Missä kuplassa sinä keskustelet ja kuuntelet?

10.03.2022
In: Oxford
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Kirsi-Marja Takala

Kirsi-Marja Takala opiskelee lukuvuoden 2021-2022 Oxfordin yliopiston Reuters-instituutissa.

En olisi koskaan uskonut, että joudun blogikirjoituksessani käsittelemään sotaa Ukrainassa. Eikä sitä nytkään tarvitsisi tehdä, mutta kaikesta muusta kirjoittaminen tuntuu jotenkin väärältä. Vaikka tilanteen eskaloitumista oli seurattu alkuvuodesta jo useamman viikon ajan, tuli hiihtoloman hyökkäys silti jotenkin puskista. Samaan aikaan se ei yllättänyt ollenkaan.

Parasta tässä kauheassa hetkessä ovat olleet keskustelut luokassamme. Vaikka kaikki meistä tuomitsevat sodan, on näkökulmien monipuolisuus yllättänyt minut täysin. Olen ymmärtänyt, että tuijotan liikaa suomalaiseen napaani, vaikka kuinka esitän kansainvälistä. Ja samaan aikaan olen innoissani näistä keskusteluista, uusista mietteistä ja ajatuksista, jotka yritän painaa mieleeni. Ymmärrän yhä paremmin, miksi kansainvälinen keskustelu eri tahojen kanssa on tärkeää. Vaikka kuvittelet tietäväsi ja ottavasi huomioon monet seikat, et siltikään voi yksin pohtia asioita niin monelta kannalta kuin isossa, kansainvälisessä, hyvin erilaisessa ryhmässä. Osa keskustelua on toisen kuunteleminen, ja kuuntelemalla ymmärtää, että katsomme kaikki asiaa etenkin omasta näkökulmastamme.

Jotta saisin jaettua mielipiteiden kirjoa, pyysin muilta stipendiaateilta kommentteja ja tuntemuksia tätä blogikirjoitusta varten. Korostan vielä, että kaikki tuomitsevat tämän sodan.

“The way Ukrainian fight for their place and how they love their place, reminded me what happened in Hong Kong in 2019. On the other hand, when the Ukraine war started, I thought about Taiwan. In Asia, some slogans are like ’today is Ukraine, tomorrow is Taiwan.’ I try to read and watch commentators’ articles and interviews as much as I can. As a journalist in Hong Kong, it’s time to equip myself and learn how to be a war zone correspondent.”

***

“The war is heartbreaking and is thankfully garnering a lot of attention, but the latent racism in comments from the coverage about how Ukrainian refugees or fighters are ’just like us’ is jarring. And I’m really worried the righteousness of our response to the Russian attack will lead to the same kind of overreaction that we saw in the years after 9/11.”

***

“The collective international solidarity with the Ukrainian people and the immediate sanctions imposed on Russia by the international community took me by surprize, to the extent that I almost didn’t believe it! I mean, I was very impressed by the international community’s ability to stand by what’s right and that’s just mind-blowing and too good to be true! Why am I saying that? It’s because this world has been witnessing many wars over the course of the past few years, and even decades, committed or supported by first-world countries on less fortunate countries like Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Kashmir, Palestine… Russia itself has committed war crimes in Syria… and we haven’t heard the international community condemns or objects! It is only when the victims are white Europeans that the solidarity emerges. But honestly, that’s not what’s bothering me because it’s a good thing that Ukraine has international attention and support as should be.”

***

“I was still a child in 1999, but I remember the war in Serbia clearly. My cousins went to Kosovo, NATO bombed Belgrade so many times… Sanctions meant queues for essential groceries, and our currency, dinar, had no value. I heard sirens almost every day and waited in a moist basement (not a proper shelter) for the danger to pass. Without an idea of when the war would be over – and who will die meanwhile. Some journalists died in the bombing, innocent civilians were killed. All because of politics. Over 20 years later, the problem with Kosovo hasn’t been resolved. War does not solve problems, it only deepens them. I sympathize with the children of Kyiv, a wartime childhood is something I wouldn’t wish to my worst enemy.”

***

“In my country the headline news of Ukraine-Russia war is more dominated by the economic effects to our country. It’s very different from what happened when Palestine-Israel conflicts. Maybe the distance between countries matters because the feeling of ’it is not happening near here’ and the reason why Palestine-Israel war have more effects in my country is because of the religion issue. Most people in my country don’t really feel threatened by what is happening. They just look at the news and feel like they just watching war movies with a very horrible feelings for the victims.”

***

“I was really stroke by images of Miss Ukraine, posing in her Instagram account with what seems to be a ’golden’ rifle and a camouflage outfit, and then media outlets all over the world amplifying it in a congratulatory way.  We are all rooting for peace in Ukraine and although this might have been a ’good idea’, in practice it is an absurd and unnecessary glorification of violence.”

***

“The humanitarian and economic impact of the war is already reverberating throughout the world. The impact on developing countries will be devastating as millions are already reeling from the economic impact of COVID-19. A diplomatic solution would be the best outcome for global security and stability. This should be the time for an engagement between NATO, Ukraine, and Russia for lasting solution. Time is running out.”  

***

“What frustrates us as Palestinians more particularly is the double standards of international response to the Ukrainian armed resistance. While I believe that Ukrainians, like all oppressed nations around the world, absolutely have the right to self-defence, this is a right that we haven’t entertained as Palestinians struggling for over 7 decades from occupation and oppression. More often than not, western mainstream media demonizes Palestinian resistance (whether violent or non-violent) and portrays us as terrorists. And in best cases, they remain ’neutral’. But it’s very clear now that remaining neutral in a situation of oppression is just immoral and automatically standing by the oppressor.”

***

“It is the racism and the double standards revealed by the western intellectuals and journalists over the past few days that struck me the most, as it reflects how the western world dehumanizes us and reminds us of where we as nations fall on ’the civilization scal’. I’ll make my point clearer with examples:

  1. The BBC interviewed a former deputy prosecutor general of Ukraine, who told the network: ’It’s very emotional for me because I see European people with blue eyes and blond hair … being killed every day.’
  2. An ITV journalist reporting from Poland said: ’Now the unthinkable has happened to them. And this is not a developing, third world nation. This is Europe!’
  3. And the most famous one: CBS News senior foreign correspondent Charlie D’Agata stated last week that Ukraine ’isn’t a place, with all due respect, like Iraq or Afghanistan, that has seen conflict raging for decades. This is a relatively civilized, relatively European – I have to choose those words carefully, too – city, one where you wouldn’t expect that, or hope that it’s going to happen’.

There are more and more examples of the same kind that are beyond shocking to us! The amount of dehumanization that we feel and the frustration with a world that doesn’t believe that we are ’civilized’ enough to be considered equal human beings or to deserve sympathy. And apparently, international support depends on the colour, religion, geographical location of a certain nation.”

***

“This is a war that has tragically been coming for years, resulting as much from aggression by the Russian government as from meddling by the western powers in Ukraine. It could have been prevented. But now that it’s raging, we must do whatever we can within our means to ensure a peaceful resolution. This isn’t a good versus evil contest, however much we may wish it were and however much the elite and their press may want to project it as such. But there are clear victims here, those ordinary men, women and children in Ukraine and Russia who are bearing the brunt, directly or indirectly. They deserve better.” 

***

”At the end of the day, the people of Ukraine absolutely deserve our solidarity, and I just hope that many in the West will also be able to feel that same level of solidarity for refugees/civilians under fire in other parts of the world too. I feel the most strongly about this in relation to Rohingya refugees from Myanmar because I have worked with them directly and it horrifies me that the rest of the world is just business-as-usual with such a monstrous regime that is accused of committing genocide against them.”

***

Ystävieni mielipiteet herättävät minussa monenlaisia tunteita. Toivon, että kaikilla olisi mahdollisuus hypätä keskustelemaan ja etenkin kuuntelemaan täysin eri kuplaan, vaikka kuinka tuntisi olevansa juuri siinä OIKEASSA kuplassa. Nämä keskustelut ovat auttaneet minua ymmärtämään, millaisessa kuplassa yleensä keskustelen. Haluan kiittää kaikkia niitä journalisteja, jotka työskentelevät sotauutisten parissa liikkuen kuplasta toiseen, kuuntelevat ja pyrkivät joka päivä tarjoamaan meille luotettavia uutisia. Toivon, että tämä sotatilanne saadaan ratkaistua mahdollisimman pian ja oikein.

 

Lähteet:

Esimerkki 1. Kommentti: https://twitter.com/AlanRMacLeod/status/1497974245737050120

Esimerkki 2. Kommentti: https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1497878168216252416

Esimerkki 3. Kommentti: https://twitter.com/imraansiddiqi/status/1497607326487826435

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