MIAMI, United States. — Volodímir Zelensky has gone round the NATO parliaments. One of the first virtual visits was, of course, to the “American friend”. He used a video and talked about Pearl Harbor, that vile surprise attack on an American naval base. Every person in the United States knows that the “day of infamy” was when Japan attempted to destroy the American fleet anchored in Hawaii without a declaration of war. In Ukraine, the targets have been civilians. The aggressors have been much worse: more treacherous and cunning. They chose to destroy the spirit of resistance of the Ukrainians. Fortunately, they have not succeeded. Vladimir Putin has achieved the opposite: to reaffirm Ukraine’s nationalism.
In the UK he referred to Winston Churchill’s stirring 1940 speech to the British Parliament about never giving in to the Nazis (or anyone else). In France it went back to the revolution of 1789, when the French subscribed to the three-headed motto: liberty, equality and fraternity. At the Vatican, he asked the Pope to pray for the Ukrainian people and intercede with Putin to stop the aggression. Naturally, he invited him to visit his country as soon as possible. In Italy he reiterated his request for more financial sanctions and more weapons. Zelensky’s argument is irrefutable: Ukraine is the test bed. If the free Europeans are not able to stop the aggression, Russia will continue to conquer countries.
In Spain he had the first setback, albeit a small one. Until arriving at the Spanish Parliament, he had observed the first rule of “good asking”: always ask for something that they can give you and use obvious supporting arguments. He did not take into account that President Pedro Sánchez had used Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to separate himself, in fact, from the evil influence of “Unidas Podemos”, on a very sensitive issue, especially for those who earn money. RT (Russian state television), as alleged by Pablo Iglesias, who was, until not long ago, vice president of the coalition government.
Zelensky began by establishing a spiritual link, without mentioning it, between Franco’s camp and the aggressors. The city of Guernika, a town of 5,000 inhabitants in the Basque Country, was attacked and devastated by German aviation in 1937, then Franco’s allies during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) together with the volunteer troops of the Italian army and the “Moorish guard”, recruited in Morocco, who had moved with Franco in 1936. Obviously, the president of Ukraine did not know what garden he had gotten himself into.
The first to protest were those of Vox, led by Santiago Abascal. They saw an opportunity to act, not to respectfully remain silent. According to them, it was a better example to mention the detainees in the “Paracuellos del Jarama” prison, when, in November 1936, four months into the Civil War, several thousand men were shot by the communists and socialists in the power. Santiago Carrillo and Segundo Serrano Poncela, a fine essayist, are blamed for what happened in those weeks. Carrillo defended himself by saying that he never ordered anyone to be shot.
Unfortunately for Zelensky, the image that remains of that Civil War was painted by Picasso and is called, precisely, Guernika, the most famous painting by the most famous painter of the 20th century. It was supposed to feature prominently in the Spanish pavilion (it was painted to order). It is a cubist painting in black, white and shades of grey, which reveals its author’s attitude against all wars. Its size is heroic (3.50 m high by 7.80 m long). Pablo Picasso said: “No, painting is not made to decorate rooms. It is an offensive and defensive instrument of war against the enemy.”
The president of Ukraine is the best face of his compatriots. Such a assets. Especially when compared to his greatest rival, the almighty Mr. Vladimir Putin, an essentially unpleasant person, a bully, a thug, even disgusting, if we take into account the latest news of the behavior of the Russian army. What he has done in Ukraine is not a “genius” —as Donald Trump declared—, but a vulgar state crime that places him on the threshold of the International Criminal Court, as Joe Biden described it.
A young mother was raped in front of her four children. She had a gun pointed at his head. The message was very clear: you are a “thing”, a piece of garbage. Today we use you to deposit our semen; tomorrow we can kill you. The lady does nothing but cry. During World War II more than two million German women were raped by the Army of the Soviet Union (USSR). Cases between the ages of six and 75 are documented. The six-year-old girl died of venereal disease. Fortunately, a great British historian, Antony Beevor, published in 2005, Berlin, the fall: 1945. The soldiers were encouraged by the poems of Yevgeny Yevtushenko and by the total impunity. “Kill soldier, kill, and show the haughty German women where the power is.” It was not for nothing that the Germans preferred to surrender to the British and the Americans.
OPINION ARTICLE
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