Ukraine and Russia: Reaction, Trauma, & Accountability

Image of the scene after a residential building was hit by missiles in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Friday. Credit.Lynsey Addario for The New York Times

Lawrence, 31 August 2022 – This week the Theater and Visual Culture class met in person and discussed the war and trauma in Ukraine. In this blog we will talk about how I managed to find out about the war, trauma, reactions, and accountability.

I have a clear memory of the warning of US President Joe Biden to Ukraine with Russia. He said in an interview that any U.S. citizens in Ukraine should leave immediately. Fourteen days later what no one imagined happened, despite the warnings. Some people expected it, but many people did not. They thought Vladimir Putin would be a madman if he launched the invasion. Many saw it as very impossible, but people forget that what may seem impossible may become possible.

I remember that I learned about Russia's invasion of Ukraine in Facebook. I started seeing pages and friends sharing memes referring to "World War III". That's when my curiosity kicked in and I started to look for why these memes about the world war. That's where I found out that Russia invaded Ukraine. Then I also started to question why memes about something so serious? Is it that this serious news people are coping with it with humor?

With that last question in mind, we can talk about trauma. Trauma is something that every human being can experience. Although each person reacts in different ways to trauma, when it comes into our lives it scars us. Something that has become an incessant guiding chain throughout mankind's existence and inexistence. Trauma does not merely describe disturbing events and their effects, but truly explains the limits of these events and works to create its individuals.

How can we relate trauma with Russian invasion in Ukraine? If we define trauma as a problem that comes to interrupt an event, activity, or process. War is the current problem. That problem right now is affecting not only Ukraine's daily life but also Russia's and even worldwide. War impacts the entire physical, social, and socio-economic environment in which it occurs. Those environments can be separated as health and wealth. This is then where the process of human behavior and human susceptibility goes into decline. Without wealth and health, the country's biosphere will be affected, infrastructures will be destroyed, there will be a disruption in public health programs, increased displacement, social dislocation, and migration. All of that adds up to ultimately leading the psychological health of the people greatly affected in the sense of trauma.

Image of the Poland-Ukraine border. Coutersy of REUTERS bbc.com

“People are abandoning everything they have. They don't have access to their money because there are tight restrictions on what can be taken out of Russia.” (Pinkham, 2022). Here you see the consequences of the war you are not only affecting your opponent, but you are also affecting your own people. But with the Russian government having so many restrictions it is to be expected that the people will be affected. The question is that this is a circle, the people are affected economically, not having money, the accessibility to health is affected and so little by little everything is falling creating instability.

“This widespread sense of deeply felt solidarity with Ukrainians is, on one level, moving, and it’s happening for obvious reasons. People are suffering brutality at the hands of an invading Russian army. It’s not hard to see which side is the good side and which side is the bad one.” (Mulder, 2022) Basically NATO, all European countries, and the rest of the world they don’t approve Russia’s actions against Ukraine. Therefore, they all support and are together to help Ukraine. Something we discussed in the meeting was why everyone is so solidary with Ukrainians in this war? Why didn’t this worldwide solidarity occur in other wars from the middle east? Is Ukraine a special nation? We can say that this is not an internal war, it’s not a dispute, it’s a human crisis.

“And yes, you’re right, it has to be combatted. We have to deal with what’s happening. And that includes what we are now doing to Ukraine, as we’ve discussed, both by inaction and action, we’re fighting to the last Ukrainian to quote Ambassador Freeman again. And it should be legitimate to say that if you care anything about Ukrainians. If you don’t care anything about them, fine, just silence.” (Chomsky, 2022). Chomsky puts into perspective the purpose of what we are trying to do and that is to be able to talk about what is going on not only with Ukraine but with allies and non-allies. It is very important to be able to discuss with facts the things that are happening. Especially if you are worried about something you should talk about it and confront the injustices. Because like mentioned before this does not only affect Ukraine, but it also affects all of us as human beings. We must learn to coexist, in diversity and in disagreements.

Mentioning the word disagreement brings up the; how could this war end? Almost everyone in the world wants to this war to end and Chomsky says something that really caught my attention. “However, I still think it’s not quite the right question. The right question is: What is the best thing to do to save Ukraine from a grim fate, from further destruction? And that’s to move towards a negotiated settlement.” (Chomsky, 2022) I fully agree that the only immediate thing to be able to withstand the widening of Ukraine is to reach an agreement. Sometimes, as hard as it is to believe, the vast majority of things and situations can be solved just by talking. Once the governments have the maturity to be able to say and recognize: "Okay, I understand that enough is enough and no more blood can be shed. Let's talk and come to an agreement." But here the problem is one of great powers and egos. We have seen this throughout history, not just now. With this assessment of the past, present, and future we can bring to light the Spanish philosopher Jorge Agustin Nicolas Ruiz de Santayana when he said, "Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it." I will finish this first blog by saying, once we find the courage to face the issues in a conversational way and bring them to the table and seek an equitable solution, that is when we can finally say: 'It’s Over!' Because after all we are all humans living in the same world.

Resources:

Denvir, D., Maulder, N., & Pinkham, S. (2022, March 24). https://jacobin.com/2022/03/russia-ukraine-putin-invasion-sanctions-ceasefire-interview. JACOBIN. https://jacobin.com/2022/03/russia-ukraine-putin-invasion-sanctions-ceasefire-interview

Scahill, J., & Chomsky, N. (2022, April 14). NOAM CHOMSKY AND JEREMY SCAHILL ON THE RUSSIA-UKRAINE WAR, THE MEDIA, PROPAGANDA, AND ACCOUNTABILITY. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2022/04/14/russia-ukraine-noam-chomsky-jeremy-scahill/

Stevens, M. E. (2016). Trauma is as Trauma Does: The Politics of Affect in Catastrophic Times. In M. Casper & E. Wertheimer (Eds.), Critical Trauma Studies: Understanding Violence, Conflict and Memory in Everyday Life (pp. 19–36). NYU Press.