Suspended in spite of myself from the lips of strategists and geopoliticians, I am obsessed with the word truce. It is too late to be against the war since it is here, nothing to do in the face of the evidence of Russian aggression, we must give the floor to the missiles, peace was yesterday, back to serious things, say together the realists. February 24, 2022 will have marked the beginning of desolation for the Ukrainian population, but also the return of one against the other, the return of the patriotic song and the flags, in this curious war by proxy. Our we will therefore line up behind that of the Ukrainians and, in a unanimity which, even yesterday, hardly resembled us, we will face up against the Russians. Return of this we yet so suspicious and repeatedly invoked (in Kosovo, Iraq, Afghanistan): we Westerners, we democrats.
“Glory to our army, glory to Ukraine”, declared Volodymyr Zelensky on the evening of the invasion, and these words seem to come from another age. For the glory of the armies, for warlike nationalism, a whole generation of Westerners has oscillated since 1945 between respect and invective, between indifference and sarcasm. In all languages, she has translated The deserter, by Boris Vian. She fed on “Never again”. And she believed it. I believed in it and I believe in it. And I have been, like many others, since the first day of this war, reeling from the images of death, from the rhetoric of war.
I cling to the words of those who are supposed to know the terrain, the geopolitics. They reason on the list of catastrophes to come: either all-out war ends in the nuclear apocalypse; either we enter into an all-out war, and Russia and Ukraine come out bloodless, whoever the “winner” is; or we arrive at a ceasefire followed by talks punctuated by skirmishes, for several generations. In these conditions where disasters seem inevitable, it should not be very difficult to opt for a truce.
It remains to be seen whether we will get there and after how many deaths in the wheat fields transformed into minefields. But in the meantime, is it too much to hope to preserve a minimum of “complex thinking”, to ask for a truce with simplification? Can we, for example, without going very quickly for a cheerleading of Vladimir Putin, to ask whether the absolute necessity of establishing solid relations with Russia did not unfortunately escape Western governments after the end of the cold war? Can we suggest that we stop adding to it and remember that there was a time when the dismantling of NATO was not considered madness?
Doubt, hope, pray
Can we still have some doubts about the continuation of massive military aid from European countries and the United States to Ukraine, pointing out that more weapons means more deaths, without being accused of being an idealist of fair unaware of the harsh reality of the battlefields and find themselves immediately in front of the firing squad of warmongering pragmatism? Can we observe with bewilderment that arms spending has been on the rise for ten years in all NATO countries, wonder how we got there, when we were still in a time of “peace”, without passing for an enlightened pacifist?
It must be said that the pacifist rarely has a good reputation; it passes easily for a cellar. To want to put an end to violence, to believe in the possibility of peace, is however quite simply to believe in politics.
Enough with inane slogans, you have to read the classics more than ever, frequent this rich and multifaceted Russian culture and remember that it has nourished for centuries the West that Putin hates. How can we imagine “erasing” in the name of justice some of the most powerful voices of the XX?e century because they are Russian? Erase Mikhaïl Bulgakov, erase Vassili Grossman, both great destroyers of totalitarianism? Erase today’s dissenting voices, those that the Putin dictatorship seeks to silence?
I add a special truce. For those who don’t suffer only during the wars, and not only since an obtuse egalitarianism gave them the absurd idea of claiming their entry into the soldiery. The women, in the refugee trains, alone with their children and their old people, with an unknown destination and camps in prospect; they, raped and then murdered, in Boutcha and everywhere. They, watched by sellers of female flesh, in reception centers for refugees in Poland, Germany and Austria.
Not knowing where to find a truce to the madness, I turn to prayer. May God not forgive me for blasphemy, I wouldn’t care. That men do not forgive me the irony, I would flatter myself. Let us pray to Saint Volodymyr the Great, so that Russia can regain its senses, but above all, let us pray to Saint Nicolas and Saint Sergius of Radonezh, so that a few decades of trouble do not follow. Finally, let’s not forget to ask Saint Joan of Arc to castrate (in the sense of not bringing them out of castrumof course) all NATO leaders so that they stop playing with Russian generals who has more balls.
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