Inroduction To The Theme

      The present issue of "Woman Plus…" like the previous one is dedicated to a certain theme. The problem of decline of human relationships that we would like to discuss today is extremely profound and complex. We focused on it because the crisis of human values leading to "worsening of human relationships" along with the process of social differentiation discussed in the previous issue is indeed a No.1 problem for today’s reality.
      This problem was first realized on a large scale during the opinion poll in the city of Kaluga. The poll was conducted by the Non-commercial Partnership for Civil Initiative Support "Focus" in April-June of 1998. (In the course of the study three groups of citizens were polled: experts – deputies of the city Duma, members of the administration, leading specialists of the local industry etc. – totally 30 persons; people working in non-commercial organizations (107 persons) and just the city inhabitants – 486 persons. The results discussed below refer to the general population only (third group), because the data obtained from the first two groups are somewhat different.) The sociologists who conducted the poll asked the citizens to range the following problems by significance (in descending order). They were to choose the most acute problems out of the list. Here are the results of the poll:
1. Lack of money for buying foodstuff
2. Decline of human relationships caused by degradation of culture and morals
3. Lack of money for buying durables
4. Threat of unemployment
5. Sharp social differentiation of the society
6. Weakness and helplessness of the city government
7. Degradation of the environment
8. Growth of the drug addiction
9. Youth crime
10. Life-threatening environment
      As one can see, our fellow citizens are worried by the decay of human relationships and place this problem immediately after finding the necessary for their "daily bread". What are the causes of this progressing decease of out time and do we have any chance for recovery? And what’s most important, who are the doctors and what is the effective cure that can help us?
      Another problem that we can’t help speaking about today is the Balkan war. Ethnic conflicts like the one in Kosovo are far from rare – take Karabakh, or Abkhazia, or Chechnya or… one could go on and on. All these conflicts are deep-rooted and have long history. They keep smoldering for years, now flashing with sparks of mutual hatred of two peoples living side by side, now waning during periods of remorse: "What have we done!" But they never die away completely. These conflicts tend to burn up anew after disintegration of great powers, and Yugoslavia is not an exception here. But at least, the Balkans would have never become a focus of destabilization in Europe and the critical point where a shadow of a new World War appeared if it were not for the NATO intrusion. The Alliance decided to dictate peace and harmony to the hostile parties that were not at all ready to stop killing each other and refused to live side by side. What has this lead to? To still deeper trouble for people whom they were eager to help.
      One cannot help sympathizing Kosovo refugees and their tragedy. But before interfering into someone’s problems one should straiten out the situation and take into account both its causes and consequences of such interference. After the ruin of "financial pyramids" in Albania many radical supporters of the independence of Kosovo have ransacked military arsenals, armed themselves and moved to the North crossing the border with FRY that was now exposed. To the mind of a famous Spanish journalist and writer Alfonso Rocho, help promised by Europe and United States seemed to wing the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army. It was the declaration of sympathy by the West that thrust the guerillas forward to the armed conflict. The members of Kosovo Liberation Army hardly believed that they could overcome the Armed Forces of Yugoslavia. More likely they thought they could count on the NATO’s help sooner or later if the Serbs started the slaughter in Kosovo in reply to the guerillas’ activities.
      The NATO’s intrusion into the Balkan conflict has political, economical, and juridical aspects, but the members of the North Atlantic Alliance themselves name just the ethical reasons: we can’t just sit on our hands and watch the Serbs infringe on Kosovo Albanians’ rights. US citizens whose opinion we asked for gave us the following arguments for the NATO forces bombing Yugoslavia: "We can’t cold-bloodedly watch a drunk man beat his wife in the house next door. Just the same we can’t stand by and let Milosevic go on with genocide in Kosovo. One should stop him!" The sincere wish to intercede for the suffering party, especially inhering in Americans is admirable indeed. But if we follow the logic of our American acquaintances the conclusion will be the following: in order to stop violence in our neighbor’s house we need nothing more than to drop a bomb at his roof, a couple of bombs if possible. Then the scoundrel won’t ever let himself go!
      Besides, to speak about ethics, one would wonder if the leaders of Christian states belonging to the NATO remember the words of their Teacher, "Whichever one of you has committed no sin may throw a stone". Who then is sinless enough to drop a bomb? Is it Britain that has colonized half the world? Or maybe is it France that eagerly joined its Emperor’s ecumenical ambitions? Or Portugal and Spain that have cut down South American native population and founded the "blackbird trade" business worldwide? Or maybe the heirs of the Third Reich? Who is that sinless among them? Perhaps only the great overseas empire of democracy is free of sin – its two centuries of history are not long enough to commit any serious sins. Except for wiping out the Indians, inventing lynch law and dropping atom bombs to Hiroshima and Nagasaki… But who remembers it nowadays! And if one does, nobody will have the heart to say it aloud and thus be so indelicate to self-reproachful citizens of free America.
      Of course one could object to that by saying that sons are not responsible for the sins of their fathers, and least of all for the sins of forefathers. But this is a juridical and not at all an ethical approach. On the contrary, a person adhering to the ethical position cannot take a load of old crimes off his mind, even if those crimes were committed without him taking part. He cannot help regretting them as one of human species, as a member of his clan or kin. This would be sufficient grounds for not being a judge to one’s neighbor. And if it is not so, all these pompous ethical foundations of the necessity of bombing Yugoslavia are nothing but pure demagogism hiding the real motives of the leaders of the NATO members. They prefer to be silent about the real motives, because they may happen to be not plausible enough to gain even the homeland citizens’ approval.
      By the way, it is very interesting to know what the citizens of the North Atlantic Union countries think about NATO military attacks on Yugoslavia. We also wondered about the point of view of Yugoslavian people themselves and the citizens of Russia, the country that was lucky to play a role of peacemaker in this delicate situation. So we asked the people what they thought about this matter. Many did not give their answers but some of them did, and you will have the possibility to learn and compare their point of view. Only there is no crystal clearness in the answers, no resolution leading to confidence of the kind "yes, these people know what to do!" Such clearness is inhering only in fanatics and "nazis" of all times and countries. And the replies we got were full of dismay and abashment. The thing was, the people taking part in the poll were first shown a picture of a girl raped by a whole platoon of Serb soldiers and then the remains of a child killed by a NATO bomb. After that they were asked, "What's’ worse?" and "Who is to blame?" In such a situation people (even the ones who don’t have enough imagination to think of a girl as their daughter and a child as their son) just if they have got some conscience are not capable of giving a definite and clear answer to these questions and not lose inner balance, not stop being the persons they have been and not go mad…