Responding to Zarah Sultana and Zack Polanski’s recent comments on the war in Ukraine, staff writer Louis Palmer raises his concerns about the sagacity of their interventions.
Martin Amis once remarked of Jeremy Corbyn that, having “learnt to say meow… it has never even occurred to him to try saying anything else”. Listening to Zarah Sultana and Zack Polanski’s stubbornness in the face of reason on the issue of Ukraine, it seems as if the same rings true with Corbyn’s torchbearers, too.
When asked, in October, how best to achieve a lasting peace in Ukraine, Sultana proffered an analysis of the ongoing conflict’s causes that managed to be both highly disappointing and entirely predictable. The diagnosis? Ukraine’s plight is being exploited by right-wing politicians, Eastern and Western alike, who have financial interests in prolonging the conflict for as long as possible. These warmongers work to frustrate and postpone any peace talks, the better to line the pockets of their arms dealer friends and donors. Her lucid assessment, relayed in October in a remarkably non-probing interview on PoliticsJoe’s podcast, went as follows:
And this Instagram commentary, also from October:
Upon taking in these comments, I felt a question or two rear its head. To speculate; has Zarah Sultana ever once asked a single Ukrainian for their opinion? (Including that of a not-insignificant number of her constituents – what must they have to say of their MP’s words on this matter?) This query is particularly salient seen as, at Gallup’s latest count last August, more than two-thirds of Ukrainians approve of their president’s job performance – and those are the ones who’ve stayed behind.
Secondly, where, then, if not from Coventry’s Ukrainian diaspora, does Sultana glean her insight? Going by her guarded mention of an influential trip to a “conference in Paris”, it seems as if those views to which she pays attention belong to a group known as the Post-Soviet Left, whose Parisian rally it was that she recently attended. One glance at the PSL’s website reveals all necessary information on Sultana’s sources; it is a Marxist organisation, which devotes its time to flag-waving, developing “collectives and cells across the expatriate space”, and which lends its support to the campaigns of suspected Russian asset Jean-Luc Mélenchon.
Unsurprisingly, their stances echo Sultana’s own: Ukraine is holding its own territory hostage. Ukraine’s government is supposedly a fascistic, racist regime, as oppressive a force as any Russian invasion could possibly aim to be. This is the reality-divorced group from whose fisheyed view of the world Zarah Sultana moulds her analysis of foreign affairs.
As if sensing an opportunity to capitalise on Sultana’s failings, Green Party leader Zack Polanski promptly offered up his contribution to the debate. Ukraine deserves our complete solidarity, says Polanski, and it is owed the right to a “negotiated settlement” on its own terms. Perhaps here, then, is a counterweight to the reactionary false equivalencing in which Zarah Sultana so unashamedly engages.
But Polanski’s relative reason wasn’t to last; both his and Sultana‘s stances converge with their calls for military aid to Ukraine to be suspended, so as to strip Ukraine of its defensive capacity and strong-arm it into entering peace talks. Such a demand begs the question; has either of them ever once considered the notion that for negotiations to result in anything approaching a ‘just’ peace, Ukraine must wield in these talks the bargaining power that military aid provides? And does the fact that this view has been endorsed by every single one of Sultana’s former Socialist Campaign Group colleagues hold any sway with her?
No. Far nobler to demand instead that every cartridge of ammunition headed Ukraine’s way be halted – halted, no less, than to ‘save’ working-class Ukrainians from the conflict that these weapons’ entire purpose is to repel! In Sultana and Polanski’s minds, if war is bad, and peace good, then any peace at all must be preferable to any war. (Of course, totally negating Polanski’s remarks to the contrary) Never mind the reality that, left without any defensive capacity beyond its WW2-era weapons reserves (this is not hyperbole), Ukraine would be left to stomach whatever craven deal the Kremlin manufactured, or face annihilation. In other words, the most cynical and perverted peace imaginable.
What we are faced with here are two politicians who maintain absolute faith in the righteousness of their stance on any issue, simply by virtue of it being their stance. (Common practice, of course, but no more tolerable because of it) This mindset renders defunct the notion of ever considering the merits of the opposing view, no matter what it is or who is advocating it; why, if already occupying the top step of the moral podium, would they would pay attention to a position other than their own? What Sultana and Polanski have done, therefore, is elevate themselves to a position of supposed moral superiority, from which they can dole out judgement to those less pure of heart. To their position, there can be no righteous alternative.
No better demonstration of this attitude exists than Zack Polanski’s Sky News interview with Trevor Phillips last month. After Phillips was unable to mask his amusement at the suggestion that Britain appeal to Vladimir Putin’s better nature by unilaterally decommissioning its Trident nuclear missile program, Polanski took offence at this blatant imperialism. Like a champ, the Green Party leader hit back, chastising his interviewer for daring to “laugh at peace”, before insisting that the best way to address the situation in Ukraine was to pivot towards building bridges with the Russian government.
Such a deficient position does Sultana and Polanski’s credibility no favours, not least when the public is united over its support for continued and unconditional military aid to Ukraine – including among most of the leftwing voters that both hope to court. As previously mentioned, and as articulated time and time again by those whom Sultana and Polanski would deem their allies, when it comes to achieving real, material justice, such an outcome cannot be guaranteed without insurance via firepower. Platitudes and diplomatic thoughts and prayers just don’t cut it.
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