On September 1 2023 new history books are introduced for high schools in Russia.
While its content fits the preferences of the people in power in Russia, the twisted historic facts are less important than the way authorities impose their truth on vulnerable human beings – young minds.
Those who are in power can say what they want, including obvious lies. You can publicly say “Ukrainians are destroying their own cities.” You need to tolerate such lies and experience this as normal. The truth is not for you to decide, your subjectivity is of no value and interest. You are only important if you can serve the official truth, which is the truth of the state and its authorities.
Russian political scientist Ekaterina Schulman shares what it means for the development of future Russian society in the excerpt below.
Teaching obedience
We all know such a teaching from our childhood in our families and probably from school or from our workplace. People use punishment and rewards to get other people to do what they want.
We can see a prime example operating in Russia today. During the past 20 years Mr. Putin has tightened the screw on the civil society in Russia gradually. With the laws forbidding criticism of the army and a number of verdicts on people who did not comply, repression has taken on a new qualitiy. People are afraid to voice criticism of the war against Ukraine or of the current poltics.
Awareness is the first step to liberation.
“Aware of my fear, I chose to remain safe.”
The dilemma
We can understand the wish to remain out of prison or to keep our physical safety or even our life.
On the other hand we all have a deep need to contribute to life. We do not wish be harmed, but we do not wish to be harmed by others. But most of all we want to make life more wonderful for ourselves and others.
Now when we are in a situation where someone does harm to others and wants to continue to harm them and at the same time, this person threatens us that they will harm us, if we interfer with his or her harmful activity, this places us in a dilemma.
We can remain without harm ourselves, by staying silent or cooperating. But then we are part of the party that is harming another and become co-responsible for the harm.
We can speak up and refuse to cooperate, trying to prevent harm for others. But then we can end up getting harmed ourselves and we are co-responsible for the harm on us too.
If we stop for a moment and look at this dilemma – there seems to be no way that works for everybody – we can realize our need for a partnership way of living together.
Embracing partnership in conflict
Someone tells you “This is the truth for everyone. – Your own truth is irrelevant.”
Such a person needs our help, because they are deluded. We all have our own truth and there is also a truth for all of us, but this truth is complex and ever-changing, it is not static, it is a spiritual truth that is alive. Truth is in essence something that arises from communication and community and connection with life. As I see it, when I see it.
One thing that stands in our way like a big obstacle is our habitual way of hearing such a statement and our unreflected reactivity.
Hearing a demand we will either comply and give in to a threat of some kind, but internally we still have a NO to this. This internal NO may show up in various ways, for example when we feel the authority cannot harm us or when we had enough of it and explode.
Or we we comply to the external truth with an internal YES. Then we take our value from the authority to which we have chosen to submit. We adopt their truth, their world view and we become loyal followers. This gives a sense of ease, not having to bear the weight of responsibility, leaving things to the outside powers to decide. How nice! But can we really ignore the truth of suffering of others? No. We pretend to and get angry when reminded of this.
Both reactions are based on hearing a demand, including a threat of punishment or a promise of a juicy reward. Neither of these reactions take into account the true meaning of the communication, that is being the words –
“Please help me. I am desperate. I am trying to heal trust in a relationship.”
We hear the demand, because we are deeply wounded. Someone has forced us before. We want to heal that wound, that has never been acknowledged. “My father has hit me and forced me to do something. My love for him made that forcing experience into the deepest hurt I ever felt. Is there anybody out there that can understand my pain and feel compassion with me?” We want to forget this wound, pretend it is not there. But life keeps reminding us, when we hear such statements as demands.
If we can make a step to hear our own wounding within our habitual hearing of “violence” instead of “a request for help in deep need”, than we will be able to hear the message from another also with the deep ears of compassion that they truly need and they we cannnot offer them yet.
The more force another is applying the more they need our help.
But we need first to be able to help ourselves in hearing the pain inside about a party applying unfair amounts of force on us to get their way, without care for our side of the medal. That is the task.
When physical force, weapons or war between nations are part of the chosen strategy of a party to get their needs met, we need to use force to stop them for as long as they are not willing or able to stop that one-sided approach to conflict resolution. This is protecting life in the first place and calming another as long as needed, until they regain their ability and willingness to communicate.
Variants of such extreme situations are when a close and loved person is harming themselves.
We need to see that we are able to such things ourselves and that we are in denial of the basic reality, that we are all interdependent. What we do or what we do not do, it affects all of us.
Karma.
The delusions in life are intense and invite us to fall for them, with tragic consequences. The good part of it is that we do have choice and we can become aware that what we see outside is first inside, and not the other way around.
Living Dilemma in Russia Today – “It’s (not) true.”
Here is a small set of interviews where we can appreciate the dilemma of people living in a state where the people in power are in need of help and express this by trying to forcefully impose one official truth on the population. After several cases of harsh punishment for failing to comply have become public, people are aware that their words may have drastic consequences. Still the need for freedom shines through in many ways, for those who have an internal NO and who keep connection with their heart.
The group of submitters is also present. Can you sense their anger, because the truth of suffering is put on the table and they know it to be true and want to deny this inside themselves?
Disobedience with care
From all of this I take that it would be better to teach ourselves how to be disobedient with care.
If we can teach it to ourselves, we can teach it to our children. That would be better.
more to follow soon …