War, pestilence and a pox on your house.
Some weeks, this space just can’t be sunshine and sunflowers and chipperness.
Try as I might to avoid the death, the wanton imperialist destruction of war, it has invaded here too.
And I am pretty shocked. Even more than Cyril, it appears.
Some comrades think the historic apartheid-era ties to the “Motherland” should be celebrated at all cost, anything to fling a few arrows at the detested “West”.
Of course, as the “junior” member of Brics, there’s also the need to be in good standing with the Big Brothers. Expect nothing to be said or done to cross this line.
The taste test will come when the impact of an unwanted, unnecessary and outrageous invasion costs us more jobs, more economic rack and ruin and increasing fuel pump prices, escalations in the food aisle and some problems in basics, such as sunflower cooking oil. Ukraine, with its vast sunflower fields, is/was a major global supplier of the commodity which is its national flower.
It will remind us that, even though we are at the bottom of the world, we are still part of it.
As a nation that fought for its own sovereignty and democracy, it seems inconceivable that a large portion of our body politic and its supporters are slamming the “West” for its anti-Russian stance.
Really?
If we need an equivalent, it would be the same as our former Great Britain and Dutch colonists invading us with an eye to regaining “occupied” land. How loud would the howls of outrage be then?
The unprecedented reaction from most other countries should be an indication of the peril the world is in. Switzerland breaking with centuries of neutrality. Staunchly pacifist Germany providing weapons of war to another country. Finland and Sweden threatened with armed action if they go ahead in their bid to join Nato.
The world has gone mad.
As a Boomer, I recall the fear of nuclear attacks. We weren’t quite taught to climb under our school desks, but I remember a huge white medical encyclopaedia on our bookshelf. The first dozen or so pages were devoted to what to do in the event of a nuclear attack. With big pictures and graphs and Doom-warnings. It terrified the hell out of me.
That’s sort of how I feel now.
That orange thing in the White House a while back had secret meetings with the other fascist dictator. As troops were sent in to “save” the independent, democratic Ukraine, the Defeated Former Guy called the move savvy and genius.
The world has still not found out what the deal between the two is. Kompromat is one possibility. Billions of dollars changing hands is another. Former right-wing bigots who a while back were “anti-commie” are now praising the “commie-in-chief”.
The DFG did everything he could to sow chaos in (even toothless) organisations, institutions, alliances and bodies set up to prevent another world war.
Even as every able Ukrainian – and others from around the world who have volunteered – fights to defend its democracy, one can’t help but wonder where the oligarchs and the corrupt and their sons are.
Probably in a gentlemen’s club reading Dulce et decorum est. Pro patria mori.
- Lindsay Slogrove is the news editor
The Independent on Saturday