Truly, good luck, Ukraine.
“Good luck go with you, Italian soldier!
But luck is not for the brave;
What would the world give back to you?
Always less than you gave.”
George Orwell, The Italian Soldier Shook My Hand
What do we do when a thug and a bully is bent on erasing a nation-state out of the face of the earth on the flimsiest of pretenses? What do we do when we are held hostage, utterly emasculated, by a psychopathic man-child who is too hung up in the maelstrom of his own vanity and ego that he would wage war on innocent people? Perhaps it may tell us something about the nature of such a character. How, then, to describe the military policy of Russia but that of state delivered, let alone sponsored, terror?
As I am writing these words I listen to the UN deliberate on the question of Ukraine. But, how pathetic they all look. How formal and monotone and diplomatic– no, vegetative! Ambassadors take insults to their face, for as they grovel coolly for diplomacy, claims of “de-nazification” are thrown to justify the mockery that has been made of international relations and good faith.
Yet, what would hot-headed bravado earn us? I suppose Ukraine doesn’t care much for that question right now. Tonight her children lost their sleep under the sound of air that ripped under the weight of artillery.
I have cheered, obscenely, as in a game, when I read reports that Russian planes had been shot down. I have scanned for videos and tweets and photos that get me a minute nearer and an inch closer to the ground at Dnipro, Kharkiv, and Kyiev. And, I wonder, as the world turns its sluggish head towards this borderland, if this cheap thrill is all it will feel. For the days to come, all news stations will be rife with recycled imagery and hosts who drone on about points that I’ve been hearing for at least two hours now. Yet, what good are photos for today? They are good for nothing but to satiate a need of ours of which I dare not speak of.
In Ukraine, and within the responses to its invasion, a decisive front is waged. This is a stress test of everything that is worth defending of our institutions. Everything worth salvaging of the strange and violent experiment that is liberalism is facing now a most serious examination of character.
If you choose to fight, I wish you deliver furious might beyond that which I can imagine– I hope that you put up a fight so large and unsustainable such that the destruction they wish to encompass on your sovereignty is ricocheted against their own designs.
But, if you flee, ever with retained dignity, I wish you all godspeed.
Slava Ukraini!
