Features Overview

Language as a weapon

As the world watches the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, it's important to consider how things got this way.

I was born and spent most of my childhood in the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv. Lined with giant boulevards, monuments, cathedrals, and parks stitched together by cobblestone streets, the city was founded more than 1,500 years ago.

How did the strain between Russia and Ukraine escalate to an all-out war? One critical area of focus that must be examined is the culture of this region and, by extension, language.

In the era of the Soviet Union, all fifteen Soviet Republics spoke one tongue, Russian. Russian was my birth language and the only one I speak from my native country. Although each territory had its ethnic language, as outlined by professor David F. Marshall from the Institute of Linguistics at the University of North Dakota, to fulfill “the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's goal of creating a non-ethnic Soviet people," Russian was exclusively used in schools, courts, businesses, and every form of media. However, Marshall adds, this "policy spawned a generation of cultural entrepreneurs, (who had) high resistance to Russification and integration became a major long-run problem for the Soviet Union."

Do Political Ends Justify Their Means?

The Latin proverb "exitus acta probat' is translated to "result justifies the deed". To explore the meaning of this phrase, I wanted to first agree on what the word "justifies" implies. The term justified shall be extrapolated for our purposes as the right course of action has been taken. Another ward, it is acceptable to cause suffering to some if the outcome alleviates a greater proportion of suffering. The moral question this present was illustrated in the thought experiment of the well-known Trolley Problem. By forcing a participant to choose between killing an innocent person intentionally, thereby saving the lives of five others, or doing nothing, seemingly absolving them of responsibility, however, ensuring all five die instead, presented one such moral impasse. (Panahi, 2016)  Another such example is illustrated in Maslow's torturing of baby Rhesus monkeys to determine the importance of a nurturing environment for children. Was the anguish, and likely permanent psychological damage, caused to the young monkeys justified by Maslow's contributions to psychology? (Cullen, 1997)  Can one hold themselves to the model of being a good person while at the same time do bad things in the process?

The 2016 U.S. Election, Russia, and Three-Dimensional Chess

The United States 45th Presidential election took place in 2016 and was like none before it. With zero political experience, Donald Trump overcame insurmountable odds and beat Hillary Clinton through a campaign that shocked most United States citizens, supporters, and detractors alike, as well as many around the world. How did a reality show character and real estate developer come to the head of the highest office on the land? Did his election grow our nation's trust in the processes of our democracy, or did it erode it? Lastly, if the US system functions because of trust in its democratic institutions, who benefits if it is corroded? It is best to start a few years earlier to answer these questions.

Vladimir V. Putin was President of the Russian Federation from 1999 to 2008, serving two consecutive terms. The Russian constitution, at the time, had not limited the maximum terms a president could serve but provided that a former president may seek re-election after waiting out one complete term. Putin did that, installing Dmitry Medvedev for a single four-year term before putting himself back on the ticket for re-election, followed by a landslide victory in 2012. The election was later shown to be entirely rigged. So blatantly, in fact, that the citizens of Russia mobilized into protests across the country in numbers never seen in the history of the country. Hundreds of thousands of Russian citizens shouted with one voice, "we do not want Putin! We want a free and fair election!"