Frans Vermeulen | Article appeared on July 18, 2022 in the Brabants Dagblad

“We have to do something with Russia, there is no other way”. That is how I summarize the article by Chris van Mersbergen, which appeared in BN/DeStem and the Brabants Dagblad of June 21st about the Netherlands-Russia Center in Groningen, apparently with the intention of sketching a more nuanced picture of the war in the Ukraine than we, readers, are presented with in the media every day. Of course we have to 'do something with Russia' and we should have done that in 1945. That is why I think the reaction of the Netherlands-Russia Center comes far too late. We, the Western alliance, have missed the opportunity to build a good relationship with the Russians several times. Moreover, the Center comes up with an argument that does not hold water. It blames the difficult relationship between the two countries on the 'being different' of the average Russian, but I think that the dominant view of the western part of Europe compared to the eastern part is the real problem. In fact, we Westerners fail to realize how much we humiliate the Russians by portraying them as “untrustworthy” and “aggressive,” while we see ourselves as peaceful and trustworthy.

Ask an average Dutchman who defeated Hitler and he will answer: “We, the Allies”. Ask the same question to an average Russian and he will say: “We, the Russians”.

Then isn't it crystal clear that there is a huge misunderstanding about such a clear fact? In 1990 I was with a group from Goirle in Krasnogorsk and Moscow and we had contact with ordinary people, who all spoke out about the desire to create a European federation. As editors of Schering & Inslag we asked Gorbachev for his opinion and he immediately let us know that he thought the same. His text is available for inspection at my place. In short, Russians are indeed just like us, but there is one difference: we look through colored glasses, while they see the harsh reality with their own eyes. Not only did they have forty (!) times as many victims to mourn as we did, it was also the Russians who in 1942 received the first blow from a thoroughly criminal, murderous and dehumanizing German regime. The battle of Stalingrad hit the Germans so hard that their striking power was finally broken. It is no exaggeration to say that it was the Russians who made the Allied invasion possible on June 6, 1944. The Allies entered the battlefield a full two years after the Russians.

Only when you, as a Netherlands-Russia Centre, take off your rose-tinted glasses, can you understand why Putin is now misbehaving. It is a mechanism that always works: those who are always portrayed as criminals will at some point not be able to resist the urge to behave like criminals. Those who are always regarded as rebellious natives will at a difficult moment know no other option than to revolt (Indonesia, 1945). This is also the case with the relationship between the Netherlands and Russia and, in a broader context, with the relationship between the Western world and Russia. To a large extent, Russia behaves “properly” according to the image we have of Russia and keep trumpeting. Russia reacts like the scapegoat. Wrong of course, but understandable. In short: Russians react like ordinary people, just like us. If we were forced into their situation, we would probably behave just like them, sick with shame and anger. Finally, people who think that I am presenting the invasion of Ukraine as 'less bad' prove me right: they think in terms of the added value of the Western world compared to 'inferior' Russia, and that is the real problem.