Civilized Citizen vs. Kremlin ‘Savage’: Spot the Difference

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The sun rose over Hawaii in postcard perfection—golden light on quiet waves, the storm gone as if it had never been. It was the kind of serene, cinematic dawn that turned the islands into a global symbol of peace and an irresistible magnet for American tourists.

However, the event I mentioned took place at the end of the 18th century—there were no tourists, and the dawn was not idyllic, to put it mildly. The Hawaiian chief Kamehameha, the future first monarch of the united islands, lands in the village of Puna to quell a rebellion by his own relatives. The inhabitants of the fishing village flee in fear from the chief’s warriors.

One of them, who is covering the escape of a neighbor with a child in his arms, sees a chief with an oar in his hand, dressed in a feathered cloak and a helmet, and this burly man is heading straight for them. Still, his foot suddenly gets stuck in a crack in the rock; Kamehameha loses the oar and falls right next to the fisherman, who is dead from horror. The fisherman grabs the oar and hits the chief with all his might right on the head. The oar breaks on the head of the unconscious Kamehameha. The fishermen run away.
Twelve years later, the men of King Kamehameha I of Hawaii find a fisherman. He is preparing to die for attempting to assassinate a monarch—but the king suddenly apologizes to him and says that he was only protecting his life and property.

Thus was born the famous “Broken Oar Law,” which is still part of the legislation of the American state of Hawaii. This law clearly states that civilians should not be persecuted during armed conflicts. “Let the old people, women, and children walk and lie safely on the road without fear of being maimed,” the king commanded.

A civilized man is distinguished from a savage by his respect for human life and his understanding of its value. In 1797, the King of Hawaii rose above the customs that then prevailed not only on his islands but also elsewhere and realized that the duty of government is to protect those who cannot save themselves from an armed man.

In our time, the Kremlin savage has broken the norms of law and humanity and the very law of the broken oar—because he is trying to get revenge on women, children, and the elderly for the inability of his army to occupy Ukraine. Kamehameha’s warriors had only spears and oars—but the king did not want them to harm a child. The Russian military has missiles, planes, and drones, and with such weapons, you can harm a much larger number of people.

The law of the broken oar does not apply in the Russian-Ukrainian war. It can be said that this law has been ignored before in wars waged between supposedly civilized countries, but each time it meant another fall into the abyss and the collapse of civilization. It might have seemed that after the Second World War, with its destroyed cities and millions of deaths, the lessons had been learned. Yet it has turned out that Russian society is incapable of concluding; instead, it produces figures such as Putin and other Russian leaders.

When discussing the Russian-Ukrainian war, we tend to focus first on the violation of international law… the post–Second World War world order, and the abandonment of diplomacy as a means of resolving political conflicts. In reality, however, this represents a far deeper shift: Russia and Putin, as we can see, are encroaching on the very foundations of our civilization, pushing the world back toward a kind of savagery that only ends when people recognize what suffering truly is and how important it is not to be its cause. Paradoxically, at the same time, these individuals sincerely call themselves Christians and bow before smoke-darkened icons.

The Broken Oar Act demonstrated that a leader could be ahead of his time—but there were reasons for this: Kamehameha knew that Hawaiians were enraged by the massacres of civilians and that disrespect for ordinary people could cost his dynasty power. Putin’s war reminded him that at any moment he could return to the distant and tragic past—but the Russian president knows that his society, for the most part, will not even notice the horror that he and his army are creating in Ukraine. They are used to massacres. So he does not need the Broken Oar Act.

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