ON THE "LICHESS STATEMENT ON THE WAR IN UKRAINE"

On 09 March 2022, the popular chess platform Lichess has issued an announcement 

"Lichess Statement on the War in Ukraine"

https://lichess.org/blog/Yie1MhIAACAAk6OQ/lichess-statement-on-the-war-in-ukraine 

https://archive.ph/jcINL 

The statement is about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, starting from 24 February 2022. The moto of the statement is: 

Truth is the first casualty of war.

A week later, the commentarium of that post is closed already. 

Concerning that statement and the restrictions on Russian chessplayers, the following philosophical questions are arising: 

1) Is it right to politicize sports (and chess, among other sports)? 

2) If sports is politicized, is it right to abandon the principle of universality?

As we see, Lichess is commenting on "geopolitical situations". And the restrictions are applied to Russia and Russian chessplayers. So, Lichess regards it as acceptable to politicize sports. If it is done in goodwill, it might be fine. However, I believe that it should not be done in a discriminatory manner. 

If the aggressive wars are to be condemned, all aggressive wars should be condemned. 

Unfortunately, we see that Lichess has the opinion that the Russian invasion of Ukraine is the first and perhaps the last aggressive war: 

"This is unprecedented for all of us."

It seems that the war has indeed killed the truth! So far, in the Ukrainian war, several thousands of people have been killed, and Russia has occupied a part of Ukraine. However, during the US occupation of Iraq, millions of people were killed. The US occupation of Afghanistan lasted for tens of years. Again, millions of people were killed. 

Lichess declares: 

"Lichess has always advocated vocally for freedom, openness and mutual collaboration. We will always promote and defend these values against those who promote subjugation, opacity, and hostility." 

Then, let us see when and where Lichess condemned the Afghanistan war, the Iraq war, the current war in Yemen supported by some Western governments? Unfortunately, it is not easy to find such statements on the internet, and Lichess does not provide any links to such earlier statements either. And Lichess does not apologize that it has failed to do so. 

Lichess also talks about war crimes: 

"All users are reminded that Lichess has the right to proactively remove access to certain services or features of our website from users who, at our sole discretion, violate our Terms of Service (ToS). This includes the glorification of terrorism, sharing extremist, bigoted, or racist views, and promotion of genocide / war crimes." 

The context is clearly such that everyone tends to think that Russia, who started the war against Ukraine, is the side committing war crimes. But, unfortunately, it is not a logically valid inference. There is no reason why the side starting the war is also the only side committing the war crimes. On the contrary, the evidence suggests that both sides have probably committed war crimes in the current Ukrainian war. Moreover, before the Russian invasion of Ukraine, some Ukrainians probably committed war crimes in the Donbas area. The shelling there also began before the Russian invasion. Up to 1000 times per day were shot, and most of the hits were on the separatists' area, according to the OSCE reports. 

When did Lichess make a statement about Donbas? And on what grounds does the chess platform Lichess decide who is committing war crimes and glorifying racist views, etc.? Lichess avoids explicitly saying that these are some Ukrainian nationalists celebrating terrorism, extremist, bigoted, or racist views and promoting genocide/war crimes. 

In conclusion, I stress that I am against military aggressions and wars, particularly against unjustified wars and against war crimes. But unfortunately, I do not feel Lichess' statement to be sincere and rational. It makes an impression that it is not made in support of Ukraine but against Russia. Furthermore, it makes an impression that people in Afghanistan and Iraq can be legitimately killed, according to Lichess, while Russia is the worst actor anyway. 

You have never sanctioned the US or the US sportspeople despite all those numerous military aggressions and wars the US has initiated. 

While I am neither a Russian nor a Russian citizen, and I do not live in Russia, I feel that Lichess' statement is hypocritical and does not contribute to the peace on Earth. 

Therefore, I am trying to use Lichess as rarely as possible from now on. 

 

My Lichess profile