Sand was dribbling out of the bag of her attention, faster and faster. Sarah Blake
Let us not focus on the chink in the canvas of the darkness but look at the light piercing through it. Erik Pevernagie
Where your attention goes, your time goes. Idowu Koyenikan,
A single moment with that empty spot causes excruciating pain. That’s why we run from distraction to distraction—and from attachment to attachment. Yasmin Mogahed
It seems as if people were worn out on the way to great thoughts and can never enjoy them because they are too tired. George Eliot
If our state were really happy, we should not need to take our minds off it in order to make ourselves happy. Blaise Pascal
You understand absolutely nothing about modern civilization unless you first admit that it is a universal conspiracy against all interior life. Georges Bernanos
I’m sitting in my living room early on a chilly Sunday morning having already woven a tapestry of distraction even before the sun rises on this first day of daylight savings. I make coffee; I arrange the compost to take to the Farmer’s Market; I check the sports scores and the late-winter weather; I write short notes to some people whom I have neglected or to whom I have been unresponsive; I check my bank-balance to remind myself yet again of the perils of not having a salary; I obsess over what it will be like to re-enter UN headquarters after a two-year absence. The sand of my attention has been steadily “dribbling out of the bag” and the sun hasn’t even graced the horizon yet. It’s not a pretty picture.
But of course, given our work in the world, my computer is open to the latest from Ukraine, a conflict which for a variety of reasons has sucked the oxygen out of the wider range of conflicts and controversies to which we attempt to focus policy attention. From Afghanistan and Sudan to Myanmar and Yemen, so much of the conflict and climate-impacted misery facing millions in our fragile global community receives scant attention now as the Russian invasion moves into a third week and the justifications for the civilian-targeted violence are becoming increasingly absurd, calculated distractions rather than honest suggestions for resetting regional security arrangements.
The Russian invasion has been anything but surgical. Russian troops seem largely unmotivated, resistance has been much more formidable than expected, and Russian leadership is clearly in over its head, a worrisome development given Russia’s “on alert” nuclear arsenal and its position as one of the primary guardians of a Charter-based order which it now flaunts with presumptions of impunity. Russia is hardly the only large power which has used its coercion and position to expand its geopolitical influence, often in the face of massive international opposition, but that such unilateral coercive measures of choice continue to be rationalized is a testament to how fragile our vaunted “rules-based international order” has often been and remains until the present.
Consistent with other large-power disruptions to the prevailing global order, Russia has responded to the current tsunami of opposition with statements within and beyond the Security Council which continue to place the blame for its own actions on the actions of others – from NATO expansionism to allegations of biological weapons labs developed by the US and the presumed revival of Nazism within Ukraine itself. Much of this blaming of course is also a strategy to create distraction – an attempt to confine discussions to the topic of who broke the proverbial dishes in the kitchen while ignoring the larger reality that one of the parties to the dishes dispute had no business being in the kitchen in the first instance.
And there is another factor here for those of us who spend much of our time discerning and assessing threats to the peace beyond Euro-centric theaters of conflict, assessing both particularities and commonalities of conflict and deprivation, but also the will and capacity of the international community to effect lasting relief, our propensity for making more promises than we honor, including the promise to remain seized of threats to peace and security whether or not they come to dominate the front pages of western media and their global colleagues.
For while a needless war in Ukraine rages, so do manifold and even existential threats from climate change and biodiversity loss. So do grave challenges to the millions worldwide who have had their lives and livelihoods turned upside down by unwelcome regime change in states from Afghanistan to Sudan. So do impediments to health from vaccine inequity and fresh water supplies which are increasingly tainted and inaccessible. So do the development of weapons systems which allow us to kill many at a distance with only limited strands of accountability.
We in the policy world have many promises to global constituents over many years, promises to prevent conflict and promote development, promises to improve governance and narrow economic and social inequalities, promises to promote respect for rights and laws in tandem with those we seek to serve.
These promises require sustained interest and attention from the international community, indeed from all of us in policy, attention even more important in light of the current conflict in Ukraine. Many of us are tired to be sure, tired of crises of choice, tired of having multi-lateral efficacy betrayed by narrow, partisan national interests. But the stakes are high now, higher than they have been in some time, especially so for those legions of weary conflict victims in all global regions. As we begin to assess the carnage multiplying now in Ukraine, we will also be tasked with assessing damage, yet again, to the UN’s battered reputation as its large powers refuse to play by the rules they liberally compel for others. It is time for us to deepen attachments, but to broaden them also; to chide those who refuse to honor their responsibilities and to find and share the glimmers of light piercing still through these dark times.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has rightly set off many, well-worn alarm bells, including the bell which tolls for the looming threat to any pretense of shared commitments by states to a cleaner, safer, more peaceful, more equitable world. When the erstwhile, Charter-mandated guardians of multilateralism demonstrate that national interest is still the primary catalyst for national action, the fear is that additional smaller states will also choose to line up to challenge international law obligations once they are confident of escaping consequences from ignoring Charter values.
To our mind, the one thing the UN needs to be discussing now is how to broker a cease fire in Ukraine followed by the swift withdrawal of Russian forces; and then to discern how best to repair this latest rupture to the shroud of credibility still covering parts of our multilateral system, a rupture with grave implications for the millions living with violence, rights abuses and food insecurity in conflict settings within and far beyond Ukraine.
All the rest, all of the recrimination and phony rationalizations, all of that is mere distraction. We can’t afford the indulgence.
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