Ukraine: My Decolonial prayer for wisdom

THERE is a durable reason why Socrates, through his diligent student Plato, insisted that the world’s societies should be ruled by philosophers or else there would be no end to troubles. What Socrates meant, in veracity, is that all shapes and sizes of power should always be accompanied by generous measures of wisdom. Whether it is political power in form of authority and influence, or military power in shape of superior weaponry and prepared soldiers, all that power is useless, and even dangerous to the powerful themselves, if it is not accompanied by the might of right, the power of wisdom and morality (political ethics). As I write this short piece, the powerful in the world, in the West are talking and acting war. Not just war, but nuclear war is in the lips of powerful men that lead powerful armies in powerful countries, and that have stocks of atom bombs that can burn all the oxygen under the sun. And as political power and military might strut their stuff like pageants in the theatre of war, wisdom retreats to the dark background, as powerful leaders froth in the mouth like playground bullies at some school somewhere.

Can we be wise about war

In the everyday world to put war and wisdom in the same sentence might appear to be a lousy game in paradoxes. This is because, normally, when war breaks out it means that wisdom would have totally collapsed and evaporated to leave the ground for anger, fury, fear and violence. When men and women go out to the front prepared to die and to kill, they would have totally parted ways with wisdom and embraced fever, for cash or cause. In philosophy, however, wisdom about war exists and has and can still save the world.

I will deploy two telling examples, one from the ancient East and another from the ancient West. The Sun Tzu of ancient China taught, amongst many other lessons, that: “He will win who knows when to fight and when not to fight.” In other words, the Tzu said there are times when certain wars should not be fought at all. These are wars that assure mutual destruction of the warring parties and rob humanity of humans and leave the world a wasteland. Even as the arch-philosopher of “the art of war” the Tsu was very wise about war.

What Louis Althusser referred to as “Machiavelli’s Solitude” was not the simple loneliness of the brooding Florentine philosopher and Statesmen, no. Althusser meant that Machiavelli, in life and in death, was followed by crowds of admirers and haters, and the fans, but has always been alone in the heights and depths of his thought. In his time, he was misinterpreted and misunderstood by friends and foes, alike.

For instance, in philosophy studies and political studies today, students are taught that Machiavelli privileged war ahead of peace, based on a few statements of his including that: “There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of others.” This assertion of Machiavelli is taken to mean that polities must lead in war or wait to be destroyed by their opponents. And Machiavelli himself is taken to be a ‘technician of power’ and a philosopher for war. But Machiavelli, of ancient Italy, in the West, like the Sun Tzu of the East, was wise about war. In his own book, titled The Art of War, just like the Tzu’s book, Machiavelli condemned war. “To try to finish with war what could be finished with words can only lead to the peril of the commanders.” When commanders die their armies would have perished in battle. This was Machiavelli the diplomat who understood war as a means of the very last resort when diplomacy would have failed. It is no accident that both the Tzu and Machiavelli had books by the same title, The Art of War. That war has an art about it actually means that there must be some imagination, creativity, vision and wisdom about and around war. War without wisdom and without art is exactly that, an unwise war and an artless war.

I follow Professor Jeffrey Sachs and Retired Colonel Doug McGregor in that the war on Ukrainian soil is a war between the United States of America and the Russian Federation. It is my observation that it is war the could have been avoided, and that is costing humanity many human beings, and more. They are both correct in their reason for the fighting but are not right in that the war must be fought. There is scarcity of Wisdom on the danger of “Armageddon”, as it gets closer by every second as both sides insist on pursuing victory that might never come, and when it comes it might come at the price of the end of the world as we know it.

Destined for war: The fragile absolute

In 2017, the American political scientist, Graham Tillet Alison published a telling book: Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? In this book Alison describes how in the scramble for geopolitical supremacy powerful countries, in lack of

wisdom and art, tend to be trapped in a point of no return gravitating towards war as if war was natural and inevitable. The camp of the United States of America as President Joe Biden put it before a Republican Fundraising event, believes that “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” meaning that the American establishment is aware that escalation will finally lead to nuclear war. Addressing a press conference before the NATO ministers conference in Brussels, General Jens Stoltenberg stated that if Putin wins in Ukraine NATO and the entire West would have lost. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked NATO to unleash pre-emptive nuclear strikes against Russia.

The soldiers and the political leaders speak as if war cannot be avoided and there is no possible diplomatic off-ramp whatsoever as the war escalates towards doomsday itself.

The brinkmanship towards ‘Armageddon’ is breath-taking in its unwisdom and artlessness. It is at that point that political power and military might combined become a defeating weakness rather than a victorious strength, a fragile absolute, that which does not bend until it breaks beyond repair. Biblically, it is at that point where the strength of David urgently needs the wisdom of Solomon because the Goliath will not fall without the fall of David as well, in this case.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in South Africa. Contacts: decoloniality2019@gmail.com.