Nine days. Nine days ago, Putin invaded Ukraine. There is a quote that’s been going around by, of all people, Lenin that reads “There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.” History would appear to have a sense of humor.
We can be grateful to the Ukrainian people - with a bit of our help - for defending democracy and freedom for these nine days. It’s worth taking a second to appreciate what didn’t happen: Ukraine did not roll over. Russia did not achieve a quick victory. The people of Ukraine revealed themselves to be up to the challenge.
Now, though, for those of us in the West, who are lucky enough to keep eating our McMuffins and using our iPhones, comes the real challenge: continuing to pay attention.
This is not easy. There are, after all, a lot of shitty things going on in the world. Climate change, elections in Texas, rising inflation. We will be reminded of starving children in Africa, of conflicts around the world that are also still simmering, and of course, yes, all of these are important.
But we must keep our eyes on the prize. Ukraine is fighting for us. They are a proxy for our freedom. If Ukraine falls, the world will start to wonder if democracy is really all it’s cracked up to be. We will lose a piece of our moral compass. The world knows us as Americans to be a strong but fickle people, ready to roll from one terrible news story on to the next. There may be a hope that they can outlast our notoriously short attention spans. But this is not Minecraft or Tik Tok; this is the real world, and wars take weeks, months or even years. Sound bites about nuclear plants or captured soldiers calling their mothers are attention grabbing, but the real work is happening down on the ground where real people are dying every day to protect freedom.
Make no mistake; they are defending their land and protecting their own freedom first and foremost, which is a great enough cause for us to support. But they are also defending the honor of the West and the cause of freedom and democracy everywhere. The least we can do is notice.
