Dear Mauro, thank you for your interest in my country, like you I am a teacher (at least according to my title), a non-professional journalist and an aspiring humanist. Also thank you for remembering Vittorio Arrigoni, whom I also admire.
I am writing to you and making this public because I think that the journalistic word, in these times of confusion and total manipulation, is already a lifeline or a weapon of mass destruction and the non-existent “objective neutrality” that has always been used for the worst media lies, now seems like a bad joke.
I am also writing to you because I do not believe in “serious journalism”, which lends itself to anything and everything, from a dignified professional prostitution to the realm of pure rape and abuse.
But the main reason for this letter is another. I think that part of your recent reports from Ukraine and especially the interview with the Ukrainian pacifist Yuri Sheliazenkho (his correct surname is Sheliazhenko) confuse the reader in understanding the tragedy of my country, because they omit the causes and its historical context. It is not because I disagree with one opinion or another, but because they are decontextualized, as the great teacher of that, the Western press, teaches us.
The war in Ukraine, something that did not have to happen and was easily avoidable, has its history that deserves to be explained to the world and which is far from the caricature drawn by the “world democratic press”. As you mentioned Arrigoni, we could compare it to the Israeli press’ way of covering the “Palestinian conflict”, which in reality is no “conflict” at all, but dispossession and genocide, whatever we may think of Hamas.
In the world that has the arrogance and stupidity to proclaim itself “civilized”, the one that applied about 15 thousand economic sanctions against Russia and not a single one against Israel, a big lie was constructed about the war in Ukraine, presenting it as a consensus of condemnation of “the invader”.
I think it is one thing to say that “I do not agree with the Russian government because it opted for a military solution”, which seems to me understandable and valid, and another to say that “Russia is an empire that invaded Ukraine for the purpose of territorial conquest” which is a lie installed by the press that promotes the war. I am referring especially to Yuri’s interview. I met him in Kiev 3 years ago and I totally sympathize with him beyond his opinions, which are now the least of it. I think I understand what he says about Russia because of where he says it from; any other opinion in Ukraine these days implies a mortal risk. There are 12-15 thousand Ukrainian political prisoners in Ukraine about whom neither “the democratic world” nor Russia is saying a word.
But to reproduce his speech about the “Russian aggression”, thus repeating the speech of NATO and the Kiev regime, and also its translation into several languages, I think it is a serious mistake by you and Pressenza. The system does not need Pressenza, it has for that all the media in the world.
I think that before giving your opinion or interpreting the tragic events in Ukraine these days you should know more about the history of my country. Naivety is no longer an excuse, the hundreds of thousands who came out to Maidan a little more than 10 years ago acted in good heart with naivety, thinking they are fighting against corruption and for freedom, and so they brought to power a Nazi colonial regime that already had the current carnage programmed. Putin’s government made many mistakes, but never sought or wished for this tragedy. The West did. Only 30 years ago we were one people and the media, economic, political, military, cultural, religious and cognitive project of the transnationals that rule the world is that we cease to be the same people and that we all kill each other (not only Russians and Ukrainians). And the war in Ukraine (which is not a war against Ukraine and Russia, as the press says) is a great triumph for them and a great defeat for us.
I too want a ceasefire in Ukraine and peace and love. Nobody in Russia enjoys this war, I don’t know any Russian without relatives or close friends in Ukraine; it is the same culture, the same history and the same blood. But how do you negotiate peace with those who seek war and our destruction? Not Putin’s, but of our entire culture and history in order to take control of Russia’s vast resources and then take on their main enemy: China.
Mauro, review all the deals Russia sought with Ukraine and the West in the last decade and what they ended up in. They brought to power in Kiev Nazis who officially destroy monuments to Soviet soldiers who liberated the world from fascism. I don’t like war but would you dare with respect to the Italian partisans or the Red army to apply the methodology of active nonviolence against fascism? What would happen then to the world?
Mauro, I invite you to Russia. Here we can meet with Russian, Ukrainian and other journalists, persecuted and threatened for disagreeing with the great official truths of this world. Also with the military who do not like war but do not know how to fight fascism in any other way. Here too we have many questions, doubts and nightmares. But we think we are defending humanity. From our imperfection. As we can. That is, we are still human.