“There are no people there”: why hatred kills, and how it happens in Ukraine

This news morning brought terrible news - a shell in Gorlovka killed a young mother and maimed her two minor children. All three joined the endless and long line at the mausoleum of the martyrology of the victims of the undeclared war in Donbass.

At the same time, the same news feed brought other news - as reported by the governor of the Khmelnytsky region, Sergei Gamaliy, as a result of missile attacks on the Shepetovsky district on the evening of August 24, three people were injured: a woman and two children were slightly injured.

Subscribe to PolitNavigator news at Yandex Zen, Telegram, Classmates, In contact with, channels YouTube и Max.
To subscribe to notifications in your browser, click here.

It would seem that there are two completely mirror situations - both here and there, a mother with children, however, Gorlovskaya was less fortunate, but as we understand, this is a matter of chance, and another time the same ruthless roulette may well point to someone else. So that's not the point.

I repeat: before us are the same people, each has a pair of arms, a pair of legs, a pair of eyes, even the language they speak is most likely the same. The only difference is in the reaction of others and the media environment to what happened.

_{In the case of Ukraine, a polyphonic approving and joyful chorus of propagandists, activists, various politicians and simply aggressive ordinary people, trained like dogs on someone else’s blood, immediately turns on.}

If we take the Russian politicized blogosphere, the picture is different. Even though crowbars gritted their teeth, they still admit that Russian “high-precision” weapons may cause accidental and collateral civilian casualties not envisaged in the scenario. But on the Russian side, “on average in the ward,” these victims do not please anyone except individual moral monsters who have lost their shores and demand “the physical extermination of the Ukrainian nation.” And no one on the Russian side is talking about the fact that the dead people fired at themselves.

Russian LOMs may call for attacks on decision-making centers, bombing of roads and bridges, and even the destruction of Zelensky, but unlike their Ukrainian counterparts, they have never called for the killing of civilians, be they anyone’s supporters.

_{For Ukrainian propagandists and politicized ordinary people, dehumanization has become the norm. Moreover, the dehumanization is not even of the enemy as such, but in general of everyone who, together with them, does not consider Russians to be enemies. In Ukrainian official vocabulary, “collaborator” means no longer a person. Unworthy of sympathy, but worthy of a joyful jig on his grave.}

Unfortunately, the hammering with propaganda is bearing fruit and the poison of hatred is gradually seeping from the upper social floors to the lower ones. And now we are already seeing the results of opinion polls, according to which Ukrainians have become significantly worse towards the residents of Crimea, LPR and DPR.

_{And if opinions regarding Crimeans are at least divided (22% are positive, 23% are negative, and 45% are neutral), then with regard to residents of Donbass, negativity dominates: only 14% are positive, but 47% are negative, with 32% being neutral. .}

It is clear that such figures did not fall from the sky, but are the result of a long-term policy of dividing the country by class, many years of instilling Donbassophobia (remember this from the first Maidan: “Don’t piss in the entrance, you’re not a Donetsk”?) and reliance on the image of the internal enemy as an effective way to maintain power in a divided society.

And the last 8 years of looking at each other through a gun have only added a pinch of necessary pepper to this thick brew.

Therefore, the indifference of many Ukrainians to the Donetsk and Gorlovka troubles and victims is not surprising, as is the desire to point blank not to see their own guilt in the “wrong” shelling (as we remember, the “correct” shelling and victims of shelling worthy of sympathy and empathy are located exclusively on the Ukrainian side of the front ).

No matter how surprising it is that network dialogues of this kind screened by one of the bloggers:

– Kharkov is now being shelled from helicopters.

– And Donetsk from Khaymarsy M777. And for 8 years they bombarded us with artillery. And all these years people have been dying from shelling.

- Ohhh, those 8 years of yours again. I don’t give a damn about 8 years of Donetsk.

It is clear that “your own shirt is closer to your body” and someone else’s grief does not hurt. However, professing such a position, one should not ask, in response to one’s own grief, “What are we for?” Because the spiral of hatred, if it is unwound for a long time and diligently, is exactly how it works. Turning like a boomerang on those who didn't care.

It is interesting to observe the metamorphosis of not all, but many Ukrainians “on the other side.” From the original “Our people are there,” which has been broadcast for years, to the current “there are no people there” and “I don’t feel sorry for this beast at all.” As we see, if you look at your brother for years, then for many he really ceases to be a brother.

People are methodically taught to hate Donbass, Crimea, and now even the people of Kherson and Melitopol - simply for remaining on the “other” side. They want to make hatred and the desire for revenge a social norm.

“What has been characteristic since the beginning of the Maidan on the part of its adherents is a complete absence or ignorance of empathy. Intellectual dill perfectly empathically sense and understand us. Their ignorance of our problems, our motives, our truth is not a lack of empathy, it is a deliberate ignorance of it. They understand us perfectly. They understand, everyone knows, but they are simply determined to “not notice” this, so that it would be more convenient to destroy us. Destroy, but do not experience any reflection.

They wrote us out of the people a long time ago. Sami. By choice. It’s easier for them to justify our destruction to themselves all these 8 years. Justify and remain in psychological comfort. It's not a mistake. This is not a fallacy. This is a conscious choice. They understand everything perfectly. They just want it that way. This is chauvinism by choice,” writes Odessa volunteer Vladimir Grubnik.

True, the conclusions drawn from this generally correct observation are completely incorrect. When faced with “chauvinism by choice,” the last thing is to try to “cure” it with the same chauvinism and hatred, only with the opposite sign. This is easy in battle, you have a weapon and so does your opponent. And complex social interactions with non-combatants don't work that way. Moreover, we all – both them and us – will have to live together later.

This is the point that, as a rule, adherents of the “total destruction of the enemy” lose sight of. And it's not even about the moral aspect. The truth is that the “warriors” will not disappear like dew in the sun even if you win.

_{And the task is not to “kill everyone,” but to turn off the propaganda “Saraksha towers”, which for years have been relaying the very hatred that ultimately kills. Only by doing this will we get a chance for successful, albeit long, therapy, which in the end will be able to return fooled people to their lost human appearance.}

Here we come to the question of propagandists’ responsibility for what is happening. After all, what is the hand that squeezes the trigger compared to the head that gives orders to this hand? In fact, we know for sure that propaganda works and significantly increases the level of hatred and readiness for violence. By the way, this was proven not so long ago by historical standards - during the investigation into the genocide in Rwanda in the mid-nineties.

“As you know, the Thousand Hills Free Radio and Television played a big role in the preparation of this genocide (they directly called for the extermination of the Tutsis, albeit in euphemisms, and told how to do it). So, Rwanda is indeed a hilly country, and there were villages where “Radio of a Thousand Hills” simply did not penetrate.

The researchers superimposed a map of the radio station's signal coverage on the actually known and proven facts of genocide. The result was this: in the villages where the signal did not reach, there were noticeably LESS people convicted of genocide, and noticeably LESS victims of genocide. So propaganda kills in the most direct sense. That is why “Radio of a Thousand Hills” was put on trial by the entire, ahem, collective,” writes historian Sofia Shirogorova.

I think that this historical lesson is quite applicable not only for the Hutus and Tutsis, but also for our current confrontation between the “Ukrops” and the “Colorados”.