There are at least two generations of Belizeans, which is to say, the post-independence/television/phone generations, which would have almost no idea of what is really involved in the present war between the aggressor Russia and the underdog Ukraine.
Insofar as foreign policy is concerned, Belize is in a somewhat tricky spot, because geopolitical and other circumstances have dictated that we have no choice but to be in favor of the United States where foreign policy issues are concerned.

The tricky part of that is that the neighbor republic which is claiming our Belizean territory is a long-time and favorite ally of these same United States. Ergo, we may have to look elsewhere than Washington if and when there is conflict between Guatemala City and Belmopan. I’m just saying.

Belizeans are a pragmatic people, it does appear. We are not passionate, combative or heroic like the Cubans, who have withstood more than sixty years of terrible embargo pressure from these same United States.

Anyway, back to Russia and Ukraine. Please understand, I am not claiming to be any kind of expert here. But because I am a member of Belize’s post-World War II generation, and because those of that generation who did tertiary work in education had to do a lot of reading, we have a more comprehensive sense of the Russia-Ukraine conflict than our younger people.

When the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917, a revolt of the working classes overthrew the czarist monarchy and the aristocratic classes. The new system was known as communism. It was officially atheistic, and favored the lower classes. Industrially, Russia, a feudal society for centuries, began to develop quite rapidly.

Russia after 1917 was known as the Soviet Union, or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). It included the Ukraine, Crimea, Belarus, and several other nations which became independent in 1991 after the Soviet Union collapsed, which is a long story in itself. The collapse of the communist Soviet Union was considered a great victory for the capitalist United States.

The core Russia, and the Ukraine which Vladimir Putin is now attempting to subjugate, are very wealthy areas of planet earth. They produce much of the world’s wheat, oil, and natural gas. This war is about power. If Russia absorbs the Ukraine, Russia can look the United States and China in the eye. Perhaps the Russians already can, on the basis of their plethora of nuclear missiles, to which Putin is referring from time to time.

It appears to me that world power has recently been shifting from the West to the East. After World War II (1939-1945), the United States began emerging as a superpower, while the United Kingdom remained an imperial force, considered by most as the victors in the war. These are Western powers.

Adolf Hitler’s Germany, the leader of the Axis powers (Japan and Italy) which fought against the British, the Americans, and the French, had been shattered and divided into two parts — West Germany, controlled by the Americans, and East Germany, run by the Russians.

China and India, nation-entities, were nonentities at that time. But India, a British fiefdom for centuries, soon became independent and began growing rapidly. China was taken over by Mao’s Communist Revolution in 1949, and began growing perhaps even more rapidly.

And my opinion is that it was Russia, sacrificing 26 or 27 million lives, which had really won World War II, even though it was the Americans who ended up defeating the Russians (1991) in the so-called Cold War which followed World War II.

The one thing about war is that the concept of “good guys, bad guys” does not stand up to scholarly analysis. War is about power and survival. War is hell. Human beings, at the end of the day, are just like animals.

The singular aspect of the present Russia-Ukraine conflict is that there is a reality which goes all the way back to when Hitler’s fascist Germany invaded Stalin’s communist Russia in 1941, a couple years after the two nations had signed a nonaggression pact. The local cable companies have closed down Russian television transmission here, but the fact of the matter is that there is a powerful element in the Ukraine which the Russians consider German and pro-Nazi in nature. Russia is alarmed by Ukraine’s attempts to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), which would enable/force Western nations to come to Ukraine’s military assistance if it is attacked. There are complications here.

There is clear pressure on Belizeans to look inwards for survival in the coming months and years. During World War II, our ancestors had to become more self-reliant, because our imports from Great Britain were being interrupted by German submarines. A similar situation is developing now, in that imports will become increasingly expensive when they are not downright unobtainable.

I would like to close with a brief look at the racial hierarchy across the Atlantic Ocean where people who look white are now fighting with other people who look white. We Belizeans are not used to that. Adolf Hitler, who started World War II, was driven by racial theories. He conceived of an ideal, superior, racial phenotype which would feature blonde hair and blue eyes. This appears to me to be the Scandinavian type, found in Sweden, Norway, Denmark, and so on. Such a type is mixed up with the Anglo-Saxon group, which dominates Great Britain, Germany, and the Netherlands. The Spaniards, Portuguese, and even the French, are considered too “Latinized” to rank along with the Scandinavians. Such is the world of racial purists.

The Russians, and other Eastern Europeans, are considered Slavic; they are considered inferior by the Germans and other NATO members. Other people who live in so-called Eastern Europe, like Poles and Hungarians, are also considered Slavic. It is all quite complicated, beloved.

The one thing we know for sure is that we people of color, so to speak, are at the bottom of the totem pole. We have been offered a peaceful Jesus as a palliative for many centuries, ever since we were brutally subjugated by Europe. But now these people who offered us Christ have built terrible weapons which can destroy the planet which Christ’s Father created. How weird it all is! It isn’t worth it to become so scared any more. Man has become God.