The Ukraine Rising

By GENE NICHOL

As Vladimir Putin invades Ukraine with hundreds of thousands of Russian soldiers in murderous assault – demonstrating that the terrors of Hitler can recur – Donald Trump lavishes praise. Mike Pompeo describes Putin as “elegant”, “savvy” and “capable.” Someone named Tucker Carlson embraces the ruthless, cunning Russian dictator – as a gigantic military power moves to crush and kill a weaker neighbor. The world seems to continue its downward spiral. It does.

But then, a heroic, young Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, refuses to flee his homeland. He stands outside the presidential building in Kyiv, along with his prime minister, chief of staff and an array of ministers, amidst the bombs, rallying his nation. “We’re all here,” Zelensky declares. “Our military is here, citizens are here. “We’re defending our independence, we’re defending our country, it’ll stay that way.” Earlier he warned Putin: “When you attack you will see our faces, not our spines.”

Soldiers boldly retake an airport. Ukrainians re-cross the footbridge, back into their country, to fight. Into the fire. A young woman explains to the cameras: “It is not possible for me not to fight for this country, if we’re defeated, you will be next.” An older woman crosses the street to confront a Russian soldier – “what are you doing in my country” she fearlessly demands.

As this unfolds, Putin asserts Zelensky’s government is “terrorist,” a “gang of drug addicts and Nazis” – in a perfect, proving demonstration of horror and deceit. Showing replete and unapologetic evil. Wallowing in it. Mocking humankind. As if his malignance could erase or counterbalance the stunning soul and character of his adversaries. But they’re out of his league. By light years.

Meantime, thousands and thousands of Russian citizens violate explicit mandates, in cities across the sprawling nation, to protest Putin’s assault. Knowing full well the dangers of defying the dictator – the beatings, the murders, the imprisonments, the infliction of criminal records making employment impossible – they chant, “Peace for Ukraine, Freedom for us,” with courage that would astound even Mandela, Hamer, Lewis and King. Thousands are arrested. Citizens return to the streets yet again. They march to Pushkin Square, within a thousand meters of the Kremlin. Good God.

Human rights activist Marina Litvinovich posts a video urging her fellow Russians to protest. She’s immediately arrested outside her house. Alexei Navalny, who Putin has already had poisoned, rises at his own trial in a maximum security prison to denounce the invasion – which he says destroys both the Russian and Ukrainian peoples. Nobel prize laureate Dmitry Muratov risks imprisonment by publishing an editorial in both Russian and Ukrainian, saying “only the antiwar movement can save life on this planet.” To know, yet again, that people such as these exist. To have it again shown.

These last years have been unnerving. We’ve been somewhat undone. People like Putin, Trump, Pompeo, Meadows and DeSantis exude a venom, a poison that threatens to engulf us all. They almost convince, by accretion, that there’s no honor in being human. There’s no character, no morality, no courage, no obligation, no duty, no integrity, no idealism, no meaning, no love, no habit of heart. There is only the more powerful crushing the less advantaged. Only the villain stalking his prey.

But they can’t stand before Zelensky, and his sisters and brothers, and the grandmother on the street-corner, and Litvinovich, and Navalny, and Muratov. And the bold millions. The loathsome have not a chance. No matter what happens.

Gene Nichol is Boyd Tinsley Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law and in 2015 started the North Carolina Poverty Research Fund after the UNC Board of Governors closed the state-funded Poverty Center for publishing articles critical of the governor and General Assembly.

From The Progressive Populist, April 1, 2022

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