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…Fear of the very existence of honest Ukraine impelled violence, for a dictator’s lies always require violence to exist, just as violence always requires lies to exist…From ideas of Solzhenitsyn (Sean Crawford )
A young man asked me, “Do you work here?” (My rucksack and tourist hat were in a locker) I answered “No, but try me.”
“This place is titled “Imperial” War Museum but—” He meant there was no history of soldiers in red coats and “thin red lines” doing imperial stuff overseas. Instead, the exhibits were all from WWI and later.
I said the IWM was built after WWI. Just as we say “Great” for horrible things like the Great Depression, so did they, the war survivors, see WWI as a Great War and it tormented them:
Why?
How?
Unlike imperial adventures of solely of “the king’s horses and men,” reported dimly in the newspapers, this was an in-your-face “total war” of “the people.” England was bombed by wooden biplanes! How could folks make sense of it all? After the “war to end all wars” they built their museum. And then when the second world war happened some of the cannons on display had to be removed to see service again.
The man hadn’t known about the cannons, and when the museum was built…
Meanwhile the public today, according to my eavesdropping of parents and children, wants to know about the subsequent efforts at peacekeeping and the Cold War. A little girl sprawled over the glass cover of a model of the Berlin Wall, complete with a church in “no man’s land.” Actual looming concrete sections of the Wall were at the IWM, one part inside as a reminder, one part on the lawn as a painted work of art with the words “Change Your Life” included.
Can I change? I hate to judge, but can the average civilian change from believing in war, or is violence in our very DNA? A few years before (T2:)Judgement Day, a young John Connor comments to his father figure, “We’re not gonna make it, are we?” The other replies, in a symbolic German accent, “It is in your nature to destroy yourselves.”
My belief is democracy is premised on respect, not perfection: “Most of the people, most of the time, if information is not censored, will do the right thing.” In my lifetime, no two democracies have ever declared war on each other. Some folks, especially during our Cold War against the second world—communism—mixed up “democracy” with “capitalism:” hence the “MacDonald’s Restaurant theory of peace” that no country rich enough to support the golden arches would wage war. Only a year ago, in Red Square, gold still shone. Not now.
For Russians, I have little faith in peace through religion, negotiation, cultural exchanges, trade, or sports.
No, I do not think any innocent and accountable athletes and coaches over in Russia should ever be allowed among law abiding people at the Olympic Games.
Maybe “on paper” Russia has elections, but two Russians, here in London, have told me: “Russia is not free.” For one thing, censorship is legal; independent news offices have been closed and shuttered; staff driven out of the country—abruptly this happened after February 24th, of course, but the people also allowed creeping censorship even before their so-called ‘special military operation.’
In Russia today a brave young man with dyed blond hair (Called 1420) is going around getting person-in-the-street interviews for Youtube. Results? The Russians have no shame! No guilt, no feeling of responsibility… Despite information that leaks over the border, and by word of mouth from computer users and mothers and soldiers—information that should have gone viral by now—Russians choose to remain “in denial” about their atrocities. Even the young men of “partial mobilization” age, escaping over the border to save their own skin, reportedly do not disagree with the war, nor with Putin.
(See my essays, or the Youtube works of Vlad Vexler, formerly of the Soviet Union)
In the imperial war museum, starting last weekend, is an exhibition of big wall-mounted colour photographs. In a room with benches are chronological depictions of Ukraine. In 2014 their murderous “leader” wanted closer ties to Russia while “the people” wanted ties to the European Union. There were ongoing protests and snipers and scores of civilians being killed in the public square: By their blood they earned democracy. A wounded young man posed for a studio photograph. Eight years later the same young man is posed with a rifle. No thoughts of saving his own skin.
No battlefield photos. At most, a discrete line of blag forensic bags on homely grass as atrocities are uncovered; a lady lying on her side displaying the hand sized bandage on her back; a tumble of bricks that was once a school; a grandmother riding a bus, photographed from her waist down with her shopping bag numbered, and a number tied to her wrist, for in case anything happens;.
As you know, the Russian officers and men, until they drop in battle, will act out their belief in committing war crimes against civilians.
English poet A.E. Housman might as well have been describing these Orcs when he wrote:
…They have enough as ’tis: I see
In many an eye that measures me
The mortal sickness of a mind
Too unhappy to be kind.
Undone with misery, all they can
Is to hate their fellow man;
And till they drop they must needs still
Look at you and wish you ill.
.. …
… …
Sean Crawford
London
February 2023
Still in London: Entering the National Gallery, I made a bee line for one my favourite paintings—one would need a heart like Putin’s to be unmoved—by Paul Delaroche, The Execution of Lady Jane Grey. To my delight I found a lady explaining it in English to a seated group of schoolchildren. Speaking afterwards, I learned she and the children were Polish. We talked. She said, with “bad” meaning less democratic, “Our government is bad, but that’s on us.”
Russians take note: She felt responsibility!
I said, “Maybe after the Ukrainians get their freedom they will set an example for Poland.”
