Humans are funny about symbols. They go nuts for symbols. For flags and medals. Signs and banners. Chants and slogans. The dollar sign and swastika. Lingam and yin yang. Gorillas pound their chest. Homo sapiens pound the air with the rhetoric of war. Words can be squeezed, distorted, mishappen to produce the needed intoxicants, the meth and myth of exceptionalism. MSNBC anchor Brian Williams waxing rhapsodic for the Tomahawk missiles launched at Syria from the deck of U.S. Navy ships, exulting “I’m guided by the beauty of our missiles.”
Two years ago it was BLM signs everywhere taped to
windows painted on walls and staked in the lawns of the affluent, all of it as vapid
and bereft of true meaning as a bromide for selling pharmaceuticals on TV. Now
it’s Ukraine flags bedecking the houses of the affluent in high tech west coast
cities & elsewhere. Why the Ukraine? Where were the flags for Afghanistan
when the U.S. abruptly pulled out leaving the people to the brutal retributions
of jihadi extremists?
A photo of a smiling Mitch McConnell standing in front
of a U.S. flag shaking hands with a solemn-faced Volodymyr Zelensky that
appeared today in the New York Post gives you the full reality of the war in
Ukraine and what it’s really about. In a word, profits. Humungous profits for arms
manufacturers Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and Northrop Grumman. Humongous profits
for the oil companies. Profits for Exxon Mobil and Shell have bloated already
by the billions. Countries like Estonia and Lithuania that have relied heavily
on Russia for energy now look to the U.S. market. The pipeline that carries
Russian oil to Germany has been a longtime lifeline. That umbilical is about to be snipped. Meanwhile,
oil exports from the U.S. have surged.
The Ukrainians are a tough people I can see it in
their eyes the hard bright glitter of endurance even when they’re crying
there’s no surrender in it. I see them on the news huddled in basements no
electricity or running water weariness and fear on their faces, bombs blasting
within range.
But is this iron-like endurance this inexhaustible
stamina unique to the Ukrainians? It is not. I see it in the eyes of the Afghan
refugees on their slog through eastern Europe the stubborn determination with
which they endure the indignities of being stateless homeless rootless I see it
in the refugees from Syria gingerly negotiating barbed wire with slow steady resoluteness
I see it in the determination of a woman in a black robe dragging a tub of
water to her camp in northern Yemen or the Madonna-like tenderness and concern
in the face of a mother gazing at her 18-month-old child suffering from acute
malnutrition what is the difference what is it that separates them from the
refugees of Ukraine? Who is worthy and who is unworthy? And why?
It amazes me the stamina and courage of Ukraine to
take on a giant military power like Russia. I thought Russia would be in
control within a month. Stomp them into abject submission. The Ukrainians are
tough. It’s easy to see how they’ve captured the imagination and sympathy of
the U.S. and Europe. It also helps that they’re white and closely resemble the
populations of Europe.
The core of the Ukrainian miliary in the Donbass
region are the Azov battalions. The Azov battalions are a far-right neo-Nazi
group associated with white supremacists. They use the Wolfsangel insignia used by divisions of the
Waffen-SS and Wehrmacht during WWII, including the notorious 2nd SS
“Das Reich” Panzer Division. The symbol – also known as the Wolf’s Hook or
Doppelhaken - was inspired by medieval European wolf traps that consisted of a
Z-shaped metal hook hung by a chain from a crescent-shaped metal bar. Medieval
pagans believed the symbol – originally a Viking rune - possessed magical
powers and could ward off wolves. It became a symbol of German liberty and was
adopted as an emblem in various 15th century peasant revolts, and was
used again in the 17th century by protestant Bohemian and Austrian nobles
fighting against the authoritarian measures imposed by the Holy Roman Empire.
Symbols are strange. They have a tenuous relation to
the actual world and – unlike an indexical sign in which signifier and
signified are in firm correspondence – the symbol is arbitrary and must be
learned. Hegel – who believed war was a positive moment wherein the state
asserts itself as an individual, establishing its rights and interests and is a
universal duty - pointed out that a
symbol is “a certain viewing with an essence and meaning that is more or less
corresponding to the essence and meaning of the object it refers to; on the
other hand, when it comes to the sign and its nature, the essence and the
meaning of viewing and the ones of the object it refers to have nothing in
common.” This means they occupy a part of the mind that is susceptible to building
constructs divorced from the world of rock and iron and are wholly cerebral,
but with an emotional charge. There’s a level of disconnection that is
disturbing in its magnitude. It borders psychosis. It’s a realm of chimeras,
ideologies and religions, priests & ritual sacrifice.
People have begun calling the conflict in Ukraine a
proxy war with Russia. Proxy means substitute – having the authority to act on
another’s behalf - but what happens when the substitute is instituted as a
reality and assumes lethal autonomy? When symbols clash and the drums of war
are furiously pounded? When Putin or Biden feel backed into a corner and release
the kraken from the chains of sound judgment and the missiles on both sides
blast from their holes and rise to their trajectories to wreak final
destruction on a world drunk with flags?
The final symbol will be the mushroom cloud rising
above what was once a habitable planet.
No comments:
Post a Comment