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Michael Clifton's avatar

Just thought I would share with you the comments I added to this when sharing it on Facebook.

There is more poignancy to some of what is written here than maybe even Mr. Potter knows.

If the world gets images of "19th-century aristocrats in wigs and hose, demanding satisfaction and challenging one another to a meeting over some best-forgotten offence," when they think of "honour" - then they never really understood honour at all. That wasn't genuine honour.

There is an honour based in an aversion to shame - that's the kind of honour that result in Western duels and Asian seppuku (the feudal Japanese practice of self-disembowelment). Then there is the sense of honour that has reference to character. This is a higher sense of the word. It is this honour that values principles, not reputation, ethics, not appearances. It is this honour that might walk away from some fights (because the fight itself degrades the fighter) or in toward others (because the principles at stake demand personal sacrifice).

For all and whatever faults the Ukraine has experienced and exhibited over the years (and I understand there are serious criticisms of the ways they and their leaders have been) it is this latter kind of honour that they appear to be exhibiting now. The honour that is not, I think, about what Potter describes as "the very old 19th-century idea of nationalism," per se. Nationalism is there, but it is not about the nation, so much as its people; and it seems not so much about "the people" as about their freedom (that's a principle by the way), their humanity (another principle), and their dignity (yet another principle). And, in the end, it is also about their homes, and their families, and the rights of them and their society to safety and self-determination, which are about as honourable a set of purposes as a bunch of fighters can have.

Whether Zelensky was a good president or leader before this war happened or not, deciding to stay and face the risks of the fight because his life is not his own, as president of the country, is also about as honourable a thing as any leader can do. Most of us will never have to make that kind of decision. God help us that we never do.

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Kathy Sykes's avatar

Wow. Thank you for this. The courage of a nation fighting for its right to exist takes my breath away. If only the West could find such courage and leadership

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