Boycott Kasparov?

by Mikhail Golubev
April 6, 2003

Lev Khariton, the chess journalist and columnist for Pakchess, ChessBase, La Pensee Russe, several days ago proposed to boycott grandmaster Garry Kasparov for his steady support of the war in Iraq. Well, the better idea would be to boycott not only Garry Kasparov (who is hardly able to be objective, writing about the Middle East), but everyone, who publicly supported the invasion. Doubtless, the United States of America is a great country which certainly has great traditions. Not only Americans, but probably all other people on Earth were proud, reading last year President Carter's Nobel Prize speech. But now this country shows us another, the most ugly of its faces. Aggressive, fundamentalistic, anti-democratic, non-humanistic. Often insufficiently educated, limited both intellectually and culturally. Invariably self-satisfied and increasingly mad. When a popular US political observer, clearly trying to be objective in his article, says that US led (led!) the Allies during World War Two, it seems that something can be wrong with American brains. Is it stunning to hear, as a more conspicuous example, that some of the less informed Americans are thinking that the USA was in fight versus both Germany and the USSR sixty years ago? It is certainly not a difficult task to control the public opinion in such a country. The world of information is already multipolar, but less so for the Americans who tend to use only American sources for information (in the former USSR things were not really worse). It can be explained there that Hussein is the threat, that Iraqi people are waiting for liberators, and all the rest of it. The most powerful country in the world is now headed by a group of war criminals, that's the reality in which we have to live. I don't know what the Americans feel seeing the Iraqi children killed by US missiles. But these children COULD live. The nation that kills innocent civilians in other countries, aiming for domestic safety, doesn't deserve safety - that's what I feel. Why do they force us to hate them so much? The war against terror, they say. Terror is not a war, even if some like to think so. But the war is a terror. In reaction to September 11, 2001 suicide attack, USA is now going to destroy countries, as we see it. America is counting only American lives, the people are overreacting to what happens to them, and ignore others. Before the September 11 attack, or after - United States should stop to kill, unjustifiably, people in other countries. It seems that already time ago (after the economical victory over USSR, correct?), America forgot the simple things. No one is good by definition. If you are good guys, then you should act as good, today and tomorrow. Yes or not? What is given by definition is that you will never be good, if you think that you are ultimately best. Paradoxically, but abandoning the foolish «we-are-the-best» philosophy, America could once obtain a chance to be the best in an important way - to do, as the richest country, more than others to support the human life on our planet. But America hardly understands paradoxes. Unfortunately, it is not by chance that «American» and «primitive» are synonyms in the large parts of the world. In the game of chess, there are possibilities for aggression, and there are only Black and White. Two of the world greatest ever players, Morphy and Fischer were Americans. Lately, however, American's achievements in chess were miserable. The patience and flexibility, so important in our game, is what they probably have forgotten... Many, also I, will never be able to forgive the USA and its vultures for their actions in Iraq. But future still begins now.

The author is the chess grandmaster, who lives in the town of Odessa, Ukraine, which he considers to be the best for himself. He is against the war in Iraq.