You know what really bothers me? Crowds of smug, self-congratulating Westerners who fill the social networks with endless criticisms of Ukrainians, the Ukrainian government, and the Ukrainian military. Their help to Ukraine has been nil. Their understanding of what is going on is limited by distance and ignorance of the country’s reality. Yet they consider themselves qualified and entitled to offer advice and lecture Ukrainians who are fighting a war and trying to survive in desperate circumstances. And they don’t seem to notice how amazingly offensive and condescending it is to barrage Ukrainians with a stream of endless “you shoulds.”
I left Ukraine in 1998. I’m now an outsider to Ukraine and all I can do is send money to help the POWs, spread the information, tell people here in the US and on my blog about what is happening, and ask what I can do to help. If Ukrainians (the ones who are in Ukraine, I mean) decide that their current government is not doing its job, that will be their decision. But it would be incredibly bizarre if I – as an outsider – started rubbishing the Ukrainian leadership. And it is even more bizarre when people who don’t speak a word of Ukrainian do it. I’m getting really tired of the endless “Ukrainians are idiots” articles and tweets that come from people who claim to support Ukraine.
This post is written in answer to a question two readers asked me as to why I “defend” Ukraine’s President Poroshenko. It is not my place to defend or not to defend him. Poroshenko’s job is not to please me. It is to work for the people who elected him. But when I see these constant attempts to scrutinize and criticize every single thing that Ukrainians do, I get angry. If you are so sure that you’d do a better job if you had to battle a foreign invasion, let’s wait until you get an opportunity to do that and then we will all joyfully follow your shining example. Until then, though, it would be great if people could just keep their useless advice on military and political strategy to themselves.
Clarissa's Blog 
I guess I will put this here. I recently started going back to church. I am the only white guy among a thousand black members. But, I thought it interesting that last week the only non-African country that we prayed for was Ukraine.
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It is really helpful to hear this. Now I need to avoid crying because this is very touching. Glory to Africa! Glory to Ukraine!
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It’s like capitalism, which, as you pointed out, sucks compared to some imaginary impossible ideal system but which is far better than any of the real world alternatives.
Poroshenko isn’t great compared to an imaginary, abstolutely perfect leader but he’s doing a very credible job given the context that he’s having to work in and it’s hard to see who could be doing any better.
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Exactly. He’s doing the best he can. But that’s not even the most important thing. Ukrainians have stopped waiting for the good tsar, and that’s an enormous achievement. There is a real, functioning civil society that is being born in Ukraine. I never thought I would get to see what the expression “civil society” even meant but now I’m seeing it, and it’s so amazing. People are finally doing things themselves and for themselves.
If I thought this was even remotely possible back in 1998, I would have never emigrated. And the world hispanism would have lost me. 🙂
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