Posts Tagged ‘paz’
What is actually the current war
17
Apr
Increasingly, the Russia-Ukraine war is revealed with the clear contours of the
interests of great empires in conflict: on the one hand, Russia, which did not accept the reduction of its territory and influence after the end of the Second World War, on the other, NATO as an arm of capitalist forces and their world influence.
In fact, the great emerging empire is China, and it has roots in the great cultural revolution, an attempt made by Mao Tse Tung, the first leader of the Chinese revolution, but the attempt to industrialize the country by taking people out of the countryside in the 50s was a failure causing more than 20 million people to starve to death.
The opponents led by Liu Shao-Chi, in 1959, removed Mao, his family and his allies, who were isolated within the Chinese Communist Party, and promoted a re-education of the population, preparing a new industrial revolution, this time attracting capital and companies from abroad. , cheap labor and the idea that it could be an opening to capitalism, Hong Kong was until recently not controlled by China, boosted this model.
Speaking about what would be the desired peace for Russia, Putin declared that it would be a “new world order”, and in it talks with China are involved and explain Russia’s recent military maneuvers in the Pacific Ocean near Japan, the Kuril Islands which is disputed by Japan.
It was a clear nod to the partnership with China, although it, together with Brazil, is trying to form a third bloc to negotiate peace, because the Brics are closer to Russia, and this includes India and South Africa, which are also part of this economic bloc. .
On the western side, the Scandinavian countries: Finland, Sweden and Norway carried out joint maneuvers with NATO forces, the geopolitical picture is drawn with a dangerous warlike picture.
There is a fracture in the European bloc, as Macron says that France will not be a “vassal” of the American allies, however it can also be a force for the third “peace” bloc.
A peace without surrender and without winners seems the only possible way out, difficult but possible.
Leaked documents and rhetoric of tension
10
Apr
A leaked document that would contain alleged US secret information about
the war between Ukraine and Russia may contain part of the information true and some false, according to US military sources, the assessment of the death toll in the war in Ukraine would be false.
Newspapers like The New York Times, on the other hand, assess that it is an effort by Moscow to provoke more disinformation than news already known as the anticipated deliveries of weapons, as well as the formation of troops and battalions according to war strategies, however this already shows that there are some gaps in US intelligence in the effort to support Ukraine.
Pentagon spokeswoman Sabrina Singh said, “We are aware of the reports of social media posts, and the department is looking into the matter.”
The US Department of Justice opened investigations into these disclosures, which also included information from important allies such as Israel, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.
American rhetoric and Western leaders continue to assert that Russia has committed war crimes, including the “deportation” of Ukrainian children to Russia, condemned by the Hague court, while Russian rhetoric continues to be one of insecurity at its borders.
What the documents reveal, although without precise data, is a probable Ukrainian offensive next month, Finland’s official entry into NATO creates another frontier of conflict and some Russian response is also expected there.
In terms of peace, the Brazilian proposal to cede Crimea, which was already Russian territory before the war, in exchange for the resumption of territories occupied in the current war, was not accepted by Ukraine.
So both Russia and Ukraine seem to be taking the war to the limits of attrition, the death of countless soldiers and the economic consequences that have begun to appear in the world economy.
China has hit back at rhetoric that it is not making enough effort for peace, saying the “West are not in a position to dictate what we should do”, Chinese Ambassador to Russia Zhang Hanhui told Izvestia.
The hope that negotiations can move forward from countries outside the conflict remains.
welcome to polycrisis
04
Apr
This is the part of title of the article by Adam Tooze, professor of history at Yale
University (USA) written in the Financial Times in 2022 that drew a lot of attention: pandemics, droughts, floods, mega storms, forest fires, war in Ukraine and high prices of fuel and food, as is typical of the magazine and of today’s world, the economic aspect stands out.
But Edgar Morin’s polycrisis went deeper, the author recognizes the origin of the term, but is unaware of what Edgar Morin and many other philosophers actually think, who point to the most fundamental root of these evils: our way of thinking. thinking and the vision of the world that we create from it and implant in our societies.
The term cited by Morin was said for the first time in 1990, but in an interview with Le Monde on April 20, 2020, the French educator updated the word: “The health crisis triggered a chain of crises that were linked together. This polycrisis or megacrisis extends from the existential to the political, passing through the economy, from the individual to the planetary, passing through families, regions, states. In short, a tiny virus in an overlooked village in China has unleashed a world of disruption.”
In his view, the polycrisis crossed our ways of being, living together, producing, consuming and being in the world, challenging us to think about all our paradigms, much of what he wrote talks about new methods such as hologramatic and the danger of hyperspecialization of science that leads “to a new obscurantism” that is our inability to see the whole in modernity.
It is true that we are going through other crises, but Tooze’s article shows the implications of the war in Ukraine and the pandemic in accelerating these crises (see the Map), in the pragmatic aspect of the economic it is clear, in the spiritual and ontological aspect it is still not so clear , but it may be clearer soon.
A dangerous threshold of war
03
Apr
With the shipment of weapons to Ukraine NATO has prolonged Ukraine’s war with
Russia in the tactical field for at least another year, this says Western and Russian analysts, but another front is threatened as Finland is about to join NATO only missing bureaucratic details.
It irritates Russia more than seeing its border countries join NATO, this was even the claiming limit for war with Ukraine and Finland has the longest border of NATO countries with Russia, more than 1,300 km, comparable to distance between Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul and Queluz on the border of the State of São Paulo with Rio de Janeiro.
Finland erects a steel cable fence on the border (photo), and the countries have already lived through a war called the Winter War (it has this name because it started at the end of November 1939 and ended on March 12, 1940 with a treaty in which it lost part of its territory and a good part of its industrial capacity).
Although Finland has a small army, at the time even smaller and is now arming itself, it resisted heroically, but lost a significant part of its territory (see our post) and feels threatened by the current war in Eastern Europe.
There is another likely target of the war which would be Moldova, there is already a small separatist region called Transnistria, but in the geopolitical aspect it is Finland’s entry into NATO that most affects Russia and creates a strong pole of tension and now the new iron Curtain.
Sweden is bigger and has a larger population, practically more than twice that of Finland and it has also been arming itself and the process of joining NATO is slower, but the war could accelerate this process and military aid to Sweden would be inevitable.
An appeal by Belarus, an ally of Russia, for a peace agreement and the recent visit of Xi Jinping to Russia, which was expected to have a greater commitment to peace, remains unknown and it is possible that Putin has exposed his plans, and this includes Brazil for being part of the BRICS and having postponed the trip to China due to pneumonia from president Lula, but China is waiting for the visit.
An eventual war with Finland would open a delicate pole of the war, since it is practically a member of NATO and military retaliations could come into play in an explosive way.
The horizon of a possible peace is becoming more and more distant and the possibilities remote.
Belonging, inclusion and innocence
31
Mar
The question raised by Michael Sandel transcends the limits of law, life and ontology
itself, these are the arguments that justify the death of an innocent, violence and finally war, while the argument of a simple spectator who remembers that someone will die and can be a donor of organs freely and through a natural death.
Belonging can also be an argument for both the death of an innocent and the refusal of it, there are many cases in a war where, for some reason, someone who could kill an “enemy” in some unusual situation refuses to do so.
The aspect of the social contract where the state has a “monopoly” on violence, so it is fair to kill in defense of society, it is even fair to use cruelty (such as torture, for example) to obtain information and fight “evil” of the opposing group is also questionable.
The fact that we have not abandoned such methods and principles is the most serious testimony of the small advance that socially we still walk in the civilizing process, the fact that we are returning little by little to the serious periods of the Cold War indicates that we are still in a waiting period.
How many innocent people and civilians have little or nothing to support certain wars, like the Russian girl who made an innocent drawing about the war, shows that alongside the perversity of imperial struggles and colonizing processes, they are far from having been banished from civilization.
But what does the death of an innocent person mean, what is the ontological and theological meaning of this symbol, the lamb that Abram sacrificed in place of the son who would be sacrificed, let us remember that there are three great Abrahamic religions: Judaism, Christianity and Islam, the that means
It is certainly far from the logic of law, far from rational logic, it means that only innocence and pacifism can contribute to a true civilizing process that dignifies man.
The Easter week that begins next Sunday, although it is a Christian feast, can and should lead humanity to reflect on the true passion for civilization, which, despite all the human suffering caused by wars and injustices, can dream of a new civilization.
Contractualism and Innocence
30
Mar
The great discussion of the contractualists was about the non-innocence of the person, they are
all defenders of the powers of the state and, ultimately, of in dubio pro societate (when in doubt, in favor of society and not of the defendant), Hobbes saw man as evil and the state should police it, Locke saw how it limited the powers of the state and gave the people the right to rebellion and Rousseau saw man as good, society is what corrupted him.
None of them denies the need and priority of state powers, as they were pillars of all modern country constitutions, and their update is in John Rawls and his successor Michael Sandel.
Both were Kantian idealists and utilitarians, but there is a small difference in that Sandel criticized Rawls’s voluntarism, according to which political and moral principles are legitimized from the exercise of individual will through choice or consent.
Locke’s empiricism claimed for this: “we are all, by nature, free, equal and independent, no one can be excluded from this situation and subjected to the political power of others without having given his consent” (1988, section 95).
In order to understand Sandel’s position, it is necessary to read at least the work that we indicate or clearly understand his examples, which seek to make his concepts practical and clear, in relation to belonging to groups, as a guarantee of collective interests (he rejects the term communitarianism). cites two cases: that of a French resistance pilot who during World War II refused to bomb his hometown, even though he knew that this would contribute to the liberation of France (2012, p. 279), belonging to his hometown.
The second example is that of a rescue operation organized by the government of Israel to save Ethiopian Jews from refugee camps in Sudan (2012, p. 280), belonging to the Jewish people.
However, in one of his famous lectures in which he gives other examples, and makes several dialogues with the audience, he is caught in contradiction when he gives the example of 6 patients arriving at an emergency room and 1 is in serious condition while the 5 patients who need donation of different organs to survive and the patient in serious condition requires a lot of care time, asks the question if he would let him die to help others.
Most people agreed to let him die, but a young man (in the photo) said he had another solution, out of the 5 who were about to die, the one who died first would donate his organs to the others, which left Sandel embarrassed and arrived at admit: “it’s a good idea, except for the fact that it destroyed the philosophical point of view” (see video below).
There are interpersonal and ontological relationships that go beyond mere subjectivity, it is something between beings and not just between beings and their cultures or belongings, it is in a kind of collective soul, in a noosphere where everything is more than logical, it is onto-logical.
(155) Justiça com Michael Sandel O Lado Moral do Assassinato – YouTube
LOCKE, J. (1690). “Second Treatise of Government”. In: Two Treatises of Cambridge Government: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
SANDEL, M. (2012) “Justice – what is to do the right thing”. Rio de Janeiro: Brazilian Civilization.
Innocence and right
28
Mar
In another post, we have already drawn differences between innocence, naivety and ignorance,
the first being something we are unaware of, however we perceive the harm (or good) in the act, naivety is when we are unaware of the effect of an act that it can cause and ignorance it is when we are unaware that there is an evil in a practiced act.
We dealt with this situation in a post made some time ago, and in the previous post about the current war.
Violence is evil practiced intentionally, and in this case it goes beyond deceit and is usually the victim of some kind of hatred, revenge or mere distemper, there is always something of ignorance in violence.
Some authors treated this philosophically and there are those who see in innocence a “danger” in which it would be possible to adhere to some evil committed, Nietzsche saw it this way, but for current authors this is seen from the legal idea of presumption of innocence, in doubt pro reo.
The thought that opposes this is the in dubio pro societate, in this case the promoter of some illicit act must file a complaint in favor of society, the opposing arguments are in the decision of the values of dignity and the right to freedom, and here is the presumption of innocence.
For idealists like Kant, the individual is endowed with reason and dignity, so performing an action for a reason outside its causes and not because it is the right thing to do and this is in favor of freedom.
For this reason Bauman will discuss mixophobia, that is, the desire to oppose those who are different, strangers or minorities, the more the world becomes global and plural this must appear in larger doses.
In Bauman’s view this would be increasing fear in cities, if he lived through these times of pandemic and polarization perhaps he would perceive more clearly that there is a greater basic problem, one that comes from cultures and environments where the desire to isolate oneself from the different.
One of the greatest lecturers on this subject, bringing together large audiences in his lectures is Michael Sandel, we will see later, but Freud in a way anticipated this in Civilization and its Discontents: “An unrestricted satisfaction of all needs presents itself as the most tempting method of conducting our lives, however, means putting pleasure before caution, immediately incurring its own punishment.”
People live under global risks, where everything can turn into explosive and violent situations.
BAUMAN, Zygmunt.(2006) Verdade e medo na cidade.(Trust and fear in the city). Translation by Miguel Serras Pereira. Lisbon: Water Clock.
KANT, Immanuel. (1986). Fundamentação da Metafísica dos costumes (Metaphysical foundation of morals). Translated from German by Paulo Quintela. Lisbon: Editions 70.
War and Innocence
27
Mar
There are numerous political, economic, historical and even religious reasons for starting a conflict,
but this is not from the perspective of the innocent thought of a child who dreams of a world without conflicts, peace and human dignity for all.
The drawing of a child, we omit the name and the police situation that later involved the case, is a generous and innocent look at the world, and reinforces the idea that there is a sincere feeling of friendship and fraternity still present in humanity.
The situation of the conflict is getting worse, with the Russian threat to send “strategic” nuclear weapons to Belarus, Russia’s allied country, on the battlefield Ukraine “stabilized” the situation in Bahkmut, the most violent front of the war and where they were the forces of the mercenaries of the Wagner group.
The possibility of a third block of negotiations with Russia, announced by China whose president made a recent visit to China and expected the visit of the Brazilian government, however the president presented a picture of pneumonia and influenza and postponed the visit.
They are ideologically closer to Russia, but this third block has this as an asset since it is visible that Putin does not listen to NATO or the UN, see the Hague condemnation of the extradition of Ukrainian children to Russia, which condemned him the prison.
The picture is delicate and requires caution and effort for a possible negotiation of peace, people who look generously at humanity cannot see the world differently, they must not seek justifications and assumptions for war, they must have the generous look of a child.
The next strategy could be decisive
20
Mar
While Bakhmut’s battles are still bloody, apparently neither Russia nor Ukraine consider
it more vital, for Ukraine it is a stalemate waiting for weapons from the West: tanks, jets and more ammunition, for Russia a deception that cost many lives, in particular of mercenaries from the so-called “Wagner command”, who criticize Russia for this.
To reinforce this Putin visited Mariupol and the Crimea, Russian rearguard positions, in points already conquered in other battles, with extreme security, but to guarantee the morale of the troop and his own, since he was condemned together with his commissioner Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belov for taking 6,000 Ukrainian children for “re-education” to Russia.
With conviction, both could be arrested, but it is unlikely that they will come to the West.
The new strategy expected by the Ukrainians is an invasion to the north by Belarus, but their army is small and would only be effective if supported by Russian forces, the Russians in turn would like to consolidate the positions in Donetsk and Mariupol, gaining a strip of territory in Ukraine.
China and Belarus continue to claim “extreme interest” in peace and an end to hostilities, as they lose a lot commercially with the war, but will certainly support Russian achievements.
The event of interception of an American drone in the Black Sea by a Russian fighter also caused strong tension, the escalation of the “spring” in Ukraine is foreseen by the sending of more weapons.
There is always some encouragement for peace, but since the beginning of the war the scenario has only evolved in the opposite way, there is a suspension of breath about the new war strategies.
Blindness, lucidity and serenity
17
Mar
What can be called blindness in the literature, almost always goes beyond the simple 
difficulty of visual functions, at least one must be considered, which is that of the cognitive faculties that ultimately develop and adapt thought to visual perceptions.
Thus there is a civilizing blindness, that which does not perceive the obstacles and even chasms that can open up in the contemporary civilizing process, the forces and the dominance of the forces of nature, as Heidegger thought about the techniques, which prevent reflective thinking.
Looking at blindness only as the difficulty of the visual field, the immediate reality is thus the worst of blindness, incapable of contemplating the essence of Being, what is designated by each man during his personal and social life.
Thus, by developing cognitive functions, man can gain lucidity, look with clarity at his own life and that of his society and culture, can lead him beyond this clarity to a life of serenity and peace, even if he is in a social life in conflict.
It is not comfortable or individualized peace, but one that is capable of dealing with contradictions, oppositions and misunderstandings, common in a process of civilizing crisis.
The reality we live in can lead more quickly to a rupture of lucidity and serenity and the further away from them, the more difficult it is to find paths and paths to return to peace.
One of the most enlightening passages of the Christian biblical reading on blindness is the healing of a man blind from birth, who, therefore, did not develop the cognitive apparatus to see and thus would have difficulty perceiving the objects, colors and beings around him, more than having the function of vision, he cognitively understands what he is seeing.
The passage says the Pharisees questioned the healing of the blind man (Jo 9,10-12): “Then they asked him: ‘How were your eyes opened?’ my eyes and said to me, ‘Go to Siloam and wash’. So I went and washed and began to see.’ They asked him, ‘Where is he?’ He replied, ‘I don’t know.'”
And Jesus’ contemporaries continued in blindness without understanding the healing of the blind man.
