Ukraine

by Abir

This is not a political blog and I do not wish this to be a political post, but in light of the developments over the last 48 hours, I felt the need to stray from this week’s topic.

 

Yesterday, a sovereign European nation was invaded. Its people are fighting and dying for their freedom. In this moment, my thoughts go out to the people of Ukraine and to all those caught up in this terrible situation.

 

I visited Kyiv three years ago. I stayed in Maidan Square, the heart of the city and scene of the protests in 2014 which led to the fall of a Russian leaning government in favour of a more democratic one.

 

I sat in a park with Ukrainian writers and Russian writers and we drank wine and vodka and I marvelled at the thought that when I was growing up, such a meeting would have been impossible.

 

Today it feels like the Iron Curtain is falling once more. I’ve written to my friends there, but what use are my words when they are sheltering in basements or trying frantically to contact relatives. It all feels rather hopeless.

 

I am not sure what more to do, and so I watch the news and update my internet feed and try to concentrate on work.

 

I’ve seen emails and Facebook messages, well-meaning missives from well-meaning people, asking ‘What is the role of the writer at a time like this?’ and ‘What you can do to help’ and I find myself alternating between thinking it’s all quite pompous to assume we can do anything, and the position that anything we can do is better than nothing. 

 

I see others adding the Ukrainian flag to their Facebook profiles or similar things and I recoil. To me, that isn’t standing in solidarity – you can’t stand in solidarity while sitting in your bedroom – that’s virtue signalling. And yet, what am I doing that is any more constructive? 

 

True solidarity is that shown by the thousands of Russians who came out in defiance of their government last night to denounce the war. It is the one thing that gives me hope. They are risking so much to stand in solidarity with their brothers and sisters across the border. I see them and I am awed and ashamed at my own inaction.

 

There are lessons to be learned of course. Geopolitical ones; ones about unity; about the need to decouple our economies from those who would wish to subvert our democratic values; about being better prepared; but what are the personal ones? I’m still at a loss. Maybe the role of the writer is to talk about these lessons we need to learn? Maybe it’s to issue a call to arms? Maybe it’s to document the plight of those involved? Maybe it’s to pen searing critiques of Putin and his cronies? I guess it’s all of these and more. 

 

I’m under no illusions that the effect of any of these will be more than marginal at best, but I am just as certain that even though military aggression might succeed in the short term, in the long run it cannot defeat a people’s wish to be free. We saw it when Soviet tanks rolled into East Germany in 1952, in Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. The will of the people may be suppressed temporarily, but it cannot be extinguished completely.

 

And at times like these, I remember the words of Mahatma Gandhi.

 

“When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they can seem invincible, but in the end, they always fall. Think of it–always.”

 

Kyiv in happier times