Frozen
I cannot shake this surreal feeling of having absolutely no idea what will come next, and being terrified by the prospects.
I thought today to share with you some of what I have been reading and listening to as I attempt to arrange my own thoughts about this moment which I certainly did not see coming, and has left me, in a way, paralysed.
In February 2022, I went to Kyiv. War broke out weeks later. At the end of August 2023, we visited Israel for the first time ever. War broke out weeks later. If I have learned one thing over the past few years, it is that the horrific and unthinkable can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any time, and no one should go through life thinking they are somehow permanently immune or protected. And once you come to this awful realisation, how do you go back to doing “normal” things as if they matter at all? How do you prepare for the unknown which you cannot prepare for, but you can certainly see some of the signs? And if you do see signs, what do you do about them? There are literally no good answers. The easiest is of course keep your head down and ignore it all, and I am sure those people do go through life the happiest, without a doubt. But for the rest of us, who cannot flick that switch in our heads, what do we do now?
Personally, I am trying to keep doing my normal “work”, but I find it challenging. We will participate in a modest press conference next week to draw attention to some of the ongoing challenges Ukrainians with temporary protection in Austria still face. I am thankfully only a participant, not in charge of the organization and logistics, so my homework is to write a brief statement, and to invite some Ukrainians to speak on behalf of their compatriots. This is no easy task. The vast majority are wary of any kind of public attention or being viewed as not being grateful for what they did receive here in the EU. I am so thankful to those women who are not afraid to speak publicly about issues which affect many. I will also be accompanied by an incredible young woman who has morphed into a tireless volunteer and expert on Austria’s bureaucracy despite never wanting that roll in the first place. Like I said yesterday in another brainstorming meeting, we would love not to have to do any of this anymore. Neither of us could have imagined in March 2022 that we would still be helping today. Then it was a crisis. Now, the bureaucratic chaos has become normalised.
And yet, I found myself yesterday really nearly prepared to call off the entire idea of participating in a press conference, the argument being that when people are being slaughtered in broad daylight only a short distance from here, do we really have any right to draw attention to problems that are not a matter of life and death? This is what I struggle with at the moment, and I think it also affects many Ukrainians who are hesitant to talk about issues because they know they are lucky to be here with peaceful skies over their heads in the first place.
So in an effort to sort out my own head, I am of course collecting stories which I hope to share next week, but I am also trying to read and listen to what folks much more knowledgable than most of us are writing and sharing. Many have complained about Twitter or X now falling apart, but for the moment Bluesky is a nice place with many friendly German speakers but not a source of news, and even though you have to be careful on X what you click on and know your sources, I found traditional media to be really disappointing this weekend as things unravelled so quickly in real time.
So, in no particular order, I really recommend taking the time for:
‘We’re Going to Die Here’
A firsthand account of tragedy and heroism from the slaughter that left more than 900 Israelis dead
“Terror in Israel & the Siege of Gaza”, Puck’s podcast discussion with Julia Ioffe and Peter Hamby.
”Hamas Goes to War with Israel” Pod Save the World recorded this weekend.
“Understanding the Israel-Hamas War” by Post Reports:
“It’s an Anne Frank situation”: an Israeli professor hides from Hamas
A first hand report in The Economist.
I also found Lawrence Freedman’s post from this weekend on his Substack useful for context:
Jake Sullivan’s Trial by Combat
Inside the White House’s battle to keep Ukraine in the fight.
The New Yorker piece is very long but very good, and will answer so many questions you might have had lingering in your head, as I did, about the amount and timing of U.S. military assistance to Ukraine. There is a lot of detail about the conversations behind the scenes between Washington and Kyiv. I don’t want to ruin it for you — read it in its entirety and draw your own conclusions — but I really was left with this feeling that the Americans thought anyway they had done so much, while Ukraine felt like their allies both near and far never gave all they could have. One country is fighting for its right to exist, the other is trying to put out the world’s fires, and manage its own at home. Perhaps the unrealistic expectation when observing this relationship as it has developed over the past year and a half and counting is to have expected harmony and reality meeting expectations in the first place. The text is so good and so detailed. Set aside half an hour and read this one.
I also came across this seemingly random but fascinating story by Miranda Bryant from Svalbard about a far north Arctic island archipelago which has been shared by Norway and Russia. I have an old friend originally from Moscow who actually went once on one of those adventure holidays (think polar bears and snowmobiles) with her husband to visit the sights. Years ago. She sent some of us postcards. I think they took six months to arrive.
Barentsburg: the Norwegian town feeling the chill of the Ukraine war
I also found this DW video report on the archipelago and how Russia’s war in Ukraine has affected life in the arctic.
In other news, here in tiny, nearly-forgotten Austria, the Chancellor will be invading my sleepy neighbourhood where nothing ever happens this Thursday afternoon to hold a forum to discuss his McDonald’s hamburger comments. With the cameras rolling, officially this time. The host location? A local “winery” which is infamous amongst posh Vienna teens as being the place to be during the annual summer festival ironically named “church day” in which you are supposed to down gallons of locally-produced alcohol wearing lederhosen and dirndls. A cash only business that weekend. Naturally. Literally printing money. Cash is, by the way, a favourite pet topic of Austria’s chancellor. The TikToks from this winery last August were out of this world. One teen apparently tried to bribe his way in, offering €100 to a bouncer, shouting “my dad could buy this whole place!”. There were drones launched over the winery filming those attempting to sneak in over the fences from the vineyards during the event.
In short — it seems like the strangest, least logical of venues for a meeting with NGOs and other organizations in which as an elected leader you want to look like you are trying to help the poor in this country or understand how hard it is for working poor families (that is exactly what many are) to pay their bills at the end of each month.
If one wants to look like a man of the people, as one commentator noted astutely, why not hold the talks inside a McDonald’s. Let them eat cake, literally, per the chancellor’s original comments about a €1.40 hamburger plus fries being a cheap, albeit not so healthy, warm meal.
The answer, I fear, is exactly that. He apparently does not want to look like a man of the people. The people, many of them, they cannot vote anyway. Germany voted this weekend, more specifically, Bavaria and Hessen. In both regions, the far right did very well. This is no real surprise, but I worry about what is the plan in both countries to counter the rapid rise of the far right. Sometimes it feels like there is no plan. People vote far right out of racism, out of frustration with their own economic situations, because simplistic populist messaging is working.
This morning, I opened the free newspaper in the Vienna subway. The headline read “every second child in Vienna does not speak German at home”. Which has actually been the case for a decade at least. It is not news. And yet, what followed is an article which misrepresents data to present these children as all being incapable of learning German while the reality is many are stuck in classrooms where they are separated from native speakers, and their school careers are basically started with several strikes already against them. And their parents? In many cases their parents have been working for years and paying taxes here, and yet, they cannot vote in Austria. They are not citizens. There is a huge segment of the population (I believe it is as high as 1 in 3 in Vienna) which cannot vote. Just the way those on the political right like it. This, too, is how democracy dies. For more background on why this is the case, just google how easy and cheap it is to acquire Austrian citizenship (sarcasm off).
This morning we read a desperate message from a Ukrainian mom of a child in 4th grade Volkschule. In the Austrian system, your grades in 4th grade really matter, because they are the basis with which you will either move onto gymnasium (path to university and a further 8 grades of education) or middle school (not normally a path to university, most likely leads to trade school of some kind from age 15).
This mother was completely upset because she would like her child, who already passed the MIKA-D German test, twice (!), to be able to apply to gymnasium for next year, and yet the 4th grade teacher informed this mother that her child will not be receiving any grades this semester. No grades? You cannot apply to gymnasium from within Austria without grades. And yet another Ukrainian child in a parallel class is being graded. We told the mother, you really must speak to the school director, you must address this now, demand an explanation, explain your future plans, but this is just another of thousands of examples of how the dice are stacked against foreigners here in so many ways, and often, totally at random.
There is a new bonus payment for low-income parents of €60 per month. Great, you think, finally the government doing something to help those in need in this high-tax country. And yet, half the moms received it, the other half are sending emails like crazy trying to figure out why Anna received €60 but Iryna did not. You cannot make it up. And it drives real people crazy in the process. And there is no government website or hotline or info pamphlet. The calculations are based off of 2022 child benefits and tax filings. Recent arrivals do not qualify. And even then, some families who do qualify based on the criteria have not received the funds yet. As a very wise Ukrainian young women said on our Zoom call yesterday, “you have to be very good at sending the emails in this country to get anything done!”. Sending the emails is only half the battle. Even figuring out where to send them can be like chasing your own tail.
On that positive note, I wish you all a good week, despite, well, everything. It all certainly makes one appreciate what we do have. Not to take any of it for granted.