Skip to content

A list of sanctions

History and Commentary from a Prairie Perspective

The talking heads on television news services are following the search for a missing airliner more closely than the explosive situation in Europe. What is happening in and around the Ukrainian Republic is a way station in a long and troubled history. To be understood, history must have a human face.

There are dead faces in east Ukraine, but they are only a small fraction of the dead faces in Syria. Western Europe, the United States and Canada, as represented by NATO, have been powerless to halt the ongoing massacre of the innocent in Syria.

The NATO countries are weary of war and they know full well the military might of the Russian Federation. They also know that the Ukrainian Republic is feeble, economically and militarily. It will provoke no incidents that might lead to full-scale war. Additionally, the NATO countries realize that petroleum resources of the Middle East are not as important as they have been in the immediate past. NATO will fight the Russian bully with moralizing and sanctions.

I have been wondering what will appear on Ottawa's full list of sanctions. I have not been able to prevent my unruly imagination from injecting some levity into this sorry situation. This is the scene imagination created:

I am in the Canada Post lobby where I have often pontificated in the past. I encounter a victim, a perennial bachelor who is beginning to regret his solitary state. Taking note of his bugging eyes, I ask, "Is there something wrong with your vision?"

He replies in a low voice. "I have just been at my brother's place and he cranked up his computer to show me all the beautiful Russian girls who want to come to Saskatchewan to find handsome husbands. Wow!"

"Like you?" I say.

"Wow! Wow!" he says, sounding a little like an amorous tom cat. "Just like me."

I select my most authoritarian voice. "Forget it. Ottawa is punishing the Russians with sanctions. You can't import a Russian girl."

As his jaw drops in disappointment, I continue, "But you can import a Ukrainian girl. Russian girls are very beautiful, but they are also very gloomy. They like to sit around playing the balalaika and singing soulful songs. Ukrainian girls are just as pretty and they smile a lot more and they can dance up a storm and they don't sit around playing the balalaika when they should be making perogies."

The light of hope returns to his bug eyes. I add, "I almost forgot. They are the best sturgeon milkers."

"I never heard of sturgeon-milker," he says.

"Course not," I reply. "Only the very well informed know about them. You see, the sturgeon is a fish and its eggs are an expensive delicacy called caviar. If they had to kill the lady sturgeon to get its eggs that would be like killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. That's why there are sturgeon milkers, and, like I said, Ukrainian girls are the best ones."

He looks at me with unabashed admiration and says, "You know so much. You're awesome."

"Indeed I am," I agree smugly.

He asks, "What else won't Ottawa let the Russians ship to us?"

"Samovars," I say.

He asks, "What's a samovar? Something to eat like caviar?"

I tell him it's a thingamajig for brewing tea.

"Don't like tea", he snorts. "What else is Ottawa keeping out of Canada?"

I reply, "Putin."

"Aah," he exults, "I got you there. Putin is that stuff they eat out in Quebec."

I say, "You are confused, my friend. What they eat in Quebec is called poutine. Putin is a man, the Big Boss of Russia."

He asks, "Will he be mad if we don't let him in?"

"Won't bother him a bit," I reply.

As I turn to leave, he asks, "Who eats this stuff called caviar?"

I reply in my most serious tone. "Plutocrats do. While you and I are eating our watery gruel, they are having caviar and vodka for breakfast. Ottawa wanted to stop Russian caviar and vodka from coming into Canada, but they decided it wouldn't be a good idea because it would make the plutocrats mad."

He asks, "What's a plutocrap?"

I tell him plutocrats are super-rich guys.

He says, "Plutocraps, plutocraps. I'll remember that word."

I like the way he pronounces it.