Forwarded - letter to Putin signed by Russian anthropologists.
Dmitry Arzyutov <darzyutov@GMAIL.COM> wrote:Dear colleagues,Below is the petition of a group of Russian anthropologists against the Russian-Ukrainian war --To the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin
To the Government of the Russian Federation
We, a group of Russian ethnographers and anthropologists, protest against the military operation of the Russian Federation on the Ukrainian territory.
We, Russian anthropologists and ethnographers, have devoted our lives to understanding the cultural and social diversity of humankind, and conduct field research in various parts of the world studying social relations and cultural dynamics. We know first-hand how people live during and after wars and political catastrophes. Therefore, we protest when the use of complex humanitarian issues is a pretext of political manipulations and military conflicts.
No war can be justified by the search for the historical truth. War cripples humans' souls. War causes mass loss of life and entails the loss of significant cultural values. War is a moral homicide of present and future generations. The Russian-Ukrainian war leads Russia to international isolation, the damage to its economy, culture and science. The war dooms Russia to hopelessly lagging behind the rest of the world, to a sharp worsening of living standards and, consequently, to the rise of social and ethnic tensions that may lead to internal conflicts.
Therefore, we demand:
(1) To immediately cease the military operation on the Ukrainian territory;
(2) To immediately withdraw troops from the Ukrainian territory;
(3) To start direct negotiations on the ways and timing of the de-escalation of the conflict with the Ukrainian government on an equal footing and without any preconditions.We emphasize that this appeal is a voluntary position of a group of ethnographers and anthropologists, who care about the future of Russia.
