According to much of the press reports on the situation in the Ukraine, World War Three is looming. Or another Cold War, depending on what you read. Russia is refusing to back out of Crimea and as a result breaking tons of UN sanctions and the Budapest Memorandum of Security Assurances. As I type this, Russia have announced that Ukraine have till 5am tomorrow morning to leave the Crimea or they will attack. At any moment violence could break out, which could lead to all sorts of consequences, none of which sound great for Ukrainians. It is all a bit scary and for people like myself who regularly dwell on end of the world scenarios (I have survival plans for zombies, robots and floods so far) this is definitely unsettling. I won’t pretend to understand it all, or the intricacies of the Ukrainian people being divided in loyalty for Russia or Europe, but as it escalates I’m keen to point out that we should all remember Edwin Starr’s wise words and that bloodshed never seems to be the answer for anything unless you need a garden house to keep blood in. I’m not sure why you’d do that though. Weirdo.
The interesting thing is that despite us teetering on the edge of full scale violence, which would be to levels we’ve not seen before due to technology of those involved, people don’t seem that bothered. The Sochi Paralympics is still going to happen, no one is protesting in the streets of the UK or US to defend the Ukraine and generally Twitter and Facebook are more concerned with the fact that Leonardo Di Caprio didn’t win an Oscar last night yet again. You almost have to feel sorry for the multi-millionaire movie star at constantly being snubbed for a prize in an award ceremony that cares less about your acting work and more about who you’re wearing like a Buffalo Bill tribute. I can’t work out if this is because we are so bombarded with overly dramatic headlines about the end of the world or violence across then continents that we have reached a point where media has made us seek escapism at every opportunity.
Every few days there is something else that may kill us all or wipe everyone out or put the whole world underwater and I wonder if many people are being more picky about what to worry about, so as to stop themselves falling into a quagmire of concern. What would you rather hear? That a country could be losing its freedom due to an oppressive regime? Or that Jessica Lawrence fell over again but didn’t she look pretty even when she did it? I don’t have contempt for people who have shut it all out but I worry that this level of apathy to actual world events can’t be good. What if this does escalate into a Third World War? Will there be unity across the countries and a concerted effort to restore peace? Or will there just be a lot of hashtags, a few petitions no one cares about, a lack of care for people in other countries and various MPs using it as leverage for upcoming elections?
I hope by tomorrow I don’t wake up and find out that Russia and the Ukraine are in a full scale war. I hope this is another fear that many can dismiss and focus on Jared Leto saying things instead without consequence and above all I hope that the people of Ukraine will be safe and unharmed. But if all that happens, then this is another event that many will have turned a blind eye to and yet another path to never knowing when cries of wolf are real. Still, poor Leo eh?
Incidentally I have just read this blog post which seems to be the most sensible and well informed piece I’ve read about the situation in Ukraine so far: http://jackmatlock.com/2014/03/ukraine-the-price-of-internal-division/#more-629
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