OPINION | Russia-Ukraine war illustrates that not all lives matter

What the proxy war between Russia and Ukraine illustrates is that not all lives matter nor is the wellbeing of all nations and countries. It is proof that the money-making war machines matter the most to preserving human lives.

It shows us that the national interests of some countries are a given, and not so with others, is the mother of all hostilities breastfeeding toxicity amongst supposedly free nations of the world to deny them deserved peace and reciprocal respect.

This is all because of the Euro-Anglo-American centric logic fuelling this war. The US logic dictates that siding with Russia is alignment and siding with Ukraine, as the DA does to flagrant disregard of SA’s sovereign non- alignment position, is not.

It escapes the media’s amnesia to think it odd for France, which is a G7 member and NATO’s, to hear its President Emmanuel Macron requesting South African President, Cyril Ramaphosa, for a letter of recommendation for BRICS membership.

Hear how the headlines read: ‘France may be the first European country to apply for BRICS membership.’

Here is an example of a curiosity missed by a mile by bandwagoning narrative enforcers.

Few remember that UK’s Boris Johnson’s trip to Ukraine in April 2022 had inexplicable coincidence with President Volodymyr Zelensky thinking otherwise about a peace process he was already involved in.

All points to Zelensky being not his own person. Indications are that he was told to stop and bail out of the peace talks. And if already married to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s peace treaty, pressure prevailed upon Zelensky to find ground for annulment to the delight of roaring hours of the arms manufacturing industry. Adding insult to injury is Zelensky’s failure to tell the Africa peace delegation led by Ramaphosa about this peace treaty.

He gushes conditions ‘for peace’ that supplement his sponsored position to renege from the peace treaty of April 2022 that Putin has recently exposed that Zelensky had signed for. Putin revealing the secret peace treaty entered with Ukraine, suggests that Russians are done with talking. The dicey conduct on the part of Zelensky leaves little room for trust and betrays prospects for peace to return to the negotiations table.

Strangely, none holds Zelensky’s feet to the fire to account for this. Neither are media notepads moved nor mikes turned on the UK, US and NATO to deny or confirm this peace treaty document that Putin waved to Africa peace delegation. Doing so would most probably shine a spotlight on the global North West’s desire for the continuation of war.

Peace, it seems, does not pay yet. The money-making war slot machine is still in business. The profits arising from the supply of arms, feeding the killing hostilities between Ukraine and Russia are too lucrative to stop the war.

Wars started with lies, and avoiding the truth to end them, will continue being endless death generating machines with no escape route until the end is hard and bitter to swallow in fatal capitulation.

In the face of failure to contradict Putin’s signed peace treaty claims, the fig leaf for Zelensky now is that the Africa peace initiative is incompetent to handle a conflict of this magnitude.

The subtext is too obvious to be missed. This is not Ukraine’s war. It is UK, US and NATO’s war and the International Criminal Court (ICC) has allowed itself to be embroiled in it. Failure of the conflicted embedded media to extricate itself from this chicanery does not surprise.

Amid all this, Russia believes this is its war to fight and China says as much until further notice. China further says if this war extends to become its own as well, God will not help its global North West  provocateurs.

Be it in peace or war, few countries have the liberty to exercise choice. There are countries to whom independent exercise of choice is not without a struggle. South Africa does not walk alone in this regard. She has had her fair share of bullying to fend off.

Even countries within NATO, like Germany and France, are waking up to the reality that being vassals of empire-building propensity the US is exhibiting, is not a pleasant space to be at.

No longer can it be assumed that the collective national interests of both Germany and France are forever best served by siding with Ukraine. Germany is feeling pangs of war coupled with the simmering dissent of citizens within its borders for continued involvement with Ukrainian war.

By membership of NATO, France and Germany stand obligated to supply arms, apply sanctions, flex trade embargo, put into effect diplomatic and cultural isolation of Russia, and increase fervent amplification of Ukraine’s side of the story to the total eclipse of Russia’s.

The Latin phrase audi alteram meaning “listen to the other side”, has been tossed out of the window. And so has the journalistic code gone with the wind as bias tilts the scales of balance with the foul stench of partiality.

The lofty wish to hear both sides of the story is a luxury no longer permissible by logic of US/UK/NATO block colloquially described as the global Northwest.

Hearing one side of the story has become the very scent of the gospel to be preached from the pulpits of Western capitals. Holding that evangelical line stands as the one and only truth to abide with.

There is no more value to strive for nothing less than the whole truth. The beginning and the end of the world’s view no longer enjoys the air to breathe life to media freedom to acknowledge and bolster its state of independence for trustworthiness to tell the whole truth. Editorial independence is suffocated in the coffin of partiality to render its credibility lifeless and to die there. Propaganda is burying journalism alive.

The catechism of ‘do as I say and not as I do’ is winning the day in the global Northwest. Not that the global Southeast is not capable of the same transgressions except that it has been canceled out of media stakes as exemplified in the removal of Russian Television from the DSTV spectrum with no whimper of protest from freedom of expression enthusiasts to afford the public the right to choose what to see and hear. DSTV has cemented its side in the warring messaging sphere. DSTV bothers less about the non-alignment of the country where it is domiciled.

The rationale for DSTV’s choice stems from the logic that bills America as the only tree allowed to grow and to cast distinct shade in the forest of human perspectives. Other perspectives can wait.

Any green shoots sprouting from the ground holding the promise to be independent trees in the forest of contending perspectives, with intent to grow outside the shadow of what America desires, risks being met with the scorching sun of war that withers any vegetation refusing to be leaves clinging to America as the one and only branch as a condition to stay alive. BRICS is such an unwelcomed and intolerable nagging tree in the forest of contending perspectives in these changing times.

For peace to be everlasting, all that lives in the universe is entreated to solely look up to the Stars and Stripes as the only flag to grace the sky and then bow to the scriptural text pitched in the form of questions and answers used to instruct all that walks under the sun to be converts, and to testify to the faith of what America solely dreams of.

While Brazil, India and China are BRICS member states, the guns are deliberately trained on South Africa never to cast a distinct stance outside America’s shadow.

By its own volition the media has placed itself in the global Northwest shoes to walk and echo the bias of its narrative war-talk. The imperial definition of non-alignment is doing what America desires. SA is inundated not to err on the side of its national interest.

Until when will America learn that the regreening of the path to enrich the atmosphere for the world to be at peace with itself does not solely depend on America being the only tree in the forest of humankind populating the planet earth? For the world to keep revolving around the sun, all lives, countries, and nations matter. Written by Oupa Ngwenya, a Corporate Strategist, Writer & Freelance Journalist

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