It seems obscene to have the suffering of Ukrainians served up on the same plate where we can click through to purchase consumer goods, or read another, different story that sounds more interesting than this one. But that is how we live now, and anyone trying to resist the doom-scroll and distraction of social media is up against forces stronger than their will.
The second thing that worsens the multi-car pile-up is the sense that institutions which once protected us from catastrophe are either absent or breaking down. There are many names for this and much contemporary scholarship devoted to it – the erosion of trust in government, the “grey corruption” that has beset democracies including Australia’s, where pork-barrelling is accepted and cronyism commonplace.
Illustration: Reg LynchCredit:
It is a creeping sense that the grown-ups are no longer in charge, and in the case of the people in Lismore who we saw waiting on their roofs last week, a sense that there is no back-up. Maybe no one is coming to help. You will have to do what you can for yourselves.
Such an atmosphere fosters remarkable community co-operation, as we have seen in the past week. But on a political level, it only pushes people further from any sense of common project.
Which brings us to Ukraine. The first Trump impeachment was so many crises ago, it’s hard to recall the details. Ukraine’s remarkable President, Volodymyr Zelensky, played a starring role.
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The summary of Trump’s July 2019 conversation with Zelensky showed Trump pressuring the Ukrainian leader (who rose to power on an anti-corruption platform) to open an investigation into his rival Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, who was on the board of Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Through his lackeys, Trump threatened to withhold military aid to Ukraine unless Zelensky did his bidding. The military aid was dearly needed to fight off the Russians in the Donbas.
Zelensky was accused, by some, of being obsequious in his exchange with The Don. “We used quite a few of your skills and knowledge,” he tells Trump of his own campaign. And: “We wanted to drain the swamp here in our country.”
Reading it now, you sense how hard Zelensky is paddling his feet underwater.
His country is dependent on this man to help fend off Russian aggression. We know, now, how dangerous the threat was. Zelensky couldn’t afford to offend Trump.
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Scroll to the present day.
“The fight is here: I need ammunition, not a ride,” Zelensky told the US when he was offered a safe flight out of Ukraine for himself and his family.
Here is the nub of Zelensky’s appeal: his spirit. When it feels like the entire world is exhausted, there he is, tireless: triumphantly eluding Russian hitmen, a multilingual Scarlet Pumpernickel who is part-showman and part-guerilla, somewhere in Kyiv, dashing off rousing videos and inspiring speeches.
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Meanwhile, the internet feeds us daily examples of the insubordination of Ukrainians. A farmer tractor-tows a Russian tank off his property. A baba in a headscarf tells a Russian soldier to get f—ed. Newlyweds skip their honeymoon to take up arms.
No one knows where this ends, but the crises have crushed the West’s smug sense that liberalism had won and we could lay down arms.
Instead, we are sending arms to those on the front lines, while we watch from the cheap seats.
Twitter: @JacquelineMaley
Zelensky has spirit while the world seems drained of it. No wonder we’re fascinated by him
Source: Philippines Alive
