The Irony of Tyranny
It’s good to know that even with the war in Ukraine, some wheels of power are still turning as if nothing was going on. In a perfect twist of irony, Russia has now assumed control of the UN Security Council, a standard rotation procedure keeping the Council properly functional as guarantee of peace in its member countries. Which would make perfect sense if the new head of the Council wasn’t currently ravaging Ukraine and pulling the rest of the free world into the conflict as well.
These are unprecented, volatile times and we should adjust to the circumstances at hand. That also means that a man formally accused of war crimes could only lead a security council in Lewis Carroll’s imaginary world. Unfortunately, there’s nothing fictional about the ruins in Bucha and Kherson. It was due to our disbelief that Putin would dare to do invade the Ukraine in the first place that we were caught by surprise. It enabled him further in his plans: our trust in his willingness to curb his territorial ambitions. But that’s like thinking that the kid entering the school canteen with an assault rifle is pulling a prank, not the trigger.
Anything is possible. The Russians may try to use the mandate to disseminate their conspiracy theories and propaganda while others in the room rub the floor with their open jaws. And why wouldn’t they? Everything that happened since the annexation of Crimea was a slow build-up to this. It was an easy sell on his own people, but it’s a different world outside Russia.
Even allies can turn into enemies if it’s a dead-end mission which the war with Zelensky is slowly but inevitably turning into. Since Putin started it, with increasing influx of international support for Ukrainian military, he can no longer graciously pull out if the campaign drags on for too long and still declare victory. Expect him to pull a Trump and insist it was all a hoax.
The time for bold rethorics like Ukrainians welcoming invaders with flowers is decidedly over. A bold alternative would be nuking the whole country into ashes but at least for now, that’s still a suggestion rather than a promise. If that ever happens, we won’t need to worry about preventing pollution any more: in Hiroshima, there were shadows of victims frozen in space, amidst the debris, ruins and abandoned playgrounds once full of children. A whole city turned into a giant litter box.
Napoleon was the poster boy for biting off more than you can chew. And Russia of all places turned out to be his nemesis, with Waterloo as the final humiliation. The emperor was stripped of his crown and sceptre, there was nowhere to go from the top but down. The same is bound to happen with Putin too since his idea of a restored Russian grandeur is of imperial dimensions. But the crown jewels don’t really fit a dictator that looks like a bland Communist aparatchik.
Maybe that’s what they’re meant for: attract attention to someone invisible when not draped in an elaborate uniform. But not even the imperial crown can help you if you’ve got a peanut-sized brain underneath. The problem with this guy is that he emanates the dark vibe of someone who eats his enemies’ brains as if they were peanuts.
And still, he’s now in charge at the table that’s trying to rein him in. It’s almost like letting Amelia Dyer babysit your toddler. Russia is known for seemingly indestructible strongmen like the healing monk Rasputin, a charismatic sex maniac who turned the aristocratic salons of Saint Petersburg into his private harem.
In the end it led him to a private dinner party that became a crime scene because the food was laced with poison. For whatever reason, he seemed immune to everything until they resorted to desperate measures, shot him at point blank and threw him into the Neva river. Not to be outdone by the inconvenience of death, his prediction about the Tzar’s own imminent doom did come true when the whole family was executed at the Ipatiev House. Now that’s some serious karma indeed.
The myth of Rasputin and his hypnotic gaze made him one of the most famous subjects of conspiracy theorists and studies of occult history. Before the fateful evening at the Yusupov palace, he survived an assasination attempt by Khioniya Guseva, a woman obsessed with him as an embodiment of the Antichrist. She was confined to a lunatic asylum and later disappered from history. Not even a date of death remains.
All these people paint a picture of Russian society as a bloody freak show but there’s still light in that long, dark tunnel. Writers like Mikhail Shishkin are reaching out in an attempt to show there are people who don’t buy into Putin’s propaganda. In an article in The Guardian, he writes:
A new birth of my country is possible only through the complete destruction of the Putin regime. The empire must be amputated from the Russian person, like a malignant cancer. This “hour zero” is vital for Russia. My country will have a future only if it passes through total defeat, as happened with Germany.
In uncharted waters, you avoid taking unnecessary chances. We need to be up to the task of damage control because that seems to be the hand we’ve been dealt in a situation where a status quo could simultaneously mean a victory and defeat.
Victory because it would bring the pointless butchering of innocent people to a halt. Or defeat because it would freeze the tensions without the possibility of relief. There are examples around the world where it leads to social paralysis that inhibits the slightest bits of progress. Like Cinderella, waiting for the kiss of true love to wake her up.
That’s why this ridiculous situation at the UN headquarters speaks volumes about the convoluted state of affairs in the parallel world of the East River elite where the band is still playing while the ship is going down. One good thing to come out from all this is a renewed commitment to solidarity with people in need. Something’s got to give. While it’s clear that there is an agenda behind the foreign billions in Zelensky’s defense budget, as long as it’s saving lives, I’m fine with it.
Every new day on the frontlines is one day too much. Countries with a habit of neutrality put it on hold because anything else would equal complacency. Right now, paradoxically, it’s highest echelons of international diplomacy that are complacent. Russian artists and writers are getting canceled, Eurovision is no longer accepting Russian entries. Something as banal as a kitschy song contest took a step that you’d usually expect from the UN.
Instead, their flag is still there, waving in your face at the citadel of power in New York with Putin presiding over the pulpit while the mass graves in Bucha spill over with bones like a spring garden with flowers. The world is a dark garden where fragrant roses are wrapped in dense cobwebs.
Maybe it’s time to replace the flags at East River with gallows. One for each of the traitors that were supposed to take out the trash but let us drown in it instead. We’re all disposable and the planet won’t stop in its tracks if we kick the bucket. The new chair of the Security Council made sure we’re aware of it. But the same is true of the Kremlin gang that started this bloodshed. It might be tomorrow or the day after that, it doesn’t matter. Nothing lasts forever and the sun rises again. That much is true and on that, at least, we can still rely.
