I have read several critiques levelled against President Volodymyr Zelenskyy which argue that he is being used as a stooge in a proxy war between several Western countries and Russia. Fair enough.
It is perhaps obvious that Zelenskyy’s attempt to take on “Mother Russia” was inspired and cheered on by support from the West alongside sanctions imposed on Russia, equally by Western countries.
The real question here is: what was the alternative? An unstable peace constructed on continuously living in the shadows of Russia because of some post-Cold War agreement? Or the inability of the Ukrainians to map the way forward for their country and forge new alliances in the contemporary era of globalisation?
Interestingly, Russia did not adopt a similar bellicose foreign policy when neighbouring Finland applied to and eventually joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in 2022.
Arguing that Zelenskyy is a stooge also undermines Ukrainian agency, which is informed by the fact that it is against human nature for people to want to live as second-class global citizens.
Machiavelli erroneously assumed that “fear is maintained by a dread of punishment which never fails”. A nation cannot continuously live in fear, especially given the changing dynamics of foreign policies which are informed by the whims and caprices of the forever-changing leadership of each country.
Irrespective of the consequences, there comes a time in the lives of leaders, a people and a country to take a stand. The slaves in the New World knew this when they revolted in the plantations. The same thing happened when the expansionist ambitions of the Nazis were challenged during World War II. African nations had this in mind when they clamoured for independence as the “wind of change” blew across the continent in the 1960s.
The South Africans were mindful of this when they stood up against apartheid, fought and died for the irresistible and irreversible idea of freedom.
As Nelson Mandela, the former anti-apartheid icon once articulated, the ideal of a free society is one in which all people should hope to live for but, if need be, it is an ideal for which they should be prepared to die.
After all, a true tree of liberty is watered and sustained by the blood of patriots and saints. As Wilfred Owen puts it: “Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori” (It is sweet and proper to die for one’s country). The Congo’s Patrice Lumumba knew this, so did Burkina Faso’s Thomas Sankara, so did Mandela, so does Zelenskyy — and so should you.
Valery Ferim is an associate professor and interim head of the Department of Politics and Philosophy in the Faculty of Social Science and Humanities at the University of Fort Hare.
