The new “pacifism” of the right like that of the left: call for surrender and anti-Westernism
"Better Russians than dead" is the gist of the speech of most of the center-right commentators in these weeks of Ukrainian war. As the war continues, the call for the unconditional surrender of the Ukrainians grows stronger and more heartfelt, peppered with terrorist speeches about possible escalations and nuclear wars. For Vittorio Feltri, as well as for the former general of Gladio , as well as for the inevitable Toni "there will be no invasion" Capuozzo, the problem of this conflict is only one and is called: Zelensky, the Ukrainian president whose country was attacked. His fault? Resist the Russians. The more he resists, the more he will be responsible for the military and civilian casualties of the conflict. A hairy pacifism, disguised as humanitarianism, but with the same logic of the Borg , an alien race invented by the writers of Star Trek : "Assimilate yourselves, resistance is useless".
We had already seen this pacifism in action during the Cold War, when the left of the streets and the opposition demanded the unilateral disarmament of NATO. If the Soviets invaded West Germany, we should have welcomed them with smiles and flowers, if we had resisted, the Soviets could have become nervous. And you know, if a nuclear power gets nervous…. The logic is exactly the same as today's right: if the Russians invade Ukraine, the defenders must welcome them with full honors and woe to the Europeans if they try to protest. NATO is not intervening, the EU is neutral, we limit ourselves to sending small arms and even the supply of old Soviet fighters from Poland is denied. At best, the answer consists of economic sanctions and a political protest at the UN. But for the right-wing commentator, this almost nil reaction is already to be considered an act of belligerence. In his opinion, we should just turn the other way. And smile. Because if we don't smile, the Russians get nervous. And you know, if the Russians get nervous … you understand, right?
Humanitarianism is immediately replaced by psychological terrorism, mafia style. Nothing is more terrifying than atomic warfare. This is a largely irrational fear, because a launch of nuclear warheads by Putin would mean, first of all, total military self-destruction of Russia, so it is highly unlikely. But the listener of the left of yesterday, as well as that of the right of today, yielding to the terror of the atomic bomb, surrenders to the pacifist argument.
As with the pacifism of the left, this new "pacifism" of the right also has a very evident subtext: Moscow must win and dominate Europe. While the left of the time could cloak itself in a universalist humanitarianism, which was in its DNA and was touted by intellectuals and artists from all over the Western world, the new right-wing pacifism is even less credible, especially if it comes from the mouth of the military, commentators and politicians who, until yesterday, did not skimp on advice to use force against the threat of terrorism, or even to defend the sacred borders from unarmed illegal immigrants. For all of them the borders were sacred, but if the Russian tanks come they must be open.
This form of double-thinking, as Orwell called the deliberately contradictory narrative of the regime, takes root a lot, however. And it takes root together with even less credible Russian propaganda. Up until the day before the attack on Ukraine we heard it repeated ad nauseam that the crisis in Eastern Europe was comparable to that of Cuban missiles, this time with Putin playing the heroic Kennedy. As all readers will remember, the Cuban missile crisis was resolved without resorting to war: Cuba has never been invaded by the US, although it actually had missiles (in Ukraine, for the uninitiated, there have never been missiles Americans).
The slogan on the missile crisis was therefore thrown away, immediately after the invasion, and another one took over: Ukraine must be denazified. And to prove that the Nazis really were there, the Russians spread a series of stories about the "genocide" in the Donbass. The conflict in eastern Ukraine was also fought by neo-Nazis, who were on both sides for other reasons. But there is no Nazi genocide, as all international observers attest. It was a conflict, obviously provoked by Russia, to destabilize Ukraine, but not an extermination. Moreover, in 2019, the absolute majority of Ukrainians, including Russian speakers, elected a Jewish president, Volodymyr Zelensky, whose first language is Russian. Nazis who elect a Russian-speaking Jew? But the people (on the right, above all) believe in this neo-communist propaganda, even if it is so simple that it does not even convince the "Cipputi" of struggle and factory of the 60s.
The other Russian propaganda that is being imposed, aimed at a Catholic and conservative public, is being provided by the Russian Orthodox Church, starting with the speech of Patriarch Kirill and is promptly re-launched by conservative commentators, but also the former apostolic nuncio of the United States Carlo Maria Viganò. In this narrative, the Russian war, beyond Ukraine, is a "metaphysical" clash against a satanic New World Order, which wants the new man and transhumanism. Ukraine, land of the womb for rent, is also home to the "American biolabs " where who knows what other devilry is planned, perhaps even a world pandemic. The reactionary creed is repetitive: we have heard the same things since the French Revolution.
This propaganda enormously strengthens the new right-wing "pacifism". The war must be stopped with the surrender of the Ukrainians, because they are on the side of the "bad guys". And it is we, we the West, who have created the Nazi and Satanic "monster" of Ukraine. Just like Soviet propaganda before 1989, Russian propaganda created such self-hatred in Westerners that it reversed the concepts of Us and Them . But it takes root so much because many already think so. The end of this war, however it ends, must, if someone is intelligent, open a phase of reflection in the center-right, a Year Zero of conservative culture. It will be necessary to understand why anti-Westernism has spread so widely. Because for now, as in the two years of the pandemic, our right has shown that it is nothing different from the left: it is only a left that has not made it.
The post The new "pacifism" of the right like that of the left: appeal for surrender and anti-Westernism appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL https://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/il-nuovo-pacifismo-di-destra-come-quello-della-sinistra-appello-alla-resa-e-anti-occidentalismo/ on Sat, 12 Mar 2022 03:56:00 +0000.