The Conflict in the Caucasus

Unfortunately the past week has seen hundreds of deaths in the latest conflict in the Caucasus, a needless war between Christian brothers. Yet again, it bears all the hallmarks of Western meddling. The former New York lawyer and current Georgian president, Saakashvili, came to power on the back of a Soros financed 'democratic Rose revolution'. He went on to raise the military budget to 70% of GDP and sent young Georgian men to die in Iraq and Afghanistan. Indeed the Georgian contingent was the third largest in Iraq after America's and Britain's. His devotion to Western interests is symbolized by the fact that he always speaks with an EU flag behind him despite the fact that Georgia is not an EU member. Only Western backing could have convinced him that it was a good idea to attack South Ossetia, which had Russian and Georgian troops stationed there (by mutual agreement) before this latest conflict started. How did he expect Russia to respond? By ordering it’s troops to flee and never look back? The denunciation of Russia coming from America and Britain is becoming particularly venomous. The sheer hypocrisy of some of the moralising beggars belief. The MSM has displayed its usual ability to deform reality in whatever way necessary. There are a few points which stand out for me.

For a start George Bush is only concerned about territorial integrity and sovereignty when an ally (or rather a minion) of America's is in question. When it comes to a country outside the US sphere of influence, then any solution that advances the globalist agenda and guarantees a pro-US outcome becomes acceptable and grandiose phrases about liberty are wheeled out.

I've observed that the US always demands that others accept an innovative moral code that is dreamt up for no other reason but because it prevents America's opponents from acting decisively or effectively. In this case, Bush expects Georgia not only to be allowed to choose the timing of it's attack but also to demand an end to hostilities the moment the tide of battle turns against it. When in military history has a country had this privilege?

Bush also regards the Russian response as disproportionate because they bombed military targets throughout Georgia. He would have preferred that the Russians stay in Ossetia. When a state is at war its military can expect to be targeted anywhere, it doesn't get the luxury of confining combat to a particular location. I don't remember NATO bombers restricting themselves to Kosovo, they bombed targets from Montenegro to Vojvodina. Moreover they bombed civilian targets including the RTS television station, bridges, roads, power stations, factories and more. The Russians have not attempted to debilitate the lives of the Georgian people to that extent. Had they done so, we would not be watching Saakashvili on our TV sets every night. Nor would the oil pipeline have remained untouched.

Another bizarre complaint from Bush is that Russia is attempting to destroy and dismantle the Georgian military. And what of it? Again, he expects Georgia to launch an attack and simply be expelled without it suffering any consequences which will deter or incapacitate it from carrying out such actions in the future.

The proponents of the Cultural Revolution love to talk about social constructs. Yet they continuously parrot the Orwellian phrase 'International Community' with a straight face. No such thing exists. I have not heard one South American, African, Arab or Asian leader demonise and pressure Russia. Every single report I have watched on the BBC quotes either an American, EU or Georgian politician (or a politician of another pro-Western state on Russia's border). Therefore one has to conclude that the 'International Community' is a meaningless phrase intended to give the US and the EU (and all those that agree with them) a veneer of respectability. Indeed it is exclusively the US and the EU that speak on behalf of this mythical and benevolent organisation. It is designed to give the impression of a global consensus. And since democracy has divine status in the West, if the whole world has passed a judgement on a moral issue, the outcome is sacrosanct and must be morally good. Hence the clear implication that the 'International Community' can never make a mistake or get anything wrong.

Finally, there have been some really good articles written by Westerners on this conflict which should receive a wider audience:

The Great Game by Johnny Anonymous

Blowback From Bear-Baiting by Patrick Buchanan

This is a tale of US expansion not Russian aggression by Seumas Milne

Russia and the West: A Dialogue of the Deaf by John Laughland
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
russia south ossetia georgia

The March of the Hypocrites

Solzhenitsyn passed away on Sunday. May he rest in peace and inspire future generations. This article, written in 1997, criticises "international security" and "international law". It is particularly relevant in light of recent events at the Hague.

In the Computer Age we still live by the law of the Stone Age: the man with the bigger club is right. But we pretend this isn't so. We don't notice or even suspect it -why, surely our morality progresses together with our civilization. Professional politicians, meanwhile, have deftly covered certain vices with a civilized veneer. In the 20th century we have enriched ourselves with innovations in the field of hypocrisy. We find ever more ingenious ways to apply double (triple ? quadruple ?) standards.

The bloody Yugoslav tragedy has unfolded before our eyes (and is it overyet ?). To be sure, blame for it lies with the Communist coterie of Josip Broz Tito, which imposed an arbitrary pattern of internal borders upon the country, trampling on ethnic common sense, and even relocating ethnic masses by force. Yet blame lies also with the venerable community of Western leaders, who -with an angelic naivete- took those false borders seriously, and then hastened at a moment's notice, in a day or two, to recognize the independence of several breakaway republics whose political formation they apparently found to be advantageous. It was these leaders, then, who nudged Yugoslavia toward many gruelling years of civil war; and their position, declared as neutral, was by no means such.

Yugoslavia, with its seven estranged peoples, was told to fall apart as soon as possible. But Bosnia, with its three estranged peoples and vivid memories of Hitlerite Croatians slaughtering up to a million Serbs, had to remain united at all costs - the particular insistence of the United States Government. Who can explain the disparity of such an approach?

Another example: the Trans-Dnestr Republic and Abkhazia were deemed illegitimate simply because they were "self-proclaimed". But which ofthe CIS countries was not "self-proclaimed'? Kazakhstan? Ukraine? They were immediately and unconditionally recognized as legitimate, even democratic (and the "Ukrainian Popular Self-Defence" Brown shirts continue to march about freely, torches and all). Did not the UnitedStates also "self-proclaim" their independence? Meanwhile, the Kurds are not allowed even to self-proclaim. When they are not being squashed by Iraq, with the tacit consent of the United States, then they are being smashed by Nato member Turkey even on non-Turkish territory, while the whole civilized world looks on with utter indifference. Are the Kurds a "superfluous nation" on this earth?

Or take the Crimea and the port city of Sevastopol. Any sober mind on either side would at least agree that the Crimean question is very complex, whereas Ukraine's claim to Sevastopol has no legal base. Yet the US State Department, choosing not to trouble itself with the history of the matter, has continued to assert authoritatively, for six years running, that both the Crimea and Sevastopol are unequivocally the property of Ukraine, end of discussion. Would it presume to speak so categorically on, say, the future of Northern Ireland?

Still another accomplishment of political hypocrisy is apparent in the way in which we conduct "war crimes tribunals". Wars, for thousands of years, have always been aggravated on both sides by crimes and injustices. In hopes that a just reason might prevail, in order to make sense of war and to punish evil passions and evil deeds, Russia proposed The Hague Convention of 1899.

Yet no sooner did the first war crimes trial take place -the Nazis atNuremberg- than we saw, elevated high upon the judges' bench, the unblemished administrators of a justice system that during those same years handed over to torture, execution and untimely death tens of millions of innocent lives in its own country.

And if we continue to differentiate between the always inevitable deaths of soldiers at war and the mass killings of undoubtedly peaceful citizens, then by what name shall we call those who, in a matter of minutes, burnt to death 140,000 civilians at Hiroshima alone -justifying the act with the astounding words, "to save the lives of our soldiers"? That President and his entourage were never subjected to trial, and they are remembered as worthy victors. And how shall we name those who, with victory fully in hand, dispatched a two-day wave of fighter bombers to reduce to ashes beautiful Dresden, a civilian city teeming with refugees? The death toll was not far below Hiroshima, and two orders of magnitude greater than at Coventry. The Coventry bombing, however, was condemned in trial, while the Air Marshal who directed the bombing of Dresden was not only spared the brand of "war criminal", but towers over the British capital in a monument, as a national hero.

In an age marked by such a flourishing of jurisprudence, we ought to see clearly that a well-considered international law is a law which justly punishes criminals irrespective -irrespective- of their side's victory or defeat. No such law has yet been created, found a firm footing, or been universally recognised. It follows, then, that The Hague tribunal still lacks sufficient legal authority with respect to its accused and might on occasion lack impartiality. If so, its verdicts would constitute reprisal, not justice. For all the numerous corpses of civilians uncovered in Bosnia, from all the warring parties, no suspects seem to have been found from the safeguarded Muslim side. Finally we might mention this remarkable tactic: The Hague tribunal now hands down indictments in secret, not announcing them publicly. Somewhere, the accused is summoned on a civil matter, and immediately captured -a method beyond even the Inquisition, more worthy of barbarians, circa 3,000 BC.

Perusing the world map, we find many examples of today's hypocritical double standard. Here is but one more. In the Euro-American expanse, all sorts of integration and partnership are cultivated and nurtured, stretching over lands on the periphery of this space, like Ukraine, willing, even to incorporate faraway Central Asia. At the same time, all sorts of political interference and economic pressure are vigilantly applied in order to derail the very plan of a rapprochement between Belarus and Russia.

And what of Nato expansion? Which, by the way, adds allies who surely will remain apathetic and useless vis-a-vis the Alliance's global, non-European aims. It is either the traditional Cold War hypnosis, impairing one's ability to see the powerlessness of Russia, beset by internal troubles. Or, on the contrary, it is extreme far-sightednesson the part of Nato's leaders. Should the high-tariff strangling of Russian exports (except for coercively cheap natural resource exports) prove insufficient: should the implacable diktat of Russian internal policy (bundled with loans that only enfeeble) prove insufficient as well; there will now be, in reserve; the "neutralisation" of Russia into a comatose state.

I have not the means to guess whether Russia's current leaders understand this. Most likely they do not: witness their own clumsy participation in that elegant new phenomenon of the "peace keeping forces" in Bosnia or Tajikistan; or their confused, lost policies regarding the CIS countries, or their doomed attempts to hold on to Chechnya, with reckless disregard for the human cost; witness, finally,their blind inability to find a reasonable and just solution to the controversy over the Kuril Islands.

They see themselves at the helm of the ship of Russian history, but they are not. They do not direct the course of events.

As for those who do, their plans to establish a "final worldwide security" are ephemeral as well. Given human nature we ought never to attain such security. It would be futile, at the very least, to march towards this goal armed with hypocrisy and scheming short-term calculations, as practised by a revolving door of, officials and by the powerful financial circles that back them. Nor can security be bought with any new technical "superinvention" -for no secret lasts. Only if the creative and active forces of mankind dedicate themselves to finding gradual and effective restraints against the evil facets of human nature to an elevation of our moral consciousness -only then will a faint, distant hope exist. To embark upon this path, and to walk it, requires a penitent, pure heart and the wisdom and willingness to place constraints on one's own side, to limit oneself even before limiting others. But today that path only elicits an ironic chuckle, if not open ridicule.

If so, don't bother calling for "world security".

Kosta Cavoski interview

A nice summary of the state of Serbia's political elite (no subtitles).




_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia kosta cavoski

Karadzic helped autistic child

A short but informative report on German TV, providing evidence of how Karadzic helped an autistic boy during his time as a health practitioner (English subtitles).



_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia karadzic autistic boy

Heartening news

Source: Byzantine Sacred Art Blog

Radovan Karadzic is reading the Bible and St. Nikolai's works. Accepting only bread and water. Surrounded by icons. This is the man that committed adultery and is taking anti-depressant pills? I think not. May God bless Karadzic and may the media outlets that disseminate lies in order to tarnish his name and demoralise his family and the Serbian people be brought to account!
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia karadzic

Karadzic arrest

Nothing should surprise anyone anymore. Contrary to all conventional logic, Tadic's party went into coalition with the Socialist Party of Serbia (Milosevic's party). Bear in mind Tadic's party was instrumental in overthrowing SPS, sending Milosevic to the Hague, and demonising SPS for all the problems of the 1990's. As soon as this unholy government was formed, the decision was taken to bring in Karadzic, the symbol of Serbian resistance to those that fomented bloodshed in the Balkans. This is yet another black day for the Serbian people. It was Serbian people that voted for Tadic, it was a (nominally) Serbian government that gave orders to arrest Karadzic, and it was Serbian policemen that carried out those orders.

How ironic that on the same day as Karadzic was arrested, the Serbian foreign ministry refused to extradite a Serbian student wanted in America on assault charges because Serbian law does not allow the extradition of its citizens. Vuk Jeremic, the foreign minister claims that:

"Serbia is a sovereign and democratic country with an independent judiciary"

He implies that U.S. authorities should hand over the case file so Kovacevic could be prosecuted in Serbia and goes on to say:

"This case has dealt a serious blow to the already strained relations between Washington and Belgrade"

So we’re willing to strain relations upholding the law for some student, but not for Karadzic? A nation that acts in such a servile, dishonourable and self-destructive manner has no future. At the same time we should not raise our hands in the air in an apathetic state. This is exactly what our opponents would want. They have captured one man, but what they really want is to capture our hearts and souls so that they can hold our entire nation in an apathetic brainwashed trance long enough to transform and dismember us. I for one am invigorated. I feel the all-encompassing stench of betrayal and cowardice, but this only delineates the battle lines even more clearly and spurs me to fight on.

As far as this particular episode is concerned, I only hope that Karadzic acquits himself before our enemies in a dignified, manly and uncompromising manner.

No Surrender!

Links

Everyone's Favorite Villain by Nebojsa Malic

An Orgy of Lies by Nebojsa Malic

The Plight of the Bosnian Serbs by John Laughland

Karadzic’s Arrest: Bosnian Myths Rehashed by Srdja Trifkovic

Obraz statement (Serbian text)

The website of Karadzic's alias, Dragan Dabic

Interesting 4-part interview with Karadzic from 1997

_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia karadzic arrest tadic treachery betrayal jeremic kovacevic

Milosevic's address to the nation

Milosevic may have got many things wrong, this speech, made in 2000, isn't one of them. All emphasis is mine.

Source: slobodan-milosevic.org

Honored citizens,

In the expectation of a second round of election, I'd like to take the opportunity to explain my views on the political situation in our country, especially in Serbia. As you know, efforts have been underway for a whole decade to put the whole Balkan Peninsula under the control of certain Western powers. A big part of that job was accomplished by establishing puppet governments in some countries, by transforming them into countries with limited sovereignty or no sovereignty at all.

Because we resisted, we have been subjected to all the pressures that can be applied to people in today's world. The number and intensity of these pressures multiplied as time went by.

All the experience that the big powers gained in the second half of the 20th century in overthrowing governments, causing unrest, instigating civil wars, disparaging or liquidating national freedom fighters, bringing states and nations to the brink of poverty - all this was applied to our country and our people.

The events unfolding around our elections are part of the organized persecution of our country and our people because we constitute a barrier to the full domination of the Balkan Peninsula.

For a long time there has been a grouping among us which, under the guise of being pro-democratic, have in fact represented the interests of the governments attacking Yugoslavia, especially Serbia.

During the elections that group called itself the 'Democratic' Opposition of Serbia. Its boss is not its presidential candidate.

Its boss is the president of the Democratic Party. For years he has collaborated with the military alliance that attacked our country. He could not even hide his collaboration. In fact, our entire public knows that he appealed to NATO to bomb Serbia for as many weeks as necessary to break its resistance.

So the 'democratic' grouping organized for these elections represents the armies and governments which recently waged war against Yugoslavia.

At the behest of these foreing powers our 'democrats' told the people that they would make Yugoslavia be free of war and violence, that Yugoslavia would prosper, the living standard would improve visibly and fast, that Yugoslavia would rejoin international institutions, and on and on.

Honored citizens,

It is my duty to warn you publicly, while there is time, that these promises are false. The situation is quite different.

It is precisely our policy which allows peace and theirs which guarantees lasting conflict and violence, and I shall tell you why.

With the establishment of an administration supported or installed by NATO, Yugoslavia would quickly be dismembered.

These are not NATO's intentions alone. These are the pre-election promises of the Democratic Opposition of Serbia. We have heard from its representatives that [the section of Serbia known as the] Sandzak would get the autonomy advocated by one of its coalition members, Sulejman Ugljanin, leader of a separatist Muslim organization. This autonomy, which Sulejman Ugljanin has been advocating for ten years, would in fact mean a definite separation of Sandzak from Serbia.

Their promises also include giving [the Serbian Province of ] Vojvodina an autonomy that would not only separate it from Serbia and Yugoslavia but would in fact make it an integral part of neighboring Hungary.

In a similar manner other areas would be separated from Serbia, especially its border areas.

The annexation of these areas by neighboring states has for a long time been a hot issue in those states which have continuously incited their minorities in Yugoslavia to help integrate parts of our country into neighboring states.

Within this policy of dismembering Yugoslavia, Kosovo would be the first victim. Its present status would be proclaimed legal and final. It is the first part of Serbian territory to which Serbia would have to bid farewell, without even a hope that we could reclaim this part of our country.

The territory that would be left to bear the name Serbia would be occupied by international forces, US or some other. They would treat our land as their military training ground, as their private preserve, to be controlled in accord with the interests of the occupying power.

We have been looking at cases of such control and its consequences for decades, and especially in this past decade, in many countries around the world, unfortunately lately even in Europe, for instance in Kosovo, Republic of Srpska and Macedonia, in our immediate neighborhood.

The people of Serbia would know the fate of the Kurds, with a prospect of being exterminated more speedily than the Kurds since they are less numerous, and since their movements would be limited to a much smaller area than the one in which Kurds have been present for decades.

As for Montenegro, its fate would be left in the hands of the Mafia, whose rules of the game should be made well known to the citizens: any breach of discipline and especially any opposition to Mafia interests is punishable by death without any right to appeal.

I have presented you the fate of Yugoslavia in the event that the NATO option were accepted n order to warn you that, in addition to loss of land and the humiliation of the people, all would live under a regime of ceaseless violence.

The new owners of what had been Yugoslavia's state territory and the occupiers of what was left of Serbian territory would, predictably, terrorize the population whose territory they had seized.

The Serbian people would be forced to fight continuously for the re-establishment of a Serb state in which the people could reassemble.

These Imperial powers do not want peace or prosperity in the Balkans. They want this to be a zone of permanent conflicts and wars which would provide them with an alibi for maintaining a lasting presence.

A puppet administration therefore guarantees violence, possibly many years of war, anything but peace. Only self-administration makes peace possible.

And there is more. All countries finding themselves with limited sovereignty and with governments controlled by foreign powers, speedily become impoverished in a way that destroys all hope for more just and humane social relations.

A great division into a poor majority and a rich minority, this has been the picture in Eastern Europe for some years now that we can all see.

That picture would also include us. Under the control of the new owners of our country we too would quickly have a tremendous majority of the very poor, whose prospects of coming out of their poverty would be very uncertain, very distant.

The rich minority would be made up of the black marketeering elite, which would be allowed to stay rich only on condition that it was fully loyal to the outside, controlling powers.

Public and social property would quickly be transformed into private property, but its owners, as demonstrated by the experience of our neighbors, would be foreigners. Among the few exceptions would be those who would buy their right to own property by their loyalty and submission, which would lead to the elimination of elementary national and human dignity.

The greatest national assets in such circumstances become the property of foreigners, and the people who used to manage them continue to do so, but as employees of foreign companies in their own country.

National humiliation, state fragmentation and social misery would necessarily lead to many forms of social pathology, of which crime would be the first. This is not just a supposition, this is the experience of all countries which have taken the path that we are trying to avoid at any cost.

The capitals of European crime are no longer in the west, they were moved to Eastern Europe a decade ago.

Our people find it hard to bear even the present crime incidence, because for a long time, from World War II to the nineties we lived in a society which knew hardly any crime. This tremendous increase in crime, such as cannot be avoided in a society such as we would become with the loss of our sovereignty and a large part of our territory, such wider crime would be as dangerous for our people, few in numbers and unused to crime, just as war is dangerous for society and its citizens.

One of the essential tasks of a puppet government in any country, including ours, were we to have such a government, is loss of identity.

Countries under foreign command quickly forget their history, their past, their tradition, their national symbols, their way of living, often their own literary language.

Our national identity would be scrutinized, invisibly at first, but very efficiently and mercilessly, and certain aspects of national identity would be selected, reducing it to a few local dishes, a few songs and folk dances, with the names of national heroes used as brand names for food products or cosmetics.

One of the really obvious consequences of the takeover of countries by the big powers in the 20th century is the annihilation of the people's national identity.

The experience of other countries shows that people can hardly come to terms with the speed with which they must start using a foreign language as their own, identifying with foreign historic figures while forgetting their own, becoming better acquainted with the literature of their occupiers than with their own, glorifying the history of others while mocking their own, so that they come resemble others instead of themselves.

The loss of national identity is the greatest defeat a nation can know, and it is inevitable under the contemporary form of colonization.

Besides, by its very nature, this new form of colonization rules out any possibility of free speech or free will, and especially rules out creativity of any kind.

Countries that are not free deny to the people who live in them the right to free speech; free speech would cause problems in the absence of freedom.

This is why torture over wrong thoughts is the most consistent and essential form of torture in a country that has lost its freedom. As for exercising free will, it is, naturally, out of the question. Free will is allowed only as a farce. It is allowed only to the lackeys of foreign masters, whose simulated free will is used by the occupiers as a justification for establishing a 'democracy' in whose name they take and hold another people's country.

I would like to stress particularly to young people, intellectuals, scientists, that countries deprived of sovereignty are as a rule deprived of the right to creative work, and especially creative work in the field of science.

Large centers and large powers finance scientific work, control its attainments and decide about the application of its results. Even if dependent states do have scientific laboratories and scientific institutes, these are not independent ones; rather they operate as branches controlled by one center. Their attainments must remain within definite limits so as not to introduce in occupied countries and occupied peoples the seed of rebellion and emancipation.

Now we are in the period before the run-off elections. The 'Democratic' Opposition of Serbia doubts it can achieve the result it needs. Therefore leaders of this Opposition are trying to stop production, all work, all activity. Using money that's being shipped into the country, they are bribing some, blackmailing or harassing others, organizing strikes, unrest and violence.

The idea is to stop life in Serbia while offering the bait that life can start again and prosper if only it is organized by those who represent, within Serbia - what do they represent? The plans and interests of the would-be occupiers.

Our country is a sovereign state. It has its laws. It's own Constitution and institutions. Serbia deserves and is duty bound to defend itself from this invasion which has begun with these staged disruptions and false promises of quick improvement.

And citizens should know, that if some do participate in this subversion whose objective is foreign domination over and occupation of their country then they will shoulder the historical responsibility not only of denying to their country the right to exist but also of losing control over their own lives.

By giving up their country to others, to a foreign will, they will also surrender to a foreign will their own lives and the lives of their children and many other people.

I considered it my duty to warn the citizens of our country about the consequences of the activities financed and supported by the NATO governments.

Citizens, you must make up your own minds whether to believe me or not. My only wish is that they do not realize I am telling the truth when it is too late, that they do not realize after it has become so much more difficult to correct mistakes that some people have made, naively, superficially or erroneously. Some of those mistakes would be difficult to rectify and some would never be rectified.

My motive in expressing my opinion in this way is not personal; not at all. I was twice elected president of Serbia and once president of Yugoslavia. It should be clear to all, after the past ten years, that NATO isn't attacking Serbia because of Milosevic; it is attacking Milosevic because of Serbia.

My conscience in that respect is clear. But my conscience would not be clear if I did not tell my people, after all these years as their leader, what I think will happen if they let their fate be imposed by a hostile, outside force, even if it appears that they have chosen that fate for themselves.

The misjudgment they would make by 'choosing' what has been chosen for them, is the most dangerous misjudgment possible. That is why I am publicly addressing the citizens of Yugoslavia today.

Thank you.
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia milosevic speech warning

Ljotic on the connection between the Spirit, Politics and Economy

The following is an extract from a larger work by Dimitrije Ljotic, written in 1940. He wrote about how the political and economic independence of Yugoslavia had been compromised primarily because a foreign spirit had been adopted, not consistent with traditional values. I am convinced that today he would be saying exactly the same regarding Serbia. We are adopting deformed values from the West and then we wonder why we are not politically or economically independent. We try to solve our problems in the wrong order, hoping that economic success will solve everything. We have surrendered our souls and compromised our world view.

If we were our own people spiritually, we’d be our own people politically and economically as well. We are slaves of foreigners spiritually, so our state bears a foreign stamp, and the economy is in the hands of foreigners. If a miracle were to occur and we freed ourselves economically and even politically, but spiritually we remained slaves of a foreign spirit, then the freedom in the political and economic sphere would last only a short time and we would again lose our political and economic independence.

All of this shows that we are right when we proclaim the truth that: there is no healthy economy without a healthy politics, and no healthy politics without a healthy spirit and proper moral values.

Related Link
St. Nikolai’s speech at the funeral of Dimitrije Ljotic
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia ljotic spirit politics economy

Live Not By Lies

This essay was written by Solzhenitsyn in 1974 and it circulated among Moscow's intellectuals at the time. It is dated Feb. 12, the same day that secret police broke into his apartment and arrested him. The next day he was exiled to West Germany. The essay is a call to moral courage and serves as light to all who value truth. It is as relevant today as it was in 1974.

Source: Columbia University

At one time we dared not even to whisper. Now we write and read samizdat, and sometimes when we gather in the smoking room at the Science Institute we complain frankly to one another: What kind of tricks are they playing on us, and where are they dragging us? gratuitous boasting of cosmic achievements while there is poverty and destruction at home. Propping up remote, uncivilized regimes. Fanning up civil war. And we recklessly fostered Mao Tse-tung at our expense-- and it will be we who are sent to war against him, and will have to go. Is there any way out? And they put on trial anybody they want and they put sane people in asylums--always they, and we are powerless.

Things have almost reached rock bottom. A universal spiritual death has already touched us all, and physical death will soon flare up and consume us both and our children--but as before we still smile in a cowardly way and mumble with our tounges tied. But what can we do to stop it? We haven't the strength?

We have been so hopelessly dehumanized that for today's modest ration of food we are willing to abandon all our principles, our souls, and all the efforts of our predecessors and all opportunities for our descendants--but just don't disturb our fragile existence. We lack staunchness, pride and enthusiasm. We don't even fear universal nuclear death, and we don't fear a third world war. We have already taken refuge in the crevices. We just fear acts of civil courage.

We fear only to lag behind the herd and to take a step alone-and suddenly find ourselves without white bread, without heating gas and without a Moscow registration.

We have been indoctrinated in political courses, and in just the same way was fostered the idea to live comfortably, and all will be well for the rest of our lives. You can't escape your environment and social conditions. Everyday life defines consciousness. What does it have to do with us? We can't do anything about it?

But we can--everything. But we lie to ourselves for assurance. And it is not they who are to blame for everything-we ourselves, only we. One can object: But actually you can think anything you like. Gags have been stuffed into our mouths. Nobody wants to listen to us and nobody asks us. How can we force them to listen? It is impossible to change their minds.

It would be natural to vote them out of office-but there are not elections in our country. In the West people know about strikes and protest demonstrations-but we are too oppressed, and it is a horrible prospect for us: How can one suddenly renounce a job and take to the streets? Yet the other fatal paths probed during the past century by our bitter Russian history are, nevertheless, not for us, and truly we don't need them.

Now that the axes have done their work, when everything which was sown has sprouted anew, we can see that the young and presumptuous people who thought they would make our country just and happy through terror, bloody rebellion and civil war were themselves misled. No thanks, fathers of education! Now we know that infamous methods breed infamous results. Let our hands be clean!

The circle--is it closed? And is there really no way out? And is there only one thing left for us to do, to wait without taking action? Maybe something will happen by itself? It will never happen as long as we daily acknowledge, extol, and strengthen--and do not sever ourselves from--the most perceptible of its aspects: Lies.

When violence intrudes into peaceful life, its face glows with self-confidence, as if it were carrying a banner and shouting: "I am violence. Run away, make way for me--I will crush you.'' But violence quickly grows old. And it has lost confidence in itself, and in order to maintain a respectable face it summons falsehood as its ally--since violence lays its ponderous paw not every day and not on every shoulder. It demands from us only obedience to lies and daily participation in lies--all loyalty lies in that.

And the simplest and most accessible key to our self-neglected liberation lies right here: Personal non-participation in lies. Though lies conceal everything, though lies embrace everything, but not with any help from me.

This opens a breach in the imaginary encirclement caused by our inaction. It is the easiest thing to do for us, but the most devastating for the lies. Because when people renounce lies it simply cuts short their existence. Like an infection, they can exist only in a living organism.

We do not exhort ourselves. We have not sufficiently matured to march into the squares and shout the truth our loud or to express aloud what we think. It's not necessary.

It's dangerous. But let us refuse to say that which we do not think.

This is our path, the easiest and most accessible one, which takes into account out inherent cowardice, already well rooted. And it is much easier--it's dangerous even to say this--than the sort of civil disobedience which Gandhi advocated.

Our path is to talk away from the gangrenous boundary. If we did not paste together the dead bones and scales of ideology, if we did not sew together the rotting rags, we would be astonished how quickly the lies would be rendered helpless and subside.

That which should be naked would then really appear naked before the whole world.

So in our timidity, let each of us make a choice: Whether consciously, to remain a servant of falsehood--of course, it is not out of inclination, but to feed one's family, that one raises his children in the spirit of lies--or to shrug off the lies and become an honest man worthy of respect both by one's children and contemporaries.

And from that day onward he:

• Will not henceforth write, sign, or print in any way a single phrase which in his opinion distorts the truth.
  
• Will utter such a phrase neither in private conversation not in the presence of many people, neither on his own behalf not at the prompting of someone else, either in the role of agitator, teacher, educator, not in a theatrical role.
  
• Will not depict, foster or broadcast a single idea which he can only see is false or a distortion of the truth whether it be in painting, sculpture, photography, technical science, or music.
  
• Will not cite out of context, either orally or written, a single quotation so as to please someone, to feather his own nest, to achieve success in his work, if he does not share completely the idea which is quoted, or if it does not accurately reflect the matter at issue.
  
• Will not allow himself to be compelled to attend demonstrations or meetings if they are contrary to his desire or will, will neither take into hand not raise into the air a poster or slogan which he does not completely accept.
  
• Will not raise his hand to vote for a proposal with which he does not sincerely sympathize, will vote neither openly nor secretly for a person whom he considers unworthy or of doubtful abilities.
  
• Will not allow himself to be dragged to a meeting where there can be expected a forced or distorted discussion of a question. Will immediately talk out of a meeting, session, lecture, performance or film showing if he hears a speaker tell lies, or purvey ideological nonsense or shameless propaganda.
  
• Will not subscribe to or buy a newspaper or magazine in which information is distorted and primary facts are concealed.

Of course we have not listed all of the possible and necessary deviations from falsehood. But a person who purifies himself will easily distinguish other instances with his purified outlook.

No, it will not be the same for everybody at first. Some, at first, will lose their jobs. For young people who want to live with truth, this will, in the beginning, complicate their young lives very much, because the required recitations are stuffed with lies, and it is necessary to make a choice.

But there are no loopholes for anybody who wants to be honest. On any given day any one of us will be confronted with at least one of the above-mentioned choices even in the most secure of the technical sciences. Either truth or falsehood: Toward spiritual independence or toward spiritual servitude.

And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul- don't let him be proud of his "progressive'' views, and don't let him boast that he is an academician or a people's artist, a merited figure, or a general--let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It's all the same to me as long as I'm fed and warm.

Even this path, which is the most modest of all paths of resistance, will not be easy for us. But it is much easier than self-immolation or a hunger strike: The flames will not envelope your body, your eyeballs, will not burst from the heat, and brown bread and clean water will always be available to your family.

A great people of Europe, the Czhechoslovaks, whom we betrayed and deceived: Haven't they shown us how a vulnerable breast can stand up even against tanks if there is a worthy heart within it?

You say it will not be easy? But it will be easiest of all possible resources. It will not be an easy choice for a body, but it is only one for a soul. No, it is not an easy path. But there are already people, even dozens of them, who over the years have maintained all these points and live by the truth.

So you will not be the first to take this path, but will join those who have already taken it. This path will be easier and shorter for all of us if we take it by mutual efforts and in close rank. If there are thousands of us, they will not be able to do anything with us. If there are tens of thousands of us, then we would not even recognize our country.

If we are too frightened, then we should stop complaining that someone is suffocating us. We ourselves are doing it. Let us then bow down even more, let us wail, and our brothers the biologists will help to bring nearer the day when they are able to read our thoughts are worthless and hopeless.

And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us:

"Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom?"

"Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash.''
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
solzhenitsyn live not by lies

Election appeal

These days I am pre-occupied with matters on a number of different fronts, hence the lack of posts. However I feel compelled to write an entry, given that there will be a general election in Serbia the day after tomorrow. I don't wish to overly dramatize the significance of this election. Even if Tadic's block loses, there will be many greater tests that the Serbian people will have to face in the future.

One interesting aspect of these elections is the tactic that Tadic's coalition is using: the politics of fear. Many living in the West will notice that this accusation is often aimed at right-wing anti-immigration parties. They are usually accused of whipping up fear of immigrants. Meanwhile the mainstream politicians contrast themselves as optimists because they refuse to see the inherent weaknesses of their social experiment. However in the Serbian case, one notices that Tadic's campaign is based on the fear of isolation, sanctions, economic collapse and war. Western media outlets impartially report that Milosevic's 'loyalists' are set to score a victory. They invoke the memory of a dead man from another political party in order to try to tarnish the Radical party. Otpor, the Western-funded youth movement which helped carry out the coup against Milosevic, and then went on to assist revolts in the Ukraine and Georgia, is quoted as saying that 'darkness could again prevail'.

Tadic's recent signing of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the EU exposes his claim that he will defend the territorial integrity of Serbia. One would expect, at the very least (even from a pro-EU politician), that there should be no agreement signed with the EU until their stance on Kosovo is resolved. Tadic obtained no concession whatsoever which clearly indicates that given the choice between the EU and Kosovo, he chooses the EU. Actions speak louder than words. Any patriotic rhetoric from him about Kosovo being an integral part of Serbia should be seen as worthless and contradictory. Clearly he only says these things because he knows full well that he would be unelectable if he did not. Like this, he misles just enough people to give him a shot at victory.

Recently we celebrated Orthodox Easter. Every Serbian church across the globe was required to read out a statement which, among other things, contained the following passage:

A strange civilization of globalization is being created according to the measure of deformed moral values, that is, immorality, without the yeast which gives human life eternal meaning. Such a civilization which is in direct opposition to the Resurrected Christ and His Gospel cannot survive.

Being mindful of this, let us be wise and cautious when we approach this strange table of worldly offers and delights. Let us choose wisely only that which is worthy of Christ; let us choose that which is worthy of our calling and dignity. Let us refuse all that is of pseudo-civilization, distorted and inhuman, just as Christ refused all the offers of the Devil: if you bow down to me all this that you see will be yours! We know the true answer: It is written: serve only God, and to Him only bow down!

Brother and sisters, I do not presume to tell you who to vote for. But I beseech you not to vote for anyone that idolizes this 'strange civilization of globalization' with 'deformed moral values'. A civilization that saw fit to bomb us numerous times. A civilization that now offers us membership to their progressive club if only we renounce our most sacred territory. Those who aspire to this civilization are unworthy of consideration.

Our St. Nikolai once remarked:

Serbian open-heartedness often transformed itself into weakness. And a great and deadly weakness- into servility.

Let us not be lead either by fear or a naive open-heartedness.
_____________________________________________
Technorati tags;
serbia elections