What would have happened if instead of Russia, NATO had invaded Ukraine? What would be the tone of the media? What would our opinion be?
Probably the music played by the news and newspapers would have an absolutely different tone. Surely there would be interminable reports in which the “experts” would explain to us how right and inevitable this move was, and what great danger we were running.
The commentators would crowd in front of the cameras to make us understand that the Ukrainian government is a criminal gang to be defeated with all available means and we would speak of the 2014 coup as a very serious thing and a wound for democratic Europe.
Ukraine and all the countries that are supplying the Ukrainian army with weapons would be sanctioned and there would be talk of the need to neutralize them by any means. It would compete to seize all the assets of the Ukrainian “oligarchs” around the world.
We would see on TV very long reports on Ukrainian child soldiers and on how the government forces them to fight the population by preventing them from leaving the country.
President Zelensky would be described as a dictator and dangerous war criminal, and a bounty of millions of dollars already hangs over his head. Probably the television reports would talk about how he was violent and deranged since he was a child, and in the demonstrations people would have placards in their hands where he would be compared to Hitler. All the demonstrations in his favor would be treated as fake regime.
Obviously he would never be interviewed and the news that would reach us about him would always be second hand. Criminologists would entertain us with accurate psychological descriptions in which it would prove beyond any doubt its danger to the entire human race.
We would all be shocked that our armies are not doing enough to fight this abomination and talk about the fact that it will probably use chemical weapons at any moment. Indeed, perhaps it would seem that he has already used chemical weapons and that we do not understand the enormous danger to which we are subjected.
One would speak of the fact that there are mass graves where all the opponents of the regime, probably even children, have been buried.
The exodus of refugees would be treated in a very different way, and described as a danger to the stability of our continent. One would speak of the need to contain the wave of immigration to prevent Ukrainian radicalists from going around Europe to found terrorist cells.
Obviously we would never talk about civilian deaths, but the heroism of the army that is restoring peace would be exalted, with moving interviews with the parents of those who died in this war of peace. Quelli che oggi vengono chiamati “invasori” sarebbero presentati come i liberatori, e la resistenza sarebbe bollata come “fiancheggiatori del regime”-
Of course, anyone who expressed the opinion that Ukrainians have the right to defend themselves would be branded as a pro-Nazi warmonger in need of re-education.
In order not to risk not being thrown out, pacifist intellectuals should obligatorily begin their speeches with a ritual phrase that would sound more or less like this: “provided that obviously I do not agree with the Ukrainian regime and with the barbaric means it is using … “
In short, whether we like it or not, we know that things would go this way. We know this because it is the script of the last thirty wars we have seen in recent years, and we don’t have to invent anything.
In wars there are no good or bad, there is only an enormous manipulation with which people are pushed to kill each other without any sense.
What does it mean to be a pacifist today? It means understanding that there is no just war. It is understanding that behind all wars there are reasons that go beyond any logic.
It is realizing every time we join war, for whatever reason, we are lending ourselves to the game of power, accepting sacrifice as a natural destiny.
Sandro Curatolo
Europe for peace
https://www.europeforpeace.eu/it/