The War: Arestovich, Ukraine and Poland
The War: Arestowycz, Ukraine and Poland
Leszek Sokulski sounds the alarm at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxPDn5Ks7OA&t=275s
With the title Let's not go to this war!
On the other hand Jacek Bartosiak https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1_NgTNoToc&t=608s
tells us that political/military policy pushes us into an alliance with Ukraine, because: if US does not gives Poland independent guarantees, and if US will force Ukraine to negotiations, that will push us to the bilateral alignment with Ukraine, what of course will mean we are entering the war. Bartosiak thinks we might not have another choice.
In addition, Budzisz promotes his latest book entitled Strategic Solitude of Poland in the broadcastwith the subtitle How to Think about National Goals? Does NATO protect us?He is pointing to the fact that so-called architecture of security quaranteed for 70 years first by both NATO and Warsaw Pact, later solely by NATO has been broken, and that means that Poland alone has to find ways to stand on its own feet.
And all this is happening in the context of the famous rocket that landed in Przewodowo, and the last extremely interesting news about this grenade launcher given to the Polish police chief during his working visit to Ukraine by the Ukrainian Services, which exploded in his office in Warsaw.
How to understand all this together? I agree with Sokulski: it looks, from different independent sources some of which are presented here, that Poland is being drawn into this war both by peaceful means, such as Arestowycz's statements or the his interview with Bartosiak, and through the threat of attacks similar to the recent rocket and grenade-launcher incidents.I think that looking at and seriously considering Arestowych proposals together with his vision for Ukraine will give us a frame of reference with the help of which we will be able not only to understand this mess a bit, but even, starting from the same general assumptions of Aretowycz's philosophy, propose an independent vision of the future for Poland that may be in line with his vision for Ukraine. Because it's about interplay, not about hierarchical who is on the top. As source materials, we will take two Youtube presentations with Arestowycz here:
This (1) first one is the quite famous by now conversation of Latynina with Arestovich focused specifically on Poland where Aleksy presents the full spectrum of views and attitudes to Poland. His responses, as well as Latynina's categorical assertion that the past should be solely in scientific drawers and I guess, in museums got apparently some people upset. The issue concerns Wołyń, which Arestowych touched a bit in the previous our report in a way acknowledging the generosity of the Polish nation which forgot the tragic past while being the most helpful in Ukraine survival. The (2) second source is presentation of Arestowych by a narrated voice found on Internet, which in comparison with other sources there, gives quite good view on him.
It's called Vision of the Country: Fifth Project for Ukraine.
And the third source for the discussion will be rich material from the interview of Arestowich by Bartosiak; in fact from its second part, which we didn't discuss yet previously. It is in that part where Arestowycz on one hand expresses his gratitude to Poland and Polish nation (18:18) but also very strongly sketches elements of his vision for East Europe. He starts suggesting the necessity of Ukraine/Polish agreement, exactly that one we may be simply forced into by the situation. Moreover, the bilaterial military agreement with Ukrainw will be the best solution for both of our nations as compared with getting into East European rivalry about the leadership with Poland, what he explicitly warns us about. This becomes the beginning of the vision of the union between Ukraine, Poland, Baltics and Bielorus. Here comes the famous "from a sea to the sea." One of the very convincing arguments rests in that no one in the West understands the peculiarity of East Europe situation, therefore we have to be responsible ourselves for the state of affairs rather than to relie on global security agreements. Yes, no one knows better how to act than yourself and until one doesn't know how to stand on its own two feet, until then one is not an adult yet. Unfortunately the opinion of folks in the West about us Poles is precisely that "we always wait for someone else to do our job for us." That means we have never yet been consciously standing firmly on our own two feet. And that is the major problem. This is part of the answer to Bartosiak's "Kim Jesteśmy" I think Budzisz deserves the title of the honorary Adult of PR 3 for pointing our attention to that necessity.
Ale to nie wszystko. To understand deeply Arestowicz vision let's look into
the second video where his Fifth Project for Ukraine is described; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT_ojP-RJCk&t=782s
Around (12:40) a very interesting idea is coming. He says that "such a war is not worthwhile for anything less than a real vision of the future. The vision which has a transcendental character. The requirement of transcendental nature of the vision is necessary for people motivation. We can, we need to fight for something bigger than ourselves. And that is the transcendental nature of the vision."
I fully agree with these two assumptions of the necessity of the transcendental vision.
The question is what is really the vision that is bigger than ourselves and that fits in our contemporary situation. That is the question.
There is only one transcendental vision that foots our war situation at present, only one: Isajah 2.4
"...and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spares into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither they shall learn war anymore."
The end of all wars. How to do it?
Yes, there is a chance at present if we view the US/Nato-Ukraine-Russia conflict as the first step in the direction of the vision, that is w make our initial steps of negotiations in the direction of Isajas 2.4.
And here, Arestowycz, we start. Instead of the Ukrainian goal of defeating Russians on the battle we need a small shift of goals from defeating to putting them into chess mat position leaving the door open to only one possibility to agree to: NATO - out of Europe, Russian Army - behind Ural.
While the transcendental pros and cons of that goal we will discuss, Arestowych, later, here and now let's talk briefly about the gestalt of the idea from our Ukrainian, Polish, East European point of view. Maybe also separately, from the Polish point of view. Because you see, as you know our histories, the histories of both our nations had separated itself in the late 17 century, and you quite correctly observed, both of us lost. Interesting, isn't it? What is equally interesting is the difference in the pathways and times that it took our nations to bounce back into the independent existence, Because of that historical differences our natural pathways bring forth different messages to the world, two different visions. Whereas your Ukrainian vision, as I see it, is to teach Russians a lesson they won't forget, our Polish vision is to create the peace of bridge between East and West. First, you can see easily, I am sure that these two visions are not contradictory and both of them are present in the proposed scenario of negotiations. From this of course comes the answer to Ukrainian/Polish alliance. As long as both our visions are being realized simultaneously, I see no problem. It could be interesting.
Let's top this discussion with the discussion of pros and cons of the idea. On the positive side, we are creating here for the first time in history a whole European continent as the zone of peace, an Experimental Continent of Peace. It gives, it forces the possibility of learning how to live in peace with each other both on the national level as well as on individual level. That will require us to lower the intensity of internal disagreements so that agreements could be constructed.
On the negative side, it will increase the intensity of war in the Far East, because it will be natural for Russia and China confront US in the far east. One may hope that simultaneous existence of the Experimental Continent of Peace with the war in Far East will introduce a moderating effect upon that war leading to joining the world peace.