Ukraine’s Elusive Peace

Vladimir Putin report­edly wants a written pledge that NATO will not expand eastwards, mean­ing no membership for Ukraine, Georgia and Mol­dova. Russia has destroyed a sovereign country because its president didn’t like the loss of Moscow’s sphere of influence and never forgave the US for not keeping then Secretary of State James Baker’s word to the Soviet Union’s last leader Mikhail Gorbachev. While a Reuters report cited three Russian sources, it couldn’t elicit a response from the Kremlin or Kyiv. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has hardened his rhetoric, saying Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” after Russia scaled up its attacks, and then warning that Putin was “playing with fire”. In the absence of action, it only provoked former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to talk of “WWIII”. At the same time, Germany has pledged more funding for arms and sup­plies at a meeting between Chancellor Friedrich Merz and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky. Russia’s war economy is grappling with a labour shortage, high inflation and resultant high interest rates. None of that stopped a new statue of Stalin be­ing unveiled at a Moscow Metro station. Not just his­tory but time itself seems to be going backwards.

The Fire America Doused Five Years after George Floyd

May 25 marked five years since George Floyd died under the knee of Minneapo­lis policeman Derek Chauvin and it’s been 50 years since James Baldwin “worsted” William Buckley in a Cam­bridge Union debate in Febru­ary 1965. Buckley’s “logic” was beaten by Baldwin’s eloquence and historical instinct. Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963) had called for a structural change in society, the very upheaval Buckley was convinced would spell America’s end. America was managing. But the fire that was lit after Floyd was a project, and evidently Marxist given its ideologues. There were reportedly 2,385 looting incidents; 620-plus cases of arson; 1,500 properties were damaged or destroyed; 2,000 officers were injured. Almost $2 billion worth of destruc­tion was left in its wake. Then came the Left’s cultural war, straight out of the Maoist playbook. Instead of investi­gating whether America was still systematically discrimi­natory, it was axiomatically accepted that America was systemically racist. Ordinary Americans fought back and their resistance culminated in the election of Donald Trump. Since then, the pendulum has been swinging to the other end. Neither Baldwin nor the later-Buckley can be very com­fortable wherever they are.

Petals of Blood

Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o, the Kenyan novelist and play­wright who had featured on the list of potential Nobel laureates for years, died at 87 on May 28 in the US. Before he switched to his native Gikuyu with the novel Devil on the Cross (1980), Ngũgĩ, born James Ngugi, had already earned his fame with Weep Not, Child (1964), The River Between (1965) and Petals of Blood (1977). A critic of both colonial injustice and postcolonial corruption, Ngũgĩ had lived in exile and, while at the University of Nairobi, wanted the English department abolished. His influence worked both ways: down through a generation of younger writers and up and across contemporaries like Wole Soyinka and Chinua Achebe.

Donald TrumpgeopoliticsGeorge FloydVladimir PutinVolodymyr Zelensky