War, Complexity, and One-dimensional Thinking: Thinking is Acting

Both democracy (nowadays known as “global democracy”) and war are examples of complexity. Simplification and closing-off (isolation) will never accomplish anything when dealing with either of these kinds of complexity. We have taken for granted that aggression, invasion and war are by definition immoral and illegal and that it is always necessary to distinguish between the “attackers” and the “attacked”, between the “oppressors” and the “oppressed”; war itself, in all of its unspeakable trauma, requires, no matter what the circumstances, a systemic approach to complexity, an analysis or explanation from a systemic perspective. Keeping in mind that there are currently a considerable number of conflicts in the world, ignored by the global media system and therefore completely forgotten, this latest war runs the tangible risk of escalating globally, with extremely heavy costs in human suffering and loss of lives, costs that will be “paid”, of course, by the civil populations, by the people of the world. The strategy of sanctioning, and even more so, of fostering hostilities towards Russian culture, systematically closing off all that comes from Russia or can be traced back to that country, risks further exacerbating the distances, reinforcing those “logics of separation” which render—and in the future, will continue to render even more impractical, not to say impossible, the (complex) path towards post-conflict reconstruction. Creating and fueling further divisions, in this moment, towards a people and a culture with—moreover—extraordinary qualities will end up radicalizing, even more deeply, dynamics that are already bellicose and highly destructive. The pathways of separation and isolation, in other words, run an all-too-real risk of permanently closing everyone off, including those who are struggling—using a range of effective instruments (not only in terms of “soft power”)—who are fighting an arduous and complex battle to construct modern democracies, to build societies that are truly open and inclusive. If we cut them off, the sole victims will be the populations, the people, the most vulnerable subjects. It has always been so. One “certitude” can indeed be taken to be certain: we must get ourselves back onto the path of diplomacy (by everyone, for everyone) and politics. These events, so dramatic for the history of humanity, have once again shown us how weak statesmanship is today, and how politics has by now become the “handmaiden” of economic powers. The very concept of an “international community” has laid bare its own incapacity to describe the current multi-polar global context. Let us start over, starting with politics, with diplomacy, “real” on-the-field diplomacy, continuous and systemic: less “theater” and more “backstage”; now is not the time for “simulated diplomacy” and/or media storytelling, which unfailingly leads us in the opposite direction from our expected and desired objectives. Let us start over, beginning with politics and diplomacy, and also with the value of culture and education in mind, for the future: Ukraine’s future, Russia’s future, humanity’s future, the future of our entire planet. Violence has never brought anything other than more violence, more division, more incurable fractures”