Of mice, men and mouse-like men: the authors of horror
No, not Stephen King
Stephen King is an author of horror, and he is very good at it, very successful. Cinema-goers and avid readers of his novels and short stories know his name and he is toasted far and wide in the worlds of film and literature. But I don’t mean Mr King here.
And not the D.C. sniper attacks
Some years ago, two men converted the trunk area of a motor car to hold one of them, whilst the other drove the vehicle. They would drive into car parks or other public areas and, from a disguised aperture made in the coachwork forming the trunk of the car, shot people dead as they did their shopping. The men’s MO was for a long time a mystery. Only slowly did police tumble to the sick, deliberate machinal alteration of a car to make it into the bunker from which the men did their murder. The men did not know any of their victims. One is in prison, for ever. The other was executed. They have something in common with many of those who commit horrors: they would have preferred that no one find out ultimately who they are. For example, there are horrors, such as the Jack the Ripper murders, whose perpetrator remains to this day unknown.?
The 3 categories of horror criminal, therefore (indeed, any criminal), are: (i) the assailants who are found out, (ii) those who aren’t, and (iii) those who broadcast their involvement to the world. The 25,000 indictments that await process in Ukraine on war crimes may (I haven’t seen them) be directed at “person or persons unknown” or at named individuals, as in the case of Mr Shishimarin, tried and convicted of a war crime on 18 May 2022. (He apologised. I think he meant it.)
Broadcast to the world
However, here we have in focus the last of the three categories: there are those whose horrors are practised in full knowledge of whodunnit, how and, perhaps, even why. It was to tumultuous acclaim that Adolf Hitler declared his country’s commitment to?Totalkrieg?(to be clear, it was the Germans who did the acclaiming on that occasion): total war. And he made good on his commitment. He never stood trial, and was never committed, but history has recorded its own conviction of the man. Pablo Escobar, a Colombian drug lord and erstwhile most-influential man in Colombia (including the country’s President), committed many horrors precisely with the intention that others?should?know he had done them: along the lines of “It pays to advertise”.* It’s a feature of gangland killings and it’s a feature of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine has vowed it will seek to identify every single assailant, and has set the bar pretty high on that. How could they have set it any lower, though? One assailant in particular is fairly easy to identify. He appeared on national television on the day of the invasion and said he was ordering it be done: Vladimir Putin. Yes, he did indeed “broadcast his involvement to the world.” Perhaps based on vanity, or perhaps the kind of man he is: a gangland criminal. To Mr Putin’s impressive rap sheet of domestic gangland crimes and his astounding shopping list of crimes committed in the course of his special operation, one should not forget another crime on which he has indelible form and yet which might be overlooked: he has imbued with deep-seated corruption the youth of his country.?
* The Battle of Goose Green during the UK's Falklands Conflict in 1982 benefited from an astonishing stroke of luck: advancing British troops found themselves at a telephone kiosk. So, they placed a call to the post office at Goose Green, which was answered by the Post Master. Were the Argentineans still there? No, came the reply, they had pulled out, and the Post Master gave the compass direction they had pulled out in. A massive territorial gain was won without a shot being fired. Perhaps Vladim Shishimarin had heard the story, for his crime was to shoot dead a member of the public who was in the act of telephoning. That person could have betrayed troop movements, and so Shishimarin he was told by a fellow soldier to shoot the man dead, and he did so; thus drawing far more attention to the men's presence than there would have ever been from their simply continuing on their way. In the field of taxation, we call it a timing difference.
Russia’s ability to manufacture goods with a fair competitive edge on global markets is, to say the least, meagre. On that if nothing else, today’s Russia emulates to perfection yesterday’s Soviet Union. The only things - the?only?things - produced in Russia that the rest of the world has the slightest interest in getting its hands on are gas (and oil) and dirty money. We should not be in denial that much of the dirty money generated in Russia and by Russians goes through the hands of respected, esteemed institutions in the west, and a fair slice of that dosh stays in those institutions, as a pay-off for them fencing the suitcases of “dodgy car parts”, or whatever the trade was in that generated it. They’re in Malta, the British Virgin Islands, the Caymans, Cyprus, Zurich, London, Taunusanlage in Frankfurt on Main; New Zealand. Amazing what paperwork disappears after an earthquake.
That all leaves the Russian working class with not very much to do. Of that “not very much” there is “much”. Idle hands do the Devil’s work, goes the saying, and the best way to make sure that’s done is to put a Kalashnikov in them. So, that’s what Mr Putin has been doing, since 2018. In addition to conscription, one year’s national service, youngsters are being encouraged (i.e. they lose grades and such future prospects as they might have at all if they “choose” not to sign up) to join cadet organisations (the "Youth Army", it's called) within the populations of their schools. Mr Putin has no scruples, of course, and therefore there is no minimum age into which he is prepared to press a Kalashnikov: I’ve seen loaded ones in the hands of 8-year-olds and unloaded ones in the hands of 6-year-olds, and women of course (after all, people have to be physically capable of lifting the thing off a table). It would seem to the cynical, of which I am one, that career prospects comprise 3 possibilities in Russia: working for the gas industry; being cannon-fodder; or moving to Tbilisi. Anything involving thinking for yourself seems to be way down the prospects list.
Crime and punishment: what country did Dostoevsky have in mind?
I do not know if Mr Putin will ever stand trial for his crimes; perhaps, instead, he has a cyanide pill secreted away for his final “cheating of the hangman”. But his guilt is writ in letters as large as Mr Hitler’s was. One doesn’t wish to tend to flippancy in a matter of this seriousness, but much of what I personally have heard about Russia’s conduct of its military self in Ukraine makes the Nazis (that’s the ones in Germany, 1933-1945, lest there be confusion) look like a troupe of boy scouts (yes, even those of the terrifying Lord Baden-Powell calibre).
Bucha. The name was in the headlines a short while ago and is still in some people’s now, although it has become a point of reference for current reporting, rather than a reported event in and of itself. For some, it’s a daily event, however, for they are people such as Eugenia Mazurenko?who, by happenstance, live there and, by God’s good grace, are still alive there today. One major frustration for those who, in the Elizabeth Fry model, commit to the goal that criminal punishment should result in rehabilitation of the criminal convict is recidivism: upon release, the culprit commits again, often the same crime. At the level of the “common criminal”, these second offenders probably start in the second of my categories – unknown, and wanting to stay that way – but devolve into the first – known and wishing they weren't. They offend, do time, reoffend, do more time. I am a huge believer in rehabilitation, because I don’t believe that with even the longest of form, one man can profess insight into another man’s soul; however, I would hazard that the insight some have into their own soul is likewise heavily compromised. If we tried and convicted Mr Putin, would he go straight, be “nice”, after his release from prison?
Mr Putin will be punished by God: we’re not going to get a chance. And we’re too greedy in any case.
My points, and I have two – the second follows quick after this – are straightforward: those who broadcast their evil intentions to the world and then go on to make good on them must be certifiable (i.e.?incapax, devoid of mental reasoning) or they must be immune from prosecution, whether legally or by sheer dint of the means at their disposal to resist arrest. “Gangster” and “common criminal” may be dismissive epithets applied to Mr Putin, but he is a far from common criminal. The chances of him ever having to give an account of himself for Ukraine are, to his mind (I say it with confidence), zero. One can detect looks of concern and worry furrows on the faces of some in his cabinet, but not on Mr Putin’s face.
And, second, he’s not entirely misguided in perhaps assuming the main reason why he wouldn’t be prosecuted is our determination to see no drop in our living standard as a result of the gas squeeze, coupled to our short memories: we remember newspaper headlines; and, the next day, we essentially move on. Ukraine Rail named a new express train after the terminus at Bucha once the suburb had been liberated; and that, therefore, must be that. Let’s move on, in the age of the train. Well, whatever goes up the up line of a railway must ultimately come back down the down line. So, I return to this subject, on which I wrote a few days ago, with these further reflections.?
"There are currently 25,000 cases enrolled in Ukraine on charges of war crimes. Twenty-five thousand. That's a lot, isn't it? It's not bad, if Ms Venediktova was so bad at her job as Ukraine's chief prosecutor; but it's many, anyway. Impressive, and also shocking. The business community needs to be considering its relations to the country under whose orders those who committed the crimes acted, and to the nation that suffered as victim. A prosecution is not necessarily a conviction. And a conviction is not necessarily punished as one might think fit. And what is thought fit is ideally mulled over once the hostilities end; but ideal, the world is not. If 25,000 is the number of cases currently on record, how many is the total? How many will the total be by the time hostilities end? How many will never be recorded? My mind boggles, as, I'm sure, does yours. But, what exactly is a war crime? An insight, from The New Yorker news shot:
Ludmila Kizilova and her husband, Valeriy,?lived together near the corner of Vokzalna and Yablunska Streets, in the Ukrainian suburb of Bucha, on land that had been in her family for generations. But things changed in March, when Russian troops occupied the city and began to terrorize the local population. In one instance, the Russian soldiers lined up and shot a group of eight Ukrainian men. Ludmila and Valeriy heard the gunfire as they hid in their cellar. Later, Valeriy left to make a phone call outside, and was shot. Elsewhere in the city, Iryna Havryliuk fled while her husband and brother remained to care for the couple’s pets. A month later, she returned home to find not only the bodies of her husband and brother but those of her cousin, his wife, and their child—burned and mutilated. These are just a few of the accounts in?a devastating and deeply reported piece by Masha Gessen?in this week’s issue of The New Yorker magazine.
He went to make a phone call, and was shot. Unarmed. Defenceless. Hurting no one. Shot. Bang. Dead. That's a war crime.
Don’t forget Spain, France and Ukraine (when we think of Ukraine)
The Basque town of Guernica suffered at the hands of Germany’s Luftwaffe at Franco’s behest in 1937 to the tune of 1,654 souls. One thousand, six hundred and fifty-four deaths of his countrymen inspired Pablo Picasso in Paris to paint his masterful impression of the horror. In Oradour-sur-Glane, a village near to the porcelain manufacturing centre of Limoges, 1944 saw a massacre of ordinary citizens that totalled 642 souls. And, last for now, much closer to Bucha, the locus of the crimes reported on by The New Yorker in that article, is Babi Yar, a place which, over the years of World War II, it is estimated saw the deaths of between 100 and 150,000 individuals. Babi Yar, Guernica and Oradour-sur-Glane are places inscribed on the roll call of mankind’s savagery towards its fellow man. In Guernica, the victims were, I guess, mostly Spanish. In Oradour-sur-Glane, mostly French. In Babi Yar, a far more mixed picture emerges: Kyiv Jews, at first (as an event, it was exceeded only by another location, not far distant, at Odessa); next, Soviet PoWs, anyone of communist leanings, Roma gypsies. And, not insignificantly, nationalists: Ukrainian nationalists. Ukraine’s soil is not for the first time being bestrewn with the blood of Ukraine’s nationals; Ukraine’s nationals who believe in Ukraine and will die for her.
There are a host of ironies that pervade warfare: the first is that, as an all-too-bitter truth, its first victim is the truth. Here, if we look back at Guernica, we see it as an attempt to simply wipe a town off the map. To bomb it to smithereens. Well, they did pretty good, but it’s still there. It twinned with Pforzheim in a bid for post-conflict reconciliation (the conflict was Spain’s Civil War). At Oradour-sur-Glane, occupiers gathered together the village’s population, enclosed them in the church and set it afire. They didn’t remove Oradour-sur-Glane from the map and there are now two of them: the old village, as a memorial, and the new, built a short distance away. I don’t believe either is twinned. Babi Yar isn’t a town or village. It’s a ravine. But it’s still there, as well. In fact, it was the Nazis that effectively put Babi Yar on the map. There were many more such horrors: 3 examples are enough, but today’s Ukraine’s horrors are not yet so receded in the memory for us to have either forgotten them or, ironically, to even know of them, comprehensively and encyclopaedically. I think the full impact of this conflict will hit mankind still in the far-off future. Like wanton spending, drip-fed horror is not as horrifying as the final balance sheet will reveal.
Twenty-five thousand war crimes means there must be 25,000 or more victims. I think that that puts the urban districts of Ukraine up there with Guernica, Oradour-sur-Glane. Not quite yet with Babi Yar, though emulation of past massacres can hardly be an aim, can it? Or is Russia cold-bloodedly aiming that it should need no post-war reconciliation at all, by obliterating all and any with whom it might be required to reconcile? One day, there might be an apology. But I wouldn’t hold my breath, if I were you: we’d need to catch him first.
So, remember Guernica, and Oradour-sur-Glane. Remember Babi Yar. And remember Bucha. Borodianka. Chernihiv. Kramatorsk railway station. Mariupol Drama Theatre. The raping. Of children before their parents' eyes. The shooting of the rape victims. And of the parents. Kharkiv. Izium hospital. Odessa. Vinnytsia. The E40 motorway (it passes the capital of Europe, at Brussels). Human shields. Ms Mazurenko's personal and intimate possessions, and those of her neighbours and countrymen. The forced extractions and detentions, concentration camps and "missing persons". It's a lot, isn't it? If you or I or anyone ignores an act of evil, then we aid it and we condone it and we allow it to thrive. If we fail to act to prevent it, it behoves us at least, at the very least, to prosecute it and, if we can't do that, to not forget it. It behoves us to remember Ukraine. We could be next.