Who is popular today?

THE EDITOR: How can we view the Russian/Ukraine situation? My own response is to try and take a balanced and critical view of this subject – so vast in scope – in an attempt to counter the likely ideological leanings we as westerners are likely to have on the subject of East versus West.
Perhaps we can see it from the traditional East/West dichotomy, East as socialist/communist and West as democratic, the one perceived as evil, oppressive and authoritarian by the West, the other touting for the liberal and democratic, of government for the people by the people. That dichotomy often extends itself in a balance of power struggle, the perennial Cold War, if you will, as we have come to know it.
Which is why Vladimir Putin may be seen by the West as the proverbial Satan wreaking havoc on the world or the hegemonic tyrant continuing the tradition of the Russian Empire, demonstrated by the invasion of the former Czech Republic, Crimea, Luhansk, Donetsk in Ukraine. The issue of Russian long-term security being jeopardised with a prospective NATO recruit in the form of Ukraine on its doorstep, as claimed by Putin, can hardly be a consideration for the West.
But the question to ask is whether this Russian move is any different from the idea of empire historically fostered by the West, first with the British in India, Africa and the Caribbean, the Spanish in South America and the Caribbean, the French in the Caribbean, South America and Canada, America in Cuba, Nicaragua, later into Iraq with the elimination of Saddam, and then Libya with the ouster of Muammar Gaddafi.
And this politics of hegemony and domination goes much further. It seems in fact much a characteristic of the history of the world with the early Crusaders sweeping Middle Eastern countries to counter Suleiman the Magnificent, himself a marauder, or the Romans conquering the world as far as Alexandria in Egypt, or Atilla the Hun and Genghis Khan sweeping the Mongolian plains, or Alexander the Great reaching the Indus Valley in India, or Hitler in his Final Solution, stretching his powerful arm from France to Russia, from Belgium to Italy, and yet further, with the American “pioneers” glorying in their conquest and elimination of the long established American Indian, and the British reaching deep into Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness through the likes of Livingstone and Rhodes.
But this will to conquer and dominate does not end there. The picture of the young wife with her baby having to leave her husband behind and flee to Poland is not unique, for the American Indian had to “bury his heart at Wounded Knee” when the “pioneers” arrived, and the marauding Spanish Conquistadores would spill the blood of the thriving Aztecs and the Incas just for treasure, with the Caribs and Arawaks suffering a similar fate.
The scene in Gandhi of helpless Indian families jumping into the well to escape the advancing British is telling, as much as the story of Anne Frank hiding from the murderous Nazis and the Nativity story and the all-conquering Romans. And there is no greater irony than the white Tarzan being made lord of the jungle where the African should have been king. And I can go on and on and on.
In the final analysis, then, what is the Russian/Ukraine situation but a mere symptom of the never-ending disease of hegemonic power and domination and its corollary, the indifference to human suffering that is its natural consequence? As usual, it’s all for the power, never for the people.
Who is next, one may ask? Is it, perhaps, Taiwan, at the hands of China?
As is customary, I leave the answer to you.

DR ERROL N BENJAMIN

via e-mail
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