Monday, March 17, 2014

Crimea Independence

As world leaders continue to take sides in situations such as Syria, Ukraine and other countries, the people who are paying the price are youth. The rhetoric of world leaders is just garbage talk. If any of them actually cared we would not have chaos in Syria or in Ukraine. At best international laws are written to be expansive ideology. At the root of such law is the absolute right to self-determination and Crimea has exercised that right. This is the exact same reasoning the people of Ukraine used to topple the former government. Basically any action taken outside of the governmental structure is open to violation of international law. Instead of the sabre rattling of world leaders and pointing fingers why was there so little talks of commonality? In the realm of peacebuilding the practice of community building and the whole of government approach has been seriously disregarded by all world leaders. Really all that is being done is reactionary politics and that is poor leadership. The damage is done and the clean up is poorly being managed. Here we sit with Ukraine in crisis, Crimea has separated and is now independent. We must wonder who or what area is next. Economic support is needed, government support is needed, diplomatic support and good relations are needed. At best we are getting more tension from leaders which will only make the situation worse. Sadly most leaders today do not have the capacity to understand how to be peaceful in such situations. They think that economic sanctions are a good step. Why was there no economic sanctions against the Republic of the United States when they illegally invaded Iraq? Within that question is the root of the larger problem. We do not live in an equal world. Some can do as they please while others must hurdle the tallest of bars. This is the hypocrisy which must stop. Voicing concerns of what is being done and how leaders act are a big part of diplomacy. However, ensuring that leaders are working to improve situations is rarely the outcome. More often we get stand offs and media sound bites of measured aggression. For all that we hear about peaceful efforts, there is certainly very little being done other than grand standing and rhetoric. Both those actions only serve to strain relations and cause more damage. We have seen the same thing with Syria and look what that has brought us. Now we can actually solve a situation before it gets worse and what do we do? We do exactly what we did in the past and expect a different result. Idiocy of the most magnificent order. Crimea had to deal with an uncertain future inside a collapsing country. Not much of a choice really. So the most stable avenue was to become independent and work with Russia. That was their choice. Just like the choice Syrians made to follow a referendum. The Syrian referendum was overshadowed by the infiltration of weapons and violence the very next day. So far the Crimea situation is vastly more peaceful than Syria, even though world leaders are doing everything to ensure it is not peaceful.

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