Ukrainians are giving two lessons in democracy that Americans have forgotten He stands guard today atop a granite pedestal near a riverbank in Concord, Massachusetts -- a stout, handsome farmer clutching a musket while scanning the horizon for the advancing enemy.
He is the iconic "Minute Man" statue, a bronze monument built to commemorate the first battle of the Revolutionary War. That's when patriots fired "the shot heard around the world," taking on the mightiest army of their era to preserve the birth of democracy in America.
Ukrainians are now building their own monuments to democracy, with their blood. For more than a week, the world has been transfixed by their battle to repel the mighty Russian army and preserve the birth of democracy in their homeland.
In recent days stories of Ukrainian courage have also been heard around the world: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky turning down an offer to evacuate him from the country by saying, "The fight is here; I need ammunition, not a ride"; the besieged defenders of Snake Island who told a Russian warship to "go f**k yourself"; the images of Ukrainian civilians making Molotov cocktails and carrying assault rifles while heading to the front lines.
"Each passing day adds more stories that Ukrainians will tell not only in the dark days ahead, but in the decades and generations to come," the author and historian Yuval Noah Harari said in a recent essay. "This is the stuff nations are built from. In the long run, these stories count more than tanks."
But here's another reason why the Ukraine struggle is so inspiring:
This is also the stuff that built the US.
The war in Ukraine isn't just a geopolitical struggle -- it's a call to remember. The courage of the Ukrainian people is a reminder of what the US used to be -- a "beacon of liberty," where virtually every schoolchild memorized the "Concord Hymn" poem inscribed at the base of the Minute Man statue.
The Ukrainians are teaching Americans two lessons about democracy that many of us have forgotten....................
https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/06/politics/ukraine-democracy-lesson-us-blake-cec/index.html
