Posts Tagged ‘paz’
War attrition and peace in Nagorno-Karabakh
02
Oct
As the Russian/Ukrainian war enters a phase of
attrition, a border region has a sign of peace, even if it means a loss of territory.
The struggle for dominance over the Armenian-majority region of Nagorno-Karabakh goes back centuries, however the president of the self-declared republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, Samvel Shaharamanyan declared that it would cease to exist from the 1st. January 2023.
In the 18th century, when the region was under pressure from Persia, Russian Tsarina Catherine II issued letters of protection to them, but the conflict was never fully resolved.
The signed decree dissolved all state institutions that will be vacated by the beginning of 2024, and more than 100,000 Armenians have already left the country, which already has the presence of military personnel from Azerbaijan, with a Muslim majority and supported by Turkey, Armenia is Christian and supported by Russia.
The region has geopolitical importance because since Russia’s war against Ukraine, Azerbaijan has supplied millions of barrels of oil to the European Union through the Caspian Sea along the Mediterranean coast, and recently Russia announced that it will no longer supply it.
The Armenian genocide of 1915-1916 during the Otman Empire led many Armenians to flee to this region of Nagorno-Karabakh, since then they have been called Azeris, during the Russian revolution the region continued in conflict with Azerbaijan, although both were Soviet republics, the anti-Armenians in the city of Shusha killed 30 thousand Armenians.
With the end of the Soviet Union, the Armenians once again established themselves as a nation, but the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remained, there were several periods of fighting in the region, now with the session of the territory this autonomous republic ceases to exist.
Despite the fears of separatist Armenians, this new situation is a great sign of peace.
Russia and Ukraine can be inspired by this model or something similar, the world wants peace.
The good and wars of Darius
26
Sep
The separation between secular and religious
human historie´s is not always possible without an adulteration of both by those who do it in a particular way.
This process also includes the question of good and evil, it is common thought that those who are in this or that religious confession will be “saved”, or even, who have somehow accepted God in their lives, this is just a part of the truth .
The biblical reading says: “not everyone who says ‘Lord Lord!!’ will enter the kingdom of heaven” (Mt 7:21) and so the understanding of what it actually means to do good pleasing to the heavens is not even remotely the simple formal or nominal religious commitment requires the will.
The will is also not like a belief that spreads today, the daily reaffirmation of the desire for a certain thing, called the law of attraction or “the mystery”, nor is it also the will to power as Nietzsche thought, for the philosopher everything in the world it is Will to Power because all forces seek their own expansion.
Will is, in a spiritual sense, that which is in line with the power that we are and that we must develop, one would say a vocation, but in everyday acts that require the ability to discern between one’s own will, often impetuous, and that which is a good thing.
We can better distinguish between evil, the absence of good, and good, which we developed last week as the inadequacy of good: illicit enrichment, being superior to others, judging by our own non-universal criteria, in short, an infinite number of issues can be an evil. not apparent.
A universal story cited in the Bible is that of Darius in the Persian Empire, not being religious, he appointed the prophet Daniel to one of his provinces (called satrapies), determined that the Hebrew people be repatriated and authorized the reconstruction of the temple, as per narrates the book of Ezra.
Without being religious, he recognizes the Hebrew people, so Darius has a privileged place in biblical and religious history. Another curious event is the war of the Medes and Lydians, after an indecisive battle, on May 25, 585 BC, both armies end the fight by a sign in the sky, which was actually a lunar eclipse (a similar one will occur on October 14).
This date was confirmed by scientific calculations, being one of the first recorded annular eclipses.
Thus, one can understand historical and divine designs even without belief, as King Darius did, and do what is fair and good for people and humanity.
In times of threat of war, finding this asset can prevent major disasters.
A cold and dangerous European winter
25
Sep
We are entering spring in the southern
hemisphere and autumn in the northern hemisphere, in Europe the concern about fuel stocks for the winter due to the Russian embargo is growing, there is a danger of rationing and a rush to use coal, in Poland for example there is already queues to buy stocks.
But this is not the only aspect, the reduction in the supply of diesel by Russia will affect the entire world market and the price of fossil fuels could skyrocket, according to Abicom (Brazilian Fuel Association) the defense in Brazil is 7% in relation to the international market and 12% in the case of diesel, and may increase.
Another crisis is that of food, because Ukraine has maintained a large part of its production, which helps the international market, but there is a conflict over the flow through Poland where the country’s producers have protection and the port of Gdansk is famous, since in Black Sea military clash in Crimea grows.
The geopolitical crisis is the most serious problem, if Ukraine loses part of its territory, Baltic countries such as Estonia and Latvia which border Russia and Belarus, and Lithuania which borders Belarus feel threatened (map), and the question is who will be the next target.
The news talks about NATO’s help, but these small countries, due to their fragility, have supported Ukraine militarily and materially, there are even several reports of military enlistment in the war in Ukraine.
The United States announced long-range missiles (ATACMS type) and winter is always a strategy during war due to difficulties in logistics and troop mobility, now also due to supplies and heating energy.
Ukraine proposed a peace plan that was rejected by Russia, Zelensky went to the assembly that was taking place and had bilateral talks, including with Brazil, which certainly irritated Russia, but beyond the principles of peace and mutual aid there is no indication of a Brazilian position in the confrontation.
What can be expected for winter, if there is no peace, it is dangerous not only for the countries in conflict, but for all of Europe due to its proximity and everyone due to economic issues, fuels are just one aspect.
Administer the common good and peace
22
Sep
I thought about keeping silent and just
writing PEACE, PEACE, PEACE today, but that would be silent.
Managing the common good is making peace prosper, disregarding it is allowing a large space for hatred, intolerance, violence and on a larger scale: war.
The 21st of September was established by the UN as an international day of Peace, the secretary general António Guterres cited in a video the effect of conflicts that expel a record number of people from their homes, and did not fail to also talk about these factors people, other factors such as: fatal fires, floods and high temperatures, combined with poverty, inequalities and injustices in a reality of distrust, division and prejudice.
In Italy, a group with numerous social initiatives launched a campaign “Italy united for peace”, the Community of Sant’Egidio stands out for a dispassionate and bilateral vision on the problems of wars and peace, it has the authority to talk about peace.
On the 10th to 12th of September in Berlin, Germany, they had already promoted a religious meeting that they called “The boldness of peace”, and there was no shortage of reflections on social inequalities, intolerance and injustices present in various areas across the planet.
We need to manage what Nature, the Planet and human development itself have given us to allow for a more fraternal, more just and more humane world.
For those who believe, all this is a divine gift, but it is necessary to manage it well as we will be charged in some way for the consequences of our actions, as the biblical parable says of the employees who were entrusted with talents through the owner of a vineyard.
The contract workers arrived, but as he needed more he went to the square and also hired those who were unemployed, and asked why they were there without work, they replied: “because no one hired us” (Mt 20,7) and then they were also hired.
At the end of the afternoon he paid the same salary, 1 silver coin to everyone, and some who were there from the beginning didn’t think it was very fair, but the boss remembers that the agreement was a silver coin so everyone was receiving the agreement.
So the meaning of the common good is that everyone has the right to a decent wage, but correct administration and honesty and zeal on the part of those who pay are necessary, it is fair for everyone to receive a decent wage.
But peace also requires a heart open to the just and dignified rights of the excluded other.
A voice for peace
18
Sep
There were few writers and journalists who did
not become involved in the mid-20th century in the ideological and nationalist appeals that Europe was making amid the weakening of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the growth of militaristic sentiments that led to war, Karl Kraus, a playwright and writer Austrian (they were born in 1874 in a village in Bohemia (today the Czech Republic), then part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Unlike the journalism of his time that he criticized, those that judged seers like Raphael Schermann who was in evidence in Vienna and who criticized him, Karl Kraus’ criticism was directed at the political-ideological engagement of the journalists of his time, which he criticized since the vulgar language that they used even the moral decadence of their time that they mirrored.
Famous and known today for his book “Aforismos” (Arquipélago Editorial, 2010), which he defined as “Aphorism never coincides with the truth; it’s either a half truth or a truth and a half”, he had several works published recently in Portuguese, there were the releases in Portuguese of the works “The last days of humanity” by the Portuguese publisher Relógio d´água and more recently of texts from his newspaper “ Die Fackel” (The Torch or The Archote, as the Portuguese prefer) which were written during the First World War, which was one of the most prominent opponents.
There was an incomplete edition of The Last Days of Humanity, edited by Antígona in 2003, by its Portuguese translator Antônio Souza Ribeiro, recalls the young man who arrived in Vienna and had already written “Literature in Demolition” in 1897 and “A Crown for Zion” in 1898, as “In fact, what will be the distinctive mark of Kraus’s position in the Viennese literary field, defined by Edward Timms as a “combative isolation” is clearly outlined here” (pg. 96).
While the “media” of his time engage in ideological discourses of his time, his translator writes “… on the contrary, Kraus is laying, in a pioneering way, the foundations of what could today be called a critique of the media, in which constitutes one of the most strikingly topical dimensions of his work” (pg. 97).
Although lonely, Karl Kraus did not close himself off: “The reality is that, throughout his life, while facing irreducible hatred within the Austrian and German literary field, Kraus cultivated a very wide circle of relationships, which intersects with relevant intellectual and artistic circles and with several prominent names from the first decades of the century…” (pg. 97).
With the outbreak of war in August 1914, only one issue of the Magazine “Die Fakel” would appear in December 1914 with the 20-page text “In this great era”.
After publishing a new short text in February 1915, the magazine “…republished itself, in October 1915, with an extensive number of 168 pages, to establish itself as a space of violent rejection of the war policy in all its aspects” (p. 101).
In addition to his importance for the history of journalism, Karl Kraus brings great reflection to the present day.
RIBEIRO, Antônio Sousa. (2003) Os últimos dias da humanidade (The last days of humanity – reading manual), Portugal, Porto: Ed. Teatro Nacional de São João (Manual de Leitura Últimos Dias final.pdf (tnsj.pt)).
The cold war is heating up
11
Sep
It seems like a paradox, but it is not, as the fact is
that Europe and the entire northern hemisphere are heading towards autumn and then winter and in the middle of the cold the limits of ideological polarization seem to go beyond, new weapons, narratives of victories on battlefields, etc.
Not even the tragedy in Morocco (photo), despite the condolences, seems to awaken a greater feeling of solidarity among the people, sub-Saharan Africa itself is heating up with coups and new military dictatorships.
The expansion of the Brics economic bloc also strengthens this polarization, despite the G20 meeting, a more diverse bloc, the possible creation of a new currency and new geopolitics point to a conflict that has already resulted in coups and authoritarian regimes, it does not mean that this diversification of currencies and new economic and political forces should not exist, but they should favor the diplomatic field and the establishment of peace.
On the front of the most declared battle, Russia announces an imposing weapon, not by chance called Satan II, capable of transporting several missiles at the same time without bothering with demonic names, on the front of the war a general called Armageddon, Sergey Surovikin, was sent. , who worked in Syria and against demonstrations in Russia, is now at the front.
On the side of Ukraine, whose counteroffensive is slower than expected, new weapons with weakened uranium have been received from the USA, while it trains pilots of its allies’ new fighters, a more aggressive change of tactics should take place before winter.
There is a weakened peace front, the president of Turkey tried to reach a new agreement to release the grain leaving Ukraine through the Black Sea, but apparently without success and a large grain producer in Ukraine died with his family when a missile hit his house in Odessa, Olesky Vadatursky.
Propaganda of deeds in war are also growing on the Web, peace seems distant and the spirits and voices of balance and common sense seem suffocated, there is always hope and peace.
Fears of a 3G
04
Sep
A third world war, which would be the greatest
civilizing crisis ever, seems to arrive together with the proximity of the European autumn, interviews with a BBC reporter in Moscow show that there is a climate of patriotism and support for the war in Ukraine, even if it is euphemistically called a “special military operation”.
The reporter interviewed pro-Kremlin blogger Andrei Afanasiev, a university professor, and also heard the other side of military analysts who say that state propaganda hides military failures and losses in war, he also interviewed anti-war activities, although most have left Russia or be arrested.
The scenario, despite a good amount of the population maintaining a certain indifference, is one of a growing climate of war, some fear of the future and no hope of peace in sight.
The increasingly declared and ostensible involvement of NATO creates an even worse climate, last week there was an attack on the Russian airport in Pskov, and in Ukraine there is a threat of bombs in schools that are returning to classes, since the beginning of the war 3,750 schools have been partially or completely destroyed by missiles and bombs, according to Ukraine.
On another front that is beginning to draw a war, after the elections there was a military coup in Gabon, a country of French language and influence, the re-elected president Ali Bongo Ondimba, whose family has governed the country for 56 years, is arrested and the elections were considered fraudulent.
Countries of the Central African Union condemned the coup, now the number of countries that do not align with the West is growing and a war could start in the region that I have already seen other coups and military councils governing the countries, recently there was in Niger with the support of the Russia (Mali, Guinea, Burkina Faso, Chad and Tunisia are former French colonies) (see the map).
In the famous missile crisis in Cuba, three generals of the Soviet Navy were supposed to approve the firing of missiles according to Russian protocol, but one of them Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov was against it, and this avoided a tragic nuclear holocaust, the hope is that there are other Vasilis who prevent the 3G war.
Religion, philosophy and humanism
01
Sep
Neither is he who simply proclaims a faith without
knowing it, nor is he who follows a series of precepts without understanding the fundamentals. In Christianity what is Love, the philosopher Hannah Arendt, for example, studied as her doctorate “Love in Saint Augustine” while Edith Stein discovers from philosophy and Saint Teresa of Ávila a religious path and became a nun and martyr (died at Auschwitz).
There is much apology for superstitions and beliefs in the religious environment, but they were not unknown to Jesus, the question of the Sabbath is famous, in which Jesus asks if it is fair to save someone from an illness on Saturday (Matthew 12:10), he calls the Pharisees “whitewashed tombs” (1Jn,2,27) and finally ends by revealing to the apostles that he will have to suffer a lot from the elders, the high priests and teachers of the law (Matthew 16,21-22), to which Peter is scared and asks that this not happen, and Jesus scolds him and calls him saying that he did not have a divine inspiration.
So it is not the model of public life of many nominal religionists, false prophets and people with little depth of faith that we can understand what religion is, but there is an anthropological, philosophical and clear theological sense that underlies the teachings of love, of enduring the cross, of not building hatred, revenge or resentment in the fashion of those who do not believe.
Augustine overcame the Manichean dualism of good against evil, it is about Love that is far superior to everything and evil is just its absence, Boethius and later Thomas Aquinas instituted the question of the person and the Being, which is part of the polis, but inseparable from it.
The importance of Severino Boécio, venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church (his date is October 23rd) for the history of science and philosophy, the “quarrel of universals” and the importance of reason, Thomas Aquinas and current figures such as Edith Stein do not separate faith from human thought and contemporary humanism.
From this was born modernity and its dualisms (objective x subjective, body x mind, spiritual x material) part of the ontological dualism: being is and not being is not, however, there is now the principle of the third included coming from Stéphane Lupasco and Barsarab Nicolescu, it’s physical and real
It is time to review humanism and no face of human reality can remain without a necessary revision: what is the Being, what is the idea (the Greek eidos linked to Being) and what do the modern myths and cosmogonies mean before a deeper look to the sacred with dialogue and depth.
Ethics, humanism and philosophy
31
Aug
Peter Sloterdijk told El País newspaper: “current
life does not invite thinking” (on 05/03/2019) and the “era of humanism is ending” said Achille Mbembe Cameroonian postcolonial historian and thinker and humanism today is an issue of state and therefore of power, since its base is economism, a materialistic humanism prevails, not always considering human values.
Philosophy became the ideological justification of power, polarization led to extremes even the denial of authors whose authors swore to defend, Eurocentric epistemicide forgets its most basic foundations and surrenders to political polarization.
What did spinozian ethics mean? What is the critique of current reason? Sloterdijk points out the cynicism.
War was inevitable in a growing polarization and new economic order.
Current philosophy already thinks about humanism alternatives, Edith Stein, a phenomenologist and student of Husserl, explored the issue of Empathy, Heidegger, another student of Husserl, the issue of Being, Emmanuel Lévinas on Husserlian hermeneutic influence, and Heidegger defines humanism as beyond essence, that is , the humanism of the other man, which can be a starting point for the new humanism, and also Habermas (The inclusion of the Other) and Byung Chul Han (The exclusion of the Other) touch on the theme.
Religion is confused between ritualism, fundamentalism and the absence of basic humanistic values: love, solidarity and fraternity, so the biblical reading is manipulated and partial, secularism advances in a minefield due to the absence of humanitarian values of faith.
It is hoped that in this crisis and fragmentation of civilizing development, leaders and influential men can find serenity, dialogue and balance for possible solutions.
Philosophy cannot be anything else that does not cooperate with peace, with civilizing progress.
It is in autumn that the chickens are counted.
28
Aug
Spring is approaching in the southern
hemisphere and autumn in the northern hemisphere, it is the period when Europeans know that they must have provisions to make repairs in their houses for some type of protection against the cold: heating systems, coal, gas and organize the pantry for this period.
There is a saying in Eastern Europe, a version of our saying “you don’t count the eggs before the hen lays”, there it is said “in the autumn you count the chickens”, this serves for the war that approaches to complete two years in the Eastern Europe and which spills over to all humanity.
Many analysts, including the Portuguese Miguel Monjadino, claim that Kiev’s main objective “is to recover enough territory by the autumn to maintain the support of its society, Washington and the European capitals for a military campaign in the spring” from there that will be our autumn here, only after March 2024.
American analysts indicate that more than 500,000 military personnel have already been killed in this war, and the end of the agreement on the shipment of grain from Ukraine in the region of Black Sea ports and the increase in arms, and now also planes, has yet to be considered.
But the count of losses has already begun, the disaster with a Brazilian plane that crashed in Russia and killed its occupants draws attention to yet another strange death of Putin’s opponents, the death of the head of the paramilitary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, all occupants of the plane was confirmed in genetic analysis.
While offering condolences to Prigozhine’s family, Putin said that he had made many mistakes in life, in a clear allusion that he no longer enjoyed his sympathy.
On the economic side, the BRICS, an alliance in which Russia and Brazil participate, announce an increase in its members and a possible currency in the future, the objective is to compete with the euro and the dollar.
Peace seems more and more distant and the tension is increasing
