Occupation of my mind

 I'd like to write of something unrelated to the events in my country but this nightmae has completely occupied my mind. (Btw, the photo is me on the tank in the museum of WW2 in Kiev.)

It's realy hard to concentrate on anything else when according to analytics your country is on a brink of war and you realize what war is. It's not just battles of professionals in some remote areas, it's something that affects everybody at the very least psychologically and economically and quite possibly phisically, too.

Today already people stop buying goods and services that are not necessities. My selling web ad spaces or website building does not qualify as such and I'm not looking forward to flipping burgers instead. May have to say good-bye to my renting a nice apartment 3km from the city center.

Then of course, even that can become least of my problems.

War is destruction, atrocities and maiming, and not like Ukrainian medical facilities are ready for the flood of injured. Last time I've been to one of our public hospitals I had to come back with my own syringe (not to mention medicine). And I'm just horrified by the prospect of seeing much more misery in the streets, on the news and I'm trying not to think about the possibility of something hitting my family, friends and myself directly. But I can't quite escape that imaginary bleak scenario of being caught in some misery and not being able to quickly check out of it.

The only thing that I am thankful for at the moment is that I don't have children. And perhaps that I never took a mortgage in this country, I rented instead. Because who in their right mind would want to tie themselves for 15-30 years to a place where they  are not protected by any laws because the courts are corrupt. People in developed western countries might not quite understand how it feels to realize you're living in the wilderness: that you might get abused tomorrow and nobody will be punished and there won't be any compensation. And that was peaceful time, now we're being dragged into an outright war.

As I'm reading comments on the internet I notice a lot of people picking a side of an aggressor as though they're simply cheering for the team. They choose 'team Russia' because they'd like to see United States's ass kicked. The only thing neglected in this picture is of course Ukraine - which will be the tool in this fight and the utmost loser, peple who live here will. This land has suffered a lot before, when in 30ies the artificial hunger took from 6 to 9 million in just 2 years. Then the war with Nazi Germany caused the deaths of more than 6.5 million. And that was roughly 70 years ago.

Now we're being attacked by Russia. Which might seem better to some with regards to its foreign policy in comparance to USA but it's far from being an example of either pacifism or human rights and concern for average citizen's well-being. Peaceful protesters there are routinely detained in their hundreds, this picture is from the latest anti-war demonstration. 'Dangerous' old lady is being taken care off by the police man. This is a place where Stalin 'takes the bronze' in national heroes competition. Because he built an empire on bones and blood of his own people and this is what's still regarded as a way to go. 

This is the Russia I never want to be a part of. 

As of today it looks like Crimea has been lost and fighting for it militarily may endanger the rest of Ukraine as there are already Russian troops in Transnistria. Putin's plan is thought to include if not the whole Ukraine then at least the South-Eastern part of it, but the more the better.

It's really sad what's happening because Ukraine has been fighting for independence its whole history and while we have been celebrating it since the break of the Soviet Union it clearly was just a nominal, not true independence. Orange Revolution was a disadter that only changed faces in power but not the system. The last one was just going to happen when Russia comes over to drag us back to its rule. In a way, it seems also beneficial to those opposition leaders who quickly jumped on the opportunity to seize posts for themselves while people can no longer critisize them and demand accountability as the country is under attack. Before that the pressure mounting on the new government was unprecedented. Even I, who was skeptical of the real change through this revolt, started to believe maybe someting will come of it after all when every day the myriad of anti-new-government posts was mounting: 'do this, why don't you do that, who did you appoint here, why aren't people fired there'. (On the photo - the guy with a scythe which reads "government, i came for you" - and that was after the ousting of Yanukovich, saw him near the parliament myself) It seemed we did learn our lesson from Orange Revolution when after the oppositon leaders came to power everyone started minding their own business. 

Oh well... There are too many too powerful people whose interests do not include any real changes.

I've been thinking about war as a pheomenon. In short, it's what our whole history has mostly been about. And no wonder evolutionary psychologists and self-reflective people recognize that while on a concious level we detest such monstrosity, something within us is also drawn to it. Illustrative is the quote:

In fact, I've decided to simply link you to an article that looks into this paradoxical drive to such monstrosity as war and more. Again, I don't feel concentrated enough to do justice to the issue. So here it is: Who in their right mind wants war? 

I'll just say I remember somebody telling me that although it's good we live in peace and all but those days in the past when people fought for something sure seem romantic and filled with certain hights, passions, purpose. In contrast with the mundaine 9 to 5 existence of an average modern citizen. In wars and revolutions everybody is a small hero, a part of a greater force for good, ironically, all sides of the conflict are sure they are the ones in the right and not the enemy. Propaganda. It worked before when people had no internet (an no access to alternative sources of information). It works today because they have no motivation to cross-check the stories they're shown. I even suspect many only watch news (or what's being presented as such) just because they're often following their favorite entertainment shows. 

What else can I say? History will repeat itself. People will turn the page ans start all over again. They will add new monsters and new heroes to history books.

I've heard somewhere that in the history of human civilization, there have been just about 25 years of peace around the globe. At all other times there was an armed conflict of some sort somewhere.