All along since the world began, on February 24th after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, only the pictures of an elephant and the grass have been painted, whereas the sensibility of the saying that when two elephants fight, it is the grass that suffers, never took into cognizance the dominance of one elephant as against the other by not well-captured or factored into the war situation. On the surface and on the media, the war going on is between Russia and Ukraine, whereas in the real sense of it and going by the factors that precipitated the invasion in the first place, the advancement of democracy is one of them. While the fear on the part of Russia about the expansion of NATO and the EU (European Union) constitute an integral part of the courses of the invasion, these factors are not unknown to the powers that be but are presented in the light of Russia being the devil who is on an expansionist adventure.
There is no gainsaying the fact that the action of the Russian president is condemnable and deserving of all the sanctions including more if there are, but the issue of concern is were there precedents to this kind of barbaric and unilateral invasion of Ukraine by Russia? If the answer is ‘yes’, which I believe it is, to whom much has been forgiven in the past is from whom much is also expected with regard to understanding others’ frailty, and the extension of the hand of love, which should be unconditional to whomsoever is in the same kind of shoes. Caution as it has been exercised by America in particular by not granting the request to declare a no-fly zone in the Ukraine space on Russia, more diplomatic are welcome and indispensable at this time if the bigger picture in the minds of the supposedly peace-loving world leaders is peace.
The sole aim of the meeting of President Joe Biden of the United States with the leaders of NATO in Brussels, which is slated for next week, will hopefully be geared towards the escalation and that will allude to the usual saying that America will lead by the power of the example and not the example of its power. The world needs peace now more than ever before.
Bear in mind also that there are other countries that are equally tough as Russia who are looking. Some of them are countries such as Iran, China, and North Korea. How the situation at hand is handled right now will determine whether the world will be faced with another threat of invasion in the shortest distance.
It is important also to point out that Russia is one of the permanent members of the Security Council of the United Nations alongside other powerful countries like America, United Kingdom, France, and the rest. What this portends to the already dampened spirits of the member states of the United Nations is nothing other than a disservice on the part of the leaders, it is unfair, for as the saying goes, that when two elephants figh,t it is the grass that suffers. The grass, in the case that the war is going right now, is Ukraine. Although the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, received a standing ovation by the members of the U.S. Congress after he gave his remarkable and emotional speech aimed at addressing the President of the United States. The standing ovation, as the case may be, does not erase the reality of what the Ukrainians have passed through in terms of the loss of lives and displacement of people. All of these painful experiences from the ongoing war of the Ukraniians can be summed up by the saying that it is only the wearer of the shoe who knows where it pinches.
One tactical error made by the president of the Ukraine was the discussion that he initiated with the president of Russia after the invasion had taken place. That action has painted a picture of an abandoned responsibllity on the part of the Ukrainian government which if had been taken at the right time earlier, it might have helped to prevent the war. That action fits in for description as crying or trying to cry when the head is already off the neck. A categorical invitation directed at the United States of America to be involved militarily in the ongoing war paints another picture of the lack of understanding of the nitty gritty of international politics, especially such that involves the fighting of two elephants.
President Putin is on a mission for the total wreckage of Ukraine. It is not the same as that of the desire for expansion. All Putin is saying to the world and to America in particular is before you get Ukraine to become a NATO member as well as a member of the EU, and isolating Russia, I will wreck Ukraine. That is the war that is going on right now, and it has as one of its deep curses, dating back to 2014, with one of the prominent incidents as the Orange Revolution.
This world did not just start when Ukraine was invaded. There were some invasions that took place earlier such as in Georgia and in Crimea, which was taken over by Russia from Ukraine. So the ongoing war is the climax of what can be described as the precipitating factors, which unfortunately could have been prevented. Prevention could only have taken place where there was the political will that has its focus on peace and nothing other than peace.
The lesson to learn by the Ukrainians and other developing democracies is that democracy and freedom are with a cost. Moving us further into this discourse is this wise instruction:
“We say we want a renewall of character in our day, but we don’t really know what we ask for. To have a renewal of character is to have a renewal of a credal order that constrains, limits, binds, obligates and compels. This price is too high for us to pay. We want character but without conviction. We want strong morality but without the emotional burden of guilt or shame. We want virtue but without particular moral justifications that invariably offend. We want good without having to name evil. We want decency without the authority to insist upon it. We want moral community without any limitations to personal freedome. In short, we want what we cannot possibly have on the terms that we want it.” — James Davison Hunter, The Death of Character.
This is where we are, waiting to be told where we are going, but if in the end we don’t know where we are going, definitely and for sure, we cannot forget where we are coming from. May God bless the world and give the world the long-awaited and illusive perfect peace.
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