I say ‘re-stating’ because these points were included in the preceding Athens Declaration, co-authored by Jeremy Corbyn, Ece Temelkuran and myself, whose opening lines were: “We stand with the people of Ukraine, as we stand with every people suffering invasion, displacement and occupation. Maintaining the right balance between (A) respecting the agency of those in the eye of some distant storm and (B) defending our right, as internationalists, to treat another nation’s war or crisis as our own, is both hard and crucial – as I tried to explain in another article back in March entitled Westsplainers? Or genuine comrades? **** Dear Anthony, You chide our petition for not re-stating all the points above, focusing instead on the need for a new non-aligned Peace movement. However, this is not an argument – as I am sure you agree – that we Greeks have never been manipulated by the Great Powers or, indeed, that non-Greeks like your good self should not have an opinion on Greek politics including your right to tell me that I am wrong on Greek matters or even that I have been led astray. How can I disagree? As a Greek, I have had a gutful of Anglo-European orientalist, weaponised condescension that sought to explain to us Greeks our predicament – with a view to getting us to accept our ‘lot’. You warn leftists, like myself, of the danger that, while discussing Ukraine and the manner in which Russia, the USA and NATO are exploiting the war, we should avoid denying “Ukrainian agency and the commitment of a huge majority of Ukrainians to their country’s integrity and independence.”. #Unherd the post full#From the first moment Putin invaded Ukraine, I have been arguing that to stand with Ukraine should mean, amongst other things, a commitment to empowering Ukrainians to integrate, if this is what they want, with Western Europe in the same way that Austria did during the Cold War: militarily neutral but with a boisterous democracy, strong economy, full political independence, and freedom “to truck, barter and exchange” with anyone they want. “Neutrality should not prevent Ukraine from joining the European Union if it so chooses (something even Putin’s Russia seems to have accepted).Here is the same idea as I put it in my aforementioned 5 th March article: “t must be an agreement guaranteed jointly by Washington and Moscow, guaranteeing an independent and neutral Ukraine as part of a broader agreement that de-escalates tensions with the Baltics, Poland, around the Black Sea, across Europe.” “If neutrality were guaranteed by military commitments from outside to safeguard the country’s independence in a way that satisfied the government in Kyiv, and did not deprive it of weapons for self-defence, then this would be reasonable.”Īgreed.This is how I put the same point on 5 th March in an article entitled What we must do in the face of Putin’s criminal invasion of Ukraine: “When a country or region is invaded, I am overcome by one duty: To take the side of the people facing troops with direct orders to violate their homes, to bombard their neighbourhoods, to destroy the circumstances of their lives. “Invading other countries is wrong… it is wrong for Israel in Palestine’s West Bank and Gaza, and it must now be reversed in Ukraine.”Ībsolutely.Whether it is a panicky Putin who issues such threats, or North Korea, or the United States perpetually refusing to rule out a first strike, we must condemn every nuclear threat and any attempt to normalise nuclear weapon use. “Any threat to use nuclear weapons is an outrage”.So, let me begin by pointing out four of your points with which I agree before homing in on our one major disagreement: Dear Anthony, Whenever you and I debate anything, the hardest part is to disentangle the things we agree on from our genuine differences. That petition, it is perhaps helpful to note, was in the spirit of The Athens Declaration which I, Jeremy Corbyn and Ece Temelkuran issued on 13 th May 2022 on behalf of DiEM25 and the Progressive International. Anthony’s article was in response to a petition I gladly co-signed that, in the face of a New Cold War and a collapsing climate, called for an immediate end to the war in Ukraine, for the aversion of another war over Taiwan, for the de-escalation of the New Cold War engulfing, primarily, the United States and China and, lastly, for a genuine global Green New Deal. Anthony Burnett, a friend, comrade and collaborator, just published an article in openDemocracy, a splendid and much loved source of progressive ideas and material, to which he alerted me in a mail reading: “Dear Yanis, we disagree but in solidarity!” Since Anthony’s article mentions me, along with Jeremy Corbyn, in its subtitle, here I am, responding in the spirit of solidarity, affection and goodwill.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |