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Taikdario kelias, 20220415 Peacemakers Way Abstract

A Peacemaker's Way: Wake Up, Love Your Enemy, Befriend Evil

As a peacemaker, I have written this essay as my personal experiment: Am I able to make the same assertions to two audiences with different understandings of the current events?

On April 15, 2022, which happened to be Good Friday for Catholics, I gave this talk at the conference "Civilizational Imagination and Geopolitical Shifts" organized by Professor Antanas Andrijauskas of the Lithuanian Cultural Studies Institute. I noted that I would also offer this text for publication by a website which presents Aleksandr Dugin's "Fourth Political Theory". The editor Leonid Savin of Geopolitika.ru decided not top publish it. He explained: "Thank you for the letter and article. But it is not in accordance with our editorial policy, cause our main narratives are counter liberal. We can publish discussion papers, but not ones that contradicts our own views."

I have translated my text from Lithuanian into English.

I pray God that my words not hurt but rather heal Ukrainians and Russians.

Love Your Enemy

I consider why Ukraine, Russia and the West should follow Jesus's command, "Love your enemy". For me, it means, "Look at everything from your enemy's point of view." Specifically, "Be straightforward; act step-by-step; be vulnerable; let them win; let them teach you; stick to your principles; have something to share".

Once at a park in Chicago I heard a young woman in a car screaming, "Get out!" Next to her sat a young man. I came up and he lowered his window. "Is everything all right?" He nodded. I snatched his sunglasses, he ran after me, and the woman drove off. I understood that he valued his sunglasses more than her. Which is to say, I looked at everything from his perspective, and I used minimal violence.

I gained experience in loving my enemy by engaging gangs. I taught Palestinians to fight peacefully. I organized Kenyan peacemakers to avert massacres. Rachel Wambui Kungu shared with joy how her team freed the road from youth armed with machetes. Her team drove up on mopeds, rather than a car, because I had taught her, "Be vulnerable". For half an hour they heard out the youth. The youth concluded, "You can represent us, and we will withdraw for one week." The highway between Nairobi and Navarra was liberated. Neither the army nor the police had managed to do this. Food, medicine and refugees moved freely, and famine was avoided.

Is it possible to love an enemy who is a state or its leader? 50,000 Lithuanian Jews (Litvaks) around the world signed a petition not to reopen the Vilnius Sports Palace as a Vilnius Convention Center since the building stood on the oldest Vilnius Jewish cemetery. The Lithuanian government ignored such protests because it had the support of the official Lithuania Jewish Community. But 10 Litvak and Lithuanian dissidents built rapport with each other, and developed an understanding what to do. They successfully led three letter writing campaigns during the budget process. In the end, Lithuania's prime minister quietly struck the project from the budget. The Lithuanian treasury saved 64 million euros.

Imagine, if Pope Francis announced, "I very much want to turn back the clock, so that Russia would withdraw from Ukraine. As for me, I would rename the Vatican as Vladimir. For the President of Russia is Vladimir, the President of Ukraine is Volodymyr, and St.Vladimir baptized Ukraine and Russia. I very much wish to heal the schism of the Eastern and Western Church.

Or perhaps President Joe Biden would suggest to rename the capital city Washington as Tolstoy. For a slaveowner's last name is not appropriate for the capital of the free world. As a peacemaker, Tolstoy inspired Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr.

President Vladimir Putin could permit volunteer Russian peacemakers to call themselves envoys of St.Vladimir, make connections with Russia's friends and enemies for the sake of multipolarity, and take interest in the values of all manner of civilizations.

All such flights of fancy would make possible new attempts at peace.

What could community leaders do? They could extend between enemies a human chain of people with all manner of outlooks. The world of chess includes top Russian officials, goverment supporters, government opponents and Ukrainians. Unfortunately, Russians are afraid to interact with enemies, for the government might think they are traitors.

Wake up

A singular opportunity may have opened up for me, which is to participate at this Duganist web portal. For me, their thoughts are pure evil. In looking at everyting from their point of view, I would have to identify with evil. I dare to venture further only by focusing on the question of evil.

According to Dugin, liberalism is absolute evil, to be pulled out with all of its roots, for it denies the sovereignty of states. My American upbringing, Western perspective, pro-Lithuanian, anti-Nazi, anti-Soviet prejudices make me an instrument of the dominant, unipolar, liberal hegemony of the kingdom of the Antichrist. How could I possibly transcend my prejudices? Perhaps I myself am the Antichrist?

As a teenager I entertained various doubts about myself. Am I a robot? Such a question makes me doubt everything I know, all phenomena, what I see, what I feel, what I think, for all of it may be a deception. I wake up, I come to my senses by replying to my doubts with a counterquestion, What difference does it make? You tell me, what is a robot, whether it bleeds, whether it empathizes, whether it has free will, and then we will check, maybe I am, maybe not.

I parry doubts with counterquestions:

• Do I like this? How does it seem to me?
• Do I need this? What else should I be doing?
• Is this real? What difference does it make?
• Is this problematic? What do I have control over?
• Is this reasonable? Am I able to consider the question?
• Is this wrong? Is this the way things should be?

When I feel lost, as with Russia and Ukraine, I consider, Am I doing anything regarding that? And when I have no doubts, when I feel certain, I check myself, What do I truly want?

In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches us these very same counterquestions.

For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same? If you only greet your friends, what more do you do than others? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?

What do I understand evil to be? I will reveal my personal, deranged, unipolar understanding, much like Raskolnikov in "Crime and Punishment".

The dissident Jadvyga Bieliauskienė explained to me how the KGB would ensnare their victims. Their victims would imagine, pridefully, that they would control their own participation. But the KGB would blackmail them, "We have photos how you visited us. We will show them to so-and-so." The KGB would pressure them to perform ever more despicable deeds. I realized that such an abominable system shows that there is evil in the world. And I was amazed that this dissident, who had served three prison terms, did not comprehend that she had chosen to live one way, and those so-called victims had chosen another way. I realized that it is only easy to see evil in another culture than one's own. I also learned that one may need to negotiate with evil - with the KGB - but one must never ever enter into compromises with them.

In Chicago, I recognized three kinds of demons. I felt a demonic physical tension crossing the line of segregation, Western Avenue, which separated Whites and Blacks. I understood that addiction to intoxicants possesses a person. A devil makes a nest of him, cuts him off from others. Therefore Jesus would command, "Out!" I observed that a corporation has all of the rights of a human, but none of the moral responsibilities.

It is hardest for me to see and recognize that evil which is within me. I am stuck so deeply in the Western unipolar system that I am only satisfied by absolute truth and universal morality. Jesus's Sermon on the Mount delights me. I terrorize the world with his morality.

Befriend Evil

Jesus condemns evil but he lets evil proceed. He lets the weeds grow so that it would be easier to separate them from the wheat. He let evil spirits enter into the band of pigs. He let his Temptor rule the entire world but he refused to bow down to him, and resolutely clung to unipolarity, "You shall worship the Lord your God, and you shall serve him only." And then the devil withdrew from him.

Why is evil necessary? It reminds me of salt, which destroys bad and preserves good, which sterilizes with eternal fire. Let it destroy for all times all that is bad within me.

How am I to interact with Duganists? If they need that, if it would help those who suffer, if it would bring about sincere rapport, I can think that the evil which I perceive in them may all the more so be within me. I change my attitude, so that they are not evil to me, but rather I to them. They are not my enemy, but I am their enemy. It is not for me to help them grow, but for them to help me grow. By their help I can ever check myself and perfect myself. Thus reasoning, if there is a purpose to love the most real and fearsome enemy, if I stride towards the boldest evil, then it behooves me to befriend it.

Will I not get stuck in the mire? What kind of system will I find myself in? What responsibility do I have for it? A person joins a system, expresses his freedom within it, and gives up his freedom to it. People create systems, and those systems cultivate people but also undo them.

In "Mein Kampf", Adolf Hitler stated his principle by which he constructed a caste system. Every person must strive for admission to a narrower circle above and avoid a broader circle below. That is how he ruled people.

Similarly, in Dugin's writings I recognize the West's moral caste system, whereby all countries are ranked, starting with America, at the global center, which deems itself moral, out to the most marginalized global periphery, which is intrinsically bad.

In speaking of Hitler's personal goals, then for his purposes it was not useful to murder Jews, but rather to keep them in ghettos as the languishing caste. However, Hitler built up a chimney to have an evil draft, and subsequently that chimney ruled him.

In Lithuania, the genocide of Jews was accelerated by volunteers such as Jonas Pyragius, Ričardas Šveiceris, Vytautas Reivytis, Pranas Germantas and Jonas Noreika.

What to do with documents which bring to light the crimes against humanity committed by those who expressed the will of the Lithuanian people? I posed this question to historian Arvydas Anušauskas. He gave a fatherly smile, "One must learn how to not see." (Reikia moketi nematyti.) Currently, he is the Minister of Defense. Another defender of Noreika, Laurynas Kasčiūnas, is the Chairman of the National Security and Defense Committee.

They would want us to be outraged at Putin's exceptional crimes. Whereas I keep recalling how Noreika's rebels in Telšiai District in a span of five weeks shot 300 Lithuanians and murdered 4,000 Jews, including all of the children, women and elderly of Plungė. Afterwards Noreika brought the organizers of the mass murders to Kaunas to greet the Provisional Government.

Egidijus Dalius Stancikas of the Genocide Center gave the following defense: "The European Parliament's insightful resolution, "On European conscience and totalitarianism", cautions that it is impossible to interpret historical facts completely objectively and nobody can claim that they are the only one who objectively knows."

Dugin similarly claims, "Every so-called truth is the matter of belief. So, we believe in what we do, we believe in what we say and that is the only way to define truth. So, we have our own, special Russian truth that you need to accept as something that may not be your truth."

In fact, that European Parliament resolution does seek objective truth: "whereas historians agree that fully objective interpretations of historical facts are not possible and objective historical narratives do not exist; whereas, nevertheless, professional historians use scientific tools to study the past, and try to be as impartial as possible,"

Multipolar morality understands evil as an enemy which lies, murders, steals, and thus it is good that such an enemy be tricked, killed, and dispossessed. Such morality does not speak in the name of all, nor in its own name, but rather in "our" name, and thus divides humanity.

Jesus taught us to treat all people the same: "You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who mistreat you and persecute you, that you may be children of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the just and the unjust. [...] Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect."

I and Jesus maintain the unipolar morality of free will, whereas they maintain the multipolar morality of inevitability. If there is no need, then I may choose to not interact with them. When they lie incessantly, I can patiently wait until like human beings they take off their masks. When I gain their confidence, I can hear them out, what about me hurts them so. When they make excuses, that events are inevitable, then it is appropriate to give them more control, and thereby show, that in fact they are free.

Let us always show good will. Let us make way for freedom in every way.

The good word bears witness that the good person does good deeds. The good quality, like salt, shows that good God gives good gifts. The good news declares that this is the same goodness. They are all the good will which makes way for the good heart.

By not driving our enemies into a corner, but rather allowing them to disentangle themselves honorably, by helping them think through what they truly want, by granting them freedom and letting them choose their future, we would learn to fight peacefully another day, and would avoid violent dead ends.

What I want from Russia

There is a time for everything - a time to murder, a time to heal, a time for war, a time for peace. But would I rather murder or be murdered? Would I rather make peace or have peace made with me? We are indeed free! Let us find rapport!

Such an opportunity forces me, as an enemy of Russia, to consider, what do I truly desire? What do I wish for from Russia? Is it that Russia withdraw from Ukraine? Or perhaps simply that it make peace with Ukraine, that Russia love its enemy, that Russia not feel isolated, that it interact with me and others, that it not be considered evil, but rather that it shine, no less than Ukraine?

Currently, Duginists are the ones who feel free in Russia. I ask them to approach Russia's government that it establish procedures by which Russian loyalists could interact with me and other enemies of Russia's policies. Russia's Foreign Ministry and its embassies could maintain a registrar of patriotic Russian peacemakers, so that they could freely engage well meaning Russian enemies, pratice fighting peacefully with them, and not be deemed Russian traitors.

For in the words of Russia's President, Russia's fate depends on its citizens' ability to quickly adapt to constant change and maintain social cohesion.

If in time of peace, it is important to prepare for war, then all the more so, in time of war it is important to prepare for peace.

Negotiators could promptly reestablish Russian and Ukrainian relationships. The greatest obstacle are the peoples, as much on the one side as on the other side, who are building bloodthirsty momentum to crush their enemy. But Russia and Ukraine are brotherly countries. This is the time for sowing seeds of good will, so that in the future they get along in harmony, after the West disappoints Ukraine, which is probable, and the pendulum swings back.

The Russian people are amazingly unified, not withstanding that Russia has significantly more freedom and information than in Soviet days. Russia's people understand what their government expects of them. They truly can be entrusted with the mission of engaging the inhabitants of the world so that they would understand the injustice of a unipolar world and also the attractiveness of a multipolar world.

Let us encourage interaction by way of those countries which did not side with the West. Let us bless interaction with the residents of towns and villages in the West who live away from the licentious metropolises, from the centers of unipolar media. May Russia inspire the entire global periphery!

May the Baltic states be a laboratory of peacemaking. Let us pursue the questions of past, present and future, by which we would practice dialogue. Let us learn to comprehensively discuss with enemies the issues that matter to Russia's president, namely, demilitarism, denazification, sexual morality, national authenticity.

Uniting our efforts, let us reveal who are the enemies of a multipolar world, that we may love them.

Let us unite all enemies and seek out humanity's common enemy. We could fight against artificial intelligence, against climate change, or for starters, fight against those who commit suicide. Every year, around the world, 800,000 people kill themselves. In Russia, 18,000 kill themselves. In Ukraine, 9,000 kill themselves. During President Putin's tenure, the number of victims has gone down to just one third of what it was. It is thought that this is because hard liquor is being replaced by beer and wine. But what does that say about traditional values? Let us toast:

За здоровье! To health!

За нашу дружбу! To friendship!

За любовь! To love!

За врагов! To enemies!