Angus Roxburgh recently wrote an honest and insightful piece for The Guardian about how Western nations can bring about a quicker end to the conflict in Eastern Europe. Mr Roxburgh recommends that all interests of each stakeholder be taken into account in order to reach a resolution. In the article he states the following:
“To get Putin to the negotiating table at all, everything would have to be up for discussion – including Ukraine’s borders, Russia’s age-old security concerns, perhaps even the very logic of basing today’s international frontiers in that part of Europe on what were internal borders in the USSR, drawn up by communist leaders precisely to prevent Soviet republics and regions from being viable independent states. The outcome of the talks does not need to be predetermined. The important thing is to talk rather than fight.”
I agree with his assessment. Americans in general and Black Americans in particular have begun and ended their analysis of the conflict with the mantra of Russia’s “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine. In the world of geopolitics, I doubt there is such a thing as “unprovoked.” Most Americans, for example, fail to incorporate into their conclusion that the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was unprovoked when history demonstrates that United States’ aggression in the Pacific, particularly the restriction of access by Japan to oil supplies, was enough to rile up the Japanese to embark on a plan to push the United States out of the Pacific. Japan’s attack was not unprovoked. It was a responsive measure.
A similar argument can be made by Russia. For decades they have been apprehensive about the West, particularly the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s encroachment on then Union of Soviet Socialist Republics now Russia’s borders. The fall of the USSR and NATO’s influence on Eastern Europe has been enough to give Vladimir Putin a few nightmares. I could make the argument that Mr Putin’s 2022 invasion was also a preemptive strike much like Japan’s preventive strike in 1945.
To make this kind of analysis requires stepping outside of the flashing disco ball and looking at all sides of the issue, especially if the issue has some sort of ramifications economically. Stepping outside of the issue in order to account for as many factors as possible aids in strategic positioning. For the black community, applying this rule puts it in a position to garner more tangibles from trading in the political markets.
For example, black political leadership has fallen in lock step with the media and political narrative that the Ukrainians are Luke Skywalker and Russia is represented by the evil Darth Vader. Black leadership never took on the burden of educating the black community on the factors and environment that turned Anakin Skywalker into Darth Vader. The overnight conversion of a group of Americans, who on 23 February 2022, couldn’t find Ukraine on a map, into flag waving Ukraine supporters on 24 February 2022 is near stunning.
Black leadership apparently did what it did best: exchanged aggregated black support for a few political campaign finance crumbs from the leadership of the Democratic and Republican parties.
True black political leadership would have leveraged black community political and demographic clout on a peace campaign. Imagine black elected leadership getting 20 million blacks to write their representatives and the leadership of NATO expressing their displeasure with military action; recommending and urging a peace settlement; threatening their own domestic and foreign economic embargo as a response to unfair treatment of blacks in Ukraine; and not participating in the 2022 or 2024 U.S. elections if their demands were not met?
This kind of leadership could have cemented American blacks not only as a domestic political force but as a player on the world stage.
This kind of leadership calls for vision. Unfortunately, the black community’s current leadership does not have this kind of vision…
Alton Drew
3 May 2022
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Alton Drew 