So where are the Ukrainians?
Nothing about us without us
List of speakers:
Dr Vasabjit Banerjee (Mississippi State University), General Sir Richard Barrons (former Head of the Joint Forces Command), Brigadier Ben Barry (International Institute for Strategic Studies), Dr Richard Connolly (University of Birmingham), Professor Philip Davies (Brunel Centre for Intelligence and Security Studies), Dr Marc De Vore (University of St Andrews), Professor Sir Lawrence Freedman FBA (King’s College London), Professor Mark Galeotti (UCL School of Slavonic & East European Studies), Dr Tom Grant (Wolfson College, Cambridge), Professor Samuel Greene (King’s College London), Dr Pierre Haroche (Institut de Recherche Stratègique de l’Ecole Militaire, Paris), Professor Louise Mallinder (Queen’s University Belfast), Dr Jenny Mathers (Aberystwyth University), Arda Mevlütoğlu (Siyah Gri Beyaz), Dr Andrew Monaghan (Royal United Services Institute & Wilson Center's Kennan Institute), Professor Phillips O’Brien (University of St Andrews), Professor Robert Service FBA (University of Oxford), Dr Constanze Stelzenmüller (The Brookings Institution), Professor Andrzej Szeptycki (University of Warsaw), Dr Joanna Szostek (University of Glasgow), Professor Neville Wylie (University of Stirling).
Well at least there are two Poles. And somebody who became an expert on Borderlands after a career writing and saying the Second World War was won in the Pacific.
A prevailing fear among Central and Eastern Europeans is that we will get Muniched.
As in powers get together and decide about us, without our presence. This is a real and tangible fear when Scholz or Macron talk with Putin. Which they do MUCH too often and much too cosily. There are instant results, when they start talking nonsense about humiliating Russia.
Poland’s nobility had a rule - Nothing about us without us. This was also a key element of Polish diplomacy during the interwar period, but France and the UK did their deals anyway.
It is despicable, contemptuous and very much on brand for there not to be a single Ukrainian academic on the list of speakers, which include academics who wouldn’t know their Kresy from their Окраина (Okraina) from their Ukraine, even after watching a lot of Youtube and reading Twitter. You know who you are.
Poles suffered terrible racism during and after WW2 when their bravery, skills and will to fight were questioned by sniffy French and Anglo-Saxons. Now its Ukraine’s turn to be ignored academically while its brave soldiers chase Russians to the border.
Pathetic.
PS My grandmother was born in Lviv/Lwów to a mixed Polish Ukrainian marriage so I also get a voice on this. But its the Ukrainians dying and fighting for their country who deserve a voice.
No Ko-fi buttons deliberately.
PPS Gender imbalance as well:
PPS Update - They’ve added Ukrainians