One voice is better than none

I imagine my grandparents felt as I do right now in the England of 1939, as German forces invaded Poland on the pretext of “liberating” the German-speaking regions. And so began World War II.

Change the names, the dates, and it could be Europe today. If we’ve learned anything from history, it’s that we learned nothing from history.

However, sometimes you feel you have to do something, so on Saturday I made a poster, painted my nails yellow and blue like the Ukrainian flag, rounded up my family, and went to stand outside the Russian Embassy in Dublin to protest that country’s invasion of its sovereign neighbour, Ukraine.

There was quite a crowd gathered, quite a few placards, many more taped to the locked embassy gates.

My poster was a drawing (by me) of Putin sporting a Hitler moustache, with the words “STOP Vlad the Invader”, glued to blue and yellow painted cardboard.

As I held it up, I’m sure Putin felt the earth tremble. Or not. But sometimes you feel you have to do something, yet find yourself frustrated, impotent, all too aware you’re but one voice shouting, too far away to be heard, too inconsequential to matter, like an ant crawling up the furred back of a bear.

Still, we were many ants, and this felt like something, which is better than nothing, better than shrugging and saying: “What can I do? I am but one person.”

ALSO READ: Russia invading Ukraine proves world teetering on edge of cliff

My mother was born in England in 1941, her formative years blighted by war, her father away fighting. “I need to do something,” she said.

So on Saturday, in Benoni, a certain Mrs Ridyard wrote to her Member of Parliament, stating her displeasure.

We can protest, yes. We can donate. But also, like my mum, write letters. Contact your MP via e-mail, via social media, on the phone, demanding meaningful government response, that diplomats be expelled, that Russia ties be severed.

Contact your pension company, your bank, insisting they ditch Russian interests, because they will likely have such interests, which means their money – your money – is funding this brutal war machine.

My mum is only one person. Yet so is Putin. So was Hitler. So am I. So are you. What can you do? Everything. Everything you can.

NOW READ: Watch Russia and China’s moves