Something happened after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine that we have not yet measured, too busy then analyzing the terrain of the war, discovering that a few kilometers away Europeans were fighting to live like us in a liberal democracy, that Vladimir Putin’s Russia was stuck, rhetorically, politically and militarily in the Second World War, that we Westerners, Europeans, democrats, were anesthetized by the distorted certainty that war is about others, that a global South, heterogeneous and incoherent, but amphetamine to Marxists out of breath, viscerally hated us.
But what happened in the face of the refusal of some nations to condemn the invasion of a sovereign state by another tells something more serious: ideology won over law, force over diplomacy . Things should have happened like this: the concert of nations gathered at the UN headquarters denounces in one clear note the illegitimate invasion of one State by another. Secondly, debates could have been held on the legitimacy of the sanctions, on the ringing support of the West for Ukraine, on the energy and food crisis which would undoubtedly affect the poorest countries. But, immediately, instantly, a part of the world, what we call for convenience the global South, said “no” by voting against or abstaining.
Everyone had a good excuse: for some, it was the West’s eagerness to support the war of those who looked like it (white Europeans), and, worse, to welcome millions of refugees without debate; for others it was an opportunity to denounce Western imperialism by claiming decolonial coups (but by quickly placing themselves under the protection of Putin and the Wagner militias); Lula and Pope Francis saw this as an opportunity to burnish their anti-imperialist image in the face of their refusal to align themselves with the big bad American; China pragmatically saw this as an opportunity to impose its desire for “dedollarization” of the world and to afford cheap energy; India rubbed its hands at the savings it could make while deploying its diplomacy; Neo-Sultan Erdogan’s Turkey dreamed itself into the heart of the game, talking to everyone, trading wildly, signing the installation of future drone factories of tomorrow in Ukraine, selling and buying on the sly from Russia, hoping to have a foothold there, another here, fantasizing above all, faced with the dissolution of international compromise before the law of the strongest, of completely annexing Armenia thanks to its Azeri satellite drunk with Armenian blood; everyone found themselves under the banner “Sanctioned from all over the world, unite!”. In short, everyone found a good excuse to hate the West.
What was my surprise to discover gathered in Cairo Arab leaders from Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and others criticizing the West for not mobilizing enough, despite international law, to denounce the bombings of civil infrastructure and civilians, all of them who abstained from voting against Russia which was bombing and still bombing civilian infrastructure and civilians. What was my surprise to see Queen Rania of Jordan, younger than ever (Have you noticed that the wives of Muslim presidents or kings who advocate Sharia law are never veiled? That it is reserved for the plebs, incapable of keeping his concupiscence on a leash?), with tears in his eyes denouncing “double standards”?
But where were they, these new champions of peace, when Yemen was suffering – and has been suffering for more than ten years – a war coupled with a massive humanitarian crisis which condemns children to hunger and disease? Where were they in the face of the genocide of the Rohingya in Burma, of the Uighurs in China? When did they stand up against the murderous shootings of Muslims by Hindu supremacists, who erased the Mughal emperors from school textbooks? Where were they when Bashar al-Assad was massacring his civilian population? Oh yes, excuse me, they were too busy reinstating him in the Arab League.
Abnousse Shalmani is a writer and journalist committed against the obsession with identity