their own part in this story. They’ve cut their own threads, but all that remains is an incomplete cloth. (A cloth they insist is completed.)

The drums are beating harder, now that we have established the others as totally and unwavering evil, we can dehumanise them. We can start calling them orcs, likening them to a purely and wholeheartedly evil race of creatures from fantasy. We can justify our actions against them, they are not human! They can accidentally kill our civilians, so we can purposely kill theirs. They supposedly commit war crimes and murder our brothers, sisters and comrades, so we do the same to them and sleep without a heavy conscience. We can decry our own being treated in heinous ways, and cheer when it happens to them. We can start calling our detractors Russian bots, as this gives us a perfect excuse, so our views never have to be challenged by others, or more importantly, ourselves. We can start calling for the direct involvement of Europe and her allies, even though the glorious Ukrainians are most defiantly winning! We can call the Russians incompetent, show the world we shouldn’t be scared of this failing old world power still desperately clinging onto it’s once held greatness, but on the other-hand we need another hundred HIMARS missiles… and tanks… and planes… and ammunition… and desperate intervention, but we are winning! ‘Slava Ukraini!’ they cry, meaning something along the lines of ‘Glory to the heroes!’, but we are told this is an unjust war, a story of an underdog being beaten by a cruel master, but we are calling for glory to our heroes? Why was this mantra chosen if this war truly is about their right for Ukraine’s sovereignty and of her peoples? Would not the emancipation of Ukraine and her peoples be a more fitting phrase than her soldiers looking for a showering of endless glory?

The evils of man have always been justified through the alleged evils of others, This modern world has allowed us to witness all kinds of evils in real time. I can watch a man, injured and dying in a crater, praying to his cross around his neck, wishing he’d never been sent to the literal hole in which he was to die in, and the footage from a Ukrainian drone drop a hand grenade onto him, killing him instantly. I can also read comments of people cheering about this man dying a horrible death and then explain to others (and themselves) how they are justified in their celebrations, as if this man was personally responsible for the whole war. The rare voice that speaks up against this is devalued as merely a Russian bot, and not representative of the general public. These people regularly call for the intervention of the west to save these perfect Ukrainian angels that can do no wrong! And they beat their little drums in tune with the party line, convincing themselves that their thoughts are their own. But these people won’t be affected by the consequences, if they really believed in the fight, they would be volunteering themselves instead of volunteering others. In other videos, I can find the exact same thing, but this time it’s a Ukrainian being mercilessly killed by a Russian drone or other such instruments of death, and the comments will be that of horror and disgust. The irony is lost on these prominent voices as they have convinced themselves that their own personal evil is justified, righteous even, Slava Ukraini!.

The politicians are more than happy to use these drum beaters, as they can be pointed to as proof for support of the evils they wish to commit, as our evils are okay, because we are righteous. The invasion of Afghanistan was righteous, because of the evil that lived there. The invasion of Iraq, righteous, because of the evil that lived there. The invasion of Ukraine, unspeakable, because the others dared use our own methods, so we must distance ourselves from them, then label them and give them a face. But who can we liken the others to? Why of course! There’s nobody worse than Adolf Hitler, we will mock the intelligence of our populations and compare Putin with one of the worse mass murderers in human history! (But what of the politicians that have indirectly killed one-million plus Iraqis?)

Unprovoked they say, pure barbaric blood-lust, only akin to something out of a fantasy novel, the Russians for years have been saying that they are threatened by NATO, and who’s to blame them? Unfortunately, today’s politicians have forgotten how diplomacy actually functions, they have in their minds that it is when you get what you want without having to use violence, but they forget that this isn’t the full picture and there are other parties involved, who may have conflicting interest. They have ignored Russian cries for years, throwing off their concerns to the wind, and continuing the behaviour that caused the concern in the first place. The little drummers will say ‘but all the countries joined NATO of their own free will!’, but this completely misses the point. If you were in charge of a country, slowly but surely your borders were crept up upon by the worlds most advanced military group, which historically was setup to counter your own motherland, all the while they insist they have no nefarious intent. But now that you have become a shell of your former self, but still they creep ever closer, wouldn’t you be at least a little bit sceptical? Now ask yourself, do you trust your politicians? I can imagine not, so why should some foreign country, with a known history of bad blood between us, trust them? Our politicians neglected their duties and should have listened to their concerns, negotiated, and maybe not so hastily accepted membership from other countries. They could’ve also invited Russia into NATO, something which Russia showed interest in early in the 2000’s. But they ignored the cries, whether through ignorance or through malice. They could’ve done literally anything, but chose to ignore this clearly worrying situation being developed, and lacked any sense of empathy for the others.

But I hear you say, we are not evil, the west is a force for good in the world! Why would the Russians possibly be threatened by us? Maybe sometime in the past we could confidentially say that’s true, but were we really a force for good in Iraq? We bombed countless innocents and turned a large minority into western hating radicals, causing terrible instability not just in the Middle East, but across the globe due to the expansion of terrorist groups as a result. Were we a force for good in Afghanistan? Most of these people had never even heard of 9/11, they lived in truly the backwater of the world and were just trying to survive and feed their families, never mind Bin Laden, who was once a well known CIA asset and wasn’t even there, he was in neighbouring Pakistan, an ally to the USA. Were we a force for good in the Balkans? We allowed genocide and carpet bombed countless people and their homes, I’m sure the Serbians that ran to their shelters fearing for their lives were glad to know that the west was pure in it’s intentions. Were the Americans a force for good in Vietnam? Causing countless infants severe birth defects with the use of Agent Orange and other such chemicals, their parents died by losing their flesh to a most heinous of fire bombing, a most cruel punishment for the crime of being born in the wrong place at the wrong time, but we will forgive the Americans because they had just cause! Never you mind the constant meddling in other countries affairs, causing coups across the globe, making sure their new and approved leaders toe the line. Just a glimpse towards the French meddling in North Africa is enough to understand. And this is only a short list of the crimes committed by our governments. Do you trust these people?

These are the people now telling us that the Russian state is most closely approximated to that of Nazi Germany and maybe even worse! But this is to save face, their subconscious knows they are just as evil, but their conscience refuses to acknowledge it because it would be against our human nature to believe oneself as truly evil, for if one did believe this, they would throw themselves into the minefields hoping to find a strange stone to step onto. They have failed in diplomacy, their actions have helped cause great turmoil, their conscience refuses to let them believe they have at least some blame in all this, so they rationalise this to themselves, but most perniciously they try and convince others of their own self-deceit, and to get them to echoes the mantras, and eventually, to get them to fight for the deceit they themselves have created.

Years of corruption and turmoil in the Ukraine caused pro-Russian separatists to finally break away in 2014, which lead Russia to annex Crimea and for breakaway states to form, like the Donbass. Or it was all Russia’s doing, secret political manoeuvring caused the downfall of the political establishment of Ukraine, and then invasion, but who’s to believe? Honestly, which average layman has the time to learn about such things, let alone care with their whole being about the facts, accept what it told to you, peasant! After 2014, our politicians revealed their secret weapon, the sanctions came, the narrative was already figured, the facts already decided, the new evil has been chosen! The years between 2014-2022 was no walk in the park for those affected. The people of the Donbass especially, being in this quasi-independent state, with the Ukrainian government constantly shelling and bombing them, trying to regain territory once lost. But this is a just cause, because the Russians have interfered! We care not of the opinions of the people living in these regions, listen to your lords peasant, and you may get your bread!

Now years of inaction from our politicians, and struggles ignored at the Ukrainian border, with our current world leaders (as of writing this article,) having questionable relationships with Ukrainian companies through family members or otherwise, the Russians finally grew tired, shock from our ill informed minds, I remember how shocked everyone was when we watched the cruise missiles fly over Ukrainian cities. We were all shocked, but an ill informed mind will be shocked when not exposed to the facts. Our media has neglected us, and hasn’t given the people the truth, not because nothing of note was occurring, but because the truth was inconvenient. Or maybe they did try to warn us, it’s hard to know, when the world is filled with a new manufactured crisis every other week, it is hard to care about other such subtleties.

Now we find ourselves in the status-quo, instead of our leaders trying to find some kind of peace in the region, we supply the Ukrainians with bombs, missiles and other such instruments of death, we allow them to shell Russian civilians, but it is okay, because they started it, they are all evil, even their children, and we are morally righteous, down with the ORCS, SLAVA UKRAINI!

The drums are beating, they beat ever faster, they beat ever louder, they have chosen how they want the story to end, they have yet to fill in the pages, but it doesn’t matter how we vote, the lie we tell ourselves, that our votes mean anything, they hold the cloth and control the threads that create it.