Fight the power? Jeff Dean reflects on his Ukrainian visitors

‘If I were Ukrainian, would I fight?’

For the past four months, three Ukrainians have been guests in our home. They are kind, friendly, generous, gentle people, and they have enriched our lives.

Their presence has also brought the war in Ukraine much closer to our kitchen table than the reports in the Guardian. They have a phone app that tells them in real time when and where their home country is being bombed. This leads to anxious hours while they try to contact their partners and friends.

Despite the horrors of life in Ukraine – the lack of water and power, threat of death and mutilation – our guests are in no doubt that Ukrainians must physically and violently repel the Russian invaders.

Ukraine gained independence from Russia in 1991, having had previous attempts crushed. Our guests are clear that they do not wish to live under Russian control. They speak of Russian attempts to deny Ukrainians their culture and language, and of how indigenous leaders have been assassinated. They speak of being modern Europeans and they see no future if they fall under Russian influence.

There was a failure of diplomacy before the Russian invasion, and a failure to address Russia’s concerns for its own security. But Russia invaded Ukraine to remove a democratic government. There can be little doubt that, if the invasion succeeds, Ukraine’s long-sought and recently-gained freedom will be removed. The Ukrainian response is that they must fight, and that they will never surrender, no matter how much suffering is involved.

If I were Ukrainian, would I fight? Would I expect my son to fight? Would I at least want to positively support the war effort? I have no easy answers to these questions. To date my pacifism has been unchallenged. It has been nurtured in a country that has not been threatened in war; it has been a soft, generalist, untested sort of pacifism. My father, who would never have considered himself a pacifist, and who fought in the second world war, told me from an early age that war is never glorious and that it seldom, if ever, achieves anything. Our Ukrainians are convinced otherwise.

In conclusion I can only turn to the words of Isaac Penington: ‘I speak not against any magistrates or peoples defending themselves against foreign invasions; or making use of the sword to suppress the violent and evil-doers within their borders – for this the present estate of things may and doth require, and a great blessing will attend the sword where it is borne uprightly to that end and its use will be honourable… but yet there is a better state, which the Lord hath already brought some into, and which nations are to expect and to travel towards. There is to be a time when “nation shall not lift up sword against nation; neither shall they learn war any more”. When the power of the Gospel spreads over the whole earth, thus shall it be throughout the earth, and, where the power of the Spirit takes hold of and overcomes any heart at present, thus will it be at present with that heart. This blessed state, which shall be brought forth [in society] at large in God’s season, must begin in particulars [that is, in individuals]’ (Quaker faith & practice 24.21).

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