'There is an urgent need to rediscover the human suffering that war brings with it'

Of Andrea Braschayko

A few weeks ago I went to my grandmother, who lives alone – the rest of the family is in Ukraine – in a town near Caserta.Like many women from her country, she arrived in Italy representing, with pride and dignity, the poverty of the post-Soviet "wild nineties" which forced a generation of women into a life of caregiving and remittances.Although she never fully learned the language, my grandmother blended comfortably among Italian provincialism;here the nineties were, on the contrary, roaring.A stereotypical example was the husband from Caserta, who had gently aged on bread and Berlusconism.

By force of circumstances, having got used to the television preferences of her now deceased partner, about twenty years later my grandmother and I found ourselves following the debates on the war in Ukraine on one of the most watched networks in that house, and for her the main source of information since February 24.

I was obviously aware of what I was getting into.Apart from some sporadic advice ("Grandma, maybe sometimes a soap opera is better") I had taken it, cynically, as an opportunity to have a laugh and - not being able to stop thinking about the war for a minute - at least I wanted to watch it with the blinders of the theater of the absurd on Italian television.

Indeed, the hours passed quickly;the host went on a rampage and juggled the opinions of the journalists, those of some Ukrainians living in Italy in the studio stands to create a bit of folklore (there was also a self-proclaimed lady from Donbas who called all Ukrainians Nazis and Europeans) and especially those of a middle-aged Russian;he was the founder of a pro-Putin website in Italian.Evidently it still seemed a little delicate to invite Kiselyov, Solov'ëv and Lavrov.

At almost every intervention by the guests of the talk, my grandmother asked me for clarification, to which I answered more or less exhaustively, until, during an advertisement, she let off steam:«Until a few days ago I was more certain of the Russians' guilt, now I feel like I no longer understand anything.Where do these come from? American biolaboratories?Who is right?I really don't know anymore!", leaving me rather taken aback.

It is not easy to reconstruct the dismay experienced during the Ukrainian diaspora in Italy (as in other countries) at the outbreak of the war.The initial disorientation was cushioned by the enormous closeness shown by the Italians.Every Ukrainian has found his phone full of messages of empathy and affection, even from people he hasn't heard from for years;It would be hypocritical not to admit that the invasion of Ukraine has awakened greater empathy than other global conflicts.Unfortunately, affection was not always enough to silence the deepest feelings linked to what our relatives and friends faced while we were safe.Many have created a strong dissociation from the surrounding reality, often in the form of a macabre saudade, the sense of guilt for not being physically in danger with their loved ones.It went worse for the young men, for whom sadness often translated into full discomfort at not being there to fight.

In a short time, however, a sort of social chain was established between the Ukrainian men and women of the world.Everyone tried to do what they could, in relation to the place they were in.The unpreparedness of the Russians - who in a certain sense have almost stopped being scary, despite the horrors committed, even derided with hubris – and the heroism of soldiers and civilians (although mocked by some, a necessary myth to resist the elements of war) has generated in Ukrainians a calm in the storm, an awareness of their own means but above all of their own ends.Many times it was the residents who reassured Ukrainians abroad rather than the other way around (obviously this is certainly not the case in the most tormented cities, such as Mariupol or Kherson).

On the one hand the diaspora tries to support its country by all means, on the other it also has a sense of historical responsibility, finding itself in a situation of emotional advantage, in not allowing the inevitable anger and fear to radicalize in a condition of permanent hatred, which could have consequences that are currently indecipherable.If it is difficult to remain lucid under the bombs, at the same time it is also difficult to do so in an environment that is sometimes hostile and superficial. What many Ukrainians in Italy feel was well expressed by the journalist Olga Tokariuk in an article thread on Twitter:

I speak Italian but I almost no longer comment for the media there.I have been trying to cover Ukraine since 2013.The level of misinformation physically pains me.The aggressor and the victim are put on the same level, space is given to the ignorant and corrupt.[…] I have always loved Italy, but since the start of the war in 2014 everything has changed.It hurts too much.[…] Of course, there are very good Italian journalists - in reality the best are women - who tell things as they are without prejudice towards Ukraine, and I thank them.But in this period I have to think about survival and I don't have the energy to fight disinformation in Italy.

Yet, in the first hours of the invasion the pro-Russian wind that had been blowing strongly on the peninsula for years seemed to have run aground in the face of the evidence of the facts:the attack on national sovereignty, the images of the suffering of civilians, the resistance of the latter too (especially Russian speakers) and not only of the military.In a short time, things partially changed:submission to the USA and theirs war by proxy, heated references to the alleged Donbas genocide, the guilt of a patriotic (if not Nazi) people to the point of nationalist exaltation, which risks leading the world to a global conflict instead of – it's as simple as that!– give up.

If the solidarity of ordinary people has never stopped, at the same time there has been an attempt to undermine the political legitimacy of those who were helped.The majority of Ukrainians with friends and relatives in Russia, even my uncle, collided with a wall which, in the first few weeks, denied its existence of a war.Similarly, certainly less evident, many Ukrainians in Italy had to face a situation in which they did not feel fully believed, especially regarding the extent and gravity of the events.After the images from the field had exhausted their emotional effect (sometimes tried to neutralize from the beginning with the most shameful and subtle suppositions, as in the case of Bucha), we witnessed a dizzying escalation of Russian and anti-Russian propaganda. -Ukraine.It found fertile ground in a country that already had a thick substratum of conspiracy counter-information, already exploded on the issues of immigration and the pandemic, to which Russia Today And Sputnik Italy have made a significant contribution.

Also thanks to a less than brilliant performance of mainstream information, the narratives "against single thought" have exacerbated the sense of disillusionment, distrust and unconscious nihilism of a part of Italian public opinion.It's not uncommon on social media to see crowds of reactions."haha” under the news of the Russian violence.According to a international report by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, out of 20 countries examined, Italy is the first among those who shared doubts about the Bucha massacre via Facebook.Driving this record are the posts of television journalists such as Toni Capuozzo.

The most poignant thing was the misappropriation of the words "complexity" and "peace".The first has very often become, on the contrary, a way of relativizing in the name of skepticism, overshadowing the otherwise explicit falsification;the second is a totally abstract and useless concept, seen solely as the absence of conflict.Even more alienating is that the latter seems to be more the responsibility of the Ukrainians than of the Russians, who just a few days ago declared they wanted stay in Kherson and in other regions of the South permanently.

The ideological panorama of those who oppose the narrative of the war in Ukraine is decidedly more heterogeneous than that of those who support the resistance.It would be simplistic to trace the political ties between Russia and Italy to Berlusconi alone and Salvini, as well as ideological ones on the far left alone.A 2017 report, cited by The Post, of the Wilfried Martens Center, included Italy among the countries, together with Greece and Cyprus, most likely to improve relations with Putin.While the self-styled people's republics of Donetsk and Luhansk have been romanticized both by extreme right in Verona that from those on the left:see the example of pages like the Committee for Anti-Nazi Donbas, whose Facebook page has seen a fivefold increase in subscribers since the beginning of the invasion.

The most problematic days for many Ukrainians in Italy, especially for those who consider themselves left-wing, were those close to April 25, with the ambiguous declarations of the ANPI and the subsequent divisions during Liberation Day;shortly after, in some Italian municipalities it was even decided to celebrate May 9th with the Tsarist Z.Circumstances which, inevitably, recall a nauseating revisionism historical.

This revisionism is associated with the reclamation of ancient anti-American regurgitations, intolerant of interventionism because it is "pro-Atlantic";understandable and well-known phenomena whose effects have however been a systemic use of disinformation and substantial racism towards Ukrainians and their demands.Defined as a people of carers not just in private and invited no more and no less not to resist, to go and die in their homeland by those who, moreover, oppose the sending of weapons.At the same time, various intellectuals have chosen to transform themselves into media circus performers, often recalling the lower stereotypes of counterinformation.A situation that is difficult to imagine in a complete democracy.

In the name of a rather embarrassing vision of equal conditions and freedom of expression, Ukrainians have often seen - on talk shows and on social media - seeing their positions juxtaposed together with those of the Russians, almost as if they were two sides of the same coin.And it couldn't be anywhere else other than on an Italian broadcast that a Russian politician made shameful statements for which Putin himself had to spend his time diplomatic apology with Israel, which has so far remained neutral.

Read also >> Italian information and Russian propaganda

Even lucid intellectuals like Caracciolo, despite having in February blatantly wrong forecasts, they have fun on live television tickling the stomachs of anti-Americanism by sacrificing the voices of the Ukrainians and also sharing their territory with the guests in the studio.An issue that also closely concerns information sources, who when it's good they talk about Kremlin propaganda but then rely on journalists' sources "embedded” with the invaders, in defiance of any ethics – which often ends in ridicule, as with the graphics of Azovstal underground or war images taken from video games.

This does not mean that there are no lights in the room.There satire by Lundini the "pacifist" rhetoric during May Day has more impact on the new generations than the arguments on Rete 4 or LA7.The pacifists themselves cannot be reduced to a single cauldron (some actually criticize Putin since the war in Chechnya) and monopolized by those who ask for unconditional surrender;weapons can also be dropped by talking about an embargo on Russian fuel, and even within the ANPI it is admitted that the question of weapons for the Ukrainians is an unfortunately necessary torment of conscience.

The renunciations of Mikhelidze, Tocci and Gilli attending talk shows together with Russian propagandists is an important signal.But also risky:a large part of public opinion does not have time to extricate itself between factuality and debunking, listening to what television says between the screams of a little girl and the noise of a pressure cooker.

Asking for an exit from this information chaos does not mean denying that a profound analysis of the causes of the war and the problems that have affected and will affect Ukraine is necessary.Rather, it means giving up giving space to the one who fires the biggest punch in the most useful time possible in which the other cannot counter.Since, it is true, the war had been going on in Ukraine for eight years.And it is possible to talk about it without resorting to Moscow propaganda.One can analyze the role of nationalism in Ukraine and the likelihood that it will gain even more weight after this war;also wondering why no (!) Italian far-right party has supported Ukraine or even Azov in recent years.

We can then seriously ask ourselves why the left is dying in the country (and in Eastern Europe), without relying on a Giulietto Chiesa who can't even answer, but perhaps by reading what the left-wing people who are now fighting for free Ukraine say, as Taras Bilous.Study US interests without resorting to a simplified debate on the role of NATO, posting a map that expands over the years.

One of the most profound impressions is that we seem to have forgotten that analysis is not everything:there is an urgent need to rediscover the human suffering that war brings with it;something that is increasingly difficult in the era in which the war is live on Telegram and then reworked in television living rooms.Precisely for this reason, training empathy is necessary, since extreme politicization often also involves the depersonalization and delegitimization of the victims.To do all this we will need to give much more space to the people who have been overwhelmed by the war, compared to those who have chosen to massacre them, starting from listening.And we will have to do it with intellectual honesty, complexity and the desire for peace.By truly adhering to it, and not just using words as empty containers.

Preview image:Bartosz Brzezinski from Chicago, CC BY 2.0, go Wikimedia Commons