Such a shame. All that media infrastructure,
all those highly educated journalists, cutting edge information technology. And
what do we get from Western MSM coverage of the Ukraine crisis? Fairytales
about big bad Russian ogres and Western-approved of princesses. This is naked
self-serving, Western national self-interest dressed up as humanitarian concern
for Ukrainians. It is as if the centuries of educational and technological
progress since Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm first conjured up
stories of good versus evil had never occurred.
Now our storytellers are be-suited
official sources and their dutiful establishment conduits in the media, telling
us about big bad Russian bears hiding in the Ukrainian woods, stirring up the
locals, spreading fear and panic. But these storytellers, with their breathless
pronouncements, and their flashing cameras, are not actually telling us a damn
thing about the woods - only about the trees. In fact they point our faces
straight at the trees, the individual events, the falling of a President, the
fragility of the interim government, images of goodies and baddies. They hold
our faces up against the fracas, and we feel part of it, informed and so can go
about our daily business under the illusion that we know what the fuck is going
on when the whole exercise has actually diverted us from the truth. We can’t
see the woods for the trees. Not that we are meant to.
I heard an Economist journo on
BBC 4 this morning describing how Russia will likely now indulge in
“encouraging insurrections” perhaps even with a view to ensuring partition of
the Russophile east Ukraine from the Europhile/NATOphile western Ukrainians. A
lot of western orientated commentators would have no difficulty nodding sagely
along to that view yet at the same time accusing anyone suggesting there has
been comparable Western interference and manipulation in the current Ukrainian
story of being a nutty conspiracy theorist.
So it can’t be the concept of
conspiracy they object to because they already have attributed conspiratorial
motives and methods to Russia. No, it’s the notion that we, lovely-peace-loving-humanitarian-democratic
us, are somehow above the fray.
Those who claim to abhor
conspiracy theories are often the first to promote them as long as they explain
the behaviour of an enemy. Understandable this may be. Objective it is not.
Informative? Perhaps, in some lopsided way. But it’s another excellent view of
those “fascinating” trees - and yet another diversion from those pesky woods.
The woods, in this case, is the
geo-political context of what is happening in Ukraine. Russia has been
out-foxed by the political and intelligence machinations of the West. All’s fair in politics and war. And Russia is
no innocent abroad here. But the notion that “Machiavellian” Russia is somehow “interfering”
in Ukraine while the “honourable” West is simply wanting to ensure events take
their “natural” course is as infantile as any fairy tale. Are we really to
suppose the West has no interest here?
This is not about anything other
than the march of NATO, the vanguard of Western corporate interests. Not that
The West is uniquely wicked. On the contrary, this is just what empires do,
have always done and always will do. And the West is simply the current leading
empire. The notion that we are in some post-history age without empires and where
the Great Powers subjugate their economic interests to the rule of international
law is indeed comforting, like many a bed time story. However, in the real
word, the opposite is true. As Chomsky says, “You don’t need to be a genius to
see it. In fact, it takes genius NOT to see it.”
If one considers the history of
Great Powers then it’s obvious that Russia has no choice but to resist Western
expansion or to accept Western influence on her borders and then perhaps within
them. If Russia were to accept that her status as a Great Power would be
imperilled. This is why of course Russia went to war in Georgia in 2008. That
is why she has resisted Western interests in Syria. And this is why she is
deeply unsettled by growing Western influence in Ukraine.
Russia has been out-manoeuvred
politically in Ukraine. This deeply divided country on her borders appears to
have chosen to lean westward. Certainly this is the wish of many in Western Ukraine.
But to suppose that that wish was something Western interests did nothing to
encourage is to pretend that Great Power politics does not exist. That takes us
back to the land of Hans Christian Andersen.
One expects Great Powers to
behave this way. But aren’t we, in a supposedly sophisticated western
democracy, entitled to journalism that challenges their press-released narratives?
Don’t we deserve more than fairy tales? Or do we just want the comfort of of a bed time story?
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