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Tuesday, Mar 22, 2022 - 00:39 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Tongues Of Conflict (Part II)

"It is better to be an enemy of the Americans than their friend. If you are their enemy, they might try to buy you; but if you are their friend they will definitely sell you."

- apocryphal by many, but probably not an alien sentiment to consumers about smartphone plans



The Sinitic side of the story
(Source: youtube.com)


It seems like the Channel 8 newsbite on how the war's actually an American-Russian proxy clash has been getting some blowback amongst our (West-leaning) Reddit hivemind, with the media acknowledging the rise and popularity of pro-China (and anti-West) media domestically (but amusingly, only in the [also West-leaning] English The State's Times, and not the Mandarin media, as far as I could gather). To give some perspective, Channel 8 is by some distance the local television channel with the largest reach, with IMDA statistics giving it a 70.4% reach compared to the English-media Channel 5 (the target jiak kantang audience of which have probably migrated to Netflix); recent advertising spot buy rates for Channel 8 are five to twelve times more expensive than Channel 5, which I believe a more accurate estimate of their respective influence.

As to what exactly is so objectionable about the six-minute clip, I'd encourage readers to have a listen (embed disabled). The presenter holds forth on three main points:
  1. The Ukraine situation is basically a (manufactured) grudge match between America and Russia
  2. Ukraine wooed someone they shouldn't have (NATO)
  3. What the heck does this have to do with Singaporeans?

The tastiest tidbits should derive from Points 1 & 2, particularly that the U.S. and Russia would both get something they want out of the war. For Russia, their territorial aims (including all those tasty gas fields in the east) are well-known; the accusation, then, is that America (and the Anglo bunch in general) is exploiting the crisis to bleed Russia and tie Europe to themselves (i.e. reform their Cold War I bloc), and are entirely willing to fight to the last drop of Ukrainian blood (including impressionable and none-too-smart Redditors) to this end - which, in the realist view, is an entirely plausible move (similar analysis consistently stated by Mearsheimer, Chomsky, etc.)

One fully expects the propaganda and (de)moralization campaigns to flow, on how Russia won't be able to sustain the campaign and is gonna collapse economically - with Putin ousted and never winning the hearts of the Iranian people (while still quietly funding the Russian army through gas payments) - from the West, while Moscow holds raucous Invasion Day rallies and carries on trading with China, India and probably a bunch of others, and maybe not even on the down-low ("Yessir, Uncle Sam, we are sanctioning big bad Russia, don't get worked up about it - calm down and have a McDahnald's and Cuke! No, their Hцдшзi smartphones and вhдгдt pharma have got nothing to do with us, scout's honour.")



Looks like a Sino-Soviet split sequel's off the menu, boys
(Source: 4chan.org)


The current situation has BoJo desperately exhorting China to "choose the right side", to which their Foreign Minister's official statement is that they are already on the right side of history (and it's really America's fault). Biden appears to have finally realized that he's supposed to be involved and might be off to Poland someday, but from how he had to go cap in hand to Venezuela of all places to save his bacon (you almost couldn't make this up), one has to doubt that the U.S. has a handle on the crisis. Oh, Ukraine will definitely win the propaganda war handily - in the West at least - but the trouble arises when it doesn't translate to actual real-life outcomes.

The background to the Ukraine crisis might also be briefly discussed here. Euromaidan is perhaps as good a place to begin with as any, and I will even follow the Wikipedia telling mostly: "Euromaidan was a wave of demonstrations and civil unrest in Ukraine, which began on 21 November 2013 with large protests in Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square) in Kyiv. The protests were sparked by the Ukrainian government's sudden decision [to choose] closer ties to Russia and the Eurasian Economic Union. The scope of the protests widened, with calls for the resignation of President Viktor Yanukovych... Independence Square (Maidan) in Kyiv was a huge protest camp... guarded by 'Maidan Self-Defense' units made up of volunteers in improvised uniform and helmets, carrying shields and armed with sticks, stones and petrol bombs. Protesters occupied government buildings in many regions of Ukraine. The uprising climaxed on 18-20 February, when fierce fighting in Kyiv between Maidan activists and police resulted in the deaths of almost 100 protesters and 13 police."

Here, you have a President (Yanukovych), who was elected fair and square (49% to 45%) in 2010, about three years before the protests. In November 2013, he announced a decision not to sign an Association Agreement with the European Union, apparently against the opinion of his parliament. However, one expects disagreements between the executive and legislative branches to not be uncommon (as countless POTUS-es and Speakers of the House have experienced, with all the vetos and horse-trading involved). The key, then, should lie in whether the Ukrainian President has the rightful legal power to make this call (as with American Presidents on nominations, pardons, etc.), regardless of its popularity. This point seems oddly neglected in online discussions, but it appears that signing treaties (or not) is indeed an explicit power of the post (again, as in America).


Clear East-West split in pro-European/pro-Russian regional support, Ukrainian Presidential Elections 2010
(Source: 4chan.org; also linguistic and other divisions)


So, just to be clear; here, you have (strongly-felt) disagreement amongst a country's population (as always, come to think about it), on some big-ticket issue (an European Union agreement). Indeed, polls in December 2013 suggest a fairly even split for support for/against the protests, and far from a clear majority on joining the Union. Given this, a segment of the population - whose wishes were dashed - held a protest (fair enough). This protest however soon involved body armour and weapons, and then the forcible (likely illegal) occupation of various state administration buildings, including regional parliaments (think the Capitol) and the Ministry of Justice (think the Supreme Court), leading to the ousting of the (elected) President. And there would be much clapping and cheering for this sure looks like a coup February 23 Attack on Democracy Revolution of Dignity, from the Western end. Well, one supposes it only fair to establish what kind of "political persuasion" is acceptable, for future application in similar federal/democratic republics...

But that's ancient history by now, which brings us to another issue: the accusation by Russia, of "de-Nazification" as one of their justifications for the invasion. The NYT has recently had their say on this matter, with a single passing mention towards the end, of "Ukraine's far-right Azov Battalion military unit". Well, said Azov unit appears to be quite prominently a component of the country's National Guard, and stated explicitly to be neo-Nazi by various sources (kinda hard to deny when they're proudly sporting the Black Sun etc.), and recognized as such by Facebook before a pragmatic change of mind. Their headquarters in Mariupol may or may not be getting levelled as this is being written, however, and the Russians seem particularly intent on settling that score for some reason, so one understands if they are loathe to attempt surrender.

[To be continued again...]



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Next: Tongues Of Conflict (Part III)


Related Posts:
In For A ₽enny, In For The ₽ound
Tongues Of Conflict (Part I)
Just As Autocompleted
Maps Of Meanings
Well Played, Sniper
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