I just listened again to the interview given by the Holy Father on the plane to the journalists returning home from his visit to Budapest. According to the interpretation that was given on this morning’s news program, the Holy Father expressed his fervent desire for „the prompt return of the children abducted from Donbass to Ukraine.” I thoroughly read the text of the interview published in Spanish, and despite my extensive research, I could not find the original Hungarian sentence in Spanish neither in the Spanish-language news nor in the official statements issued by the Vatican regarding the Holy Father’s visit. Since the Hungarian interpretation or narration in the TV broadcast overshadowed the words of the Holy Father, I couldn’t determine from the few words I caught whether this statement is also expressed in Spanish. Why did I doubt? Because it would be astonishing if such an important figurehead like the head of the Catholic Church did not see the contradiction that the children living in families, along with their parents and caregivers in state care, were rescued from the expected hostilities not from Ukraine but from the newly independent republics. And where could they have taken them? To Ukraine, the country of oppressors? Well, this cannot be called abduction, even though the mainstream Western press referred to this rescue operation in this way. Moreover, even the U.S. government, which has brought charges against President Putin at the International Criminal Court, called it abduction and kidnapping as an accusation. However, if this happens at the government level, and the accuser is a country with at least 17 intelligence services, then we cannot speak of a mistake at all, but rather of malice, and even false accusations. However, ordinary people will not investigate the details, and unfortunately, they will perceive the announcements of the media world that are in the hands of accusatory individuals as the truth in their minds.
These are related to daily news assessments that I watch on YouTube due to a 9-hour time difference between the local time here and the airing time. The hosts have invited numerous experts, some of whom are good and some are bad. This is natural. However, I criticize all of them for one thing, namely, they do not begin with the most important analysis that would help the widest range of society understand the significance of the events. What we need is a common-sense evaluation that any person can understand, regardless of their political affiliation. This would be crucial for everyone to overcome despair.
The evaluation of the recently experienced Russian home poster campaign is a great example of this. I mean, the main supporter of the campaign, the United States Embassy in Budapest, with its clumsy mistakes, made itself ridiculous. We have already heard several evaluations of this on TV, but now I would like to present the muddy part of this and the related events.
The fact that an embassy of a major power puts up posters in Hungarian language in a country where there have been no Russian occupiers for over 30 years is one thing. Okay, they wrote two Russian words on the posters, one of them misspelled, which doesn’t change the situation much. But the fact that the campaigners carefully avoided the area around the Russian Embassy on Bajza Street raises serious doubts about the true purpose of the campaign since this is the place in Budapest where important Russian individuals and diplomats come and go every day. No, it’s not a mistake. One of my former classmates visited the entire block that includes the embassy on the second day of the campaign, and another one visited it on the third day. Moreover, one of them even spoke to the embassy’s security guards who confirmed that there was no poster or banner activity nearby.
How do we explain this?
There are two possible scenarios: the cowardice or complete incompetence of the American embassy. Okay, it wasn’t the diplomats who put up the giant posters, but since they printed on each poster that the embassy supports the campaign, wouldn’t anyone assume that they were aware of the placement of the campaign posters?
But that’s not all! What about the protest of those citizens against the Russian „occupation” and the demand for withdrawal, who have their permanent residence where the Russian troops are? If I am fine with my wife, why would an acquaintance who lives seven villages away urge me to divorce my wife? There can only be one explanation for this: they want to take my wife for themselves.
However, Russian troops are not on Ukrainian territory but on the territory of the Russian Federation. Following the referendum held for the 2.5 million inhabitants of Crimea, the 1.4 million inhabitants of the Luhansk People’s Republic, and the 2.2 million inhabitants of the Donetsk People’s Republic, a total of 6 million residents, Russia responded to their request and reintegrated these territories into the motherland, the Russian Federation.
Prior to their reintegration, these three republics, which had declared their independence voluntarily, were recognized by three other countries. Therefore, they fulfilled the requirements for independent statehood as accepted in the international conference held in Montevideo in 1933, under the topic „The Responsibility and Duty of States.” These requirements are as follows:
- They have a territory.
- They have a population.
- They have a government.
- They are recognized by another independent country.
And they fulfilled all of these. After World War II, starting in 1945, approximately 80 countries were established or gained independence, and the same rules applied to all of them. The world, accordingly, accepted the changes on the map and welcomed the newly formed states.
Oh, but now Ukraine and the United States don’t recognize these new republics in Donbass and Crimea? Who cares? Show me a single law or international agreement that obligates how many and which states should recognize newly independent states. Such a requirement doesn’t exist; it’s nonexistent. Do you think the recognition of those 80 countries I mentioned earlier went smoothly? Not at all. I would very much like to see a brave journalist who, during a press conference, asks the representative of Western powers who refuse to recognize the Donbass and Crimean republics what conditions they require for recognizing these newly independent states.
Did it not occur to you that no one has asked the American president why they do not recognize the Republic of Crimea, the Donetsk People’s Republic, and the Luhansk People’s Republic when they meet the criteria established during the Montevideo conference in 1933?
Of course, nobody asked because almost everyone accepted that if the United States decided this way, then it automatically must be right. Oh, what a mistake! Do you know how many international treaties the representatives of the United States signed just to show the world how humanitarian and progressive their foreign policy is? Most of these were either not ratified by their government or had their signatures withdrawn. [Source: List of treaties unsigned or unratified by the United States on Wikipedia] This lack of questioning contributes to the deepening quagmire.
Let me bring up a case that happened about 40 years ago. I was interpreting for foreign adoptive parents at the Zalacsány Council in the office of the guardianship officer, and they asked for my interpreter certificate. Alright, fair enough, and I showed the officer my interpreter certificate in Hungarian and English issued in Princeton, in accordance with the administrative order of the United Nations. To my greatest surprise, the officer informed me that it couldn’t be accepted because only the interpreter certificate issued by the Zala County Council is valid. Despite my explanation that my certificate was accepted at the United Nations headquarters in New York, the officer, to the astonishment of the foreign adoptive parents, told us that he doesn’t recognize the United Nations. Luckily, we had a Hungarian lawyer with us who had a great sense of diplomacy and confirmed the officer’s position of not recognizing the United Nations but stated that due to a certain legal loophole, the presented certificate could still be accepted.
Now, returning to the newly recognized republics, they had the right to enter into a defense agreement with the Russian Federation, hold a referendum, and request reunification with Russia based on its results. And it happened. Naturally, the government of the United States, which has long been playing the role of the Master of the World on the global stage, announced that it doesn’t recognize the three new republics or their reunification with Russia. So what? Who cares? No one can bring up any law or treaty that provides a legal basis for them to do so. It’s just as significant as when the butcher of the shop in Szentes declares that he doesn’t recognize Germany.
Yet, there is something that drags Western societies deeper into the quagmire in relation to the non-recognition of the reunification, and that is media manipulation, developed by Adolf Hitler’s propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, to mislead the masses. He did a thorough job, indeed. Naturally, the father of American propaganda, Edward Bernays, born in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, popularized this method in the United States and further shaped the worldview of Americans by manipulating their consciousness. The essence of this mass psychological propaganda trick is that if you repeat a lie often enough and in enough places, superficially thinking people – unfortunately, including the majority of society – will perceive it as the truth. This is what’s happening now. The mainstream media in the United States tirelessly echoes this non-recognition stance, and the social impact is not insignificant – most Americans believe it.
Well, based on the facts, the Russian Federation’s troops did not invade Ukraine but rather their own territories, from where the organizers of the poorly executed billboard campaign by the Ukrainian people and the US Embassy in Budapest want to expel them. Despite the campaign’s shortcomings, due to the aforementioned sociopsychological reasons, there are still some who fail to notice its flaws. Among these flaws, the most glaring one, accompanied by a major oversight, is that those who are oppressed by the Russians should be demanding the withdrawal of Russian troops. But where are they? The Russian troops are protecting those who are on Russian territory and who wanted to free themselves from Ukrainian rule, especially its discriminatory policies, and they themselves chose to be part of Russia. So, whom are the Russian troops protecting these freedom-loving brave people from now? From the Ukrainian government’s policies. This government wants to reinstate the discrimination and visibly punish these 6 million people for declaring their independence. These are the Ukrainians who are being provided with a massive amount of deadly weapons and an incredible amount of money by the country funding the billboard campaign, in order to assist the servile Ukrainian state in restoring its rule based on the discrimination of minorities. Isn’t it enough that we question the sincerity of those funding the war, who have already forgotten to emphasize the most important thing, the need for an immediate ceasefire?
The mainstream Western media talks about Russian oppression. Oppression? Give me a break! If anyone is fed up with the presence of the Russians in these newly reclaimed territories, they can easily go to Ukrainian territory, where Zelensky’s men would probably welcome, fawn over them, and gladly use them in their anti-Russian propaganda.
But let’s take a look at the most outspoken country, the United States. There are plenty of examples there of an occupied people demanding the departure of foreign armed forces even after decades, and even after more than a century of illegal occupation. Take Hawaii, for example, which has been unlawfully occupied by the United States since January 17, 1893. Every year, large demonstrations and protests take place – I myself have participated many times – with my fellow Hawaiians. In these protests, our thousands-strong crowd would sing Hawaii’s movement songs demanding the departure of the occupiers at the top of our lungs, drowning out all other noise, on the main streets of cities, even in front of the FBI headquarters in Honolulu. Protest signs, posters, banners were scattered throughout the islands. The occupiers confiscated and arrested the organizers of these protests (including myself), fined them, but it only strengthened the unity of the protesters.
On the other side of the world, in Okinawa, there have also been and still are major protests against the American occupiers. The most important thing here is that the protests originate from the occupied country and the occupied people. But in Hungary, Canada, or Mexico, the US embassies do not organize billboard campaigns to end the foreign occupation of Hawaii and Okinawa. Well, of course, because then they would be protesting against themselves, as they are the occupiers!
Let’s return to the quagmire, not to sink deeper, but to dry it up. How can the average person accomplish this? Slowly, persistently, through hard work. And with many questions. The first step is to doubtfully accept the mainstream media news and read or listen to opposing news as well, then think through the events from the perspective of both sides with sober common sense. There will certainly be surprises! The second step is to encourage others to do the same. And the third step is to inform our children, according to their age-appropriate intellectual level, about what is happening in the world and share our own evaluation with them. This is important because what is happening now will likely be the responsibility of our children once they leave the nest, and perhaps only they can permanently dry up the quagmire. However, this is only possible with knowledge.
Is this a difficult task? Absolutely! However we look at it, this is the only way we can hope to save future generations and avoid or dry up the engulfing quagmire.
Written by Keoniokamoku on May 16, 2023.
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