People Will Joke About War As A Form Of Resistance
- John-Michael (Jean-Michel) Valat De Cordova
- 4 hours ago
- 3 min read
By António Silveira, CEO of The Radical Times
(LISBON,PORTUGAL) – I happened to study in a place that harbored students from a lot of countries in the world, in there I had a unique experience where my close friend group was uniquely composed with controversial combo, specifically a person of Russian descent and a person of Ukrainian descent. They had family that was directly affected by the Russo-Ukrainian War, and their life, although not fully uprooted, was still impacted by the war. They were not in the crossfires of war, but still the war happened to reach them, through other more subtle means.
Someone being Russian in a country which actively seems to be anti-Russia presented some societal abstractions, often they rarely referred to their Russian background, and chose to identify themselves through other ways. The identity of being Russian often led to people conflating the government with the people, even if they shared nothing in these beliefs.
This is obviously to not absolve the Russian government, but to acknowledge that when there are geopolitical enemies at play, we often forget that these are also just normal people. The same happened to the Ukrainian friend, in fact they seemed to be defined only by the conflict to any person who talked to them for the first time. A constant victimization of their experience seemed to persecute them. It's as if they couldn't exist without the conflict being attached to their national identity.
Because of the media, because of societal perception, this connection to the conflict was now directly attached to these two individuals. Two individuals who are not in the countries nor were they even paying taxes to these countries, but nonetheless will be perceived with a negative light just because of their background.
In the friend group I was somewhat disconnected from a lot of these things. I didn't share the Eastern European background so I happened to miss a lot of the cultural context, but it was overall pleasant, and being able to understand new cultural concepts is always enriching. Until one day, where we happened to have a normal conversation about the European Union, which later descended into a discussion about the Ukrainian War.
Frankly, I was honestly scared for what the possible interaction between the two would be. I knew them both, and I knew they weren't deeply nationalistic, but I also knew they had family directly affected by the conflict, so a part of me grew scared of the conversation. Minutes later, they were both laughing about the stupidities of the conflict.
To me, someone disconnected from it all, it was simply baffling that war would be a topic of chagrin to people that were directly connected to it. But that's because I looked at it with an exceedingly cautious outlook, and unable to understand that to them this was simply the new normal.
My friend group isn't the only place where such a thing happens, many Arabs will joke about the Americans and Israelis bombing them, many Palestinians would joke about being forced to move to a different country because their own is destroyed, and none of it in a mocking nature. This happens because to many it simply has become the new normal.
Destruction and war often can't be avoided, so acting in constant melancholy about it is simply not a healthy option, the people in these countries acknowledge that. Expecting the people that live in bad situations to be in a state of constant sorrow and gloom is unrealistic, and us, the people who are generally unaffected by it, should stop lecturing them about it.
