Druze pop star seeks to bridge Palestinian and Israeli divide

"Yalla, yalla, raise your hands!" Israeli Druze singer Mike Sharif shouts in Arabic to the Palestinian crowd swaying to a Hebrew hit at a wedding in the occupied West Bank.

 

© JALAA MAREY Israeli Druze singer Mike Sharif

AFP 1 day ago

The scene, all the more unusual as it took place in Yatta, a Palestinian village near Hebron and site of frequent friction with the Israeli army and Jewish settlers, created a buzz on social networks and local media.

"I had prepared three hours of performance in Arabic only. After half an hour, everyone -- the families of the bride and groom, the guests -- asked me to sing in Hebrew," Sharif, interviewed in the northern Israeli Druze town of Daliat al-Carmel, told AFP.

The Druze, an Arabic-speaking minority offshoot of Shiite Islam, number around 140,000 in Israel and the occupied Golan Heights.

Nicknamed "the Druze prodigy" after winning a TV competition aged 12, Sharif -- now in his 40s -- rose to fame with his Mizrahi (Eastern) pop songs in the 1990s in Israel, but also in the West Bank, Gaza and Arab countries.

"I have always belonged to everyone," says the self-proclaimed "ambassador of peace" between Israelis and Palestinians.

- 'Hebrew in Hebron, Arabic in Tel Aviv'-

From the inception of Mizrahi pop, influenced by the Jewish cultures of the Middle East and North Africa, reciprocal influences were established with the music of neighbouring Arab territories.

Today, the popularity of artists like Israel's most popular singer Eyal Golan or the younger Eden Ben Zaken reaches well into Palestinian society.

At the same time, the big names in Arabic music -- Oum Kalsoum, Fairuz or Farid al-Atrash -- have long been popular among Israeli Jews.

To Sharif, this musical proximity should make it possible "to unite everyone" and contribute to ending conflicts.

"I sing in Hebrew in Hebron, in Arabic in Tel Aviv and Herzliya. I sing in both languages and everyone sings on both sides," he said.

"Music can contribute to peace. Politics does not bring people together this way."

His Yatta show, however, brought waves of criticism and even threats from both sides, with some Palestinians and Israelis calling him a "traitor" -- the former for singing in Hebrew in the West Bank, the latter for performing at a Palestinian marriage.

And after having said he wanted to be "the first Israeli singer to perform in the Gaza Strip", the territory controlled by Hamas Islamists that Israelis may not enter, he abandoned the idea "due to tensions", Sharif said.

- 'Emotional experience' -

Oded Erez, a popular music expert at Bar-Ilan university near Tel Aviv, links the notion of music as a bridge between Israelis and Palestinians to the "Oslo years" of the early 1990s following the signing of interim peace accords.

Jewish singers like Zehava Ben or Sarit Hadad performed songs by Umm Kulthum in Palestinian cities in Arabic, he recalled, but according to the musicologist, this phenomenon collapsed along with the political failure of the Oslo accords.

"This shared investment in shared music and style and sound is not a platform for political change or political reconciliation per se, you would need to politicise it explicitly, to mobilise it politically, for it to become that," he said of current cultural musical exchanges.

Today, the musical affinity between Palestinians and Israelis is reduced to the essential: "more physical and emotional than intellectual", he said.

The request of the Palestinian revellers at the Yatta wedding was "not a demand for Hebrew per se" but rather for Sharif's "hits" from the 80s and 90s, when "his music was circulating" and some songs entered the wedding "canon", Erez said.

The same goes for the title "The sound of gunpowder", written in 2018 in honour of a Palestinian armed gang leader from a refugee camp near Nablus in the West Bank that is played repeatedly at Israeli weddings, Erez said.

"When there is music, people disconnect from all the wars, from politics, from differences of opinion," Sharif said.

"They forget everything, they just focus on the music."

dms/cgo/gl-jjm/hc/jfx

HERESIOLOGY

Druze - Wikipedia

Druze (/ˈdruːz/;^[20] Arabic: درزي darzī or durzī, plural دروز durūz) are members of an Arabic-speaking esoteric ethnoreligious group^[21][22] originating in Western Asia. They practice Druzism, an Abrahamic,^[23][24] monotheistic, syncretic, and ethnic religion based on the teachings of Hamza ibn Ali ibn Ahmad and the sixth Fatimid caliph, al-Hakim bi-Amr Allah, and ancient Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, and Zeno of Citium.^[25][26] Adherents of the Druze religion are called The People of Monotheism (Al-Muwaḥḥidūn).^[27]

The Epistles of Wisdom is the foundational and central text of the Druze faith.^[28] The Druze faith incorporates elements of Isma'ilism,^[29] Christianity, Gnosticism, Neoplatonism,^[30][31] Zoroastrianism,^[32][33] Buddhism,^[34][35] Hinduism, Pythagoreanism,^[36][37] and other philosophies and beliefs, creating a distinct and secretive theology based on an esoteric interpretation of scripture, which emphasizes the role of the mind and truthfulness.^[27][37] Druze believe in theophany and reincarnation.^[38] Druze believe that at the end of the cycle of rebirth, which is achieved through successive reincarnations, the soul is united with the Cosmic Mind (al-ʻaql al-kullī).^[39]

Video clips from the archive of Israel Channel 2 Israeli News Company showing Israeli Druze men in traditional clothing. The flags shown are Druze flags.

Druze believe there were seven prophets at different periods in history: Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, and Muhammad ibn Isma'il ad-Darazi.^[40][41][42] Druze tradition also honors and reveres Salman the Persian,^[43] al-Khidr (who identify as Elijah and reborn as John the Baptist and Saint George),^[44] Job, Luke the Evangelist, and others as "mentors" and "prophets."^[45] They also have a special affinity with Shuaib, or Jethro.^[46]

Even though the faith originally developed out of Isma'ilism, Druze do not identify as Muslims.^[47] The Druze faith is one of the major religious groups in the Levant, with between 800,000 and a million adherents. They are found primarily in Lebanon, Syria, and Israel, with small communities in Jordan. They make up 5.5% of the population of Lebanon, 3% of Syria and 1.6% of Israel. The oldest and most densely-populated Druze communities exist in Mount Lebanon and in the south of Syria around Jabal al-Druze (literally the "Mountain of the Druze").^[48]

The Druze community played a critically important role in shaping the history of the Levant, where it continues to play a significant political role. As a religious minority in every country in which they are found, they have frequently experienced persecution by different Muslim regimes, including contemporary Islamic extremism.

Russia ramps up ties with Sudan as Ukraine war rages


Experts say Moscow is boosting relations with its longtime

 African ally Sudan, eyeing its gold wealth and strategic location 

(AFP/-) (-)

Abdelmoneim Abu Idris Ali
Thu, March 10, 2022,

As much of the West seeks to isolate Russia after it invaded Ukraine, experts say Moscow is boosting relations with its longtime African ally Sudan, eyeing its gold wealth and strategic location.

Khartoum has lost crucial Western support since army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan led a military coup last October, a move that triggered broad condemnation and punitive measures, including a suspension of $700 million in US aid.

On February 23, the day before Russia invaded its neighbour, a Sudanese delegation headed by powerful paramilitary commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo arrived in Moscow for an eight-day visit.

The two sides discussed "diplomatic, political and economic topics", as well as "Russian-Sudanese national security... joint cooperation and counterterrorism", said Daglo, commonly known as Hemeti, at a news conference upon his return.


Sudan relied militarily on Russia under strongman Omar al-Bashir, who was ousted in 2019 following three decades in power marked by international isolation and crippling US sanctions.

Russian private companies have reportedly benefited from Sudan's gold mines by ramping up ties with the military and Daglo's powerful Rapid Support Forces, which emerged from the Janjaweed militias accused of atrocities during the Darfur conflict that erupted in 2003.

"Moscow has been following a clear and coherent policy... to serve its interests" in Sudan and in Africa more broadly, analyst Khaled al-Tijani said.

"Russian investments in Sudan, especially in gold, and ties with security forces have remained shrouded in ambiguity," he added.

- Wagner, RSF -

Researcher Ahmed Hussein said that Daglo likely discussed in Moscow arrangements between his forces and "Russian (security) apparatuses with links in Sudan and Africa, especially Wagner Group".

Wagner, a Russian private military contractor with links to the Kremlin, has faced accusations of involvement in turmoil in Sudan's neighbours the Central African Republic and Libya, while French President Emmanuel Macron last month warned of the shadowy group's "predatory intentions" in Mali.

The European Council on Foreign Relations has said Wagner personnel were deployed in Sudan "to mining exploration sites" following a 2017 meeting between Bashir and Russian President Vladimir Putin, who agreed gold mining deals and negotiated the construction of a Russian naval base on Sudan's Red Sea coast.

Wagner personnel subsequently provided "a range of political and military assistance" to Bashir's regime, according to the ECFR.

Also in 2017, Russian mining firm M Invest gained preferential access to Sudan's gold reserves, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Three years later, the US imposed sanctions on Russian oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has links to M Invest and is believed to own Wagner, for "exploiting Sudan's natural resources for personal gain and spreading malign influence around the globe".

The ECFR said Wagner had formed "a triangle of Russian influence linking Sudan, the Central African Republic and Libya", reflecting "Moscow's strategic interest in expanding its Africa footprint".

Daglo's RSF has itself been involved in the conflicts in Libya and Yemen.

- Threats 'matter little' -

As for the planned naval base in the strategic city of Port Sudan, "the Russians need to get to warm-water ports, and the Red Sea is an integral part of that ambition," Hussein said.

In December 2020, Russia announced a 25-year deal with Sudan to build and operate the base, which would host nuclear-powered vessels and up to 300 military and civilian personnel.

The same month, Washington removed Khartoum's designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, a listing that had long crippled its economy.

In 2021, Sudanese military officials said the naval base deal was under "review" after certain clauses were found to be "somewhat harmful".

Daglo said the base was not on the agenda in Moscow but that Sudan was ready to cooperate "with any country, provided it is in our interests and does not threaten our national security".

Following Sudan's October coup, Russia told a UN Security Council meeting that General Burhan was needed to maintain stability, one diplomat had said on condition of anonymity.

Last week, Sudan joined 35 countries in abstaining from a UN General Assembly vote condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

For researcher Hussein, Russia's growing interest in Africa "puts Khartoum in the eye of the storm -- turning it into a battlefield for an international conflict that goes far beyond its borders".

Many fear that Western opposition to the coup is pushing Khartoum further towards Moscow.

"We're basically offering Sudan to the Russians on a silver platter," one Western diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The generals sustained themselves under the Bashir-era embargo, which is why threats of isolation matter little today."

ab/sbh/bha/mz/lg/dv/j

Russia's reengagement with Africa pays off

Russia has been aggressively expanding its influence in Africa in recent years. As numerous African nations remain silent on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the strategy seems to be a winning one.


Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with South African President Cyril Ramaphosa at the 2019 Russia-Africa summit

On March 2, the UN General Assembly in New York was asked to vote on a resolution calling for Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine "immediately, completely and unconditionally."

One hundred and forty-one of the UN's 193 members voted in favor of the resolution — a strong signal of the international community's condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The vote, however, made clear Africa's division on the issue.

While 28 out of 54 African countries sided with Ukraine, the rest, bar Eritrea which voted against the resolution, either abstained or chose not to turn up to vote.

Cameroon, Ethiopia, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Burkina Faso, Togo, Eswatini and Morocco were absent.

Algeria, Uganda, Burundi, Central African Republic, Mali, Senegal, Equatorial Guinea, Congo Brazzaville, Sudan, South Sudan, Madagascar, Mozambique, Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa abstained.

South-Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa, seen here with Putin in 2019, says he is taking a neutral stance on Russia's war on Ukraine

On the wrong side of history?

This has generated fierce criticism, especially from intellectuals, diplomats and opposition politicians in South Africa.

"The refusal to condemn this war puts South Africa on the wrong side of history," said Herman Mashaba of the newly formed opposition party, ActionSA.

Mashaba says it is obvious that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a "violation of international principles of law" and accuses South Africa's ruling African National Congress (ANC) of refusing to cut ties with Russia, a historical ally.

President Cyril Ramaphosa has since defended his government's decision to abstain from voting on the UN resolution.

In a statement released on Monday, Ramaphosa said that the resolution failed to emphasize the role of peaceful dialogue in stopping the war, which is why his country couldn't support it.

Angolan political scientist Olivio N'kilumbu says many in the ANC are still loyal to Russia.

"Some are of the opinion that the former liberation movement still owes the Russians a lot since the days of the Cold War, and now we Africans have to shut up about the Russian invasion," he told DW.

Russian propaganda aims to "revive the old connections between the Soviet Union and liberation movements" in many African countries, including South Africa, he said.
Battle of words on Twitter

One example of this is a tweet from Russia's Embassy in South Africa, which thanked South Africans who had expressed their solidarity with Russia's fight against what the tweet refered to as "Nazism in Ukraine".

Germany's embassy in South Africa quickly responded with a tweet of its own.

"Sorry, but we can't keep silent on this one, it's just far too cynical. What Russia is doing in Ukraine is slaughtering innocent children, women and men, for its own gain. It's definitely not 'fighting Nazism'. Shame on anyone who's falling for it," says the German reaction, which ends with a statement in brackets: "Sadly, we're kinda experts on Nazism."

But Germany's response provoked some heavy criticisms from South African Twitter users.

Some pointed to the Soviet Union's support for South Africa's apartheid liberation struggle while others sided with Russia's justification for the invasion of Ukraine or were critical of Germany's colonial history in southern Africa.

One user writes: "Russia is only opposing NATO's advance into Ukrainian territory. The consequences of this expansion were clear and NATO decided to ignore them. This war was foreseeable and avoidable."

Another user asks: "What did Germany do in Namibia?"
Africa's historic connection to the Soviet Union

Political scientist N'Kilumbu says that Russia's propaganda is also directed at other African countries, especially in the south of the continent, whose liberation movements had political and military support from the former Soviet Union.

By abstaining from voting on the UN's Ukraine resolution, countries like Angola, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Namibia had this "historic friendship in mind," N'Kilumbu said.


"Especially in Angola and Mozambique, there has been virtually no political change since the Cold War era. And that's why the umbilical cord that connects these countries to Moscow has never been severed," said N'Kilumbu.

The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), for example, continues to maintain close ties with Russia's military, business and political elites, N'Kilumbu points out.

"At the military level, we still have Russian instructors. Our military academy is Russian-influenced," he said.

Russian resources and weapons

In recent years, Russia has increasingly used this historic Soviet connections to expand its political, economic and, above all, military relations with African nations.

In 2019, Vladimir Putin hosted a Russia-Africa Summit attended by 43 African leaders.

Just one year later, Russia became Africa's biggest arms supplier.

According to a 2020 analysis by the peace research institute SIPRI, between 2016 and 2020 around 30% of all arms exported to sub-Saharan Africa countries came from Russia. This vastly overshadows weapon supplies from other nations such as China (20%), France (9.5%) and the USA (5.4%).

This increased the volume of Russian arms shipments by 23% over the previous five-year period.

Russia's Tu-160-Bomber in Pretoria (2019): South Africa is Africa's most important weapons buyer

Arming the Central African Republic

Nowhere on the continent has Russian influence grown as rapidly as in the Central African Republic (CAR).

The intensified cooperation between the two nations began in 2017, when Russia delivered weapons, including Kalashnikovs and surface-to-air missiles, to the war-torn country for the first time.

Since then, Russia has gradually increased its presence in CAR.

In 2018, Russian military advisers were dispatched to CAR with the official aim of training local armed forces.

Meanwhile, numerous Russian companies have received licenses to mine gold and diamonds in the country while its President, Faustin-Archange Touadera, is now guarded by Russians.

His main security adviser is Valery Sakharov, a former employee of Russia's domestic intelligence service, the FSB.

Given Moscow's ties to the nation, it is unsurprising that a pro-Russia rally took place in the capital Bangui on Saturday, says political scientist Olivio N'Kilumbu.

Demonstrators held up placards with slogans such as "Russia, CAR is with you" and "Russia save Donbas", a reference to a region in eastern Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukrainian forces since 2014.
'Wagner is in Mali'

Russia has also expanded its presence in crisis-ridden Mali.

Rumors have been flying for months that Mali's military leaders are relying on the support of Russian mercenaries, allegations the junta has denied.

But the United States has repeatedly called out the Malian government for working with Moscow.

Africom, the US military's Africa command, said that "several hundred" Russian mercenaries were in the country.

"Wagner is in Mali," Africom announced in a Voice of America interview in January, referring to the shadowy Russian private military firm linked to a close ally of Vladmir Putin.

Wagner mercenaries are also said to have fought in Mozambique, Sudan and CAR.

A pro-Russia demo in Bangui on Sunday: "Russia CAR is with you" reads one placard
Political, historical and military dependencies

Guinean writer and intellectual Tierno Monenembo believes that many African states will never free themselves from Russia's grip, especially given their increasing reliance on Moscow's military prowess.

Against this backdrop, he said, the decision by 25 African states not to condemn Russia's invasion of Ukraine is understandable.

"In such a situation, it is difficult for African nations to take a stand," he said. "When you are small, when you are weak, if you're poorly armed and underdeveloped, you don't just get involved in a conflict between military superpowers. That's the business of the big players."

He added: "There is a Fulani proverb that says: 'The chicken doesn't need to discuss the price of the knife. Whoever is in possession of the knife — that is who will cut the chicken's throat.

This article was originally written in German.

SEE LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY 

South Sudan to face its worst hunger crisis yet: WFP

South Sudan (AFP/Kun TIAN)

Fri, March 11, 2022, 

More than 70 percent of South Sudan's population will face extreme hunger this year as conflict and climate-related disasters deepen food scarcity, the UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warned Friday.

Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the world's newest nation has been in the throes of economic and political crisis, and is struggling to recover from a five-year civil war that left nearly 400,000 people dead.

On Friday, the WFP warned of a fresh hunger crisis threatening millions of South Sudanese already battered by floods and a resurgence of conflict.

"While global attention remains fixated on Ukraine, a hidden hunger emergency is engulfing South Sudan with about 8.3 million people in South Sudan -– including refugees -– (facing) extreme hunger in the coming months," the WFP said in a statement.

As climate disasters and violence force tens of thousands of people to flee their homes and abandon their livelihoods, many South Sudanese have already been pushed to the brink and "could starve without food assistance", the agency said.

"The extent and depth of this crisis is unsettling. We’re seeing people across the country have exhausted all their available options to make ends meet and now they are left with nothing," said Adeyinka Badejo, the WFP's deputy country director in South Sudan.

The alarming news comes weeks after the United Nations warned that the country risks a return to war, with hundreds of civilians killed during outbreaks of interethnic violence.

Although a 2018 ceasefire and power-sharing deal between President Salva Kiir and his deputy Riek Machar still largely holds, it is being sorely tested, with little progress made in fulfilling the terms of the lumbering peace process.

Four out of five of South Sudan's 11 million people live in "absolute poverty", according to the World Bank in 2018.

More than 60 percent of its population suffers from severe hunger from the combined effects of conflict, drought and floods.

750 killed in north Ethiopia

in second half 2021: rights body

Ethiopia (AFP/Simon MALFATTO) (Simon MALFATTO)Fri, March 11, 2022, 

At least 750 civilians were killed or executed in Ethiopia's Amhara and Afar regions in the second half of 2021, the country's rights body said in a report published Friday that catalogued widespread abuses, including torture and gang rape.

The Ethiopian Human Rights Commission said at least 403 civilians died in air raids, drone strikes and heavy artillery fire since Tigrayan rebels fighting government forces launched an offensive into the neighbouring regions of northern Ethiopia in July last year.

At least 346 civilians lost their lives in extra-judicial killings carried out by the warning parties, mainly Tigrayan rebels but also goverment forces and their allies, the EHRC added.

It also accused Tigrayan rebels of widespread abuses such as gang rape, torture, looting and the destruction of public facilities such as hospitals and schools in the two regions that border Tigray.

"Tigray forces engaged in abductions and enforced disappearances in a manner that may constitute war crimes and crimes against humanity," the report said.

The conflict in the north erupted in November 2020 when Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed sent forces into Tigray to topple the ruling Tigray People's Liberation Front (TPLF), a move he said came in response to the rebel group's attacks on army camps.

The war has spread to neighbouring regions, killed thousands of people and, according to the UN and the United States, driven hundreds of thousands to the brink of starvation.

txw/ri

 Join us for a public talk on Putin's illegal & unethical invasion of Ukraine 

and its implication for MENA and the Muslim World  

You are cordially invited to attend the lecture sponsored by the the ECMC Chair in Islamic Studies, 

 Department of Political Science, and Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies (MEIS) research group: 

Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine: 

Implications for the Middle East and the Muslim World

Public talk by Juan Cole 

Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan, USA

 Wednesday, March 23, 2022 |  6:00 PM (MST)

Zoom Webinar |  Please Register HERE 

Bio.

Juan Ricardo Cole is a public intellectual, prominent blogger and essayist, and the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. An authority in modern and contemporary history of Middle East and South Asia, intellectual & cultural history and religion of Asia and Middle East, Professor Cole is also known for his weblog, "Informed Comment." He is a prolific writer and researchers, and the author and editor of several books including Peace Movements in Islam: History, Religion and Politics (2021); The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam: A New Translation with historical Afterword (2020); Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires (2018); Global Connections: Politics, Exchange, and Social Life in World History, 2 vols (2015); The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East (2014); Engaging the Muslim World (2009); Napoleon's Egypt: Invading the Middle East (2007); Sacred Space and Holy War: The Politics, Culture and History of Shi`ite Islam (2002), and many other books, artilces and book chapters. He has appeared on PBS’s Lehrer News Hour, ABC World News Tonight, Nightline, The Today Show, Charlie Rose, Anderson Cooper 360, The Rachel Maddow Show, All In With Chris Hayes, The Colbert Report, Democracy Now, and has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia with his command in Arabic, Persian, Urdu, and Turkish. A bibliography of his writings may be found here.

 Wednesday, March 23, 2022 |  6:00 PM (MST)

Zoom Webinar |  Please Register HERE 

All Welcome!

-------

Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies 

Research Group 

UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA

A Ukrainian Socialist Explains Why the Russian Invasion Shouldn’t Have Been a Surprise

AN INTERVIEW WITH  VOLODYMYR ARTIUKH

Vladimir Putin uses the language of “demilitarization” to pursue an aggressive imperial policy against Ukraine. In an interview for Jacobin, a Ukrainian socialist explains the falseness of the Kremlin’s pretexts — and why the war could drag on for years.
A woman crosses a destroyed bridge as civilians continue to flee from Irpin due to ongoing Russian attacks. (Diego Herrera Carcedo / Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

LONG READ

 Jacobin 
03.09.2022
INTERVIEW BY Jana Tsoneva

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a crime and a human tragedy. There are already some 2 million refugees, as bombs and missiles rain down on cities around Ukraine. Early setbacks for the invading forces have often fed the idea that Vladimir Putin’s actions have backfired. Yet Ukrainians face the prospect of a long and drawn-out war, with no end in sight even despite their stiff military resistance.

Volodymyr Artiukh is a Ukrainian anthropologist specializing in labor and migration in the post-Soviet space. Jana Tsoneva asked him about Putin’s imperial agenda, the last eight years of war, and what hopes exist of a viable peace process.
JT

How is the war related to the post-2014 outbreak of civil war?
VA

Briefly, the Maidan protests of 2013–14, Russia’s subsequent annexation of Crimea, and support of the uprising in Donbas led to a change in the geo-economic and geopolitical orientation of Ukraine. Ukraine signed an association agreement with the European Union, changed its cultural and political orientation in favor of Euro-Atlantic structures, and abandoned the idea of integration with the Russian project of an economic and political union. Russia reacted to this by consolidating an anti-Western narrative.

The Crimea annexation, which was largely bloodless, led to a boost in Putin’s domestic popularity. Then, he hoped to capitalize on the uprising in Donbas, which was an uprising against the change of government in Kiev. This uprising was construed as self-defense of the “Russian world” against Western-supported Ukrainian nationalists. Ukraine was increasingly represented as a failed state with an illegitimate Western-controlled government that terrorizes Russian speakers. All these ideological elements are present now as Putin’s justification of the invasion: denazification, demilitarization, decommunization.

JT

Did the new government in Kiev do something to them to trigger this uprising in the East?
VA

This was a revolt that started essentially in a similar way to the Maidan — as a grassroots mobilization, with barricades and takeover of local governments in several eastern cities. Initially it was a purely negative phenomenon — against something rather than for something. But soon, guys with a particular mix of the Russian-imperialist ideology and Soviet nostalgia — hoping for a union with Russia and inspired by the annexation of Crimea — took over this local uprising.

Their idea was to spread the uprising to the rest of south-eastern Ukraine, which they called Novorossiya, referring to the time of the Russian Empire. Russia eventually integrated these semi-independent warlords into the Russian security apparatus. This led to an attempt of the Kiev government to take back Donbas in summer 2014 with the so-called anti-terrorist operation.

It was a war waged against the rebels, who were already quite pro-Russian and fought for an independence from Ukraine and for integration with Russia. Eventually Russian troops entered there on several occasions in 2014 and 2015. These incursions led to very significant defeats of the Ukrainian army with significant loss of life and equipment, which forced the Ukrainian government to sign the Minsk agreements.

Eventually, the spread of the uprising to Ukraine more widely faltered — but it was still mobilized by Russia to redirect the Ukrainian government as a whole, to use the self-proclaimed “people’s republics” as a leverage against Kiev’s pro-Western orientation. The Minsk agreements were essentially a diplomatic expression of the Russian military superiority; Russian military victory was translated into this diplomatic document. These agreements basically complemented the fighting rather than stopping it.
JT

Did the Ukrainian government honor these agreements?
VA

Neither side honored them — the divergence of interpretations emerged almost instantly. The agreements were not meant, in hindsight, to stop the war but to contain the military action, to dampen the contradictory interests of Ukrainian and Russian elites, to contain the military action so that the parties could regroup and prepare for the next round of fighting.

So, the ceasefire, which was only one part of the agreements, ebbed and flowed. At times, there was almost a full-fledged war; at times almost a real ceasefire, for example for almost half a year since summer 2020. The rhythm of the military action accompanied political negotiations. Ultimately these agreements were just a diplomatic break on the war, not its negation.
JT

Volodymyr Ishchenko writes that only 20 percent of Ukrainians approved of joining NATO in 2007, doubling to 40 percent after the Crimea annexation, but still not the majority. So, what precipitated the geopolitical shift around 2013 and Maidan?
VA

It’s true that prior to the Maidan of 2013, Ukrainian society was quite polarized; there was no majority in favor of either Russian or EU integration, much less in favor of NATO. The cause of the Maidan uprising was internal rather than geopolitical; it started as a popular uprising against an extremely corrupt and authoritarian regime, but eventually these contradictions of Ukrainian society were capitalized on by the oligarchs, also for electoral ends.The Maidan uprising was quickly hijacked to streamline the popular discontent into this pro-EU pro-NATO straitjacket.

So, the Maidan uprising was quickly hijacked by one of these fractions to streamline the popular discontent into this pro-EU pro-NATO straitjacket. A whole stratum of self-organized volunteers, paramilitary groups, NGOs, political adventurers, and intellectuals emerged after Maidan, who combined nationalism, neofascism, economic liberalism, and “Occidentalism” — a loose idea of the Western civilization. This was amplified by Western soft power and a network of NGOs — the familiar story.

So, the more the conflict progressed along these lines — with Russia also playing its role in amplifying this conflict with its own imperialist ideology — people’s perception was increasingly put in these very narrow confines: either the West or Russia.

Nevertheless, there was still a silent majority in whose common sense these questions were rather superficial. For them, these were not the major concerns, but they didn’t have another way of speaking of their problems publicly. This majority elected Volodymyr Zelensky in 2019. He promised to end the war, to not press the issues of identity and language. He appealed to the good sense of the majority while glossing over these divisive issues.
JT

But he also constitutionalized the new geopolitical orientation of Ukraine.
VA

Yes, a year into his tenure as a president, he changed direction. Initially he was accused of being pro-Russian, accused of preparing to capitulate to Russia. But as essentially every president of Ukraine does, he tried to concentrate as much power as he could. He had to defeat his nationalist enemies, attract their constituency, and became this Napoleonic figure that balanced the Right and Left, pro-Russians and pro-Europeans, and at one of the turns he got stuck in the pro-Western nationalist corner. And at this point, everything collapsed.
JT

And now the war has only radicalized this position?
VA

Yes, the war changed everything.
JT

We discussed the Russian involvement in the run-up to the war — so what was NATO’s role?
VA

Look, there are Russia-NATO relations that stretch back to 1991 and back to the Soviet-NATO confrontation. This is one level. But I would insist on separating this from a second layer which is Ukraine-Russia-NATO. You can’t reduce the one thing to the other.
JT

Ukrainian NATO membership wasn’t really on the table, right?
VA

Yes. And in the recent diplomatic talks, before the war, Joe Biden was willing to entertain the possibility for a moratorium on Ukrainian NATO membership. He stressed that NATO would not be involved in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Among other powerful Western powers, such as France and Germany, nobody seriously considered Ukraine joining.
JT

Did Russia use NATO’s expansion as a fig leaf then?

VA

Definitely. Take, for example, the ultimatum which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov issued back in December about rolling back NATO’s border to the pre-1997 period. The call to decide literally the next day meant that no one could see this as a good faith negotiation. I think the idea of going to war in Ukraine, one way or another, was already there and they needed the war itself as a negotiating mechanism. They wanted to use war as a way of getting information from the West, like, what is the highest level of escalation that the West can afford? How far can we — Russia — go? What can we do in our backyard, and how far can they go in response?
JT

Why would they want to know that?
VA

Because that’s not the end of the matter. Because they think ahead. If you listen to Russia’s officials and read their ideological manifestos, if you read people who interpret Russian foreign policy decision makers in the Kremlin — they see these apocalyptic events coming. They see the world changing to the core. They see that we live in the new world and Russia needs to find its place otherwise it will be eaten by these predators, by China or the US. They’re reasoning along the lines of “we need to act now, it’s now or never, there is time and it will either be glorious or we perish.” They also hope that they will join China in a sort of alliance. And they already need to mark their territory. The logic is: “There’s seven bad years ahead, but then we’ll have our hundred years of empire.” This is the frame of mind, if you read closely what the Russians are saying.
JT

Left-leaning media emphasize NATO’s role — but your reading makes me think that the talk about NATO was some kind of fake excuse for Russia.
VA

It was not. Let’s put it this way, in the long-term perspective of the last three decades. For Putin and for his very tight-knit elite group, it was real: NATO pushing right up to the border was a defeat for them. Most of NATO’s expansion happened on Putin’s watch, except for the first round. The rest of it happened on his watch. Of course, he talks about Russia’s interest in geopolitical terms. But he also sees it as his personal defeat, a matter of his legitimacy, not only in the eyes of average Russians, but in the eyes of the elite.
JT

But didn’t Russia want at some point to join?
VA

Putin said something like this, but it wasn’t serious. The broader problem, if we leave aside his perception of threats, was that the West did not manage to inscribe Russia in a more comprehensive security agreement and all of the bilateral and multilateral agreements. So, for Putin, partly it was this defeat that needs to be corrected now.
JT

Like when he speaks of 1991 as a “catastrophe.”
VA

Yes, and this long-term perspective had a caricatural representation in Lavrov’s ultimatum, seeking to solve the whole problem in a matter of two months. What he said was that NATO was going to Ukraine and was about to station weapons there: a hysterical spectacle, a performance of all these grievances. But this diplomatic spectacle was not meant to resolve this thirty-year-old problem.

So, the war in Ukraine is not a direct consequence of NATO expansion. It’s Russia’s proactive step to change, to break this structure of power relations in which Russia existed. It was not reactive in the sense of an immediate threat, it was a predator’s attack at the moment when, according to the Kremlin, the enemy was at its weakest. The diplomatic spectacle was a distraction.

JT

Let’s talk about the liberal take on the situation that Putin wants to recreate the old “Soviet empire” in its former borderlands.

VA

Let’s just abandon this ridiculous idea that Putin wants to restore the Soviet Union. Listen to Putin himself — he spent half his speech castigating Lenin.

CCDS

JT

And promised the “decommunization” of Ukraine.

VA

Yes, exactly. For him, decommunization means destroying this “affirmative action empire” that was the USSR. Putin wants to destroy the economic and national units that the USSR created throughout its history. He wants to essentially rebuild the Russian empire with one imperial center. Not necessarily within the boundaries of the old, but with a similar power structure of one imperial center resting on an oppressive apparatus without any hegemonic ideology that mobilizes people from below.

Hegemonic leadership implies concession to the partners in the hegemonic power bloc, as the Soviet Union did, making some concessions to the nationalities. Putin is not interested in hegemony. He’s interested in building this “vertical power” that begins and ends with the Kremlin. This is a very different thing to the Soviet Union. You need only look at how Putin talks to his Security Council, like to schoolchildren who failed their homework assignment. Compared to that, the Communist Party was a shining example of direct democracy.
JT

When the invasion happened on February 24, you wrote that you had seen it coming. How did you do so?

VA

The process that led to the war was already visible in the first war scare of April 2021, when the first Putin-Biden meeting happened after Russia piled up troops on the border with Ukraine. Back then, everyone expected a war to happen at that point.

But instead, Putin and Biden started talks on strategic stability and Putin made some claims regarding Ukraine, especially about the Minsk agreements. Nominally the troops were withdrawn from the borders after this meeting, but everyone knew that a substantial number remained. However, immediately after that Putin talked about the red lines, the asymmetric response if the lines are crossed; then he wrote his Ukraine article, which was essentially an ultimatum directed at Zelensky. This article was the draft of his war declaration speech that we saw in two parts over February 22 and February 24. It was probably recorded in one go.Only wishful thinkers assumed that Putin would still want to go ahead with the Minsk process.

So, after the Putin-Biden meeting in 2021, the military infrastructure and substantial numbers of weapons remained at the border. There was a surge in September and October with a large-scale military exercise, the Zapad (“West”) exercise, when the number of troops exceeded those that are now active in Ukraine, and these exercises were explicitly about taking over Ukraine. They did it as an exercise. Simultaneously, the breakaway regions of Donbas were all but integrated into Russia. More than half a million inhabitants gained Russian citizenship. The leaders of these republics got membership of the Russian ruling party.

Only wishful thinkers assumed that Putin would still want to go ahead with the Minsk process. By that time it was clear that even if Putin went along with Minsk, it would mean a war by other means, because the process implies that Ukraine reintegrates these territories, but they were de facto already integrated into Russia. They had their own military and so on, but being constitutionally integrated into Ukraine, they would have a free hand in the rest of the territory where they would clash with Ukrainian nationalists. In Ukraine, an internal revolt would have happened against such an implementation of the Minsk agreements, anyway. So, the Minsk process was another name for dismembering Ukraine and war in slow motion.
JT

Ukraine has been treating them like foreign lands: it doesn’t pay pensions, social payments, all these financial and fiscal ties have been cut. I mean, can they ever go, or do they even want to go back? There’s also the issue of the language.
VA

I don’t think it was feasible, even before the war. Ukraine’s elites were already resigned to the fact that these were not their territories and the elite in these breakaway republics never thought that they would join Ukraine. When Putin recognized their independence, there was briefly a sigh of relief among Ukraine’s elites. They didn’t know the war was coming. Until the last moment, they didn’t believe that there would be war. But they were relieved that they had finally gotten rid of these troubled regions.
JT

The West reacted to the war with sanctions which the media called unprecedented. Do you think the sanctions are going to stop Putin or will there be a world war?
VA

The sanctions will not stop the war. Only tanks and guns can stop tanks and guns.
JT

Well, these tanks and guns need fuel and ammo and only money can buy them. How are they going to finance the war if it drags on?
VA

I’m talking about a long-term perspective. If the sanctions remain for years, probably we will see this effect. And even that is not given because we don’t know how China will react, but in the short term, there is no way the sanctions will impact the course of the war.
JT

How about the antiwar movement in Russia? Is there any hope that Russians themselves will take down the regime and put an end to the war?
VA

No. The majority of the population in one way or another support the war. That’s clear now.
JT

Really? The Levada Center registered only 40 percent support for the war.
VA

The latest polls show a much higher percentage.There is no good news. It’s just death and death and death.
JT

Aren’t they government-controlled?
VA

Yes, there are issues with polls in Russia because the rate of nonresponses is very high. So, we probably aren’t accounting for a huge share of the population who for one reason or another refuse to respond. But let’s say that there is an indication that opponents of the war are a minority. Moreover, there is no political structure behind them, because the structure was destroyed in recent years. Add to that the immense increase in the repressive apparatus in Russia and the institutionalization of censorship. The antiwar movement is necessary, of course, it is a good thing, we need to support and increase cooperation with those Russian scholars and activists and we need to fight xenophobia against them. But this is for the future.
JT

What needs to be done in the short term, now that people are under fire and running away?
VA

Try to help the refugees and relieve the evolving humanitarian disaster in Ukraine. Western governments should not only think about supplying weapons and so on, but of canceling Ukraine’s foreign debt, providing economic assistance, and how to help to achieve ceasefires to get people out from under the bombs. They need to think about what’s going to happen with Ukraine’s economy very soon and how it’s going to impact the world food market.

These are the things that we can do and Western governments can do. They can, of course, influence the military action there. They are doing this, but now it ultimately depends on Ukrainians’ willingness to fight, which is now quite considerable. Even the Russian-speaking Ukrainians are rallying around the flag.
JT

Do you see the West sending armies at some point?
VA

This will not happen. They are sending guns and anti-tank weapons, and there is talk of sending warplanes — I don’t know whether that will materialize or not. This won’t change the strategic picture. It helps to drag on and postpone Russia’s victory. It’s better to fight with an anti-tank missile than with your bare hands.
JT

But if it drags on, what are the Ukrainians to do?
VA

There will be a slow takeover of Ukraine by Russia, city by city, with immense destruction and with immense suffering.There is no way Putin can sustain a stable pro-Russian regime in Ukraine.
JT

Like Chechnya.
VA

Yes, but it can’t be ruled out that, at some point, Russia will sink all its resources in Ukraine. Actually, Russia already seems to be running out of resources and will need to mobilize its economy and then more recruits, reservists and so on, and that will likely significantly change the picture inside Russia. Probably it will have a negative impact, much more negative than the sanctions, but it remains to be seen. I remain pessimistic in regards to the outcome of this war. I still don’t think that Ukraine’s army can prevail. As to whether Putin can achieve his goals of regime change: definitely not. There is no way he can sustain a stable pro-Russian regime.
JT

Because there would be another Maidan followed by another invasion?
VA

Yes, and you see this already — in Russian-speaking cities, mind you — with peaceful protests in the cities captured by the Russians. There is an army. There are attacks on the streets, yet people take to the protests unarmed. If this is happening now, it’s definitely going to happen to any regime Putin may install.
JT

Is there a way out for Putin?

VA

I don’t think he knows himself. It’s this situation when you jump into the fight and then you see — that’s what they did. They miscalculated gravely. They thought that the Ukrainian army would fold and that the people would come with flowers to cheer, but this didn’t happen.

The West also risks losing face. I didn’t see any appetite for war in the West last year, neither from the US — which explicitly said we don’t need trouble in Europe, we need to focus on China — nor from the EU. That’s also part of the reason why Putin did it because he saw that the West was not ready to deal with a war. You remember Emmanuel Macron making a fool of himself proclaiming that, oh, I brought peace and the week after Putin invaded. So, the West can’t do anything, to be honest. The war, unfortunately, has to be fought out between the Ukrainian and Russian army. The balance of power on the battlefield will decide pretty much everything else. And there is no good news. It’s just death and death and death.

JT

One final question concerning knowledge production in war. You have criticized US-centric paradigms trying to explain the conflict. I agree with you that when they talk about the war, Americans have a tendency to talk mostly about themselves. What kind of frameworks do we need to begin to understand this war?

VA

I think we need to take a break analyzing the US hegemony, because we know pretty much everything about it already, and very little about how Russia came to be like this beyond this cliché caricature that American scholars paint of Putin and Russia.

Some parts of the Left also needs to abandon the idea that Russia is somehow a continuation of the Soviet Union, or that it is the underdog in the imperialist fight that needs to be supported. We need to pay closer attention to what Russian scholars have done. We need to think more deeply about how the Kremlin guys picture themselves, what they imagine is happening around them and what may motivate them beyond what the West imagines is rational. Clearly their goals and the way they work is different than we imagine. We need to pay attention to the internal dynamics in the Ukraine-Russia relations. This is not something we know a lot about beyond the simplistic Western portrayal of the good democratic Ukraine versus the terrible authoritarian Russia or the evil Nazi Ukraine versus the eternally mistreated Russia.

We need much closer cooperation with the Left in Ukraine, Russia, and the West, which has not been happening beyond occasional meetings. Because the Left is a bearer of some knowledge, limited knowledge, but some unusual and probably insightful knowledge about the situation. A lot of people on the Left in Russia and Ukraine will need concrete material help, and they need understanding, because the fog of war destroys rational and critical thinking, and you need to be patient with people who make mistakes and will make mistakes. It’s impossible not to make a mistake when bombs are falling and your friends are dying.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Volodymyr Artiukh, PhD, is a Ukrainian anthropologist specializing in labor and migration in the post-Soviet space.

ABOUT THE INTERVIEWER
Jana Tsoneva is an assistant professor of sociology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She works in the fields of political sociology and the sociology of labor and is a member of the Collective for Social Interventions, Sofia.

                                                        Peter Marcuse, Presente!

Peter Marcuse (1928-2022) was an emeritus professor of urban planning and a German-American lawyer. Peter Marcuse, the professor, was born in Berlin, Germany, on November 13, 1928. He was the son of Herbert Marcuse. In 1933, with the start of the Third Reich, he immigrated to the United States. He graduated from Yale Law School with a JD in 1952 and a Ph.D. in City and Regional Planning from UC Berkeley in 1972. He decided to pursue a profession as a lawyer and began practicing in New Haven and Waterbury, Connecticut. He was a member of the Board of Aldermen and took part in the Mississippi Freedom Summer of 1964. After obtaining his Ph.D. at Columbia University, he became a professor of urban planning at UCLA from 1972 to 1972 after obtaining his Ph.D. at Columbia University. Peter Marcuse wrote "The Right to the City and the Occupy Movement." His wife, Frances, and three children make up a lovely family. Irene Marcuse is a novelist who died last year, Harold Marcuse, a history professor at UC Santa Barbara, and Andrew Marcuse, the third kid.  Throughout his career, the professor had written a number of other popular works, including Of State and Cities, Cities for People, Not for Profit, and many others. His colleague in social theory, David Madden, wrote: “RIP to our wonderful comrade Peter Marcuse, an immensely inspiring scholar, mentor, teacher, writer, researcher, urban planner, activist, and friend. His brilliance and humanity was evident in all of his work. I cannot overstate how much he will be missed!” Peter was also a member of Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism CCDS