Failure to discuss origins helps nobody
ON the face of it Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine and China’s cruel treatment of its Uyghur population are both actions which are so inexcusable that their origins are overlooked.
A few years ago at the height of a period of worldwide Islamist terror activity, China experienced its own version of this phenomenon. Hoards of knife-wielding mobs carried out a number of massacres at train stations and other crowded venues. The response of the authorities was directed not only at the perpetrators of these crimes but also against their friends, their families and their neighbours.
This collective punishment was unjust, but it worked and was popular with most people. Islamist terror had been replaced by Uyghur concentration camps. The human rights of innocent inmates was traded for peace in the wider society. It is disappointing that our mainstream media invariably reports half of this narrative.
In the case of Russia we do, at least, pay lip-service to the propaganda story emanating from the Kremlin. The accusation that anti-Semitism is rife in Ukraine is not entirely without foundation if you listen to reports from the Nazi hunters working for the Simon Wiesenthal Institute.
Commenting in 2018 on a decision of the Ukraine Parliament to declare Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera as a national hero and make his birthday a public holiday they were scathing: “It is clear that Ukraine is choosing to rehabilitate anti-Semitism and to censor history.”
In retrospect this disgraceful action (which stands to this day) should have been the subject of collective pressure from all right-thinking nations. Russia, Israel and the West should have been united in their condemnation. But our leaders failed us. They preferred to play global politics rather than stand up to an act of brazen anti-Semitism.
The idea that China and Russia have, in recent years, embarked on inexplicably brutal courses of action has become a fashionable trope.
The terrible brutality of their behaviour cannot be denied and must be condemned. But it hasn’t arisen spontaneously in a vacuum. Our failure to maintain a meaningful dialogue over these contentious matters helps nobody.
JOHN HODGKINS,
Seaton Sluice