Chances are, if you're reading this, you didn’t vote for Trump.
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Chances are, if you're reading this, you didn’t vote for Trump. And at this moment you are feeling frightened for the future of your country and yet, at the same time, upset that the rest of the world seems unable to distinguish between the ‘good Americans’ and the ‘bad Americans’. This demand to be recognized as individual exceptions is a very American thing; it crosses the political divide. But it speaks to a very American inability to imagine how others see you.
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Chances are, if you're reading this, you didn’t vote for Trump. And at this moment you are feeling frightened for the future of your country and yet, at the same time, upset that the rest of the world seems unable to distinguish between the ‘good Americans’ and the ‘bad Americans’. This demand to be recognized as individual exceptions is a very American thing; it crosses the political divide. But it speaks to a very American inability to imagine how others see you.
I understand that you feel you are doing all you can. I understand that you fear for your jobs, your health insurance, and the safety of your children, and that if you go onto the streets, you might get arrested, or even shot. But I have to tell you that, if you are ever going to find enough courage to face those threats, now is the time to do it. Because later will be too late.
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I understand that you feel you are doing all you can. I understand that you fear for your jobs, your health insurance, and the safety of your children, and that if you go onto the streets, you might get arrested, or even shot. But I have to tell you that, if you are ever going to find enough courage to face those threats, now is the time to do it. Because later will be too late.
Perhaps there are millions of Russians who hate Putin, who didn’t vote for him. But they were scared for their jobs, for their children. Scared of arrest, scared of violence. In letting fear paralyze them, they allowed for the entrenchment of authoritarian rule until every single part of their society was in Putin’s corrupt grip. They don’t understand why the world doesn’t understand that they are victims too.
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Perhaps there are millions of Russians who hate Putin, who didn’t vote for him. But they were scared for their jobs, for their children. Scared of arrest, scared of violence. In letting fear paralyze them, they allowed for the entrenchment of authoritarian rule until every single part of their society was in Putin’s corrupt grip. They don’t understand why the world doesn’t understand that they are victims too.
But this isn’t something a Ukranian soldier, defending their country, has the luxury to think about. The grim reality of global agression is that, once one’s homeland is threatened by foreign agressors, the bandwidth for nuance is not only unsustainable, but it becomes an existential weakness. Once a foreign country threatens your territorial sovereignty, your economy, your natural resources, your democracy, there can only be ‘us’ and the agressor.
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But this isn’t something a Ukranian soldier, defending their country, has the luxury to think about. The grim reality of global agression is that, once one’s homeland is threatened by foreign agressors, the bandwidth for nuance is not only unsustainable, but it becomes an existential weakness. Once a foreign country threatens your territorial sovereignty, your economy, your natural resources, your democracy, there can only be ‘us’ and the agressor.
The attacker must be seen as monolithic and evil. There are no shades of grey in war. Only after, when historians have the luxury of time and silence to sift through the ashes.
History keeps no lists of the nice people who lived in countries who started wars.
You have a short moment in history to stop this. It demands a crazy kind of courage, my American friends.
I beg you to find it.
Love,
A Canadian friend.
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J jeppe@uddannelse.social shared this topic
