Two weeks ago Russia, an autocratic country with the world’s second strongest military, invaded a democratic country, Ukraine, who presented no threat to any other nation in the region. In so doing a Russian President condemned countless people, including the elderly and children, to their deaths. Rarely in the history of human conflict are we faced with such unequal moral justifications for war. Where we can so clearly assert that the defender is fighting a just war against tyranny. And the aggressor, an evil war upon the innocent.
I do not know what is in the Russian President’s heart and I cannot assess his soul by labelling him evil. That is a judgement reserved for only The Greatest Love. But his actions are available for all to see. His actions I can assess for myself and they are chilling. I fear he has yearnings for a bygone era when Moscow dominated its neighbors instead of sharing with them a common vision of peace, prosperity, and humanity.
Or is it that the Russian President feels threatened by his neighbors? Neighbors who can show that democracy after Soviet authoritarian rule is not only viable, but better equipped to serve the hopes, and dreams of its people. Neighbors who can show that the actions and leadership of the Russian President should be relegated to an abhorrent past.
Whatever the reasons it appears the Russian President has misunderstood that he is not just fighting a war against the military of the Ukrainian nation. But also a war against the aspirations of the Ukrainian people. Their aspirations for freedom. To not be subjugated to the yoke of authoritarianism. The people of Ukraine know what the Russian President is peddling. They lived through it before. And they firmly reject it now.
Standing in the Russian President’s way is a nation of professional, volunteer, and foreign fighters. Their courage against such an unprovoked and indiscriminate invasion is inspiring. My prayers are with them, and their leaders.
Caught in between are the citizens of Ukraine. Those who should have never known such death and destruction. Those who never should have been separated from their husbands, fathers, grandfathers, and brothers, but for the actions of an invading army. I pray that these families may be reunited within a nation made whole again. I pray that the children of Ukraine may be shielded from the worst of the inhumanity that has befallen them. And in the tortuous event that the aggressors take their innocent lives I pray that they may find comfort in the arms of The Greatest Love.
I believe The Greatest Love loves all Their children including the autocrats. But that does not mean They do not see the evil in their actions. The actions on which they will be judged. I pray for the soul of the Russian President. That he may find enlightenment in the heavens along with justice here on earth, without further bloodshed. The killing must end.
I believe The Greatest Love abhors war but recognizes that a nation’s people are sometimes forced into war, crying out to be defended. For this reason I do not pray for an unconditional peace: a one-sided peace dictated by the aggressor. Instead I pray for a just peace. A peace that the Ukrainian people can accept. A peace that maintains their hopes for a free and democratically governed nation.
I believe people must sometimes take up arms against aggression and fight against the boot of autocracy. Fight to maintain their land, institutions, and ideals, they have worked so hard to build up. Until that fight is complete I will pray that the Ukrainian forces can remain strong. And that the sanctions the world places on Russia can force that nation’s president, or at least her people, to rethink the path he has chosen to take.
There are some that would argue that the path towards peace lies solely with non-violent resistance. Such resistance has borne great successes, from the Salt March in India led by Mohandas Gandhi, to the Civil Rights Marches in the American South led by the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. But perhaps the most revered message of pacifism came from Jesus Christ in his Sermon on the Mount:
But I tell you, do not resist an evil person. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other cheek also. – Matthew 5:39
The context of time and place is important here. Jesus was a part of the subjugated Jewish population in ancient Palestine. An area that was occupied and controlled by Roman forces. Under such dire circumstances Christ chose a powerful pacifist message which was radical for that violent age. But some scholars think it is when he confided to his disciples that he was to be the future “King of the Jews” that Roman authorities had him crucified. The brutal and immediate elimination of any semblance of dissent was how Rome ruled its territories. It allowed the Romans to control Palestine for some six more centuries after Jesus died.
As a counter example Gandhi ignited a successful, and non-violent, anti-colonial movement that would eventually see India gain their independence from Great Britain in 1947.
What was the difference? In the case of British India there were lines that the authorities were unwilling to cross. As George Orwell pointed out in 1949: “It is difficult to see how Gandhi’s methods could be applied in a country where opponents of the regime disappear in the middle of the night and are never heard of again.“
So is Russia today more akin to 20th-century Imperial Britain, or the brutality of ancient Palestine? The fate of critics such as Alexei Navalny make me fear that it is closer to the latter than the former, and I worry about how far the Russian President is willing to go to maintain his grip on power. Given this should the Ukrainian people be willing to surrender their liberties in the name of non-violent resistance? To relinquish their fledgling democracy and its associated rights and freedoms in the faint hope that pacifism could eventually re-win their independence?
Is this the path The Greatest Love expects an invaded people to take? To surrender their rights and freedoms to a marauding army until such time as that army is willing to return those liberties back to them? A time which may never come depending on the predilections of a merciless autocrat? Are such principles ever meant to be indefinitely abandoned or quashed? Is this a reasonable price to pay for peace? A peace premised on fear and oppression?
In an earlier post I said it was the emergence of secular declarations, charters and constitutions instilling love into law that resulted in one of the greatest advances in the progression of our love. These laws were not dictated from the heavens or delivered by a prophet. Instead they were discovered by humanity’s own moral progress through the centuries. And when secular variants of those truths were embraced by humanity and began to be echoed in the highest laws of our lands, it helped to progress our love further.
What would The Greatest Love then say about giving up such truths in the face of an invading menace? I believe They would say that love is more important than life itself and it must stand up against evil. Love must stand up and take strong action to prevent its loss from this World. When one is oppressed and powerless the bravest act can be to turn the other cheek. But I hope and I pray that the Ukrainian people never need to do so. That they never become so desperate that their strongest act of opposition necessitates enduring such brutality. That they can bear this cross with strength and courage and never be crucified upon it.
Some of the rights and freedoms Ukrainians enjoy today via their constitution embodies love and it must not be sacrificed on the altar of peace at any cost. Ukrainians are not a subjugated people, completely domineered by a faraway ruthless emperor. But (mis-) applying Jesus’ pacifist message from ancient Palestine, to a very different situation in Ukraine, would quickly make them such.
Sometimes there is a time and place to fight for love, to die for love, and even to kill for love.
Yes The Greatest Love abhors war and the loss of human life it entails; the pain and suffering of the innocent. But there is something worse than such devastation: when love, as enshrined in truths that are embraced by a nation, are then stripped away when an evil is set upon them.
A Love Story 