I find myself struggling with denial.
It's a special kind of denial, what we might call second-order denial, but it's denial nonetheless.
I've had to overlook a lot of contrary information to maintain my denial.
My denial meant my roadmap of the world was faulty; I keep expecting things to happen that didn't.
My denial has started to break down, which means I can now tell you about it.
To me, three things were apparent after the blowing up of the Nordstream pipelines:
1) Russia did not blow up its own pipelines, any more than Russia would shell its own nuclear power plant.
2) To get munitions that large that far underwater pretty much required that the 'sabotage' was done by a state actor, not some rogue terrorist.
3) The only three countries with both the means and the motive to blow up the pipelines were the United States, the UK, and Poland. Which, ipso facto, means NATO Germany was attacked by a fellow member of the NATO alliance.
I have a number of old friends in Europe. If Europe continues to commit economic suicide, my friends may suffer consequences. For that matter, I don't want anyone in Europe to go through what I suspect lies ahead for Europe this winter. So I have very much wanted to believe that Europe, and particularly Germany, would recognize they'd almost certainly been drop-kicked in the crotch by a NATO ally, and respond accordingly.
I have to say, my wish/hope for Europe blinded me to the obvious clues that most Europeans are having trouble facing reality:
1) Hiding in "It's possible Russia could have done it" is the classic grasping-at-straws of the reality-phobic. (Aliens! It could have been aliens!)
2) Referring to a blatant act of war against crucial German infrastructure as 'sabotage' is the minimizing so typical of denial.
3) 'We should wait until the investigation is completed' sounds very fair and reasonable until you recognize that its purpose is to delay having to confront an ugly truth.
4) Yes, tens of thousands have been protesting in various European capitals, but tens of millions felt no need to protest.
MY denial got in the way of me seeing those clues.
I should have known better. After all, this isn't my first experience with second-order denial.
When I was nineteen, I became a Quaker, and a committed pacifist. Being a pacifist in Toronto was was too easy, so I decided to go somewhere where pacifism would be more of a challenge - a Quaker work camp in Belfast, Northern Ireland. My parents were horrified.
This was in 1971, at the height of 'the Troubles'. I arrived at York Road Station in Belfast the day after the IRA had blown it up. Twelve people had been killed.
I was one of two dozen wide-eyed young volunteers representing a dozen countries. We did summer recreation work with the local kids - arts and crafts, sports, field trips to the country. We tried to keep the children away from anywhere there was fighting, and be people they looked up to who didn't carry a gun.
I returned from Belfast quite optimistic that the Troubles would soon be over.
Why was that? It was patently obvious to me that the violence was harming all sides - Catholics, Protestants, even the British Army. Each group had seen significant numbers killed and horribly wounded. Belfast had seen quite a number of important landmarks shattered. And the Northern Ireland economy was in free-fall.
The war had clearly reached a stable stalemate, which meant the future would be more of the same. A negotiated settlement was the only realistic solution.
Most of the locals I talked to privately had come to the same conclusions. I kept waiting to hear news that a negotiated agreement had been reached to end the Troubles.
I ended up waiting for a very long time.
Over the next decade, the Troubles gradually faded away to sporadic spasms of violence. But it was seventeen years before the Good Friday accords were finally signed in 1988.
Why did it take so long to finally resolve a situation that benefited no-one?
In retrospect, I didn't want to see that there was runaway denial on both sides of the conflict.
The militants of the Catholic Irish Republican Army were convinced that eventually they would have a great victory and the six counties of Northern Ireland would be re-united with Ireland proper.
The Protestant militants - the Ulster Defense Force - were also convinced they would win a great victory, and put things back the way they had been before - with the Protestants in charge, and with Catholics barred from high-waged places of employment.
Initially both groups of militants had a fair amount of support within their respective communities. (Fantasies of glorious victory after long struggle are so beguiling!)
Though many people in private conversations with an outsider like me could that their side was never going to win a great victory, it would have been hugely 'unpatriotic' to say that publicly.
Those who were courageous enough to speak up were met by responses along these lines: "You're a traitor to your own people. If we stop now, all those who died, will have died for nothing - you're practically spitting on their graves!" So most of the people who wanted a negotiated solution kept quiet, and therefore did not realize they represented the majority of the population.
It took a number of years for the British Army to stop acting as the recruitment arm of the IRA.
Whenever the IRA was running short of manpower or funds, they'd shoot and kill a British soldier. The British Army would then rampage through entire neighbourhoods, breaking down doors, beating up teenagers, and throwing dozens of men into jail on 'suspicion.' I was thrown spread-eagled against a wall myself more than once during such rage-athons. (If your legs weren't spread wide enough you risked a rifle butt to your crotch - or worse.)
The IRA could alwaysbe sure of a flood of donations and new recruits in the days that followed. Eventually the British realized what was happening and reined in their troops from taking revenge.
It was the women of Northern Ireland who finally decided enough was enough. (Left to their own devices, I suspect the men on both sides would still be a-battling in hopes of a final victory.)
The upshot of all this was that my assessment that a negotiated settlement to Northern Ireland's Troubles was just around the corner was many years premature. I suppose I should have seen then that what's real is only important when the general population allows themselves to take in what is real. (Even more so in war-time.)
Given that history of watching how agonizing long it took the Northern Irish to accept a reality that was bloody obvious to anyone willing to see it, I really should have been more open to recognizing Europe's deep dive into denial over Nordstream than I have been. Mea Culpa.
I get it now. If you're a European who's spent decades thinking Russia was a threat to Europe, and America was Europe's benefactor, it's gotta cause some serious cognitive dissonance to think the direct opposite might now be closer to the truth.
I'm sure it would make your head hurt. Best not to think about it. I'm sorry I didn't understand that.
Take your time. Reality will still be there when you're ready to let it in.
Dear Lord, ain't this the truth! Brilliant analogy Bruce. That's decades of indirect indoctrination and soft brain washing. I understand now (finally) how it came to this but for years I was puzzled why after the fall of USSR (or rather disintegration) weren't Russian people afforded same compassion and understanding as, let's say, Poles. After all they had suffered as much if not more and were wanting better life. So much had changed there and they wanted to join the rest of the "free world". I understand the "big plan" but it is harder to accept that regular people of Poland and Europe in general were quite happy to maintain old animosities and allowed themselves to be manipulated.
I think one of the things that gets in the way of Europeans seeing reality is this idea they have a moral duty to 'support' Ukraine. Pretending Ukraine is going to defeat Russia is really no different than the Ulster Catholics pretending that a motley band of IRA thugs was going to defeat the British Army.
Twenty thousand Ukrainian soldiers get killed or wounded each month. More and more of Ukraine's housing stock, industrial base, infrastructure and economy gets ruined with each passing month. European 'support' is steadily destroying Ukraine.