If you look at the development of pacifism - where and how it emerged - it is primarily imperial countries, countries that acted as aggressors in wars, and countries that intervened in various conflicts. That is, pacifism in America against the Vietnam War, pacifism in Germany after the Second World War, etc. is perfectly understandable.
That is, the basic content of pacifism is to stop your country from attacking another country, or at least, when your country is at war, to refrain from taking part in this war and protest against it.
We are usually talking about large First World countries, with military might, and it is quite morally justified to be pacifistic - the idea that war should not be a solution to problems or conflicts, and should be resisted.
All attempts now to impose pacifism on Ukrainians look like colonialism, moreover they are morally questionable. It is one thing to promote pacifism in aggressor countries or countries whose existence is not threatened. It is another thing when it comes to the victims of aggression. Demanding pacifism from those for whom non-resistance to violence will result in violence defeating them is morally questionable. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, based on fascist Z-ideology, is a war of annihilation. And Ukrainians are not at war with Russia, they are applying the right of self-defence.
Pacifism is a beautiful idea, one cannot help but dream of winning, there is no such thing as a holy war, no such thing as a just war. But you cannot engage in moral undermining of the right to self-defence when your life is threatened. And all the more so when the lives of defenceless citizens and children are threatened, when bombs are dropped on cities, when genocide is committed, as in Bucha.
There are limits to necessary self-defence and these limits are contained, for example, in the Geneva Convention. Necessary self-defence does not mean uncontrolled retaliatory violence: hence the human treatment of prisoners, avoiding the use of a whole range of different weapons that could harm civilians and so on.
Similarly, state violence, if certain conditions are met, is not a violation of human rights, but an assertion of human rights, but there are limits to that violence.
First World pacifists are now torn by contradictions - how to respond to Russian aggression against the Ukrainian people. But these contradictions are imaginary. If we translate them into the triad of “victim, aggressor and witness”, the situation becomes simple enough to analyse. The victims needs to be helped to defend themselves against the aggressor.
Natalie Vasilyevich
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