Ukraine, 6 months on
This week will mark the 6 month anniversary since Russia invaded Ukraine. Though fighting continues, it has largely slipped from the headlines. This winter, Irish people will feel the impact of the conflict in a new way as we grapple with levels of energy poverty unheard of in modern times. I wrote this a few months back, but never got around to sharing it.
Written March 2022
Like everyone else I know, I've been watching the unfolding situation in Ukraine with horror. For years, it was my job to respond to crises like this. I didn't do anything that was practically useful but I drafted press releases, pitched media shows and sat through interminable conference calls with colleagues from all over the world. In the beginning, I convinced myself that this work was useful. I told myself that I was raising awareness and that, in turn, raised money. It wasn’t long before that sunny (naive?) perspective soured. The world is much more complicated than that.
Back then, it was my job to secure media coverage for my employer. I spent my days plugged into the news and social media watching things unfold and looking for opportunities to pitch. I worked to ‘position’ our cause so that we were the first charity people thought of when they opened their wallets to donate. Mercifully, that’s not my job anymore. It was an exhausting way to live. More than the physical tiredness, the emotional toll of closely observing the horrible things humans do to each other eroded some essential part of my mental comfort. I also saw (and experienced!) how charitable organisations treat their staff. Up close, I promise you, they are not so charitable. As if on cue, I read this piece about sexual harrassment, abuse and assault within UN agencies. It resonated with me deeply, particularly this section:
“[Survivors] worried too that whatever they had experienced paled in comparison to the human suffering they routinely witnessed in their work. Those who had been harassed noted they hadn’t been assaulted. Those who had been assaulted often stressed that they hadn’t been raped. Those who had been raped pointed out that they hadn’t been raped by multiple assailants or multiple times. All who spoke said they were choosing to share their experiences after having exhausted all other recourses to justice. They, like the institutions they belonged to, frequently subscribed to the utilitarian logic of doing the greatest possible good for the greatest number of people, at times at the cost of their own private lives. Victims were made to feel that formally complaining would take away from the U.N.’s larger mission of world peace. And so, even four years into Me Too, they remained conflicted.”
I lived several years of my life trapped in that contradiction. Trying to believe that I deserved to be treated respectfully while also knowing that whatever pain and trauma I suffered was nothing compared to what the people I was working with were going through.
It’s through this lens that I watch what’s happening in Ukraine. As non-profit agencies descend on the region, there are vast, mostly unproductive machinations going on behind the scenes. There are petty turf wars as competing agencies scramble for position. There is sniping and pointless competition and intense rivalries. And there are many, many vulnerable people caught in the middle. I know what (mostly) white westerners inflict on communities trying to survive serious trauma. Yes, they bring aid and resources but they are also bringing a lot of drama.
Doing that work for so many years left an indelible impression on me. I remember one morning I issued a press release about the tragic deaths of four colleagues working in a conflict zone. A newsdesk called to ask if any of them were Irish. When I said they weren’t, they hung up and didn’t cover the story. That’s the news business of course, people care more about stories that are close to them. The deaths of aid workers in a remote part of Africa didn’t make the cut. I understood that rationally but hearing my colleagues' lives be so summarily dismissed was jarring nonetheless.
We can see a similar dynamic in the Irish government’s response. There was talk of them using emergency powers to bring up to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees to Ireland. I welcome them. It’s the right thing to do. But I can’t forget that in 2015 when Alain Kurdi’s lifeless body washed up on a beach in Turkey, the Irish government agreed to accept 4,000 Syrian refugees. Allowing 4,000 Syrians to enter Ireland was seen as a win at the time, a victory secured by The Labour Party who were in government at the time. Perhaps it’s not fair to make a direct comparison but there is a clear difference between Ukrainians (who are mostly white & European) and Syrians (who are mostly non-white and Middle Eastern). This week marks the 11th year of what Syrian journalist Razan Ibraheem calls “the ongoing human tragedy” in Syria. More than 13.5 million people have been forced out of their homes. Only a tiny proportion of them have been welcome in Ireland.
