Putin and turning the other cheek

This article was written for The European Sting by one of our passionate readers, Mr Tomasso Merlo. The opinions expressed within reflect only the writer’s views and not necessarily The European Sting’s position on the issue.

Ukraine had to open its doors to Putin, had to let him get to Kiev and at that point launch a firm and peaceful mass democratic opposition. Making him appear ridiculous in front of the world and politically outdated and thus forcing him to return to Moscow with his head down.

Against an entire people, Putin would have quickly capitulated also given the absurdity of his invasion. And with a peaceful and democratic reaction, the Russian people would understand the truth and help. And instead Ukraine is a heap of rubble and corpses and the West seems to have plunged back into the last century as if it had learned nothing. \The reasons for this warmongering drift are not political. Politics is only a consequence of what the human being has within himself.

Politics is one of the manifestations of the selfish drift that dominates humanity. Today turning the other cheek is considered a joke. And it seems that giants like Jesus but also Gandhi or Mandela never existed. Yet they changed the world more than anyone without firing a shot. Only with the strength of their example, their values, their moral depth.

Firmly opposing abuses and injustices, but always peacefully. And this is how they impacted the history of the world while leaders and dictators and generals left behind them only piles of corpses and rubble. War breaks out when violence is opposed by violence. It happens in the life of individuals as well as in that of countries. It happens with the neighbor as with neighboring countries. War breaks out when human beings and peoples are dominated by their ego.

Our most superficial and evil dimension. Which spurs us to react hard to defend delusions like the borders of our garden as well as those of our own country. Delusions like our image, our fake identity, our fragile point of view. The ego pushes us to arm ourselves and to fight with anyone who dares to scratch us. It happens in the life of individuals as well as in that of countries.

As if we do not see beyond our fence and our mental borders. As if we don’t distinguish selfish delusions from reality. To understand the power of turning the other cheek and non-violent struggle, the human being should evolve beyond his ego and rediscover his soul essence. He should emancipate himself from his own mind and from all the mental patterns inculcated along the way and which he repeats like a robot.

The more we evolve beyond the ego, the more selfish pettiness lose their meaning. The more we evolve beyond the ego the more hate is swept away by love. The more we evolve, the more war appears in all its madness and turning the other cheek and therefore peace becomes a choice. The smartest choice. For the whole world but also for ourselves.

This is because war is self-destructive for anyone who chooses it. The war in Ukraine is Putin’s political grave and his Russia. A typical invasion of the egopolitical delusions of the last century. Turning the other cheek and engaging in peaceful and democratic opposition, the Ukrainians would have easily won without firing a shot and many Russians would have helped them.

But not only that, the fragile Ukrainian democracy would have made an evolutionary leap of decades and with them the whole of Europe which would have shown that it had learned the lesson after centuries of sterile internal wars. But instead the ego prevailed once again.

The individual and the collective one. On both sides. Violence has been opposed to violence. War was preferred to peace. And the reasons for this warmongering drift are certainly not political. Politics is only a consequence of what the human being has inside. One of the manifestations of the selfish drift that dominates humanity.

Turning the other cheek and fighting peacefully and democratically for our values and ideals has been the lesson of the giants of history. A lesson that human beings will only grasp when they free themselves from selfishness. When they evolve beyond their ego. And only then will the world change.