in a thick russian accent. Yes, hellow! This is prezident of da Afrikan Yunyon, can I spik to yor prim minister, pliz?
Yes, right away sir!
How incompetent do you have to be for that to work? Fucking hell…
… y’know, you’re right.
I’ve been struggling with this one for the past year, because I’ll be honest here, during an actual live war, racism is useful. It’s easier to kill an enemy than it is to kill a person, that’s why we try to dehumanize them in the first place. So our soldiers can fucking shoot them without it weighing their spirits down. They’re not “fighting people”, they’re executing animals, or mowing the lawn, or whatever.
But… it comes with a cost. Because the war ends someday, and that old tool that made it easier to fight that war, also happens to make more wars in the future more likely, by hindering future cooperation and understanding. We know why we don’t like Russians, but the racist attitudes get handed down. Our children won’t know why, just that Russians are evil.
To paraphrase Stephen Kotkin, winning the war is one thing. But we need to remember to win the peace too, or more wars will be too likely, far too soon.