“It is our freedom, messy though it is, which we must embrace, as the Ukrainians have done”
Many other factors went into Russia’s shocking failures and Ukraine’s amazing successes, of course. And we must never take for granted the incredible heroism of the Ukrainian people, their willingness to fight and die for their country even when the odds seemed impossible to overcome, and their fortitude through incredible hardships. Not all free peoples have such traits.
Nor has Ukraine suddenly become a perfect society without flaw or blemish. When peace returns to a Ukraine that has won its freedom it will still be hard to govern, fractious, chaotic, and messy. But it will also still be free.. Russians may be rallying around the flag in polls, but they are not coming together as citizens to help Russia win this war. Russian civil society, such as Putin has allowed to persist, has largely come together to oppose the unjust act of aggression Putin has committed.
The self-loathing that has become an American and European specialty over the past decades has eroded our own people’s belief that freedom is good and valuable. It had led some to wonder if the Chinese model wasn’t better than the Western one.Freedom is messy. It is flawed, and its flaws are always on display. The injustices of our society are real and important. Our disagreements with each other may be deep and powerful. We know all that because we talk about it all the time.
But the smooth faces autocracies present conceal much greater injustices, flaws, problems, and weaknesses. Dictatorial systems often conceal those weaknesses even from their own dictators, as Putin has discovered to his fury. China is much stronger than Putin’s Russia. But even Xi Jinping would be wise to wonder what his people are hiding from him and to worry if he can find out before it’s too late.
As for us, we, like the Ukrainians, already know our weaknesses and flaws. As we watch a free people humiliate the military of an ostensibly far stronger dictatorship, however, we should also reflect on our most important source of strength. That is not our wealth, our size, or our armed might. It is our habit of working together to solve problems without waiting to be told what to do. It is our freedom, messy though it is, which we must embrace, as the Ukrainians have done.
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