Us in History: Crazy Thoughts Written Under the Russo-Ukrainian War

Since Russia launched the invasion of Ukraine, the news media and social media have been filled with all-round attention to the war, and overnight it seems that everyone has become a war expert, a military expert, an expert on Russia, an expert on Putin. ..Saw a post from a doctor saying that Putin not only started a war, but also ended Covid, because almost no one cares about the epidemic now. Ontario will lift the final mask restriction next week, completely Covid is regarded as the norm (in fact, it has coexisted for a long time), but at the same time, we also see that Hong Kong has a serious outbreak, and mainland China seems to have started the first large-scale outbreak of Omicron. Not really normalizing. Everything that has happened since 2019 seems to keep telling us that worse is yet to come, and that the good days of those days were unreal.

I don't understand the military, I don't understand war, and I don't understand the deep analysis of the political and economic "big picture", but I can feel angry and sad when I see the most real horrors on the front lines. The special thing about this war is that The fact is that it happened in an era when social media was very developed, and Europe has always been one of the centers of the world, plus Russia is a military superpower, so it has attracted everyone's attention, and everyone is going in their own way. Discuss to participate. Until today, of course, no one can predict the final outcome or the impact on the world, but there are many things that everyone did not expect, such as Russia's performance that is completely unworthy of the so-called world's second military power, Such as the courage and determination that Ukraine has shown from top to bottom, and the solidarity of the Western camp that has not been seen in a long time. While there are many optimistic estimates of the situation, even the best results are based on the loss of countless lives and homes. Destroyed, so I have no way of understanding or agreeing with any theory that defends the initiator of the war, I only feel that the dictator who can sacrifice everything for his great dream should accept the most vicious curse.

There are many people who feel that they and their relatives and friends who receive different information are living in a parallel world. The information received is different, not only the cognition and feeling of the world will be different, but the values and even the basic judgment of right and wrong may be different. Today Listening to a podcast interview with a Ukrainian, he said that after the war started, he called his father in Russia. He only said two sentences and was interrupted by his father. The father said that what he said was completely wrong, and Russia was using a special military operation to liberate And the helper of the Ukrainian, he tried several times to tell his father what he saw in Ukraine, but the father couldn't listen at all, and finally he could only say "OK, then good luck" to end the conversation. This is actually a very It is a sad scene, and in the past few years, similar situations have been staged in many places. The most real feeling of us as overseas Chinese is probably that we find that we are increasingly unable to communicate with many domestic relatives and friends. I now agree not to try To persuade others to accept your ideas, because everyone's environment and position are different, and everyone should not be required to have the same ideas. But on the other hand, there are many places involving basic beliefs and cognitions that cannot be communicated, and all dialogues can only be limited Regarding the superficial greetings of life, doesn't this really affect the feelings? A lyric in Henry Zhang's "Pretty Lang Jun" is well written "There are some values in the world that are bigger than love and hate. To fill this deep gap, love is not enough" .

The Chinese call those who don't care about current affairs and only focus on living a good life for themselves as "the time is quiet". In fact, this is not wrong. It's just that when the current situation is uncertain, no one can be alone and not be affected. For example, as An ordinary Canadian, although the battlefield in Europe may seem far away from us, and there will not be an immediate influx of refugees, soaring oil prices and the accompanying more serious inflation will indeed affect everyone's life. . As western companies join in to sanction Russia, our company has also decided to suspend all services in Russia, and I have one more job this week, which is to find out all the contracts signed with Russian partners, and then discuss with the legal director Various matters related to the termination of the contract. This is of course also a commercial loss for the company, but whether it is due to uncertainty about the future situation or humanitarian considerations, this is a decision that must be made. The company's regular meeting on Monday is almost all in Discussing what we can do to help support Ukraine, and a colleague from Ukraine talked about his family there. One of the colleague's speech touched me very much. He said he hoped we could do something to make the people there The child "still remain a child". I made a donation through Canada's Red Cross before, and I will donate a little more with the company's donate matching. There is very little I can do, I just hope I can do my best.

This week I am reading Linda's "History Is All Around Us", which is an essay about historical records, which mentions the Nazi Holocaust, and also writes about China's Cultural Revolution. Many historical disasters, if you only read those grand narratives Analysis, looking at those simple statistics, in fact, there is no special feeling, but when you put all the encounters and experiences of each fresh life in that big context in front of you, based on human nature, very few people Able to remain indifferent. The story here is not only of the victims, but also of the perpetrators, either voluntarily or unconsciously, in the larger context. "When a tyranny is so well established, it controls every fiber that knits the whole of society" , in this war as well. Ukrainian civilians and fighters are the victims, and Russian soldiers who are sent to the front without even knowing their purpose, or whose lives are suddenly changed under economic sanctions but for various reasons The Russian people who continue to support the government for the same reason, are they not victims? "One individual after another is involved in a colossal human catastrophe, a cataclysm made up of one individual act after another." When As we indulge in grand narratives, grand visions, let's not forget that each of us is part of this history, and a speck of history that falls on an individual's head can be a mountain. No one knows that The outcome of a war or the future direction of the world, but I wish to remind myself that the tiny individuals that make up history are equally worthy of attention, and it must be a lie when anyone preaches that individuals must be sacrificed in order to achieve some great historical goal.