Thursday, April 13, 2023

“Our Greatest Strength is that We have No Alternative …….If Ukraine Stops Fighting – There is No Ukraine…..If Russia Stops Fighting There is No War” – Her Excellency Kateryna Zelenko, Ukrainian Ambassador to Singapore.

 

Copyright – Radio Free Europe

I had the privilege of attending a talk that was organized by a law firm today. The speaker was the Ukrainian Ambassador to Singapore, Her Excellency Kateryna Zelenko. The ambassador gave a speech on events in her homeland since it was invaded by Russian forces over a year ago.

In her presentation, she came up with two powerful soundbites. Firstly, she stated that “Our greatest strength is that we have no alternative.” Then towards the end, she stated “If Ukraine stops fighting, there is no more Ukraine.” These two remarks struck me because they hit on two very pertinent points. The first point is on the lack of alternatives. The second point is on the question of why do people do certain things even when it seems helpless.

For the record, I am a great believer in having choices. You could say that I never managed to build a career because of it but in a decade of freelancing, I learnt that one of the stupidest things you can do is trust your fate to a single organization or a single profession. Hence, I am very proud of the fact that I waited tables even whilst I was still working in corporate positions. Being a lawyer, doctor, accountant, architect shouldn’t limit you and your capacity to earn a living.

I guess you could say that it was the realization that the people who would “look down” on me for working a “low job” were simply not worth trying to impress (not that they were paying my bills) and it was better to have alternatives because, well the reality is that you can lose it all any day and loss usually happens when you think you’ve made it.

However, I realise that having the mentality that I have is a luxury that many people don’t have and I am very lucky because I live in Singapore. The problems that we face in Singapore inevitably evolve around money or rather the lack of it. While its no fun to be poor or badly paid but these problems can be solved. If, for example, you are forced to clean toilets for a living, then you do it and sooner or later you can pull yourself up. Not saying its easy but it is possible.

It’s not the case if you live in a war zone or you happen to be from a place where its constantly hit by natural disaster or you have a significantly more powerful neighbour who has a habit of kicking you and taking whenever he feels like it. In such places, being able to wake up the next day becomes a luxury.

So, what do you do in such situations? What are your choices? The sad reality for people in such situations, is that it’s often the choice of living in a state where life is a literal hell of earth or risking death in the process of trying to stop the cause of misery.

Let’s take out the politics of the Russian invasion and look at it from the view of the average Ukrainian. The fact that they are fighting against superior Russian forces for a simple reason. As far as they’re concerned, Russia is not coming to make life better but to make life a living hell.

If you find that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is too “Western,” there is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Israel is clearly the superior military power that has gone out of its way to screw an inferior force. Look at the recent unprovoked invasion of the Al Aqsa Mosque. Armed policemen stormed the place in the middle of the most sacred month of the Islamic Calendar as people were saying their prayers. As far as the average Palestinian is concerned, that message is simple – “You don’t register as human – we’re going to kick you because we’re bored.”

I’m not saying that the Palestinians are saintly. The Palestinian Authority has a terrible record in managing basic services for the Palestinian people. However, that does not make the Likud way of doing things right and whatever one might think of the Palestinians, you cannot be surprised when rockets get launched into Israel.

It’s been the same story for years. Israel has demolished anything resembling a Palestinian state for decades. Yet the Palestinians keep firing rockets and even throwing stones at Israelis. You can argue that the Palestinians are “bringing it upon themselves,” by not allowing the Israeli settlers to take their land. However, if you were to ask the kids throwing stones why they even think that stones will dent a tank, the answer will be exactly what the Ukrainian Ambassador gave – we stop fighting, we cease to exist; they stop fighting then the fighting stops.  

I’m not saying every insurgent in the world is a good guy fighting for freedom, liberty and so on. What I am saying is that people who have never had to fight for anything, should not judge and label anyone fighting as a terrorist to be eliminated.

Quite often, the people who are fighting despite impossible odds believe that there is no choice and that they’re very existence will vanish if they stop. So, one of the very best ways to get people to stop fighting is to remove their reason to fight against you. In the case of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the peace negotiations begin when Russian soldier leave what is recognized as Ukraine. Then the Ukrainians will have no reason to fight. In the case of Israel versus Palestine, we only need to look at the 2001 Sharm El Sheikh report chaired by former US Senator George Mitchell, which found that there was a direct link between terrorist attacks and settlement building.   


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