Peace Train 2 of 3

So what happened to that vision that had Cat Stevens smiling 50+ years ago?  

“Something good has begun,” he sensed: “Oh Peace Train sounding louder. Glide on the Peace Train.”

A few years later, an end did come to the long drawn out war that was the main concern at the time, in Indochina. It took another 20 years for the overarching conflict known as the Cold War to end. But now, more than 30 years later, it looks like we’re back at it again. 

What if the train that sounded so near at hand back then actually arrived, and we just didn’t see it or believe it? Or maybe we simply decided, for whatever reason, not to get on board.

The NATO flag points North, East, South and West

It is “the West” that is said to be lining up in solidarity with the Ukrainian people, united as never before. But with the steady progress towards harmony, if not unity, in what was once Europe, North and South; West, Central and East, hasn’t the term “the West” become an anachronism? 

The point I’m trying to make is that Russia, fearsome as her might may appear to be given her iron-fisted tyrants and her nuclear capabilities, is not substantial enough and not distinct enough to constitute an “East” that can serve as a counterpoint to a “West” extended as it is today. 

There is no longer any significant ideological difference. The oligarchs that arose with the privatization of the state-owned assets of the former Soviet Union are exceptionally crude, but this can be seen as a normal step in modernization processes. Let’s face it, the entire Free World is dominated by oligarchs or, in more mature economies, their corporate equivalent.    

In essence, “North Atlantic” as in the Treaty Organization set up in 1949 signifies Britain, at that point not so great anymore, and her trans-Atlantic extensions, especially the United States of America, having emerged from the war, not as a superpower, but the superpower. 

The familiar story line is the American Empire eclipsing the British Empire, but it might be useful to think of these as a duality, like the original Western Roman Empire and its Eastern colonial extension based in Constantinople. This duality, the Anglo Empire East and West, has dominated the whole wide world since patriots started singing about Britannia ruling the waves and, soon afterwards, their trans-Atlantic counterparts professing a kind of faith in Anglo America’s manifest destiny to dominate this continent from sea to sea to sea. 

The original rivalry was with other Atlantic powers: North, meaning the Netherlands; Middle,  i.e. France, and South — Spain and Portugal. After Waterloo, things were relatively stable for almost a century. For the first half of the 20th century, it was the now allied Atlantic powers locked in deadly combat with a resurgent Central Europe. When that got resolved it became a confrontation with an extended West versus the East, behind the Iron Curtain. Now it’s all of what was once Christendom plus Europe’s colonial extensions against the Russian Federation.  

That’s the geopolitical configuration. There’s also the cultural dimension. Let’s go back to that YouTube video of Vladmir Putin singing “Blueberry Hill” twelve years ago.

Blueberry Hill is a U.S American song, with English words, made famous by New Orleans recording artist Fats Domino. The year is 1956: Rock music has only just started to dominate the “Hit Parade,” itself a carry over from the Golden Age of Radio. Elvis isn’t in the army yet. Youth culture is only just beginning to emerge. 

1956 is also the year Nikita Khruschov made his “Secret Speech” before the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, criticizing Stalin and his “cult of personality”. The “Khrushchev Thaw” foreshadowed Gobachov’s “Glasnost”, thirty years later. But it also set the stage for the Sino-Soviet split, which in turn opened the door to Nixon and Kissinger normalizing U.S. relations with China. 

It was Fats Domino’s rocking and rolling treatment of Blueberry Hill that charmed the world in 1956, but this was a new interpretation of a song that was written as early as 1940, when the “Hit Parade” had only just begun (the term was first used in 1936). This is a point in time when the U.S.A. was still a non-aligned power, in accord with the “Washington Doctrine”, summarized in Jefferson’s phrase “peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations—entangling alliances with none”.

If we’re looking for the remotest possibility that peace might yet be given a chance, those timelines could help. It is worth remembering that up to 1940 or so, the United States still had a deep suspicion of standing armies as a danger to liberty, as did almost all cultures and societies shaped by English influences. In 1949, a full 153 years after Washington’s Farewell Address, NATO became the very first permanent military alliance the United States entered into with other countries overseas: a fateful turn, out of keeping with a deep-rooted political principle. 

This was a complete about face for the home of the brave and the land of the free. The United States had always stood alone, in splendid isolation, and, for a combination of reasons, remained the least militarized of modern nations. Now it is entering an entangling alliance with almost all developed nations, and steadily increasing a military might that exceeds anything empire that had come before: Babylonian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Han, Umayyad, Mongol, Ottoman, Spanish, French, Russian or British.      

The U.S. is not replacing British power and influence at this point, it is absorbing it, and being absorbed into it, in a way that reveals how they were always two sides of the same coin. 

Putin performing, with obvious pleasure, the 1956 version of Blueberry Hill as a kind of kindergarten song, with all the right words memorized, in English is an illustration of the triumph of Anglo World Empire culture. 

If “the West” now extends to Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Georgia, even Turkey, we might as well go all the way and consider anywhere people know the words to “Blueberry Hill,” or where a Paul McCartney, the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin concert would sell out in minutes, to be part of “the West.” 

In the same way, wherever people get excited about what we in the colonies still call soccer — English style “association” rule football — can be considered, if not part of, certainly under the influence of, and in sync with Western ways. 

Modernization itself, even when pursued in distinct ways, as in China or India, is an effort to adopt processes and patterns that originally emerged in what I’ve been calling the Anglo World, starting with England. Those supply chains, pipelines, banking arrangements, shopping malls, railways, highways, sports leagues, branded franchises and production capacities, including China taking exquisitely organized industrial production to a whole new level, are all part of the same phenomenon. 

We’ve won. The West has triumphed. That may already have been true in 1949, or in 1956 when Khruschev began questioning Stalin’s ways, or in 1972 when Nixon went to China. If the Peace Train hadn’t quite reached the station, it was near at hand, as early as 1949, or maybe even 1919. If we’d realized this, and acted accordingly, confidently rather than in fear of one enemy or another, we might have given peace a chance 50, 60, 70 or more than a century ago, and saved the world a whole heap of trouble. 

Now, in the Spring of 2022, we have another opportunity to finally give peace a chance. 

I keep thinking of that Rolling Stones concert in Havana on March 25, 2016, five days after Barack Obama became the first U.S. president in almost a century to visit neighbouring Cuba. Surely this was a moment when it was clear the Cold War was truly over, and we could have safely boarded the Peace Train. 

Well, that’s my hopeful, faithful, wishful thinking, anyway. To cling to the possibility that peace still has a chance, I’m choosing to treat the record of that event, in audio, video and from memory, in the historical record, as a shining example of what peace actually looks like, sounds like, feels like: a 21st-century ode to joy 

So why do we persist in waging war? Ambition, greed, and downright wickedness, some of my Facebook friends suggested in a recent exchange.

The fact is, peace may be the only chance we have left. 

Events since the end of the last “World War” indicate that it is near impossible to win a sustained, large-scale war, even for the richest, most militarily powerful nation in all of history. Witness Korea, Viet Nam, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan … . 

War is obsolete, if for no other reason than the fact that the planet that all lands and all nations, large and small, are a part of is currently too fragile to withstand another widespread military conflagration. 

Russia would do well to read the writing on the wall, and stand down, immediately. Meanwhile, “the West” also needs to stand down and give this last renegade European power some room to give peace a chance. 

The same goes for Israel (an outlying West European power, like Australia or New Zealand) in relation to Palestine, and Arabia in Yemen. Or the West and the Sunni Islamic world vis a vis Iran. Stand down now. If not forever and ever, then at least declare a 60-year truce. An 80-year ceasefire would be even better, because it would take us into the 22nd century. 

If for no other reason than to avoid the global economic collapse that will surely follow if the business of war suddenly becomes obsolete, all the powers that be from pole to freezing pole should rededicate all the resources currently allocated to military preparedness towards finding ways to align modern prosperity with respecting, appreciating and protecting our Earthly home. 

That, too, is an ambition. Let’s be ambitious for peace, and greedy for a genuine, life-affirming, sustainable prosperity.

Now I’ve been happy lately

Thinking about the good things to come

And I believe it could be

Something good has begun

— Cat Stevens, 1971

“Musings” of the sort that I’ve been sharing in my CultKW posts, in a ponderous but also a light, playful manner, are not well suited to dealing with the horrific turn of events in Ukraine. But ignoring the war, and carrying on as though nothing has happened doesn’t feel right either. So I’m going to give it a try. 

Let’s start with Vladimir Putin singing “Blueberry Hill”. I came across a clip of Russia’s strong man singing Fats Domino’s global hit in front of a glitzy crowd thick with movie stars in a Guardian article. The occasion was a fundraiser for a children’s charity back in 2010, just before the turn towards the horrors currently unfolding in the Ukraine. The headline reads: “Putin’s Hollywood pals – the stars who snuggled up to the Russian dictator”.  

I posted the link, agreeing that this is certainly an embarrassing moment for the glitterati involved. But I also noted that I found it strangely moving to hear that shaky voice performing a rock standard in the style of a nursery rhyme coming from the man who has become the new face of evil on this planet.  

A dear friend, a Ukrainian-Canadian who was a regular at the Commons Studio, responded to my post with a plea: “My homeland … please pray for my home. We need a miracle.”

“We do need a miracle,” I answered. “At this point all I can see is mutually assured destruction. If the result is anything that can be interpreted as a victory for any one or combination of the parties involved — the Russian Federation; the Ukrainian state; the Ukrainian people; the Russian people; “the West”; the Free World, the rest of the world; NATO, the non-aligned, or any alignment of nations  —  if anyone wins, everyone will lose.” 

I’m afraid my friend may have interpreted this as taking a neutral stance, and mitigating, if not justifying, the invasion of her homeland. That’s not the intention. Being surprised by Putin revealing his vulnerable side doesn’t lessen his crimes. On the contrary, it makes them worse. A monster comparable to a Hitler, a Stalin, or a Pol Pot would simply be acting according to character. A regular human being has no such excuse. 

But the Blueberry Hill episode does make room for a tiny glimmer of hope that Putin and his kind may yet be reached. His mind, his culture and his nation are not as far from the ways of “the West” as we imagined Russians to be when they were still under Soviet rule.   

There’s a lot of praying in social media. I’m not in the habit of petitioning the deity in the conventional way, hands clasped, head bowed, knees bent. But when it starts to look like only a miracle can deliver us from the kind of evil we see in Russia’s attack on Ukraine, prayer, or something like it, is an appropriate response. It may, in fact, be the only recourse we have left other than fighting to the bitter end.

Hopeful, faithful praying is an active response: You’re not just waiting for a miracle, you’re longing and pleading for deliverance, trusting that it is at least possible, “God willing,” as they say. 

Hopeful, trusting imagining of what the best possible outcome — in other words, wishful thinking — can also a kind of activism. Miracles don’t descend from out of the blue to conjure a new reality into being among us creatures here below. Redemption usually involves taking the various elements that led to a situation like the one people in Ukraine are facing, and realigning them, in this case so that they can go on with their lives in peace, each in their own small corner, according to their own lights. And the best way to do that is with faith, hope and, above all, good will.   

I’m too old to fight. I have no money to give. Nothing I can say will make a difference as the powers that be decide the fate of the Ukrainian people. Hopeful, trusting imagining how deliverance might come about is all I can do. 

“My homeland … please pray for my home,” my friend implores. And that’s what I’m doing here: Praying for Ukraine, and for all of us, in the only way I know how. 

I’m not a pacifist. I know full well that if it wasn’t for allied soldiers, most notably from Canada, my birth certificate would have had a swastika on it —  if I’d been born at all. 

My generation was conceived and raised in the new hope that came with the cessation of hostilities in 1945. We’re the children of the peace that came with military victory over Hitler and Mussolini. I like to imagine that as a result, we are naturally inclined towards giving peace a chance.

That’s why I found it encouraging to hear, via DW [Deutsche Welle] Music, that on Friday morning, March 4th, “around 150 public radio channels across Europe – including Ukraine – came together in a simultaneous broadcast of John Lennon’s anti-war song ‘Give Peace a Chance’.  Over 25 countries participated in the initiative started by the German station radio EINS. The gesture was developed as a demonstration of how the power of radio can amplify growing support for peace.”

For the people of Ukraine, peace was never given a chance. Nothing can justify what Putin is doing. He is certainly the aggressor in this war. Ukraine is an internationally recognized sovereign nation, and a member of the United Nations. That makes the Russian dictator a war criminal. 

That’s why he can’t be expected to see the light, change the course of his actions and give peace a chance. Ukraine has been left with no alternatives; it’s either surrender or fight for their very existence as a nation. So it’s really our move. It is cowardly to express sympathy and solidarity with Ukraine, but leave all the fighting, dying and suffering to them. It is also careless to leave all the negotiating to them. This is a fight between Russia and all of us in what we call the Free World.

Current NATO member states — wikipedia

The fact is, the Russians have been firm about opposing the extension of the North Atlantic alliance to their borders with Georgia and the Ukraine since we, meaning us here in “the West,” announced this intention in 2008. To give peace a chance, we could have started taking their concerns seriously and considering other options 14 years ago. 

It is not hard to understand how the idea of “the West” or the “Free World” extending from Hawaii eastward, back across the Atlantic to encompass all of Europe, all of what once was “Christendom”, except the Russian Federation is considered a threat from a Moscow perspective

To give peace a chance, we could, for instance, urge Ukraine to join Finland, Sweden, Austria and Ireland as a non-aligned nation, and guarantee that we will respect this neutrality. And we could express an openness that the Russian Federation itself join the circle of European security, thereby turning NATO into a North Atlantic to Pacific Treaty Organization.  

A United North from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from there full circle to the Atlantic again is not impossible to imagine. Russia is the only missing link. 

A truly United Europe wouldn’t guarantee a lasting peace. For one thing, such a development would likely be an affront to China, and could lead to a stand off with a power much more formidable than the hapless Russian state. So I’m wishfully suggesting that at the same time, we — in this case, Canada — propose a North to South Treaty Organization that connects Russia, China, Iran, Pakistan, India and area. 

Just imagining something along such lines could be a significant step towards giving peace a sliver of a chance, not just in Ukraine, but throughout the whole world for a generation or two or three. 

John Lennon, Yoko Ono and company singing “all we are saying is give peace a chance” in that Montreal hotel 53 years ago remains relevant as a plea to humanity, and, I’m suggesting, as a hopeful, faithful prayer. Faithful, at least, to the promise of the angel chorus in Bethlehem: “peace on earth,  good will to mankind.” 

The same goes for George Harrison singing “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace on Earth)” in 1973; or Donovan performing Buffy Sainte-Marie’s “Universal Soldier”, and Edwin Starr declaring “War, What’’s it good for? Absolutely nothing.” These examples are all subjects of recent posts from Deutsche Welle Music.

Some current statements and gestures from the world of Western entertainment are expressions of solidarity, not just with the plight of the people of Ukraine, but in their fight for national self-determination. Justifiably so; they need and deserve our support, not just our sympathy. But this also signifies abandoning the idea of giving peace a chance, other than the peace that comes with victory for our side, and vanquishing the enemy. 

It is highly doubtful that a crushing defeat of the military forces fighting on behalf of the 150,000,000 people in a nation state that encompasses 11% of the earth’s landmass will prove to be a step towards lasting peace. This would put Russia into the position we left Germany in just over a century ago. A likely result will be an Asian Axis like I described earlier, but without Canada, Australia or any other part of the West, thus setting the stage for an Armageddon scale conflict.     

So is there any chance whatsoever for peace at this point  — a just peace, immediately achieved, that involves neither victory nor surrender?  

I’m proposing we try to imagine a way out, and suggesting that perhaps this amazing rendition of “Blueberry Hill” by a ruthless war monger more than a decade ago may be a place to begin. 

To be continued … .