It was the year of Ukraine. A week before the Russian invasion almost no one believed it would happen. A week after February 24, no one believed that by the end of the year, December 31, 2022, the war would not have ended with the overwhelming defeat of the Ukrainians. The invasion took place, to this day the Ukrainians are still resisting and the Russians are struggling to get out of the quagmire.
The country’s infrastructure has been destroyed. There are millions of refugees and thousands of dead and it is the biggest test of European population since the second world war. Also, Putin’s biggest concern after the trauma to his narcissistic despotism is that the invasion accomplished what he set out to prevent. The western orientation of Ukraine. And that is why the resistance of the Ukrainians and the help provided by the Western world are important.
The wave of Russian invasion disturbed the sleep of Sleeping Beauty, Europe, as the terrorism of aggressive Islam failed to disturb it. The European Union has suddenly realized that it has obligations to the modern world, that democracy is not a stereotype that emerges smugly in the corridors of Brussels or in the Parliament of Strasbourg. That even in the 21st century a given value is not commonly accepted. That there are people living among us ready to lose what they have and don’t have, to be exiled or even to die for it. Whatever democracy means in the 21st century, the Ukrainians have shown us that it means much more than we think it does.
That is why the past year is the year of Ukraine. They told us they had something to tell us. The question is whether the “Europeans” of democracy have the words to interpret it. Without getting lost in the maze of sophistication. Sophistication is the basis of hypocrisy. Is Europe willing, is it ready to interpret the message that Ukraine is sending to it? And we are not referring to economic or military aid, which I take for granted. We refer to this teaching of Freedom and Democracy that its fighters broadcast. Can Europe translate it to appropriate it for its future? or will pass as an exception.
