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By Mel Rothenburger

ARMCHAIR MAYOR

ROTHENBURGER: Bouncy castles, pig roasts and dying in Ukraine

Feb 26, 2022 | 6:46 AM

THERE ARE NO BOUNCY CASTLES or pig roasts on the streets of Kiev (or Keev, or Kayev, or Kyiv, depending on whichever TV news announcer is on shift) today.

I didn’t come up with that. A lot of people are comparing scenes of shopkeepers taking up machine guns to defend their country, and little kids crying as they huddle in bomb shelters, to the bogus “Freedom” rallies here at home, and it’s a legitimate comparison.

Me, I’m thinking about Wulka, a village near the city of Rivne (also historically spelled Rowno or Rovno) in western Ukraine. Over the ages, it’s been traded around between Poland, Germany and Russia before finding its forever home in Ukraine.

That’s where the Rothenburgers lived until 1903 when they pulled up stakes and boarded a ship for Canada, taking up farmland in Manitoba. As I write this, the airport in Rivne is under rocket attack by Putin’s invaders.

Rivne isn’t far from Chernobyl, where the nuclear power plant exploded in 1986. Chernobyl, too, has been taken by the Russians. Reports say Ukrainian defenders fought valiantly to keep it but were overwhelmed. They say that, while the plant was captured intact, there’s been a spike in radiation from all the military activity disturbing surrounding soil.

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It’s incomprehensible that a newly democratic country the size of Ukraine, with such a long history of struggles, is being over-run in such a short period of time. It’s even more incomprehensible that a mad man in Moscow could be capable of such cruelty and insanity.

But there it is. For those here in Canada and Kamloops with deeper and more recent Ukrainian roots, the stress is obviously much greater than for someone like me, whose memories of those connections come from listening to my grandmother. They, on the other hand, have relatives and friends still there, and wonder what’s happening to them.

For Ukrainian TRU students, the war is even closer. I’ve been reading their stories about trying to keep in touch with everybody back home, their worries and their tears, and it’s heart breaking.

Meanwhile, of course, the trolls and far-right misinformation crowd are busy making stupid, cruel comments, thinking they’re being funny. That’s the way it is when you have no skin in a cruel game being played out on the other side of the world. Distance breeds contempt.

That’s why there’s so little hope for Ukraine. In the West, there’s no appetite to “fight somebody else’s war.” In other words, they don’t give a damn. So weak-kneed sanctions, loud speeches, and vows to take Russian vodka off store shelves are the order of the day.

But after Ukraine falls, what’s next? Which neighbouring nation will be the next to fall as the evil tyrant extends his grasp, claiming to be fighting Nazis, all the while emulating them.

I’ve read quite a bit on the history of Ukraine over the years. A couple of books about it are still on my shelves. I picked up one of them, a 1967 book called Rural Russia Under the Old Regime, at a flea market. It’s instructive on the development of the rural land system and Russia’s influence in the region, including Ukraine, going back to the 10th century.

The other, Ukraine, A History, is a heavy tome of 600-plus pages. Its back cover gives a clue to the turbulent history of Ukraine as it was invaded, conquered, and reclaimed through revolution, only to be invaded and conquered again, time after time.

“Nature has been generous to Ukraine; history has not,” it says. “Because of its natural riches and accessibility from ancient past to most recent times, Ukraine, perhaps more than any other

country in Europe, has experienced devastating foreign invasions and conquests. Consequently, foreign domination and the struggle against it is a paramount theme of its history.”

Inside, that theme is expanded upon in sad detail. The author, Orest Subtelny, includes a piece about Ukrainians in Canada. “As the people that settled much of the Canadian prairies,” he writes as if referring directly to my grandparents, “they lay claim to pioneer status. Ukrainians even argue that they are one of ‘the founding nations’ of the country.”

So, Ukraine isn’t just some place else. It’s close to home. It’s here.

It’s always been on my bucket list to go to Rivne and Wulka. I guess I’ll never see them now.

I feel angry, and frustrated, as many others do, but mostly helpless. Rallies and fundraisers beckon, but it seems useless knowing that in Kiev and Rivne and everywhere in Ukraine, they’re fighting for their lives and their country. And for freedom.

And they’ll die fighting, but they’ll make it hard on the Russians as they do.

Mel Rothenburger is a former mayor of Kamloops and a retired newspaper editor. He is a regular contributor to CFJC Today, publishes the ArmchairMayor.ca opinion website, and is a director on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District board. He can be reached at mrothenburger@armchairmayor.ca.

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Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or Pattison Media.