As Russian children of a Russian mother, it’s me, descendant of a family that gave us all the love and connection Russian culture, to its language and its traditions, is a dimension that entails a series of ties and affections so deeply intimate that they transcend any sense of identity of belonging to nations or peoples, if not that of pure essence of Russian culture its beauty, its romance and tenderness. Not the cliché or cliché, but what crept into us with all the passion and love of my grandfather, mother and aunt. All of this became brutally bloody as a result of the unleashed war Putin.
Any image that comes of Russian aggression on theUkraine, of killed civilians, destroyed houses, hospitals and theaters is also a blow to our whole lives and to our Russian imagination. I am thinking of the massacre of the Ukrainian people by the Russian army. Something neither I nor my Russian friends ever really thought possible. Friends who are suffocated today and ask me to understand them in their daze, in their pain and terror. They live in fear that is additional to the fear they have learned to deal with in recent years. They had put up resistance and worked, despite ever more severe repression by the regime and also by being sealed off from abroad. I also think of the conscripts who were sent to their deaths by their own rector for treason. Those who refused to shoot Ukrainian citizens found themselves in front of them with their bare hands. Boys who could at best get out of the wagons surrendered and were taken prisoner. At worst, as they retraced their steps, they were shot at fire “friend“. A fratricide commanded by those who remain a to fly and from afar he commands to have no mercy. Whoever is causing all this horror cannot be justified in any way. My own soul is killing itself from Red Square.
I couldn’t miss the antiwar demonstrations: to demand a ceasefire, an end to an inhumane and horrific aggression unleashed by Russia. I have been involved for decades in the pacifist movement that has not only been in the streets but also in the many initiatives of solidarity and cooperation to build bridges between peoples in conflict and to support populations, civil societies, support women for their empowerment and to offer resistance and habitats of culture, dialogue, sport. We pacifists can be proud of our noble history of concrete nonviolent action; as well as the work started in the early days of war in Ukraine To bring help and promote and organizereception of refugees in Italy. But I have the dramatic feeling that today is not enough.
The condemnation of this war and the fact that it is an unprecedented and unacceptable aggression requires clearer words that leave no room for the ambiguities that I believe still exist Russia Of Putin to a sovereign state, to a government democratically elected by its people. The precedents that are attacks on Russianspeaking people in the country, the presence of proNazi groups and can in no way justify bombing a country, killing its defenseless population, destroying its infrastructure, even hospitals, and the channels of people fleeing. It must be said clearly and without hesitation: With this war, Putin has wronged Russia without any ifs or buts. She is responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people and for the hatred that will overwhelm the bonds between people, between brothers and sisters, and will leave its mark for decades to come.
And that’s exactly why we need to show our support unequivocally to whoever’s there Russia she still opposes the war on these fratricidal bombs, and challenges a law that offers up to 15 years in prison for those who dare to make a counterstatement through direct testimony from the war front. A new period of deep darkness is sweeping Russia and those in that country who oppose the regime of today and no more Putin. Journalists, feminists, pacifists, activists of antiracist and human and civil rights organizations urgently need the support of our part of civil society. A support that cannot be expressed with balance and absurd equidistance: mistakes are not allowed on the rubble of this war.
And finally, the other front of intellectual clarity and honesty that those who claim to believe in a fairer world must invest in will be the spread of Russophobia. To confuse putin, his regime, the Russian people and what the Russian culture he gave to the world is fatal and terrible. A discrimination that can only sow more hatred. Civil society, the realities committed to defending human and civil rights, cannot accept this drift: the earth, the culture of the father of nonviolence Tolstoy and the great musician Tchaikovsky it cannot be deleted. I never thought I could feel the animosity I felt as a kid for being half Russian. I got rid of that feeling of hostility and distrust in Italy. That, too, is a responsibility I will never forgive Putin, and generations of Russians will bear the consequences. Saving culture from the darkness of this war and its ruins is an obligation that cannot be neglected. Punish the darkness of all humanity.
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Raffaella Chiodo Karpinsky