We could make it if we try

A boy attends a Christmas Day Mass at an Orthodox church in Bobrytsia, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on  December 25, 2022. AP Photo -
A boy attends a Christmas Day Mass at an Orthodox church in Bobrytsia, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, on December 25, 2022. AP Photo -

As we start a new year full of uncertainty but tooled up with a heightened sense of hope, my biggest wish is that we try to genuinely rid ourselves of fear and refuse to be pushed into not fully living the one life we are certain to have on this planet.

The last year was a killing field, literally, and having yet another birthday, even after having perfected the art of back counting, demands awareness of how life is lived and how much time remains for learning how to do it well. Since February of 2022 we have received a lesson in courage from the people of Ukraine who were suddenly attacked by neighbouring Russia in an audacious land grab. The Ukrainians stand as monuments. That “war” – a misnomer in my opinion – has been prolonged beyond anyone’s expectations and we have all lived it in an unprecedented way. The enormity in scale of a particular humanitarian crisis has never been so widely reported or viewed internationally. We have witnessed wall-to-wall footage of millions of people fleeing their country as Russian bombs fell and continue to fall and rockets explode in the night sky. We have seen amazing aerial shots of lines of the invader’s tanks being routed and of mass graves in once quiet provincial Ukrainian towns, the tears and the personal loss. The experience of war most of us had, till this conflict on the European continent, is the cine version of fully-fledged ones, such as WWI and WWII, in which every aspect of life is suborned to the national defence effort, but the reports from Ukraine show women in the cities and towns far away from the fighting zones with their faces fully made up, wearing fashion jewellery, and people living apparently routine lives, alongside the destruction and savagery of the frontline. It is compelling to see those dolled up women cry through their mascara for their country and countrymen and lament their predicament.

It is a reality which is difficult for us to fully comprehend but we are helped by Ukrainians using social media to post their own images from everywhere in Ukraine, and that brand of citizen journalism has brought another layer of understanding of the atrocities and the haphazardness of life. It seems somehow paradoxical that while it is a story of hell and ruination, the extensive and varied coverage has had the effect of normalising armed conflict, even sanitising it. We, far away, might be lulled into putting the Ukraine-Russia conflict on the back burner but it is the biggest cause of apprehension for many and the source of the greatest instability for the world, notwithstanding developments in Taiwan and elsewhere.

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Underlying the blanket international media coverage must be the terrible fear that the US is conducting a surrogate war with Russia in Ukraine that could yet erupt into a full-blown European confrontation between nuclearised countries. If we never understood what NATO was or its significance we certainly all do now, and it is down to the exceptional access television crews have to local media and to the Ukrainian leader and his bunkers and to the outrageous and bizarre Russian leadership with its dystopian policy of disinformation.

Even though Ukraine was not the perfectly model democracy prior to the invasion, the sheer bold-facedness and determination of the diminutive, media savvy and politically and diplomatically sophisticated President Zelensky has captured the imagination of most onlookers. He may have willed Ukrainians into fighting a battle that will not be won easily, and into the self sacrifice it demands. It is impressive and worth taking stock of as we try to inspire ourselves. We need to, since it is clear that we have entered a new historical cycle in which the rules are being made up and almost every truth and belief or bit of received wisdom is challenged. Ukraine is the living proof that every aspect of life is in flux.

Looking to the arts and literature to help us each find a path through the confusing maze is not a bad idea. Popular music is full of touchstones, extraordinarily brave artistes and songwriters such as Lou Reed (deceased), one of the most influential and transgressive artistes of my long lost youth and his Velvet Underground days. Walk on the Wild Side was his signature song, an anthem to dealing with changing order by personally discarding outdated mores. It was a taboo buster that slipped past the censors into the mainstream and was ahead of its time in putting gender roles on the popular agenda.

Coming home, we sadly just lost the man of many anthems that help light the way. Black Stalin’s lyrics prodded us to think in other ways and to see clearly when we look at ourselves as Caribbean people. We may be feeling a bit scared of what seems a dark future but to borrow his melodious lines, we just have to try a bit harder to make life a bit sweeter in 2023. We really have no choice. Happy New Year!

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"We could make it if we try"

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