Saturday, August 12, 2023

Saturday Snippet: The Truce of the Bear (both of them)

 

Rudyard Kipling wrote his poem "The Truce of the Bear" in 1898.  He apparently always intended it to be an allegory of how untrustworthy the Russian Empire (and, later, the Soviet Union) was in international relations.  According to the Kipling Society, he "wanted it to be read in a political sense from the very start and would have much preferred it to come out in The Times: ’Put it in as “sporting” in the (sic) Times and save 20 quid’, he pleaded. ‘It will be smothered in Literature’. He was intent on making its political meaning clear, deliberately courting controversy: ’Put I wanted the row in The Times, and all the virtuous people who believe Russia to be civilised calling you names’."


His early experience as a young journalist commenting on the Afghan Border Crisis of 1884-5 had left Kipling with a lasting mistrust of Russia and its territorial ambition. (See Neil K. Moran, Kipling and Afghanistan, where these early pieces from the Civil and Military Gazette are reprinted.)

As early as 1890, in the short story “The Man Who Was”, Kipling had described Russia as belonging to Asia and ‘not going to be civilized after the methods of the West.’ In the will drawn up 10 days before he died Kipling stipulated that no investment in Russian stocks should be made by the trustee of his estate.

Though it offers all the pleasures of a gripping yarn, the poem also challenges readers in ways that Kipling might not have predicted; at a certain level the bear and the human hunter whose face he destroyed are disturbingly alike.

In March 2022 Peggy Noonan, in her column in the Wall Street Journal, mindful of the Russian attack on Ukraine, recalled  that in 1903, some 120 years ago, John Hay, the American Secretary of State, had written to President Theodore Roosevelt  about conflicts with Czarist Russia:

“Four years of constant conflict …  have shown me that you cannot let up a minute on them without danger to your midriff.  The bear that talks like a man is more to be watched than Adam Zad”


There's more at the link.

From our perspective on current events, it's worth remembering that the "Bear" refers not just to Russia (the Russian Empire, as it then was) but the Slavic frame of mind, as it was understood to exist at the end of the 19th century.  That perspective was certainly inaccurate in many ways, but then, everybody suffered from their own more or less flawed versions of jingoism and nationalism back then.  (Not much has changed, has it?)  Looking at the war between Ukraine and Russia today, it's clear that both sides have the same state-centric view of the war.  People are there to be used as cannon fodder.  The State is everything, and is embodied in the person of its leader.  I think both Putin and Zelensky are completely untrustworthy, and dishonest to boot.  Sure, Putin's the guilty party in this war, being the aggressor and the invader in defiance of Russia's solemn diplomatic commitments;  but Zelensky is no better, sending hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to their deaths in a war he must know he can't win, and embezzling millions (if not billions) in foreign aid.  As far as I'm concerned, a plague on both their houses.  The same goes for the puppet-masters in the WEF and the State Department and elsewhere, who are exploiting both leaders and both nations to further their own ends and don't care how many people have to die in order to achieve them.

At any rate, "The Truce of the Bear" remains a pointed, poignant warning about who to trust (and not to trust) when it comes to that mindset.  I suggest it might fruitfully be borne in mind today.


Yearly, with tent and rifle, our careless white men go
By the Pass called Muttianee, to shoot in the vale below.
Yearly by Muttianee he follows our white men in—
Matun, the old blind beggar, bandaged from brow to chin. 

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless - toothless, broken of speech,
Seeking a dole at the doorway he mumbles his tale to each;
Over and over the story, ending as he began:
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad - the Bear that walks like a Man! 

"There was a flint in my musket - pricked and primed was the pan,
When I went hunting Adam-zad - the Bear that stands like a Man.
I looked my last on the timber, I looked my last on the snow,
When I went hunting Adam-zad fifty summers ago! 

"I knew his times and his seasons, as he knew mine, that fed
By night in the ripened maizefield and robbed my house of bread.
I knew his strength and cunning, as he knew mine, that crept
At dawn to the crowded goat-pens and plundered while I slept. 

"Up from his stony playground - down from his well-digged lair—
Out on the naked ridges ran Adam-zad the Bear—
Groaning, grunting, and roaring, heavy with stolen meals,
Two long marches to northward, and I was at his heels! 

"Two long marches to northward, at the fall of the second night,
I came on mine enemy Adam-zad all panting from his flight.
There was a charge in the musket - pricked and primed was the pan—
My  finger crooked on the trigger - when he reared up like a man.

"Horrible, hairy, human, with paws like hands in prayer,
Making his supplication rose Adam-zad the Bear!
I looked at the swaying shoulders, at the paunch's swag and swing,
And my heart was touched with pity for the monstrous, pleading thing. 

"Touched with pity and wonder, I did not fire then . . .
I have looked no more on women - I have walked no more with men.
Nearer he tottered and nearer, with paws like hands that pray—
From brow to jaw that steel-shod paw, it ripped my face away!

"Sudden, silent, and savage, searing as flame the blow -
Faceless I fell before his feet, fifty summers ago.
I heard him grunt and chuckle - I heard him pass to his den.
He left me blind to the darkened years and the little mercy of men.

"Now ye go down in the morning with guns of the newer style,
That load (I have felt) in the middle and range (I have heard) a mile?
Luck to the white man's rifle, that shoots so fast and true,
But - pay, and I lift my bandage and show what the Bear can do!"

(Flesh like slag in the furnace, knobbed and withered and grey—
Matun, the old blind beggar, he gives good worth for his pay.)
"Rouse him at noon in the bushes, follow and press him hard -
Not for his ragings and roarings flinch ye from Adam-zad.

"But (pay, and I put back the bandage) this is the time to fear,
When he stands up like a tired man, tottering near and near;
When he stands up as pleading, in wavering, man-brute guise,
When he veils the hate and cunning of his little, swinish eyes;

"When he shows as seeking quarter, with paws like hands in prayer
That is the time of peril - the time of the Truce of the Bear!" 

Eyeless, noseless, and lipless, asking a dole at the door,
Matun, the old blind beggar, he tells it o'er and o'er;Fumbling and feeling the rifles, warming his hands at the flame,
Hearing our careless white men talk of the morrow's game; 

Over and over the story, ending as he began:—
"There is no truce with Adam-zad, the Bear that looks like a Man!"


Those trying to dictate terms to the combatants in Ukraine, and bring about any sort of settlement there, might do well to keep that in mind - concerning both sides.

Peter


34 comments:

  1. I'm not 100% sure if this is your writing, or a quote from the article?

    "Sure, Putin's the guilty party in this war, being the aggressor and the invader in defiance of Russia's solemn diplomatic commitments"

    But I do have to ask what that writer was smoking? Must be some seriously good fucking shit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What, exactly, in that sentence is incorrect? Be specific.

      Delete
    2. Anon @ 8:43
      I'll give my answer though I not be who you quired.
      Russia is not the aggressor in this conflict. Aggressor being defined as he who took the first swing.

      Delete
  2. Kipling was correct in his assessment. And stands true to this day. I came to these shores from East Europe in '90s, I grew up behind the Iron Curtain and I confirm that Russians are everywhere (at least all of E Europe) despised. From up-North Finland/Sweden all the way down to Turkey, everyone has history and bad blood with Russia/USSR. Territorial grabs, never to be trusted, cruel/sadistic, barbaric and certainly not-European at all. There was hope hearing "Americans are coming" but there's always fear and concern when you hear that "Russians are coming".
    And it is particularly bad now that Russia teamed up with China which btw is never to be trusted as well.

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  3. Unlike our politicians, Kipling knew and understood the lands and people he wrote about. His was not a theoretical lnowledge but based on actual experience.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Namaste.

    Now do Gehazi.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Peter this doesn't seem like your usual well thought out posting.

    Were you hacked or impaired?

    Almost a polite Raconteur story posting, curious.

    ReplyDelete
  6. "sending hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to their deaths in a war he must know he can't win"

    So, what exactly should the Ukrainians have done when Putin came a-knockin'? Bent the knee and submitted to Moscow?

    "who are exploiting both leaders and both nations to further their own ends"

    Please elaborate as to how the WEF and State Department made Putin launch this invasion and are making him continue this war.

    Look, I get it. The high and mighty who are all for "Ukrainian self-determination" are also very much against their own people having rights at all, and so naturally you're suspicious. But the Ukrainians have at least tried to fix their problems--for evidence of this, see their relative performance in the 2014 invasion and the current conflict--and while they're still a grungefest they're still better than the Russians. Even stopped clocks are right twice a day.

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  7. It would seem even Mitt Romney understood that Russia was still the enemy of the West. BHO and Joe Biden lambasted him and the press jump on with both feet.

    Don't hear much about that anymore do you?

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  8. @Anonymous: The Ukrainian military lost the war on day one. The only reason the war did not end in the first week was because Zelensky used civilians as human shields.
    The only battle the UA military was not loosing was the battle of propaganda.

    They would have submitted to the Russians but the country would not have been littered in mines and ordnance, tens of thousands of people would still be alive and billions of infrastructure would still be useable.

    But the Ukrainian government does not care about the Ukrainian people so yes, they should have submitted to the Russians because at least then the people would have had a chance of rebuilding.

    But now? Both countries are tied down in a Materialschlacht neither side can win. Even "modern" western arms are not the game changer propaganda is making them out to be. Leopards and Bradleys are just as vulnerable to modern anti tank weapons as the T72 and BMP.

    Russian was and is the aggressor but its not like the UA was waging a low scale war against its own citizens for 8 years at this point. Neither political caste is better as the other one. But the people would have suffered less.

    When there is no honor in surviving there is no sense in living honorably.

    ReplyDelete
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    1. Given that the Russians have shown no qualms about collateral damage, your first paragraph is straight male bovine excrement, and I am quite comfortable dismissing the rest of it.

      I get it. You are very upset that based and trad Vlad is having a hard time taking over a country 1/3 the size of his. That, however, sounds like a personal problem to me, since the Ukrainians have made their stance on the matter quite clear.

      Delete
  9. "...but the Slavic frame of mind..."
    Shame on you, Peter; I've always thought far better of you.
    "Slavic" - you mean the Czechoslovaks, the Poles, the Belarusians, etc. --- or the Roman Catholics, the Eastern Orthodox, the Jews, or the Moslems from these areas?
    C'mon, there's no such thing as a "Slavic frame of mind."

    ReplyDelete
  10. "Sure, Putin's the guilty party in this war, being the aggressor and the invader in defiance of Russia's solemn diplomatic commitments; but Zelensky is no better, sending hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to their deaths in a war he must know he can't win, and embezzling millions (if not billions) in foreign aid."


    Please recall Victoria Nuland and her minions basically overthrew the Ukrainian government in 2014 and installed an anti-Russia puppet. Putin was very clear this interference in his neighbor's affairs was unacceptable. The Russians tried to make a deal in the Minsk Accords which was simply used by the US/UK empire to stall for time. The SMO was Russia's decision to strike first rather than wait for Ukraine to abide by the accords they approved. People have already forgotten (?) the numerous atrocities committed against ethnic Russians in Kiev-controlled traditionally Russian regions. The illicit (US funded!) bio warfare labs have also been memory-holed. What were McCain, Graham, Lugar, Biden and Obama doing all those years in 'backwater' Ukraine?

    There were plenty of reasons to intervene on behalf of the Russians living under Kiev tyranny. Putin is a nationalist patriot I don't think Russia wants the drag of adding the failed Ukraine state to Russia but he can't have these puppets running the country next door. Regime change is inevitable in Kiev. Novorossiya will be the result, Polish hyena will probably bite off Galicia as well. Ukraine is being used and abused.

    Zelensky is a useful idiot he is not calling the shots. Boris Johnson scotched the most recent peace initiative. Until the US/UK allow Zelensky to broker a peace the Ukrainian people will be paying with their blood to prosecute the US/UK proxy war against Russia. It's a shame.

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    1. Ah yes, the legendary "level III biolabs" of which there are several hundred in this country alone.

      Delete
    2. Are they not also paid for and staffed by USG employees?

      The same employees that said Lyme's Disease and Alphagal come from ticks?

      I'm sure the covid vaccines are still safe and effective for you, and the second booster is on your agenda.

      Thinking that your government actually thinks about it's citizens' welfare is so 80's, dude.

      I thought so until I joined the military, but before I left I knew the CIA set up the main base in Uzbekistan starting in February 2001.

      Shake the magic 8-ball, maybe the answer will be right next time.

      Delete
    3. No, actually, most of them are either private or affiliated with state governments. There's at least one at every major university in the country. And you don't research biowarfare in a level III biolab.

      Delete
  11. Given the behavior of the West's neocons and globalists last 50 years of overseas aggression, I don't think anyone can truthfully declare that we in the West are any different or more trustworthy.

    Kipling was a great writer, but he did suffer from a certain British Empire perspective when it came to other competing powers.

    Anonymous @9:00 AM ... you should really read something, if you still don't know how Victoria Nuland and the CIA fomented the Ukrainian color revolution in 2014, disrupted negotiations, violated our pledge not to advance NATO to Russian borders, and the Ukrainian government they installed shelled the Russian-speaking civilians of the Donbas and eastern Ukraine. Watching Oliver Stone's documentary is good starting place.

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  12. I like how many of these comments seem to start from an assumption that Ukrainians and Russians have no agency or independent motivations and are purely puppets dancing on the strings of the Western Globalist Elite.

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  13. "Russian was and is the aggressor..."

    As Anonymous said, tiredWeasel, "[Y]ou should really read something..." My suggestion would be original documents comprising NATO diplomatic history from 1991 through 2014. Especially compare the movement of NATO membership eastward through this period.

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  14. I'm finding the partisan comments from both sides to be a bit mind-boggling. I've said many times on this blog that the USA has no strategic national interest in Ukraine, and should not be involved there. I've also pointed out that both sides are among the most corrupt nations on earth, and neither can claim to be superior to the other in moral terms. If anyone would like to debate that, please provide evidence.

    As for Russia being the aggressor: who invaded who? Answer that, and you've defined the aggressor. Yes, Ukraine (and those who treated it like a puppet) provoked aggression for years, and carried on its own aggression against civilians in the disputed provinces; but facts are stubborn things. They define situations.

    I support neither side in this war, because there's precious little to choose between them in terms of "worth" or objective superiority. I do feel very sorry for the ordinary people of Ukraine, who're being treated as cannon fodder by both sides, and by the powers behind both sides. Russia is a rapidly failing state, and to a certain extent this may be its "last gasp" war; but Ukraine is also a failing state, due to precisely the same issues of corruption and demographic collapse that are plaguing Russia. Neither side is worth my life.

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    Replies
    1. Ukraine "provoked" aggression the way someone "provokes" their psycho ex by deciding to date someone else.

      Delete
  15. You realize that you are conflating the West with nice peaceful folk who never looted Africa and still don't and who never carried out fire raids on innocent women and children right?

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  16. "As for Russia being the aggressor: who invaded who? Answer that, and you've defined the aggressor. "

    Um, no. Absolutely not. You make too much of a distinction between who was put in a position where throwing the first punch was their best move, and who initiated the hostilities.

    The US spent years egging and pushing them into a position that they felt that their best option was to make a physical attack.

    As a disinterested outsider (and I am totally disinterested in how our crop of leaders has botched their overseas meddling) I suspect the Russians thought this was the fastest way to bring all the parties to the negotiating table, and they would be able to end the actual invasion quickly. I also suspect they miscalculated the stupidity and ego of the US State Department and our incompetent leadership. They probably couldn't believe how we were so entrenched in our hegemonic foolishness and bad policy and wouldn't come to talk. They made the mistake of thinking we would act in good faith and want to bring the bloodshed to an end. Turned out, we were't.

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    1. Once again, I like how this comment completely ignores the fact that the Ukrainians get a say in what happens to them too.

      Delete
  17. Not having a dog in the fight is AOK. In fact to be encouraged in the case of stick their nose where it don't belong American types (whether they be Johnnie Come Latelys or Mayflower-descendants or in-betweens).

    But going all Julius Streicher on Russians and their ethnic character is hypocritical to the nth degree.

    The obvious thought experiment being would you dare do so for the obvious other ethnic group? Of course you would not.

    Further thought: Indifference is just that. One could wish fervently for some REAL Indifference. It seems that it's impossible for Americans and many others from the 5-eyes-sphere (Not many Angles left, so it ain't the Anglosphere) to BE merely *indifferent* to or even mildly approving or disapproving of other races and nations; it has to be either rose-tinted love (O Noble Kurds! O Brave Taiwanese!) or rancid hatred (see above + Perfidious Chinese who definitely never got a standing ovation when they marched into the LA Colosseum in 1984. Totally never happened, Winston.) or total unawareness of them (can't love or hate the Sentinelese if they've never had a hit or puff piece on 60 Minutes).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The obvious thought experiment being would you dare do so for the obvious other ethnic group? Of course you would not.

      Chinese? We do it all the time. Hispanics/Latinos? That happens as well. Africans? Yup. Arabs? We just spent 20 years lumping most of them together. Please, pray tell, what am I missing here?

      Delete
  18. Western backed coup in Ukraine, the Donbass rejects unconstitutional usurpers and Donbass declare their independence. In Odessa, around 40 people opposing the coup government were either shot and murdered trying to escape the flames or died in the deliberately set fire. People trying to get back to Crimea were beaten (some killed?) by Right Sector Nazis. Then, the usurpers began bombing civilians in the Donbass area (echoes of Vicksburg?) and began hardening defense lines to the East in preparation to all out military occupation.
    Over 7 years of bombing the Donbass. Not a peep from the West.
    Ukraine failed to uphold their side of the Minsk Agreement - a now admited delay tactic for Ukraine to get more time to prepare the Eastern front.
    Then, Russia went in.

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    Replies
    1. "and began hardening defense lines to the East in preparation to all out military occupation"

      Because, as we all know, when you're planning on invading an area you expend your limited time and resources on preparing for an attack from that area rather than expending them on planning to attack that area.

      Look, I get it, you like Putin and will believe anything Moscow says because the left hates him and the left hates you. That is not a sufficient criterion to like or believe someone.

      Delete
  19. To everyone who assumed that I was somehow anti-Slav because of this poem, please note the important caveat in the text above (shown in italics below):

    "From our perspective on current events, it's worth remembering that the "Bear" refers not just to Russia (the Russian Empire, as it then was) but the Slavic frame of mind, as it was understood to exist at the end of the 19th century. That perspective was certainly inaccurate in many ways, but then, everybody suffered from their own more or less flawed versions of jingoism and nationalism back then. (Not much has changed, has it?)"

    I was trying to point out the way in which central and eastern Europe was viewed at the time Kipling wrote this poem. If you ask the typical Eastern European (e.g. Polish, Czech, Romanian, etc.) today, given their memories of Soviet occupation, they're likely to have a distinctly old-fashioned view of Russians to this day (note, for example, Poland's very urgen expansion of its military defenses since the start of the Ukraine war).

    Please don't take my remarks out of context.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Peter,
    OK! OK! I yield.
    An apology is due; half-hearted perhaps, and yes, the average low-information walking mouth who obtains all his knowledge from CNN/NYT makes such assumptions and lumps all "such" people people "knowing that they all think and feel in such a way because..."

    Another issue you bring up:
    "If you ask the typical Eastern European ... a distinctly old-fashioned view of Russians..."
    I wonder if you could also say that an overwhelming majority of people in the U.S. haven't yet changed our view of Russia, still consider it "Soviet Russia," and incorrectly conflate Putin with Stalin.
    It turns our "foreign policy" into a comedy of ... well... I'm not certain "errors" is the best word.

    ReplyDelete
  21. @anon August 13, 2023 at 9:00 AM

    People of the Donbas were fighting back defensively successfully.
    Ukraine needed to fortify artillery positions.
    And, yes, Ukraine understood what failing to honor Minsk Agreement.

    It is not whether I like Russia or Putin. What are the facts? That is what matters.

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  22. @boron
    Yes, I think that is exactly right.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Anonymous Anonymous said...

    Ukraine "provoked" aggression the way someone "provokes" their psycho ex by deciding to date someone else.

    August 13, 2023 at 9:05 AM

    Bullshit. That doesn't square with the historical record. At all.

    ReplyDelete
  24. There is no truce with the Bear.

    I am still waiting for the first nuke to be thrown. It may not be long.

    ReplyDelete

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