[RESENT] The enemies of God: Ukraine, the Constitution, and the defense of fundamental values

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What do Ukraine and the struggle to defend the Constitution have in common^?

Both Ukraine and defense of the Constitution relate to our desire to uphold our most fundamental values.

These are based on the belief that in each human being there is a piece of the Divine. Or, to put it differently, in each human being a part of God resides. A part of God is in each human being.

To kill or rape or torture a human being is to commit an act of war against God.

Now many of you may object to my use of the word “God”. Despite Friedrich Nietzsche’s declaration in the 19th century that“God is dead,” the concept of God, broadly understood, remains useful, and indeed necessary.

The concept may mean different things to different people. To some, it may represent simply the spiritual forces in the universe, which we humans do not and cannot fully understand, but which we acknowledge are real. Some may feel more comfortable referring to “Nature”. To others, “God” may be the deity in a specific religion. And to still others, “God” may simply refer to the spiritual forces which through some kind of miracle are found within our human hearts.

In reality, what matters is not so much the concept of God which an individual holds, so long as he or she believes that there is a piece of the Divine in every human being.

In this broad sense, God represents all that we recognize as good or “holy” within human beings. “God” or “Narure” represents the opposite of “Evil”. God is the enemy of Evil. And as Albert Camus points out, we recognize Evil when we see it.

The value of the inviolability of the physical integrity of a human being becomes manifest when we witnesses an act of torture, a rape, or an assassination.

We recognize Evil when we see it.

And what counts is not our fine intellectual arguments, about the nature of God, but what we do, individually and collectively, to stop it. We are called upon to act to stop acts of evil. Acts which I have called acts of war against God.

In my work on human rights, I have seen Evil in the form of a torture victim I was personally interviewing in connection with his complaint before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). I have seen Evil in Haiti meeting with and processing the complaint of a former prisoner at Fort Dimanche prison, where some some 200 political prisoners were held in a room without sanitary conditions, 144 of whom died, mostly from tuberculosis and other diseases. I have seen Evil reading the complaints of or speaking with relatives of the “disappeared” in Argentina.And I have witnessed from afar the war crimes being committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

While there is a rational basis for opposing human rights abuses such as those mentioned above, for me a deeper source of opposition to this Evil is the deep feeling of revulsion I feel when learning about such violations of the physical integrity of individual human beings. I think this is what Albert Camus means when he says we know Evil when we see it.

I find the words of Nikos Kazanzakis in The Saviors of God particularly relevant here. Kazanzakis, who was excommunicated from the Greek Orthodox Church for his heretical opinions, views God not as all-powerful but rather as engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the Devil, with Evil. And for God to triumph, God needs our help. To,prevail, he needs us to join him in fighting Evil.

To be sure, humans are fallible and weak creatures. They require food and shelter. They need love, and a sense of belonging. One can understand a German in the Third Reich or even a Nazi, without necessarily excusing or forgiving any acts of war against God they may have committed.

Still, redemption is possible. Forgiveness is possible for the genuinely repentant.

Now, to apply the above. When you think of so-called “territorial concessions” in a ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine, think of Russian soldiers bursting into a house or apartment—a home to a family and children—and raping the mother of these children. Executing her and her husband after they have raped her. Maybe they have also raped and murdered the grandmother.

Think of the abduction of children in the Russian-occupied territories. Think of the kidnapping of a four or seven-year-old child, or an 11-year-old, and their forced removal to Russia. Followed by a brainwashing program aimed at erasing the child’s memory of his or her family, of his or her culture, of his or her homeland.

Then think of their “adoption” by a Russian family, and their indoctrination in Russian ideology.

When you think of “territorial concessions” think also of the Ukrainian political leaders and patriots who have been “disappeared” or simply assassinated.in areas under Russian occupation.

Then think of the fundamental values we in the civilized countries of the world seek to defend. We oppose torture, the violation of the physical integrity of a human being, a human being in which a part of God—the Divine—resides.

Think of torture as an act of war against God.

We, the defenders of God, must defend each and every human being.

When people talk of “territorial concessions”, think of the thousands of innocent civilians, and also innocent soldiers defending their country and homes against invading Russian forces, who have been killed as part of the Russian military conquest of these territories.

Think also of the immense progress we as a civilization have made in the defense of our fundamental values.

We defeated Nazi Germany. The Nazis were the enemies of God. We created the United Nations, and built it on the cornerstone of the prohibition of the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. To stop war.

The “threat” as well as the use of force was prohibited, after Hitler seized Austria (1936) and the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia (1938) by means of threats of military invasion.

The prohibition against tge threat or use of force was a key principle designed to protect individual human beings on both sides from attacks on their physical integrity in a war setting.

In a larger sense, the U.N. Charter and its cornerstone prohibition of the threat or use of force was an effort, and is an ongoing effort, to protect civilization from attacks on God.

These are the values we seek to defend. The Constitution and the “due process” which it establishes have been our domestic bulwark against attacks by our own government on human beings.

Law is the instrument of constitutional protection, and international law is the instrument of protection of the United Nations Charter, International Humanitarian Law, and many other international norms, conventions and treaties which seek to protect human beings from the actions of the state.

These are the values we seek to defend.

What values do the invading Russian soldiers represent?

They embody the values of barbarism. Utter disrespect for the physical integrity and lives of human beings in territories they occupy.

If you don’t believe there is a part of the Divine in each human being, then you may come to view human beings like cockroaches, to be killed without compunction, as Hitler and the Nazis did to millions of Jews and others in World War II.

The values of those who would invade other countries, who would rape and pillage in the territories they conquer, as the Russians have been doing in the occupied territories of Ukraine, are the values of the enemies of God.

This is the real meaning of “territorial concessions” in current ceasefire proposals for Ukraine.

Stop and think.

Stop, think, and act.

James Rowles is a former Lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School and professor of international law at other universities.

He studied the history of Nazi Germany at Stanford, and has studied and worked on human rights, judicial reform, and access to justice projects in many countries in Latin America, Africa, the Middle East, and in Afghanistan and Russia. At Harvard Law School, he taught a course on “Law, Human Rights, and the Struggle for Democracy in Latin America”.

At the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) of the OAS, he worked on human rights cases involving forced disappearances, executions, and torture in a number of authoritarian countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Recent Books by the Author

James P. Rowles, The Rape of American Democracy: Republican Actions and Democratic Failures, 2016-2021 (2024). Available on Amazon, and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

James P. Rowles, Don’t Be Stupid. Pay Attention, Damn It! Advice for Undecided Voters and Voters Leaning Toward Trump (2024). Available on Amazon,and from IngramSpark by clicking on a link here.

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