© J. McKenzie
St. Andrew's Church — 18th-century church sitting on a hill overlooking one of Kiev's oldest neighborhoods.
|
|
Events that occur far away in other lands, like Putin's criminal invasion of the Ukraine, may sometimes seem unimportant as citizens rush about their lives. When one of Putin's major critics, Alexei Navalny, suddenly dies in the Arctic prison camp where he had recently been seen alive and well, some will shrug their shoulders and ask, "So what? Why should I care? What does that have to do with me?"
In this article, Jamie argues that what happens to the Ukraine matters to us all, recalling the words of John Donne:
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friend’s or of thine own were; any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
In his New York Times article about Putin and Mr. Navalny, Serge Schmemann points out that "Mr. Navalny had denounced the invasion of Ukraine from the outset. 'This is a stupid war which your Putin started,' he told a court in Moscow."
And now Putin's major opponent is dead!
 |
|
| I am no Gatsby
by Jamie McKenzie
Buy from Amazon for $ 9.50
|
| Copyright Policy: Materials published in The Question Mark may be duplicated in hard copy format if unchanged in format and content for educational, nonprofit school district and university use only and may also be sent from person to person by email. This copyright statement must be included. All other uses, transmissions and duplications are prohibited unless permission is granted expressly. Showing these pages remotely through frames is not permitted.
FNO Press is applying for formal copyright registration for articles. Unauthorized abridgements are illegal.
|
