Feb 27

Feb 27 Sunflowers (I)

Chicago, Demonstrations, Protest, Street

Today hundreds of people gathered outside Saints Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Church to protest the Russian invasion of Ukraine. At least that was the crowd size offered by the Chicago Tribune. As I tried to navigate my way from the sidewalk in front of the speaker’s podium back to Chicago Avenue, I sensed the number was at least 1,000 if not 1,500 people. The sidewalks, church parking lot, and streets were jam-packed, so I had to trod through the muddy strip devoid of any grass that served as my passageway.

One thing is for sure, lots of politicians showed up, including Governor J.B. Pritzker, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot, and Congressmen Mike Quigley, Danny Davis and Raja Krishnamoorthi. All took to the microphone, together with Ukrainian religious leaders, counsels general, and Ukrainian community members, including at least two highly articulate teenagers. Pritzker reminded us that his ancestors were from Ukraine. Others said we are all Ukrainians. Mayor Lightfoot called for the United States to open its borders to Ukrainian refugees.

Everyone took the opportunity to condemn Vladimir Putin. While many of the signs used an obscenity to describe what Putin could do to himself, Pritzker used the family-friendly phrase, “Screw Vladimir Putin!” No one would have complained had he used the expletive.

Overall, I could picture myself in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, or Luhansk. Certainly the sea of blue and yellow flags aided my imagination, as did all of the Ukrainian phrases I heard exchanged among crowd members. I took a moment to walk into the Saints Volodymyr and Olha Ukrainian Church, where the Cyrillic characters and the Byzantine iconography transported me from Chicago’s Ukrainian Village to any one of thousands of churches in Eastern Europe, Greece, and Russia.

But back to Putin, the villain who has motivated similar outpourings throughout the world, including in the streets of St. Petersburg, Russia. What is it about this war that grips our imagination?

Pulitzer Prize winning author Anne Applebaum offers the answer in the title of her recent book, Twilight of Democracy: The Seductive Lure of Authoritarianism. Putin is a stand-in for Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, PRC President Xi Jinping, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and our very own former President Donald J. Trump (and the cast of stooges in Congress and state governor’s mansions who seek his blessings).

The enlightened who until recently have taken democratic norms for granted are inspired to see the David versus Goliath pushback coming from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the citizens who elected him. He is our Everyman—a comedian who will almost certainly win the Nobel Peace Prize. If Trump or one of his acolytes captures the presidency in 2024 by nefarious and illegal means, the majority now know that it is possible to take back our democracy. Those who are mesmerized by what is happening in Ukraine realize that we could find ourselves in a similar position in just two or three years. Yes, Putin is Trump’s stand-in, and we are all Ukrainians.