More War, Less Peace

Work has settled down a bit. More energy has been consumed in worrying about politics and I've reached an entente at least temporarily with every colleague with whom I've had major disagreements. Yet again, colleagues have done something incredibly nice and sent me a generous gift certificate for a favourite independent bookshop.

If I understand the situation, my Cassandra-like concerns about work environment stress are now actually seen as less bothersome by the top management circle. Maybe because I haven't made any lately. Maybe also because since I pointed out that our Russian colleagues badly needed reassurance that we weren't blaming them for the war, and was proven right, they put more faith in my assessments. It was a little bit weird because I put infinite effort and thought into defending other colleagues in other matters, but am being figuratively praised for weightlifting a pillow after being used to handling 25 pound barbells!

We're in the middle of turning off any remaining services to Russian websites, and it doesn't feel very good because it's a slippery slope.

I've read a lot about World War I propaganda, and don't really like the stage where one begins to split the parties to a conflict into good sheep and bad sheep, and also to treat it a bit as a game where we're happy if Zelensky 'whacks the bad guys' and sad if 'the good guys' face a defeat. First we were talking about the Russian president, pro-government media, oligarchs, and other government officials being at fault, and differentiated Russian dissidents and military recruits. Now, all Russian soldiers are being considered as confirmed or potential war criminals.

I'm worried that we'll begin to find all Russians (and Belarusians?) suspect, and begin to dehumanize Russians in general. Such dehumanization generally ends up tyrannically targeting the innocent who have the least defenses against the type of opposition that should be aimed against the harder but culpable target. I don't want us to produce stories like — to leap ahead in time and take an example from World War II — a young George Takei growing up in a Japanese-American internment camp.

But I can partly understand why it's harder to resist the urge to dehumanize. Protests have been quashed in Russia, in the streets and in its newspapers. So there are fewer images of the other face of Russia. Our view of what it means to be a Russian in these times is becoming one-dimensional, either the jowls of varied pro-Putin oligarchs or high government officials, or the dead stare of the head of government, or the frowzy venality of Ramzan Kadyrov.

What I do think is good is that a UN official will still dutifully point out that Ukrainian government soldiers and militias are also accused of sexual violence — in service of credibility and justice to the victims, even if one despises the idea of creating another kernel of truth that a propaganda machine will misuse. I'm not going to blow these things out of proportion to the rest of the conflict. But I think many people who know war, and even those like me who don't, were already pointing out at the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine: one reason why it was so heinous of Putin to start this is that it unleashes the scenario that make these actions and abuses possible, loading not just the 'bad' side but also the 'good' side with a burden of guilt and psychological damage that will follow them for the rest of their lives.

That said, I also don't want to argue too far along this line, because I don't want to in any way endorse the narrative of victimization that some pro-Putin groups in Berlin have adopted.

On Thursday I took a half day off in the morning and went donating for refugees again. It was strangely peaceful to meet Ukrainians who were waiting to pick up care packages. Individuals and families were standing or sitting on lawn chairs outside a one-storey Berlin Senate building, waiting for volunteers to register them or call their names with the finished package. It was like a tentative-but-friendly neighbourhood gathering.

But I'm still worried about not doing enough. I saw on Thursday that while the volunteers appeared to have what they needed — thanks most likely to money donations —, there were 1 or 2 people bringing in-kind donations compared to over 20 needing them.

Let's see if my half-holiday on Friday will give me enough time to help out again.