All the twentieth-century reactions to the war in Ukraine
The Scratches of Damato
By chance, the news of the announcement, by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergej Viktoric Lavrov, of the exclusion of the use of nuclear weapons in the war in Ukraine reached me on the computer just after reading an article by the director and friend on the Reformist. Piero Sansonetti – to whom I owe my first arrival as a contributor to this newspaper – who had particularly struck me for a passage precisely on the risk of atomic degeneration of the conflict unleashed by Putin. A risk that would have been underestimated, or even put into the account "cheerfully", by those who have not countered this event enough. Or even, even on the left, where Sansonetti stands proudly, he participates in it in some way as an intellectual, or as a politician, supporting military aid to Ukraine also provided by Italy. And somehow flattening himself on the line of American President Joe Biden, little interested – it must be assumed – in a negotiation with Putin, and consequent peace, when he calls him a butcher or a genocide.
Analogous to Sansonetti's concerns and disappointments was, on the right, an article by Marcello Veneziani on the Truth directed by Maurizio Belpietro, also embittered that on his political side there is too much alignment with Biden's politics and too much interest in such a dangerous war and moreover close to our home, in Europe. The greatest allusion is perhaps to Giorgia Meloni and her "brothers of Italy".
Contrary to what you might expect, I did not draw from the Russian Foreign Minister's announcement more than enough reason to consider Sansonetti's concerns outdated or in any case not acceptable, although they appeared to me to be particularly pressing precisely in the passage on the risk of the use of nuclear weapons. by a Putin cornered, cornered, or whatever you prefer, by the strong resistance of the Ukrainians fueled by supporters across and on this side of the Atlantic. Instead, I continued to reflect with some concern on Sansonetti's article, asking myself if he was not right in denouncing a certain imprisonment of the left side – as for Venetians of the right side – "in the blood of the twentieth century", the so-called short century of two world wars, that is, of the two carnages. Which should have been enough and advance to make us really repudiate war, on a political and moral level, as foreseen by article 11 of the Constitution with its "repudiation" as an "instrument of offense to the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolution of international disputes ".
It is an article, the latter, which, moreover, has been invoked in the political debate or confrontation against military aid to Ukraine in which Italy is competing. It is invoked with such force and insistence that the President of the Constitutional Court Giuliano Amato personally intervened in favor of the government's position, recalling "the limitations of sovereignty" allowed by the same article of the Constitution, if "necessary for a system that ensures peace and justice among nations ”pursued by the“ international organizations ”of which we belong. Prime Minister Mario Draghi, for his part, recalled that the government's line was approved "almost unanimously" by Parliament. All right, therefore, on the constitutional level.
There is yes of the twentieth century, that is, of the last century, as Sansonetti says, in the promotion, participation and even resignation to war. Or in the consideration that surrender is "madness", as Piero also wanted to write in the title of his robust article of reflection and alarm, not to be mistaken for one of the usual articles or the usual pacifist invectives: often moreover of a one-way pacifism , invoked only when it is needed to fight the current political opponent, or the inconvenient ally.
However, there is another passage in Sansonetti's article which, while wanting to doubt the reliability, sincerity. conviction and so on of the Russian Foreign Minister – and, more generally, of the Kremlin incredibly ventured into this reckless war and just as incredibly blessed by the Patriarch of Moscow – which I do not agree with. It is the one in which Piero put the heroism of the Ukrainians and the sacrifices of Russian soldiers on the same level and "out of the question" in this cursed war that brings us back – I repeat – to the twentieth century, but which unfortunately was preceded and accompanied by others – more than thirty – even in this century we had hoped for different.
Frankly, especially after the other 400 corpses discovered in Bucha, I find it hard to include in the "sacrifices" what the Russian soldiers have done and left on Ukrainian territory either by advancing or, even more, by retreating. I write it even net of the operations and propaganda curtains that cloud all wars, on all fronts.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/guerra-ucraina-pacifisti/ on Sat, 23 Apr 2022 05:14:36 +0000.