Ukraine vs. Darkness by Olexander Scherba

Author:Olexander Scherba [Olexander, Scherba,]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ibidem
Published: 2021-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

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1 https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/09/04/a-majority-of-young-adults-in-the-u-s-live-with-their-parents-for-the-first-time-since-the-great-depression/

2 https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0124127/

3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Sound_of_Thunder

Going Against the Flow

Let’s zoom in on Europe and the European context, in which Ukraine is trying not only to survive, but also to build a new future. In May of 2017, Ukrainian pop star and ethnic Crimean Tatar Jamala won the Eurovision contest—with a highly political, anti-dictatorship song. In the end, it was a dramatic face-off between a Ukrainian and Russian contestant, a contest brimming with political innuendo. After Jamala won, I had a conversation with an EU journalist who looked like a scared bird: dear Lord, Ukraine beat Russia, in such a dramatic fashion, with such a political song, with Europe’s votes—didn’t Europe go too far this time in “provoking Russia”? That was the moment when it became especially clear to me: Europe has a courage problem.

Since 2014, a war has ground on in Europe’s East. Undeclared, evil, hideous. With Ukrainian flags on the one side and Russian flags (and citizens, and weapons, and money, and military) on the other. Nevertheless, many choose to see it as a domestic conflict. Ukraine’s victory in this war isn’t what most Europeans have in mind. What we perceive as a battle of good and evil, freedom and unfreedom, democracy and authoritarianism—seems to them too complicated to comprehend. It’s more comfortable that way. The lie of the “civil war”, a domestic conflict in Ukraine, implies that Europe needs to mediate. The truth, on the other hand, suggests that Europe has to toughen up and change its ways—because a free country in Europe got attacked for refusing to give up her freedom and it is entitled to expect full support from other freedom-loving nations.

The truth puts Europe right in the middle of the war, while the lie puts her above it. The truth is uncomfortable and demanding, while the lie doesn’t change much in Europe’s perception of itself and its neighborhood. So, why are we Ukrainians so surprised whenever Europe is gladly and even eagerly fooled by Russia?

Many Europeans would have long given up if they were in our shoes. Not only because it’s so scary to face off against a nuclear state. And not only because Russia is so obviously enjoying every minute of this face-off. And not only because political Europe sometimes looks like a supermarket, where “Gazprom” walks along the aisle and puts one EU politician/expert after another into the shopping cart. All these factors are essential, but they are only reflections of something bigger: the hour of Europe’s weakness.

History is the biggest cheater and the bravest hero at the same time. The heroic Jordano Bruno and the deceitful Giuseppe Cagliostro in one person. It brings the whole generations to the barricades—and then laughs into their faces. On the ruins of the great war, it built United Europe, one of the greatest creations of the human civilization, on par with the eras of Renaissance and Enlightenment—and immediately, during the lifetime of one generation, put it on the brink of an abyss. The continent that just

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