Ukraine and the shadow of Syria
Casting a grim shadow over Ukraine is a playbook used by Vladimir Putin in Syria: targeted killing of civilians, mass destruction of cities, igniting a refugee crisis, appearing at the peace table as a stalling tactic. Unlike Ukraine, the world’s voice was largely silent in responding to Syria’s devastation, where half the population of 25 million has been displaced, Russia allegedly supported chemical weapon attacks and the war is in its twelfth year. “The Russians are willing to devour the green and the dry,” a Syrian activist told the New York Times, using an Arabic idiom meaning to destroy everything. “They don’t care about the international community or anything else. We saw that in Syria. Burning schools is not new to us. It’s land they want to take, and they will take it.”
(Recommended reading from our April 2022 Global Briefing)
Sanctions: Non-violent tool or lethal weapon?
Unprecedented sanctions have been taken against Russia — what stance should the church take? Can sanctions be non-violent? Three pioneers of nonviolence used boycotts and sanctions as critical tactics of resistance. Mahatma Gandhi organized mass boycotts of British goods and institutions in seeking independence for India. Archbishop Desmond Tutu supported harsh sanctions against the South Africa apartheid regime, and some believe they played a critical role in bringing change. Led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, played a pivotal role in the U.S. civil rights movement. Yet in the more recent case of Syria, according to analysis by MCC and UN experts, U.S. and European Union sanctions have had widespread, devastating effects on vulnerable people. Asking whether sanctions are a non-violent tool or a lethal weapon, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns offers an excellent two-page reflection including moral guidelines and the varying effects of sanctions in Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, North Korea and South Africa.
(Recommended reading from our April 2022 Global Briefing)
Ukraine and the call for UN reform
In a live-streamed April 5 message, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for the UN to close down if it cannot act against Russia’s invasion against Ukraine. “Do you think that the time of international law is gone?” he said. “If your answer is no, then you need to act immediately.” Two hundred former senior UN officials wrote an open letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres, warning that the UN risks irrelevance if he doesn’t do far more to mediate a peace. Pope Francis has added his voice of UN criticism as well. CNN’s Ashely Semler offers concise analysis of why the UN is paralyzed, and two former UN officials from Turkey and Colombia offer a compelling proposal to make the UN more effective by reforming the veto power which Russia used to block action. "This is the single biggest crisis to hit the UN since the end of the Cold War," says Richard Gowan, the UN director for the International Crisis Group. "It is possible that this does mark the beginning of a sort of fundamental rupture amongst the great powers that will make UN diplomacy see vastly harder days going forward."
(Recommended reading from our April 2022 Global Briefing)
Russian priests who speak boldly against the war
The head of the Russian Orthodox Church is widely seen as a Putin ally and having endorsed the war and laid the spiritual groundwork to justify it, and the New York Times tells how Orthodox Christians are dividing in Russia and across the world. But around 300 Russian Orthodox priests signed a letter opposing the “fratricidal war” and warning God’s judgment awaits those “who give murderous orders.” One Russian priest signatory, Father Ioann Burdin, was arrested and prosecuted for preaching an anti-war sermon. “I don’t consider it possible to remain silent on this situation,” he said. “It wasn’t about politics. It was about the Bible.… If I remain silent, I’m not a priest.” In the statement, BBC’s Russian service reports that the priests say that “We, Christians, cannot stand idly by when a brother kills brother, a Christian kills a Christian. Let’s not repeat the crimes of those who hailed Hitler’s deeds on Sept. 1, 1939.” – a reference to the German invasion of Poland after a speech by the Nazi leader.
A woman receives needed supplies on March 15 when MCC partner Charitable Foundation Uman Help Center (UMAN) distributed MCC relief buckets, hygiene kits and blankets in Uman city, at a Baptist church, along with other humanitarian supplies.
(MCC Photo, Photo courtesy of UMAN)
(Recommended reading from our April 2022 Global Briefing)
