The Ukraine situation, where will it end?

Politics
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I suspect you know, but if not I will explain, my reference to ‘can’t change’ was in respect of the acts of slavery. There is nothing that can be, or ought to be, gained by apologising for the evil that was done generations ago. On the contrary, apologising for something by someone who was not personally responsible is meaningless and, if I was of African descent would certainly not be mollified by it. In the same way that if someone was attacked in the village, both totally unknown to me, it would be fine for me to express sorrow that it had happened, but totally inappropriate for me to take personal responsibility by apologising.

And to drag us back to the point of the thread, I will certainly not be excusing Putin’s actions against Ukraine by saying

‘Putin colonising Ukraine is OK, since he’s not the only one - other countries were slavers and colonisers too’.

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Then we agree - the fact that Putin has only done what our own countries have done is no excuse!

But the fact that no past acts can be undone doesn’t mean we can do nothing about them now. One interesting aspect of ‘restitutive’ or ‘restorative justice’ is that it seems to help both criminals and their victims.

I wonder if in raising the ‘apology’ issue you’re thinking of Prince William’s recent expression of sorrow for slavery in Jamaica? I know some have pointed out that this seemed to fall short of a heart-felt apology.

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Warring African tribes sold their captives to Arab slave traders who took them to West African ports to be sold to Europeans and were also sold into the Middle East.
Why has the story of the complicit Africans in this evil trade been ignored for so long?
Could it be that those of African descent find it politically correct to ignore it?

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Ukraine invasion…effects: Ukrainian : society and infrastructure destroyed, many deaths, Europe: huge increase in defence spending, good bye to increases in social spending and PC indulgent projects, Russian economy nose dives, big increase in authoritarian rule, USA :grin: :grin: from huge increase in oil and gas sales to Europe and income as world wide prices up, “happy days are here again” for defence industries, (remember old cartoon, “World War 3 breaks out in Europe, Defence stocks surge” )…meanwhile China with inscruatable smiles continues with its Belt and Road initiative undiverted from long term plan to supplant USA as world’s most powerfull economy.
Snowflakes melt.

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Not totally, people, not countries, otherwise we would now be blaming every single Russian and German for Putin and Hitler. Just as daft as blaming you and me for slavery.

But the fact that no past acts can be undone doesn’t mean we can do nothing about them now. One interesting aspect of ‘restitutive’ or ‘restorative justice’ is that it seems to help both criminals and their victims.

You are confusing the issue again, we are not criminals, so any help that we derive from it would/should be from altruism, not guilt.

I wonder if in raising the ‘apology’ issue you’re thinking of Prince William’s recent expression of sorrow for slavery in Jamaica? I know some have pointed out that this seemed to fall short of a heart-felt apology.

Pure coincidence, I try to avoid the Awful Family as much as possible, so missed that. In any case, if we are talking about inherited guilt, I’m not sure how many slaves were transported in German ships. :rofl:

@Jane_Williamson Quite true, the slave trade would have struggled, if not foundered but for them, and not, as you say, just across the Atlantic.

But once again,

And to drag us back to the point of the thread

Am I, as a former seafarer, being really bad in rejoicing at the sight of that Russian ship blowing up? There is at least a glimmer of hope that this, in the very long run, will mean that Ukraine will one day again be a sovereign, independent and democratic state. NATO might have, quite sensibly, avoided direct intervention, but its members will no doubt be involved in a helluva lot of re-building come the day. :smiley:

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Semantics David. When we speak of ‘Putin’s invasion’ - or ‘Russia’s invasion’ of course we don’t mean either that Putin himself is there in Ukraine fighting, or that every Russian supports him!

The analogy with restorative justice is not confusing, but suggestive. Such arrangements have been found useful to both criminals and victims in coming to terms with what happened - the point is that in trying to put right some of the ongoing ill-effects of country-to-country abuse we might well similarly find that both former colonisers and colonised benefit.

Still find it interesting that you see these issues in terms of ‘guilt’ - now ‘inherited guilt’ (no such thing in my book!) - let me repeat that I don’t look at it in that way at all - I see it precisely as ‘putting right some of the ongoing ill-effects of country-to-country abuse’.
We can’t change the past - but we can improve the future.

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Absolutely, they were better off in the ME though generally, even if work in the marshes of the Euphrates and Tigris can’t have been much fun, also once they converted to Islam they were no longer slaves and their children were free so quite a different situation.

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As far as my use of the word guilt is concerned, that was in answer to your view

One interesting aspect of ‘restitutive’ or ‘restorative justice’ is that it seems to help both criminals and their victims.

Which pre-supposes that you think there must be some guilt to be helped with. That is not my view, I do not believe any of us now bear any guilt whatsoever, and therefore no obligation to provide restorative justice, either monetarily or otherwise. Any aide we do give to poorer countries, whatever the historical reasons for their poverty, is, or should be, purely a matter of altruism.

the point is that in trying to put right some of the ongoing ill-effects of country-to-country abuse we might well similarly find that both former colonisers and colonised benefit.

You dismiss my words as semantics, but what you write is the only thing I have to go on to understand your meaning, and once again you do it again, as above. The former colonisers cannot possibly benefit from whatever countries now do, because they are long dead, we are not former colonisers and it is about time that the mere fact of the space we occupy on this planet should not be taken as a reason for obligation to former colonies. If I thought that was not the case then I should be fearful of travelling through Yorkshire ever again simply because my ancestors came from what is now Denmark. That is my point, It matters not where our ancestors came from or what they did, what matters is only those who have the ability and resources to help the less fortunate in this world, should do so. Nothing to do with empire or colonisation at all.

Whatever help is given now, from whatever my country is now, gives me pleasure that I live in a country that can afford to. In fact I am getting a good feeling that my only real nationalty is European (albeit rudely snatched away from me now) and the European Union is really stepping up to the plate to assist the Ukrainians in every way it can.

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Interesting - ‘Yorkshire’ analogy revealing I think. Isn’t it a way of not addressing my central point - ie. putting right some of the ongoing ill-effects of country-to-country abuse?
Key word: ongoing.
You see slavery and colonialism as entirely finished and done - I see their effects still there, all around us - crying out to be addressed. And I think we will all gain by addressing them.

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You see slavery and colonialism as entirely finished and done - I see their effects still there, all around us - crying out to be addressed. And I think we will all gain by addressing them.

So we agree, you do and I don’t.

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But then you need an alternative explanation for the state of the world.

For example why, in general, formerly colonised countries still tend to be the poorest in the world, and the former colonising among the richest; why in general the exceptions to this pattern are the ones that were never fully colonised, or rebelled earlier, like the US, China and Japan; why within former colonial economies wealth and power remain divided largely along racial or planted vs. indigenous’ lines; why former colonies have been left with far more severe problems of social cohesion, religious and ethnic conflicts, etc; why international institutions like the WTO, IMF and World Bank remain rigged in favour of former or current colonisers; why the headquarters and shareholders of most multinational megacorporations are in former coloniser countries, but their dirty extraction operations mainly in the colonised; why in countries like the UK there is a magnificent built heritage, including fabulously expensive art, etc, but little of that in, say, Jamaica; why levels of inherited wealth in both families and organisations are generally much higher in former coloniser than in former colonised countries; etc; etc…

Seems to me that excluding slavery and colonialism from our explanations of how the world is now, and how to address its injustices, is simply closing our eyes to reality.

And - to get back on topic - at what point do you close your eyes? If Russia does effectively colonise all or parts of Ukraine - do you then say ‘Well that’s over and done with. No more worries there.’
And will the people that live there, continue live the injustice, agree?
Not the way it went in Afghanistan…

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Dare we to hope, that for once the Putin regime is telling the truth, that all they want is Donbass, and indicating far more as a consequence, that they really wanted the lot or at least more, but are admitting defeat?

After so much blood has been spilled, I admit to a certain disappointment when I heard Zelensky apparently appealing for more talks because what could he talk about other than conceding the loss of part of his country. But it wasn’t my, or mine, being spilled so I had to understand if he was conceding.

So, in the unlikely event, because of past record, that the latest Russian announcement is genuine, perhaps the best solution is to agree to an internationally organised, or at least closely monitored, referendum in the Donbass. But not, as I said once before, a Cameron 50%+1, that would just leave everything in dispute for a further generation. Perhaps that might have been on the cards beore the war, but having seen Russian behaviour at first hand, a large majority, one way or the other, could be hoped for.

As to Crimea, more tricky, it wasn’t Ukrainian in the first place, but then if you go back far enough, it wasn’t Russian either. Nothing is simple apart from perhaps, NATO would be mad having seen the quality of Ukrainian military capability to deny them entry to the alliance. But that may be a step too far in reality.

Edit, just to avoid confusion, all the above was written before Geof’s last post was published, and to answer that all I will say is I know the explanation I just don’t accept personal responsibility for it. OK?

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Acknowledgement of the UK’s slavery/colonising past by education from an early age would mean more than the reading of a poorly written speech read by a future King whilst on a tour of his grandmother’s subjects. Perhaps we may then see a real move to racial equality which to me is the only current route to a form of reparations that may go some way to satisfy descendants of slaves as just handing over a few billion to countries in the Caribbean won’t change anything.

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I think there’s a lot of truth in that Tim. Grant-aid has a long history of little - even negative - impact (except perhaps in emergencies) - it is frequently associated with the creation of dependencies, corruption, etc - and education is indeed the key to understanding the whys and wherefores of inequality and injustice.

But there is also I think room for other measures too, as I mentioned in a post above…

We can change things for the better. We can return plundered artifacts. We can make international trade fairer. We can change the terms of reference of the WTO, IMF and World Bank so that they actually help poor countries instead of further damaging them (as they did Ukraine, incidentally). There are in fact many proposals for compensating former colonies etc - many of which will not actually cost us anything!

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By chance just came across this very relevant new paper…

Roughly a quarter of total consumption in the global North is net appropriated from the South; in other words, it is drained without any compensation in kind. This drain amounts to over $10 trillion per year, when measured in Northern prices. It would be enough to end poverty 70 times over.

We also find that the drain outstrips the South’s aid receipts by a factor of 30. In other words, for every dollar of aid the South receives, they lose $30 in drain through unequal exchange…

Each year, the North net appropriates the following from the South:
-12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents
-822 million hectares of embodied land
-21 exajoules of embodied energy
-188 million person-years of embodied labour

To put this in perspective, that amount of energy would be enough to build out infrastructure required to provide good healthcare, education, housing, heating/cooling, internet, computers, public transport etc to all 6.5 billion people in the global South. But instead it is appropriated for corporate growth in the global North.

That amount of land (which is twice the size of India) would be enough to provide nutritious food for up to 6 billion people, depending on land productivity and diet, but instead it is appropriated to grow things like sugar for Coca Cola and cotton for Gap, consumed in the global North. In other words, this pattern of unequal exchange deprives Southern countries of the real resources that are necessary to meet human needs and achieve development objectives.

This pattern of unequal exchange also means that much of the ecological damages of Northern growth and consumption are effectively offshored to the global South. The North gets the benefit, while the South suffers the pain. It would be difficult to overstate the scale of this injustice.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S095937802200005X

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Well, that’s quite an eye opener.

The problem, as ever, is that we have enough resources on the planet to feed, clothe and house every human - even when there are 8 billion of us but can’t because individuals who already have more wealth than they could ever use themselves want even more.

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Doable with Zelenskyy…but Putin…?

AP news.

"Russia has long demanded that Ukraine drop any hope of joining the western NATO alliance, which Moscow sees as a threat. Zelenskyy said that the question of neutrality, which would keep Ukraine out of NATO or other military alliances, should be put to Ukrainian voters in a referendum after Russian troops withdraw."

“We must come to an agreement with the president of the Russian Federation, and in order to reach an agreement, he needs to get out of there on his own feet … and come to meet me,” he said in an interview that Russia barred its media from publishing.

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No surprise there then.

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I really don’t know whether to laugh or cry over the recent signalling of compromise on both sides.
I wrote earlier in this thread - 3 weeks ago - that

The true realists in any war are usually those seeking pragmatic compromise. When Russia invaded Georgia it did in fact stop and withdraw to the substantially ethnic-Russian South Ossetia and Abkhazia separatist regions. Putin probably knows that he couldn’t in fact control all of Ukraine (though he would clearly like regime-change there). I’d be very surprised if, given the chance, he wouldn’t settle for his stated aims of Ukrainian neutrality, acceptance of the Crimea fait-accompli, and Russia-friendly ‘independence’ for the Donbas regions… not very different from the outcome that Ukraine’s negotiators had already agreed in Minsk - with broad European support.

Ending the 8 years of war in Donbas was a key election promise of Zelenskiy, which he failed to deliver - not that I blame him, because I think it can only ever be ended with their independence from Ukraine - and in the meantime the war there would prevent NATO membership in any case. There is therefore a sense in which this is a war about an abstract principle of ‘sovereignty’.

Is it really beginning to look as if - after a month of death and destruction, millions displaced, and millions falling into poverty - in western Europe as well as the east - the politicians on both sides might end up precisely where they began?

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:open_mouth:

I mean, it’s the Internet so untrue until verified but :open_mouth: