Today's post will be about something which has been bothering me for quite a while already. I have been trying to convince myself that I shouldn't write it, that it's not my business, that I'll possibly lose opportunities and invitations to tournaments because of it, but I simply can't keep silencing this voice inside my head.
It is about the situation in women's chess, the war between Russia and Ukraine, FIDE and top women players.
To start with the beginning, I have been thinking a lot on which is my position towards players from Russia competing on the international arena since the war between Russia and Ukraine has begun and I have come to the conclusion that as long as they are playing under a neutral flag- I don't have a problem with that. Some say that there should be a sort of anti-war declaration signed by them but my views are not as polarized because I've realized that there might be situations where it can be dangerous for one's life, their families or loved ones and not everyone is ready to take these risks. I have tried to imagine myself in this situation and I've understood that there might be circumstances under which I might have also stayed silent.
However, in my view, there is a big difference between staying silent and participating in tournaments organized by recognized war instigators (to put it mildly) like Sergey Karjakin. These tournaments looked very much like war propaganda events and it saddened me a lot to see players whom I previously respected or even admired participating there. To my knowledge, there where two such tournaments which were covered extensively by the Russian media and which makes it very easy to access information and photos from these events just by entering some key words in any searching engine. For example, here is a link to a press release from the official site of one of the events: https://chessstars.ru/press-release .
Here, I will speak only about the women players who participated there. They are: World #4 Aleksandra Goryachkina, World #6 Kateryna Lagno- both from Russia and World #21 Bibisara Assaubayeva from Kazakhstan- all very strong and accomplished chess players who are well known in the chess world.
I am not sure what was the message they wanted to send to their fans by participating there, getting photographed smiling next to Sergey Karjakin and shaking hands with him. What I understood was that they endorse in one way or another Karjakin's activity. It shocked me and the more I thought on it- the more it kept upsetting me.
I expected the same reaction from most of my colleagues and they indeed felt the same way when we discussed it privately.
Like it or not- it is the right of each individual to choose for themselves and it looked to me like those players did.
However, I was utterly surprised when FIDE (the International Chess Federation) not only allowed those players to participate in official FIDE events like the World Rapid & Blitz Championships and the Women's FIDE Grand Prix and the FIDE Women's Candidates but also promoted those players as personalities and models for the youngsters to look up to.
Later, the Ukrainian Muzychuk sisters withdrew from the FIDE Women's Grand Prix tournaments so that the same players could play and even the location of the last leg of the FIDE Women's Grand Prix was changed last minute from Poland to Cyprus in order to accommodate the same players who participated in the "Karjakin tournaments".
What conclusion should these things make one draw?
My conclusion was that FIDE has no problem with any of the upper mentioned facts. Is it ignorance or hypocrisy or something else? Every official in FIDE who had any involvement in these decisions knows better.
"Sport is out of politics." That's the main argument which Russian sportsmen, officials and fans use when some countries deny the participation of Russian athletes in their events. I can see why one would say that. If that is the case, how participating in tournaments organized by war instigators and smiling alongside them, shaking hands with them is in any way "out of politics"? Perhaps the FIDE officials have an answer for that too.
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Photo source: https://twitter.com/PHChess/status/1662405612074926080 Photo of the "Chess Stars 2022" participants, held in Moscow- 29 Sept -5 Oct 2022 |
As for me, I am disgusted every time I read any news about those players, about FIDE promoting their images as those of great personalities and sportspeople and last, but not least, I am disgusted by the silence of most of my colleagues and about my being silent about it up until now.
I believe that by ignoring all of these- we are a part of it too, and honestly- I don't like what I see in the mirror after all these months of silence.
For those of you who feel the same way- is this really the community you want to be a part of?
What would be the solution? I am not a lawyer- I expected FIDE to have a solution by now and I am deeply disheartened that it's not the case.
I want to continue playing and promoting chess but it has become very difficult to do so when the situation is the one I've described. I have a hard time finding reasons to keep being a part of FIDE and the chess world under these circumstances. What about you?
Do you think that what FIDE is doing is right?
I completely agree with you, and more than that, it desperately needed to be said!
ReplyDeleteYes! It's a disgrace for FIDE and the chess world.
ReplyDelete👏
ReplyDeleteI heartily agree; thanks for your courage in raising your voice.
ReplyDeletethey just like playing chess. only western propaganda makes them evil. someone from former ussr country should know better to side with russia
ReplyDeleteThey have blood on their hands, and if you don't understand that you are one of Putin's trolls or your intelect is very limited and did not opose any resistance to being brainwashed by criminal putinist propaganda
DeleteCongratulations for your attitude, how good it would be if more top players acted in this way. The difference between good and bad has never been so obvious as it is now in our part of the world. Those who choose to side with the evil are either subhuman bastards or useful idiots. In any case, such people make me vomit. And unfortunatelly they are many. Gens una sumus? Thanks but not with them. The solution I found to calm my conscience is to avoid them. For example, a few years ago I closed all my social accounts to stop seeing their infected faces. Let's hope that the heroes of the legion will liberate Russia. & Slava Ukraini!
ReplyDeleteI don't know if they necessarily agree with Karjakin, from my view it's maybe just a question of putting money before ethics. A little bit similar with how the Superbet CEO is in charge of a sports federation and nobody seems to care just because the conditions for professional players improved and the prizes for the national championship doubled or tripled :)
ReplyDeleteThis looks like the fide segment of the ccc podcast
ReplyDeleteAnd when the Ukrainian government bombed the Donnbass, killing civilians, including many children... then what did the players from that country and the rest of the world say? There is a lot of hypocrisy!
ReplyDeletePutin's ass must taste nice this time of year
DeleteThere’s room for a 2nd FIDE in the chess World
ReplyDeleteI have a simple riposte: standing in a group photograph - or participating in a tournament by the organizer - does not mean an endorsement of that person's views! The main problem is, there has never been (and probably never will be) enough money in chess! [At least not for anybody other than some 20 top stars or so with giant corporate sponsors!! That is why many top players participate in 'whatever they can get'!!]
ReplyDeleteI am with Ukraine. I am not a Kremlin apologist either. I also believe FIDE has some of its own issues, mostly with making life difficult for the bottom 98% of people (remember only 2% of ALL rated players have titles). They need to figure out how to bring money into the game, and make it cheaper for the players to play, and make a living, not keep tagging on some b*ll sh*t rules to make it more difficult for norms, forfeit players for stupid things, and in general have archaic rules. That is what FIDE should be working on, at least GMs get their appearance fees waived, and decent hotels - who cares about your tears?
Also, what else do you want FIDE to do to Karjakin, *burn him at the stake* like they did with witches in England in the 1500s?!! They banned him for 6 months, don't forget, *and* effectively for the entire cycle, since he could not participate in the Candidates! Also, most Russian players do not have flags, and are not already invited by many top-flight tournaments!! Is that fair, that many Russian players (and thousands of common Moscow citizens, say, who protested) will now become much poorer?
We are not *some lynch mob*, we just have to think through things calmly. Has banning sportsmen, or putting sanctions on Russia, or 'making oil unavailable from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia' REALLY benefitted the poor 130 countries of the world *OR* stopped the war, my dear? Or has it caused *more* inflation and led to the rich getting *even* richer?! In *what way are any of these things stopping Russia or making it withdraw*?!!!
I have alot of empathy to your views especially as I see players like Muzychuk sisters unable to compete in events they absolutely belong to due to the war. The Women's Grand Prix definitely wasn't the same without them. But I don't think witch hunt is helpful for anyone. Goryachkina, Lagno, and Bibisara are just chess players after all. Their participation in an event does not tell us much about their views but we happen to know for instance that Lagno's husband spoke against the war and we happen to know that Goryachkina no longer represents the Russian federation. I know chess players typically don't earn that much which is huge factor in their tournaments choices. Bombarding a chess player with posts about who they meet and who they shake hands with due to a war they had nothing to do with and are powerless to do anything about seems highly unfair to me. I don't think they owe anyone an explanation for deciding to move wooden pieces on a board with someone who happens to be an idiotic warmonger. I also never in my life witnessed a similar witch hunt when other countries invaded nations thousands of kilometers away. The inconsistency in moral judgement and reaction is quite blatant. In the end I am lucky that the moral choices of my life have been much easier and calling out someone else for not making what I deem as the moral choice when I never had to make a similar choice myself strikes me as appalling.
ReplyDeleteWhat you call "other countries invaded nations thousands of kilometers away" is a typical russian propaganda sophism: you can't equivalate a nation with it's terrorist dictatorship and not all invasions are simmilar. These "invaded" nations are victims as well of their terrorist leadership. Same logic applies to Russia, russian ordinary people are victims of their criminal leaders as well, but the terrorist russian state needs a level of popular support to stay in power and commit genocide and atrocities. Support is either explicite (as in karjakin case) or implicite (as in the case of the chess players so-called money oriented, beyound good and bad). Take a look at tennis world as well, not everybody is the same. Compare Kasatkina with the others. Discerning right from wrong is not a witch hunt. Like it or not, the "amoral" players who only care about money involuntarely side with the evil. There are times when neutrality and pasivity are not a choice. Irina Bulmaga understood that, congrats for her initiative
DeleteCalling out the feeble Russian propaganda machine whose influence outside Russia is almost non-existent while ignoring all the western propaganda machines that convinced you this war is a special case of a clear cut good vs evil battle strikes me as ironic. In the case of other nations you're blaming their own leaders for being invaded and not even mentioning the countless lives lost there but for Ukraine you are not even mentioning the leaders or their actions. There's much more to the current war than what many conveniently like to pretend but many like to merely dismiss any info against their narrative as "propaganda". I condemn this war as much as I condemn other wars due to the huge loss of lives, yet pretending the Russian-Ukranian war is the most clear cut easy moral call among wars we've witnessed is as naive and childish of a view as it can get. The fact that you have to drag laymen such as ourselves into political discussions about what wars were good and what wars were not is in itself a clear reason why we should leave these chess players alone. Noone watches chess events to discuss politics and neither do the players. Instead of exhibiting a pretentious false bravery by keyboard shaming powerless chess players, we may pay attention to solving the issues the chess world is facing with the current situation. Banning Lagno and Goryachkina is not going to save Ukrainian lives.
DeleteDude you are one of the putin's trolls but thats the fun of this story, you found yourself against people above the average iq and education on this forum so your putinist lies and trollistic maneuvar to change the subject won't receive any approval. wtf what do you mean by "western propaganda"? Complete your ideas, do you imply that all those middle ages tortures and attrocities, with hundreds of thousands of civilians were murdered and berried in bucha and mariupol and name them all and hundreds of children deported to russia and millions of women raped tortured and killed and every household robbed of all values by russian soldieres, and so on you mean all of these were simple lies nothing happened all those mass graves and torture rooms left behind were fakes of the western media, right? But this information and much more is distributed on your telegram russian channels as well dude, do who do you think you're bull shitting here?
DeleteI said there's much more to the situation than what many like to pretend and that was enough to trigger all those attacks and presumptions from you. I didn't state a single fact about the war yet here you are presuming what I think and what I don't. This is exactly the type of reaction promoted by western Propaganda which you're not even aware of it's existence; to dismiss any narrative that slightly diverts from your "good vs evil" narrative, to shame people who do not react the way you do.
DeleteYou may think it's a great idea to turn chess forums into political and moral debates forums in which it is decided which players are moral and which are not but if you do, at least do that consistently and do your research regarding every human tragedy currently unfolding including the one in Ukraine.
My boy cut the bs and deliver your story. What is more to the situation say exactly tell us your story my boy, amuse us.
Delete"Do you think that what FIDE is doing is right?" No, definitely FIDE is not right at all. I personally fully agree with your views on the matter. This is the way by showing everyone who the perpetrators and authors of the crimes really are, who are their accomplices and what are the most honest ways to avoid duplicity. I would like to emphasize something else. Because there are some who say that you are exposing yourself to great danger, aren't you afraid that the Russians will do you a lot of harm?
ReplyDeleteIf we continue listening to [I am guessing some neo-liberal] nobodies out here, there will be another useless war - this time against Russia. After Iraq, after Afghanistan.
ReplyDeleteI am posing very, very simple questions: 1. How will Ukraine rebuild itself? Just by 'defending itself'?! 2. How does Ukraine get back its territory? Just by 'banning sportsmen' or 'putting more sanctions aganist Russia', or worse, like I said already - starting a war with Russia?!
China tried to bait Taiwan and India, but they have stayed cool so far and NOT gone to war with it! But look what happened to Germany: it's officially in recession now, after mil. overspend. Sweden and other Scandinavian countries are upping mil. spending; UK is close to a recession. North America, will likely go soon into a recession. All because of 2 reasons. 1. Forced to buy much more expensive oil [AND gas: Europe mainly] (basket is expensive, high oil prices throughout the affluent West). 2. The rich West funding the arms supplies to Ukraine.
I hope everybody understands that this is an economic war unleashed on the West...
[Does anybody know the GDP of the US dropped like $3 trillion 2020-2022, while that of China rose roughly the same amount?!]
And, JUST to be clear: I do not fear a nuclear war. Putin is not *that* dumb. Such a thing will never happen - I don't care what the press says. That is also not the reason I 'do not want war'. I do not want war for a very simple reason: economics. I do not want, I donno a billion people in Africa to die due to lack of grain and fertilizers (Ukraine is an exporter of both).
ReplyDeleteI liked this comment: "Anonymous 6 June 2023 at 21:17" Thanks for the support.
ReplyDeleteI also believe that, while it's great to stand with Ukraine morally and ethically; we need to find practical, concrete and lasting solutions to: 1. Heal Ukraine and its people (restore their wealth, homes, livelihoods). [Unfortunately, we can never give them back their lost loved ones].
ReplyDelete2. Somehow address any insecurities of this "Cold War 2", and prevent any future conflicts - first it was Georgia, then Ossetia (I think), then Crimea, now this. [Jupiter missiles were removed by Kennedy, for example, from Turkey: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Resolution].
Hi Irina!
ReplyDeleteI read your blog post and understand what you are thinking and the frustration you feel.
A question we must ask ourselves is should we make sport political and if there is a country that is in war, should we abandon all people from that country?
How many wars have USA started the last 20 years? Do you want me to make a list if countries? The rhetoric is always, USA are the good guys. Was VP Biden doing the right thing 2013/14, when he went in to Ukraine and killed thousands of civilians? Or it was ok, because we are taught that he is the good guy? Ask the dead Ukrainians.
Should we ban Caruana, So and Nakamura for playing under American flag?
No, not Americans, or Saudis (horrible war against Jemen for years...) or the Israelis, or whoever, they are the good guys?
IF we are gonna ban one country that are violating peace, where do draw a line? Personal opinions? I am not part of the war in Ukraine, but as Putin and Zelensky signed a peace agreement more than 1 year ago, BUT Z was forced by UK and USA to abandon that agreement, were do we draw a line against UK (ban som chess players there?) and USA, that are keeping this war going?
Maybe we should ask ourselves, why is USA SO interested in Ukraine, that it is proved in court in USA that Biden's son were payed salary from Ukrainian energy company?
Conspiracies? Well, listen to Roger Waters speech in UN or why not listen to Robert F Kennedy Jr, who is running for liberal Presidency in USA?
The war in Ukraine is DEFINITELY not black and white...
What we should ask ourselves is, what political ideologies are ok to have, when playing tournaments? Someone believing in Ukraine, that have (PROVEN) a whole bunch of soldiers in their arme that are openly Nazis and acting accordingly?
Should we take track on people's political compass before entering a chess tournament? What are then acceptable ideologies?
Have you considered the idea that Fide, by abandon some nations, but not others, are taking a political stand? Maybe the stand they took was shown to be a bad choice afterwards?
Do you think we as chess players should have an agenda regarding politics and if we disagree with someone's political standpoint, we should not talk to them or analyze with them?
Maybe we should reconsider Bobby Fisher as a world champion, as he was an open antisemit?
Keep chess clean. Don't punish people for coming from a specific country. Don't punish chessplayers on behalf of their political view, because I believe it is better that people can raise their voice and state their opinion openly, without being punished for that. If not, what will be the alternative, a silent chess community?
Everything is political, but we, as chess players can at least keep it as far away as possible from the chessboard.
Thanks for reading my thoughts, far from being black or white...
Hi, Irina, I followed your for a long while, maybe you will remember my signature !
ReplyDeleteI am so proud of your position !
John Doe 007
Bravo Irina pentru atitudine!
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