‘Is our willingness to supply arms to Ukraine a genuine offer of help? Or is it an attempt to use the crisis to continue our domination.'
Winning, hands down: Jim Paris offers some personal reflections on the war in Ukraine
‘Both sides have to win for the conflict to be resolved.’
There has been much comment on the invasion of Ukraine in the Friend in the last few weeks. The views expressed have identified a number of issues. These centre on patriotism, flag-waving, and how best to act so as to reduce the impact of the war on suffering people in Ukraine, Russia and around the world. I want to explore some of the concepts and assumptions that underpin our dilemma, and offer a possible way forward.
The first assumption to confront is that in any conflict one side must be right and one side wrong – and that the resolution is therefore binary, with one side winning and the other losing. As George W Bush once put it, ‘Either you are with us or you are with the terrorists.’ So arises the question of whether showing the Ukrainian flag reflects support for Ukrainians, with the implication that Quakers are taking their side. Friends doing so, it is argued, would reflect the general view in the west that Russia has shown itself unworthy of inclusion, and should be excluded, with an attempt to ruin Russia’s economy. I challenge this assumption. There is a world of difference between making a judgement as to the morality of the invasion of Ukraine, and approving military support or imposing poverty on the Russian population. These are not compassionate, effective, or, indeed, moral responses. Both sides have to win for the conflict to be resolved. Both Russian and Ukrainian flags are important, in reflecting the cultural richness of their peoples rather than the patriotic prowess of their hatreds.
As a Quaker I try to distinguish between making a judgement about the rights and wrongs of each participant within a conflict. Nor should I judge the rights and wrongs of the means each party uses to seek resolution. The latter so often gets in the way of resolving the former. The wisdom of Solomon comes to mind. Holding this distinction can be difficult when faced with the extreme pain and suffering – and the associated fear and hatred – of those around us, but it is an important distinction to make, and no more so than in this particular conflict.
Quakers have long believed that violence and war do not offer moral, effective means of conflict resolution and peace. Most others disagree with us, as is witnessed by current events. Telling people they are wrong to fight is not particularly effective. When William Penn asked about wearing a sword, George Fox’s advice was ‘I advise thee to wear it as long as thou canst.’ At the moment, pacifism is seen as an irrelevant nuisance, with nothing to offer. Most people are not ready to relinquish their swords. But we pacifists do have much to offer, provided we are willing to listen to the narrative that underpins the assumptions on each side. I will summarise briefly.
The Russian narrative seems to focus on two themes: first a sense of victimisation, in which the world wants to subjugate Russia; second, a belief held by Vladimir Putin and other leaders in Russia that the Slav peoples are one, and should be siblings within a single empire. The latter is detailed by Putin himself in a wordy and rambling article entitled ‘On the historical unity of the Russians and Ukrainians.’
The west’s response to the collapse of the Soviet Union underpins Russia’s sense of grievance. Whatever the rights or wrongs of that heady, self-congratulatory time, sometimes gleefully called ‘the end of history’, Russia and the other component republics of the USSR went through a period of extreme suffering and poverty. The life expectancy of the population fell dramatically; alcoholism in men increased by eighty-three per cent and suicide rates by sixty per cent. At the same time, publically-owned resources were privatised into the hands of the people we now condemn as oligarchs. These are the people who Britain has assisted by allowing their wealth to be dissipated into tax havens, yachts and property around the globe, at the expense of the old Soviet republics.
The Ukrainian narrative is equally harrowing. The extreme famine which ocurred in the USSR between 1930 and 1933 was particularly bad in the Ukraine, and has been called a genocide by some academics. Despite Ukraine being the major grower of grain, collectivisation and centralisation allowed Stalin to penalise the Ukraine and Kazakhstan republics to the benefit of Russia, resulting in millions of deaths, with the majority from the Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, the Ukrainians are terrified of being absorbed into Russia again. The vehemence with which the Ukrainian population has resisted the invasion reflects this strength of feeling.
Sadly NATO, Europe and the United States failed to listen following the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, and have failed to listen since. Our policies have not been those of enlightened self-interest, but of domination and exploitation. This is in marked contrast to those that followed the defeat of Germany in the second world war. Our narrative is one of repeated failure to see our interdependence across nationality and culture, flags hanging side-by-side not waved by warring armies. So, in many ways, the west is, in part, responsible for this conflict. We have failed to learn from the success of the Marshall Plan that followed the second world war.
Is our willingness to supply arms to Ukraine a genuine offer of help? Or is it an attempt to use the crisis to continue our domination, and teach Russia a lesson it will never forget? If it is the latter then we best remember the horror that followed when we last did that, after the first world war.
Quakers, through our United Nations Office, and links to peace institutes and with other faiths, could begin to speak to both sides. We could ask faith groups and peace institutes in Russia and the Ukraine to participate. Ultimately, we have to reach out to both sides with love, generosity and compassion, and do all we can to hear both sides and help them begin to hear each other. All our futures depend on it.
