On Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy came to Washington, got the primo White House tour, visited the Capitol and picked up a check for $44 billion. You got to admit it, the Biden’s are good hosts.
But this wasn’t a pleasure trip. Zelenskyy came to thank America for its support in a brutal 300 day war and counting. He came to galvanize support for Ukraine’s war effort, correctly diagnosing America’s short attention span and boredom threshold. As a country with too much, we get bored too easily. Zelenskyy is president of a country that is systematically being decimated by an unprovoked aggressor with a messianic vision of recreating the old Russian Empire. Our boredom is something Ukraine can ill afford.
The war has cost Ukrainians dearly. When Russia can’t win on the battlefield, they attack civilian infrastructure, knocking out water, electrical and gas systems. Millions live in fear of missile and drone strikes that destroy their homes, leaving them to withstand the frigid elements of a cold Ukrainian winter.
Millions of Ukrainians have left their country, women and children separated from their male family members who are needed for the fight. Millions more have been displaced internally. Seven million kids have been uprooted, leaving them traumatized, perhaps for the rest of their lives. Food is in short supply, shelter increasingly scarce, education disrupted.
And still Ukrainians fight on, united in the single goal of resisting an aggressor that tries impose its will upon them. They know what we should know, this is no regional fight over the boarder of two neighboring nations. This is a fight between imposed authoritarianism and democratic self determination.
This is a fight for all liberal democracies throughout the world. For more than the past decade, authoritarianism has gained increasing currency. We have seen traditional liberal democracy replaced with a Hungarian version called illiberal democracy, where freedom of speech and press are limited, elections are all but fixed, and dissent is barely tolerated if tolerated at all.
We are fighting the same battle in the United States. We have come close to an authoritarian president retaining political power, with his supporters willing to physically attack the Capitol to prevent the peaceful transfer of power. In a democracy, the people decide, accept the results, and peacefully move on to the next political contest. In authoritarian societies, political outcomes that the authoritarians don’t like are violently attacked and suppressed. We caught a glimpse of that in 2020. The focus of that effort may be all but gone, but the antidemocratic groups linger on, gaining strength, waiting for their next opportunity.
But in Ukraine, this is not a subtle political contest, this is a hot overt military attack. Instead of hurt feelings there are broken bodies. Instead of speeches there are bullets. Instead of horns blaring and bands playing, there are bombs bursting indiscriminately killing and wounding all in their radius.
And if there’s any doubt, targeting civilians is a war crime.
Zelenskyy came to Washington four days before Christmas, reminding us of the struggle his people endure on a daily basis, calling into stark relief their sacrifice on our behalf.
All the Ukrainian people want is to be left alone and to live their lives as they see fit. They want to enjoy their families and friends. They want a secure community in which to flourish. They want the opportunity to employ their skills and make meaningful contributions to the overall success of their communities. They want their kids to live in a better world as they get older.
And most of all, they want peace. As do we all.
We have supported Ukraine in their efforts to repel the Russian invasion. The United States has been the catalyst organizing the western democracies to financially and materially support the Ukrainian war effort. We have led the imposition of economic sanctions on Russia, which in turn, as part of other economic factors, contributed to our own inflation and supply-chain problems.
Our personal sacrifice in this defense of democracy has been increased prices at the gas pump and supermarket. We pay more in interest on credit, increased to contain and eventually tamp down the rate of inflation. Sometimes we find empty shelves where our favorite consumer item would normally be, empty due to supply-chain issues. But most of us don’t see a future of privation and suffering.
As much as we see those in Ukraine suffer, we need only look in our own communities to see levels of privation suffered by our own people. In Ukraine, homes are destroyed leaving families to fend in the cold. Here, a family get evicted because they were unable to pay the rent and they are left to fend in the cold.
In Ukraine, kids’ education is interrupted because their schools no longer exist. Here, kids’ education is stymied by attending schools not worth attending at all.
In Ukraine, people scurry for scarce food, often brought in from outside the country. Here, there is no shortage of food, but the poor who rely on decreasing EBT benefits find it difficult to ensure a healthy diet for their kids.
Similar to the overt violence Ukrainians confront each day, we have people in this country who confront another kind of violence - the violence of indifference. The Ukrainians had Zelenskyy to advocate for them to the American government. Who advocates to the majority of indifferent Americans and our institutions regarding the plight of the millions of invisible people who reside in the richest country on earth?
If one believes that the lives broken by outside force is immoral and evil, and it is, then one must, in order to be consistent, believe that the lives broken due to institutional indifference is equally immoral and evil.
If we rightly condemn the violent destruction of lives, then we must condemn the destruction of lives caused by societal indifference. But condemnation is not enough. During this season of peace and hope, let each of us resolve that in the new year we will be the advocates that the invisible people in our communities need and shed light on the violence of indifference that claims countless lives.
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