Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
By Samuel Estefanous
The Anniversary of the Great Patriotic War is around the corner. The Chinese leader has already declared that he will be attending the event. I wouldn’t be surprised if Ethiopia is also invited. Who would be invited and who would be attending is going to be ‘great television’ to borrow words from Donald J. Trump.
There are instances where it is quite difficult to deny the palpable role Providence plays in determining the outcome of major world armed conflicts. One that never ceases to evoke awe from anybody with the slightest interest in European history is the routing of Napoleon’s grand army at the hands of the Russians who would rather burn their darling white city- Moscow- to ashes than surrender, unlike the rest of Continental Europe.
The battle of Adwa had resurrected the pride of the black race and the old warriors had reason to ascribe the victory to the Almighty. It goes without saying that Adwa had double quickened the liberation of the African continent from European colonizers.
The other is of course the Great Patriotic War which had saved Europe and the world at large. I mean literally. Russia sacrificed 20 million of its sons and daughters to save the world and it is callous rudeness of the grandest scale to deny Russia and its people the honor. One can understand the insipid sense of nationalism in the Baltic Republics and the Ukraine that comes out in a senseless irresponsible childish celebration of Nazi collaborators. These are the troubled sick nations of Europe and implicitly they are allowed to act weird. Something that would hit the news headlines had Germany or even Poland done anything slightly suggesting Nazi idolization.
In his trademark artless manner, Trump reminds European leaders of these towering historical facts every chance he has got. Among others, that is the reason he has earned the respect of the rest of the world. He is devoid of that sleek dishonesty which has become the distinguishing hall mark of liberal politicians. In comparison, just look at Keir Starmer and Macron. They are disgraced to their own people. Recently, they have adopted a resolution to arm Europe at any and all cost. Reason? Russia is going to march on Paris and London! This is increasingly looking like the reaction of Britons to the Martian invasion episode of C.G. Wells’ novel as narrated by the BBC back in the early 20th century.
Poland which has historically been at loggerheads with Russia has multiple grounds to go on an unchecked Russia bashing spree and I for one wouldn’t blame it. Beginning from the last three decades of the 18th century right up until the end of the Cold War, it was treated badly by Prussia, Austria-Hungary and of course Russia. Poles have been nursing an enduring grudge against the utterly incorrigible Great Russian ‘imperialistic’ world outlook. They have reason to. I mean who forgets the way Dostoyevsky cruelly mocks the Poles? Remember one of his characters who sarcastically complains that a decent Russian could no longer have a cup of coffee in Paris without some irksome French activist in the service of the Poles screaming at him ‘Free Poland!?’ Yet these days one hardly finds a Pole who goes around throwing Nazi salutes. They are a brave Nation. They stood up to Hitler unlike the French and the rest of Continental Europe. However much they tend to hate Russia, they wouldn’t openly undermine the exploits of Russia in the Great Patriotic War.
What the West fails to take into account is the more the Russian leadership is demonized the higher their approval rating goes. Russians aren’t stupid; they know that the West isn’t after Putin but Russia. The West can always bribe some sellouts and have them speak mean of Putin and try to send out a message alleging this isn’t about Russia. But Russians also take good note when their athletes are ostracized at the instigation of none other than the IOC itself and draw their conclusion-this is about Russia. Who would blame them, I mean seriously, because a certain helicopter pilot kills his unsuspecting first officer and declares his allegiance to the enemy for half a million dollars? By the way, Russia always hunts down and liquidates these traitors and wouldn’t deny its action only to observe ‘the moral corpse had been long dead’.
The West is openly espousing Russophobia and has set the stage for radicals. Sergie Karaganov says imperialistic tendencies are encoded in every Great Russian’s DNA and candidly argues that the only viable lasting solution to the Ukrainian problem is to let it be absorbed into Russia, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania. Coming to think of it in good earnest, he is kinda right, isn’t he? Ukraine is a Pseudo-nation State created by Stalin and Khrushchev. Otherwise the Decembrist’s manifesto had long addressed the Ukrainian question in a manner that doesn’t brochure any valid contest. Incidentally this Sergie Karaganov fella is your quintessential Fyodor Dostoyevsky reincarnate. The other week the BBC interviewed him and calmly and without displaying any emotion he told the confused journalist that Russia has no interest in claiming territory in the moral junk yard that is Europe. What made my day wasn’t actually his remarks but the comments. God knows he has roasted millions.
Speaking of Europe trotting Russian who was hounded by French activists in the mid-19th century, it makes one wonder how long it has been going. I mean this protracted Cold War between Russia and the West? Three centuries, I guess. Can you imagine that? There were activists and liberal-terrorist even back then in the middle of the 19th century screaming their heads off raging at Russia. I believe what they say about things remaining the same the more they appear changing does indeed hold truth.
Now that American leadership has acknowledged the fact that the war in Ukraine is indeed a proxy war between Russia and the collective West, it goes without saying that poor Ukraine is caught up in the crossfire. Imagine in the third decade of the 21th century a European country willingly becoming the cannon fodder in the centuries old war of tug between two ideological rivals. How cheap is a Ukrainian soul? Think about the Kursk incursion. The only thing the West wanted was to declare that for the first time since the Second World War Russian territory is occupied by foreign forces’. There is absolutely no other purpose to it. For the last seven months Western media wouldn’t finish a statement about Kursk without the phrase ‘for the first time since WWII…’ Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are sacrificed for the Fake news establishments to taunt Russians with the said statement.
Incredibly, the Russians did what they usually do. They let the Ukrainians march deep into Russia without offering any meaningful resistance. Contrary to the learned conjectures of retired Western Generals, the Russians didn’t panic and re-deploy contingents from the Donbass. They didn’t fall for the taunting declaring Russian territory was occupied. They remained calm- biding their time. At the right time and their own reckoning they delivered the strike. Now they are taking inventory of Western armaments shipped to them without being solicited. All the world class clown- Zelensky- could do is repeat the mantra ‘Putin is a liar’.
When it comes to peace, here is another loss the world at large has suffered. The whole world used to marvel at and admire the wisdom of the seasoned Finnish and Swedish politicians for keeping their countries neutral even in the heydays of the menacing Soviet power. On account of their neutrality, these two countries were able to wield more than the combined power of the rest of Europe including Germany and France as the ultimate middle parties capable of talking to both sides commanding the trust of East and West. Now they have become numbers in a large trans-Atlantic military alliance along with Montenegro and Albania. How could a country choose to descend from such Olympian heights to become a fresh junior partner in a decomposing military alliance? Makes one wonder…
Let Peace Prevail.
God Bless.
The writer can be reached at : estefanoussamuel@yahoo.com
Editor’s Note : Views in the article do not necessarily reflect the views of borkena.com
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