No real positive and supportive sense of belonging was ever born from the spread of war propaganda. Hysteria reduces collective rationality and destroys political culture and democracy through negative emotions. The ruling oligarchy knows well that there is no better means of controlling and manipulating the masses than an atmosphere of permanent war threat or militarism. If we long for a Europe of slaves, let us once again proclaim a crusade against the “barbaric” East.
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Above all, the peace that needs to be established as soon as possible must be sustainable, which means that Ukraine must not turn into a new Syria or Lebanon. Nor is the collapse of Russia desirable, because destabilising the vast space between Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Central Asia and the Far East would have disastrous consequences. The so-called Carthaginian peace, aimed at permanently crippling an adversary, has often backfired on its architects.
A politician who resorts to moralising is usually a hypocrite.
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A politician who resorts to moralising is usually a hypocrite. People have died in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Donbas and Ethiopia. Thousands of people have been dying for several years in Yemen, where Saudi Arabia has been committing genocide with the support of the United States of America and the United Kingdom, using al-Qaeda fighters. Eighty-five thousand children starved to death there between 2015 and 2018, according to UN figures, all without much media attention or international campaigning. Nor have I noticed any mobilisation of the Czech public for an end to war crimes in Yemen.
Ivo Budil is a Czech professor of anthropology.
