It was spring in 2007 and I was looking at motorcycles. Turned out, there was a dealer on Willow Street in Hyannis — a used car business with bikes as a sideline. I dropped in and met an Eastern European fellow and his wife running the place.
He had the bike I was looking for at home. I jumped into his Humvee and off we went. Soon, we were talking. My new friend had been a sniper in the Soviet Army in Afghanistan, except he wasn’t Russian. He was Ukrainian, now a U.S. citizen. I asked if he had plans to return as a tourist. He raised his voice and for a moment, I thought he was angry with me.
“NEVER!” he shouted. “Never!” But then his voice calmed and he explained. “There, you have no idea. Here, is civilized.”
And that was that.
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We turned to other subjects. He was interested in my teaching and the fundraising work I did with my students from school. His motorcycle’s battery was dead, so our conversation continued while he charged it. Finally, we got it started up — it sounded like a chain saw on steroids. I explained my neighbors would hate me, starting it up in the wee hours to ride to school. But he had scooters back at the showroom. They were quieter.
I rode one and liked it. One wrinkle: I was waiting on a biopsy to find out if I had prostate cancer. If yes, I’d certainly not be getting a bike. His hands flew to my shoulders and squared me up.
“Look at me,” he said. “You have a good heart — and you don’t have cancer. Let some other S.O.B. get cancer!”
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And he was right. No cancer. So I went back to buy the bike and tell him the news. Got a big bear hug over that and his wife stood up from her desk with tears in her eyes. But these were not the first Ukrainians I came to know.
I’d taught a local boy adopted from a Ukrainian orphanage back in the days of the U.S.S.R. The kids spent most of their time locked in a room. The door would fly open and food would be tossed onto the floor for the kids to fight over. It was Darwinian. The strongest got some; the weakest starved. An adoring American couple adopted him but the window for forming deep attachments had closed. He didn’t know how to love them back.
At this writing, Vladimir Putin has told Ukrainian soldiers if they continue fighting, he’ll murder their families after he wins. Shocking as this is, it’s nothing new. Ukraine has never been a country, Putin insists. It’s like saying slaves aren’t human because they lack free will.
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The news reminded me of the first Ukrainians I ever met. I was riding home on a train from college back in 1965. Our seats were set up in facing pairs and a big family with children surrounded me. One of the smallest ones had already crawled into my lap and was fast asleep as we started to talk. That’s how I heard their story, why they’d come to America — and what they’d fled from.
After World War II, Joseph Stalin knew the Ukrainians weren’t loyal. It was one of the great breadbaskets of Eurasia but farmers who owned land resisted communist collectivization. So the Russians waited till harvest and confiscated all the food, leaving the Ukrainians to starve. The survivors raised another crop — and the Russians stole that too.
Not content, the Soviets rounded up survivors and shipped them off to Siberia. They were “Kulaks” as the Russians called them. Incredibly, they raised a crop in Siberia.
“My God, you’re turning into Kulaks again,” the Russians said — and moved them.
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This was 56 years ago. Of their harrowing escape account, I remember nothing. They had recently become American citizens when I met them. The little girl who slept in my arms is almost old enough for social security now. What I remember and want to share with you today, like neighbors musing over the back fence, is a continuum of courage in the face of oppression.
It seems everything is unraveling, politically, environmentally, globally. Now more than ever, we have to appreciate the courage and the goodness that persists all around us — flourishes even. I keep sharing news of local efforts of all sorts, all aimed at making life more livable, more bearable for our most vulnerable neighbors. Don’t ever lose heart.
Meanwhile, we can join our Ukrainian neighbors in watching unfolding events with horror and seeing clearly, face to face, what the alternatives to democracy look like — unmasked for what they really are.
Lawrence Brown is a columnist for the Cape Cod Times. Email him at columnresponse@gmail.com.
This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Cape Cod: Ukraine invasion an attack on democracy, need for courage
