The world war without the world

The only just war is a war of liberation from oppression. Africans know only too well the many just wars that the continent fought against colonial regimes to push back against the conquest and settlement of its geographic, political and economic landscapes.

The wars that colonisers fought to conquer and dominate the natives were unjust and even evil wars by Empire-builders, merchants of death, mercenaries and other imperialist vultures. Any war that does not pass the standard of a “just war” or a war of liberation should not only be condemned but should also be confronted.

The history of the world is pregnant with examples of how the many unjust wars that humanity has seen have been confronted and evaporated with the might of justice, morality and revolutionary violence. The trouble, however, that analysts and other observers have is to distinguish the just wars from unjust ones.

This is so because even imperialists, enslavers and colonisers name their wars and violence after justice, freedom, peace and other decorative names that conceal their evil. Yes, the world has seen wars that are called wars for peace when their form and content is pure evil.

There are few or no wars, in actuality, that are called by their true names. Every other war is dressed up in noble robes even when it is evil itself.

Whose war is it anyway?
I totally understand the African political analysts that have boldly judged the war in Ukraine to be another European “tribal war” that should bother all of us but should not distract us from the many struggles that Africans in post-colonial Africa wake up to wage every day.

Some of our pundits rightly question why previous wars amongst Europeans have even been called world wars when they are provincial European wars.

But my view has been that the world, thanks to imperialism and its children, slavery and colonialism, has developed a modern colonial and imperial world system that envelopes the entire planet, and bears even on the oxygen that we breathe.

The liberals will remind us just how the world has become a global village where distance and time have been collapsed to allow people from far apart in the world to enjoy communication and community in real time and space.

There are also weapons in some countries that can smoke the world into non-existence in seconds.

What is happening between Russia and Ukraine, therefore, is the business of the world, including Africa. Especially as the war with all its human costs says something about us as human beings that are still prepared to go back to the “state of nature” of a “war of all against all” to secure and defend certain interests.

The old passions and energies of nationalism and patriotism still have such a hold of us that we can destroy a lot to build a little in the name of the nation, of national interests and the other goods and services that come with these ideals. The more the world becomes one village the more human and national identities and differences matter to us, the more we are prepared to kill or to die to defend the “us” from the “them.” As such the conflict in Ukraine is about us even if it is without us.

The World War without the World
My observation that World War III is already on, and it is on Ukrainian soil, annoys many. It irritates many who want to see that World War where world powers will take sides for and against each other with missiles launchers trained in different directions in every country and boots on the ground in different fronts.

That level of escalation is unlikely as world powers will hopefully do all that is possible to avoid nuclear confrontation and bombs dropping on home soils.

And that is the trouble with and the trouble in Ukraine. Powers that do not want explosions in their home soils are prepared to keep supplying “brave Ukrainians” with weapons to defend themselves while Russia continues to pound the cities. It does not require training in war studies or politics to understand that for some weapon manufacturers Ukraine has not only become a new market but also a perfect site for testing new inventions in weaponry.

It also troubles the ordinary mind to observe how countries that ordinarily fear each other will use poor Ukraine as a theatre to throw proxy blows at each other, weigh the power of their weapons, and the impact of their training to Ukrainian soldiers.

In that way, what is happening in Ukraine, on Ukrainian soil, is a world war without the world. As country after country, in Europe, keeps flashing their latest donations to Ukraine in form of weapons, the curious among us can observe the quality and the cost of weapons that some countries have been building behind the back of the world.

So much has been invested in military rather than medical research and that says something about the kind of world system we are trapped in. Ukraine is huge comment on humanity and modernity right now. And as that happens, the really innocent and powerless people are paying the dear price of loss of freedom, property and life itself.

Fighting and smiling
A friend of mine, a journalist with incredible sources and connections, sent me an interesting or is it a disturbing transcript of an online meeting between a former US top personality and a top personality in Ukraine.

When he says “your courage is very important for further success. If you continue to do what you do, you will always have our support if you continue to fight as you do now,” one may be entranced by what courage means.

There was no talk about ending the war but more exhortation to “do what you do”.

Cetshwayo Zindabazezwe Mabhena writes from Gezina, in Pretoria, South Africa. Contacts: [email protected] .