Babchenko, football and tuning fork

Last week an important event occurred in the Ukraine. 

I am talking about “the death” and “the resurrection” of the formidable Facebook blogger, Kremlin critic and journalist Arkady Babchenko.  His death was announced by officials, his body bloody and with the bullet holes clearly visible was presented. This caused a shock and avalanche of sympathy and grief in Russia and a similar reaction in the rest of world as yet another journalist who dared to criticise the Kremlin was killed. Not something new as not long ago another vocal journalist —Pavel Sheremet— was blown up in his car in Kiev. The perpetrators were never found. 

But this time the event took quite a different turn as the next day Arkady Babchenko appeared alive and well during a press–conference explaining that the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) staged his death and used him as “bait” to uncover a plot by pro–Kremlin agents to assassinate  him and another 39 vocal journalists in Ukraine. The world was shocked and overwhelmed yet again, but with quite different emotions this time. 

This “resurrection” caused an avalanche of discussion regarding the morality of the method used by SSU. Many found themselves feeling manipulated and several media sources (such as The Guardian and Reporters Without Borders) found the journalistic ethics of the event extremely questionable: journalists must not identify themselves with Security Services of any country. 

These media sources certainly have every right to frown upon the methods used by journalists for their own survival in a country which has lost people for the past four years in the combination of “hybrid warfare” and a quite conventional bloody war in Donetsk, dubbed by the media “Europe’s forgotten war”. Over 10 thousand lives have been lost there so far (per The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights –OHCHR) and the deadly count is not over.  

In the 1711 British musician John Shore, Sergeant Trumpeter and Lutenist to the court of the Queen Anne invented the tuning fork. The main reason for using the fork shape is that, unlike many other types of resonators, it produces a very pure tone.  It sounds the note of A = 440 Hz since this is the standard concert pitch which many orchestras use. It helps to tune all instruments in an orchestra to sound in harmony. 

This metaphor is very applicable to ethics. One should have a clear understanding of one’s own ethical criteria. One should hear “the pure tone” of the “note A” inside themselves to be able to tune into the morals of others. An ultimate right of one’s moral judgement is certainly a matter of acting as you preach. 

The West served as an undisputed beacon of morality for the idealistic dissidents of the Soviet era imprisoned behind the Iron Curtain. 

How could they not? The West respected human rights, it had a clear sense of right and wrong, it valued every human life. It was seen as the society where justice could be found and the “iron maiden” of your own Orwellian state could not claim your life and crush your bones for what you thought, wrote or said. They believed that the supreme power of public opinion in the West, which even Soviet dictators of the Post–War era had sometimes to take into account and adjust their methods in response to release some of their prisoners. There was some attempt to appear to be morally superior in the eyes of the rest of the world. Over the 25 years this moral idealism has dissipated.  

Even worse, we have entered the era of post–truth and “hybrid warfare” where anything goes. Nobody cares how moral or immoral they look and “what the world thinks”. The most audacious and unpredictable win. 

There were the rules in the ideological conflict of Capitalism and Communism. Nowadays ideological conflict of the past does not exist and the rules do not exist too. In the absence of clearly formulated ideologies the new hybrid War of the Worlds is based on ethical values. The West stands by their values: an inclusive society, defence of rights of the minorities, the poor and the weak, justice and support against oppression and aggression all over the world, and above all – the value of every human life.  

The special operation of SSU was designed with the publicly announced intention to do just that – to save the life of the journalist Arkady Babchenko. Numerous precedents show that journalists who criticise Kremlin do not to live long and this better to be safe than sorry. The operation to uncover the plot continues in Ukraine and  new details emerge every day. The critics of the actions of the SSU must imagine the danger these journalists must be in Kiev if even in Salisbury one cannot be safe. Desperate times call for desperate measures. 

But let us come back to the “tuning fork". 

On the 14th of June the World Cup in Moscow will be opened – no doubt with huge pomp. It will be more like a Caesar’s triumph and rightly so. The whole world, including the Western world will come to this triumph, confirming that reputation means nothing and if you are audacious enough to lie through your teeth and have a nuclear weapon, money, oil and gas – everything will be fine. The West conveniently forgot that according to the Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances from 5 December 1994 it had guaranteed the Ukraine in return for nuclear disarmament the integrity of her borders and territories – now torn and annexed.  

The West will applaud to the beautiful games of football (as if such events are ever free from the politics!) turning a blind eye to the war in Ukraine and it’s dead. The future world dictators will see that it is accepted practice to annex territories, to supply the conflict zone with personnel, weaponry and with a rocket launcher capable of shooting down a passenger plane killing 300 people; it is accepted to kill annoying journalists and the leaders of opposition; to fill your gaols with political prisoners; to bomb countries without worrying too much about target precision; to support a dictator who poisons his own people; it is nothing wrong to poison your enemies in England: all these are nothing in comparison to the celebration of the football, which is in reality something else…This World Cup is the triumph of the new “bright” world of Hybrid Warfare where the only rule is there are no rules and the most audacious wins! 

The worst that the western world can do is to express their “deep concern” and apply some token sanctions any effect of which will be wiped off by newly sighed trade agreements. 

Putin knows the West is afraid of him and the West needs him. 

The West needs Putin’s intervention in Syria, needs his pipelines of “northern streams” – “snakes” of the increased dependancy are going to restrict (and constrict?) the Laocoon of Europe, Western companies need profits from building illegal bridges to the annexed territories, grow wealthy on commissions in investing Russian billions in western banks —under the circumstances the adherence to international laws becomes non–compulsory and laws themselves become more like…well… guidelines…

All these are usually called “realpolitik” and “compromise”. 

Which makes the West in the “war of values” with Russia a very weak opponent. So why should anybody anywhere, including the Ukraine, worry about our opinions on their methods? Ukraine is left very much alone to fight her battle and has done so for 4 years against overwhelmingly superior, unpredictable and skilled enemy. 

The roar from the football stadiums surely make it difficult to hear any sound, let alone the “pure tone” of the ethical “tuning fork” but for the “orchestra” of the untuned instruments that represent Western attitudes a very strange and confusing ethical cacophony is produced. 

*The opinion of the author(s) may not coincide with the opinion of the Editorial Board