Latest / Save Democracy / Freedom from the fear of being heard

Transcript

Freedom from the fear of being heard · Save Democracy

• 0:05
  Welcome to Save Democracy.
• 0:07
  I'm your host, Katherine Davies.
• 0:10
  Today's guest gives us a window into the psychological and generational
• 0:15
  shifts that can be part of the journey to build a democracy.
• 0:19
  For those of us who live in mature liberal democracies, in varying degrees
• 0:24
  of health or disrepair, we have a voice.
• 0:28
  And unless we're inciting violence, generally speaking, we are free to use it.
• 0:33
  Today we're exploring what it's like to move from a culture where
• 0:37
  you are taught to be silent, to one where your voice becomes a vital
• 0:41
  part of your country's freedom.
• 0:44
  Artem Zozulia is a Ukrainian civic leader and migration expert who
• 0:49
  now leads one of Poland's largest organisations supporting those displaced
• 0:54
  by the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
• 0:57
  He grew up in central Ukraine in the shadow of post-Soviet climate
• 1:01
  permeated with the fear of being heard.
• 1:07
  Do you mind just introducing yourself and what you do at Foundation Ukraine?
• 1:12
  My name is Artem Zozulia.
• 1:14
  I'm President of the Board of Foundation Ukraine in Wroclaw Poland.
• 1:19
  We work mostly with Ukrainian migrants, Ukrainian refugees,
• 1:23
  but also other nationalities in Wroclaw and in our region.
• 1:27
  We provide them support in different activities that help them to
• 1:32
  establish sometimes a new life, a new place, or to just live through
• 1:37
  the problematic time that they have before they will come back to Ukraine.
• 1:43
  Mostly our job is about that, but also about supporting different
• 1:47
  initiatives, including a lot of broad democratic initiatives.
• 1:52
  We have a lot of speakers here that help raise awareness about the state
• 1:57
  that Ukraine, right now it's about the war, but also about the human rights
• 2:02
  in Ukraine, and also about the activity of different actors in political and
• 2:07
  social life in Ukraine, and humanitarian help for Ukraine, and different
• 2:14
  projects that support the help that Ukraine needs.
• 2:17
  So winter was about generators of electricity.
• 2:23
  Before that, it was about helping the Ukrainian military, or soldiers who
• 2:30
  got wounded, or kept hostage in Russia.
• 2:36
  As a long time democracy activist, how is democracy or democratic
• 2:41
  culture meaningful for you?
• 2:45
  I was raised in post-Soviet Ukraine, when I heard a lot of stories from
• 2:51
  my grandparents, my parents, about this kind of teachings that shows
• 2:59
  how deeply traumatised they were.
• 3:02
  When I went to Poland, my grandmother, and she still continued
• 3:10
  to say this to me: "do not speak to anybody critically.
• 3:17
  Do not show your emotions too much.
• 3:21
  Do not speak loudly.
• 3:23
  Do not criticise." Like, no discussions, no debate.
• 3:30
  "Be polite, be silent, be humble." But, you know, it's not a humble,
• 3:36
  like in the way that is good, but it's like be scared of what you were
• 3:44
  saying and whoever will listen to that.
• 3:48
  And this fear, I think this is the most dangerous thing that I'm
• 3:54
  afraid of in autocratic regimes.
• 4:00
  Biologically, we have a fear or like some kind of traumas from being unheard,
• 4:06
  like a child, you know, for example.
• 4:09
  But the fear of being heard, this is something that I am really
• 4:13
  afraid of, to feel this feeling again, because I, my family had it.
• 4:22
  My family has a history of the Red Terror, in my family, because part of my family
• 4:30
  was displaced and transported to Siberia.
• 4:35
  Part of my family was killed.
• 4:37
  And in the revolution, and after, in the big famine, in the Holodomor, in
• 4:47
  the 1930s in Ukraine.
• 4:51
  Also part of my family fought in the Second World War, on
• 4:56
  the side of the Soviet Union.
• 5:00
  And after that, their children, my parents, were raised in the
• 5:04
  very-Soviet-Union-like climate.
• 5:08
  And right now, I work a lot with myself and my therapist to find, to dig as deep
• 5:17
  as I can and to find the roots of the complexes and fears and the roots of some
• 5:25
  kind of really problematic mindset that I have sometimes and in some fields.
• 5:33
  And
• 5:36
  often I, I feel this, I can find this roots in this fear.
• 5:42
  Fear of being... heard,
• 5:45
  judged, and executed as a free thinking person.
• 5:58
  Despite these fears, your activism started young.
• 6:02
  I started as a volunteer in some pro-democratic Ukrainian
• 6:07
  NGOs in my hometown, Vinnytsia, it's in central Ukraine.
• 6:12
  And back in the days, it was like, different meetings, and movements,
• 6:19
  to raise the awareness of democratic initiatives, and also to fight
• 6:24
  some stereotypes about Europe, about reforms, about political parties
• 6:31
  that support pro-European movement.
• 6:34
  Because since the first day of Ukrainian independence from Soviet
• 6:39
  Union, there was a big influence of Russia on every Ukrainian aspect of life.
• 6:47
  I'm only a year older than independent Ukraine itself.
• 6:52
  I lived in the world where
• 6:58
  every pro-democratic initiative was targeted by some propaganda, and by
• 7:04
  some actors in political field also, as 'dangerous', or even a violation
• 7:11
  of some old and very comfortable conservative way to live that 'always
• 7:19
  were', which Russia tried to promote.
• 7:23
  'As a post-Soviet Union country, you should be still post-Soviet
• 7:28
  Union or like part of the empire'.
• 7:31
  So it was a main goal of my activity, when I was young, to protest
• 7:37
  that, to do something about it.
• 7:45
  Ukraine was basically a colony of the Russian Empire, and it
• 7:50
  started in the 17th century.
• 7:55
  Since then, Russia, all that Russia did, is like tighten the grip
• 8:00
  which it has on Ukraine's neck.
• 8:05
  The Soviet Union was like just a different form of Russian Empire, to
• 8:11
  be honest, for me, with a, like a bit different ideology, but a really, the
• 8:17
  similar messages that Ukrainians got, like 'your language should be banned,
• 8:23
  your culture should be 'village-ified''.
• 8:25
  So like, it's only for village people and it's some like kind
• 8:28
  of a cultural... I don't know.
• 8:32
  They saw Russian culture as high culture.
• 8:36
  Yes.
• 8:36
  And Ukrainian culture was only for villages, and as a kind of event thing,
• 8:42
  like to go and see 'how people live'.
• 8:45
  And so like a basically normal, as I said, normal colony of the empire.
• 8:54
  We drain your resources, smart people and your cultural successes, because a
• 9:00
  lot of Russian scientists or cultural authorities, they're not Russian.
• 9:07
  They're like from different republics, so-called republics of the Soviet Union,
• 9:12
  or they're coming from colonies that Russia occupied in different ways.
• 9:16
  So right now I think we struggle in Ukraine with this post-colonialism.
• 9:22
  There is a really big strong feeling to fight the empire, to fight even the
• 9:31
  thought of being colonised once again.
• 9:35
  So I think that's why Ukrainian people show their resilience and determination
• 9:42
  because they know what will happen to them if they won't, if they will not fight.
• 9:58
  What comes to mind if I ask you to speak to the cultural gifts Ukraine
• 10:04
  might bring to the table of democracy?
• 10:07
  What I can say right now, after four years of war, that
• 10:13
  Russia doing in Ukraine, that
• 10:17
  Ukraine society has a antidote to that.
• 10:22
  And in Ukraine, it's called Maidan.
• 10:25
  Maidan is the name of revolution because our revolutions were on Maidan.
• 10:31
  Maidan is like a central square of Kyiv.
• 10:35
  It's a symbol also, of the big place where all the people can gather and
• 10:43
  say whatever they want and somehow signal to everybody else, including
• 10:51
  the people who hold power, that we are not agree with you in something.
• 10:57
  And this is tradition that Ukrainians have since the beginning.
• 11:03
  I think of the, some kind of government, governmental state that Ukrainians had.
• 11:12
  I talked to my mother, she's still in Ukraine, she lives there.
• 11:18
  Sometimes their rockets are flying over their house to, to hit some factories
• 11:25
  or some civilian buildings in Lviv or (elsewhere) in Western Ukraine.
• 11:31
  And she said to me, "we didn't even realise how lucky we were to have
• 11:38
  Ukraine, to have our nature, our good products, our people, and our right
• 11:47
  to choose what to do, and criticise whoever we want to, before the war
• 11:56
  started. Like right now, without Russians, it'll be a perfect country."
• 12:03
  She said "I will be happy. Without Russians, right now, I
• 12:08
  can see that we have it all."
• 12:16
  And your thoughts about the drive to join the European Union?
• 12:21
  Ukrainians still aspire to be the part of the European family.
• 12:25
  This is how we call it, European Union is European family, because a lot of
• 12:29
  reasons, but I think right now, majority, it's like we don't want to be a part of
• 12:35
  Russia and we understand that we will not be strong enough alone in this world.
• 12:42
  So we want to be a part of some family.
• 12:46
  After that, are economical, political, and different reasons, but we want
• 12:52
  to survive as an independent state.
• 12:55
  And we can see that only independent state that can survive in the family is
• 13:02
  the European state in European family.
• 13:04
  And here people are still discussing 'does the state that have a million
• 13:12
  people has a right to block any institutional decision or decision
• 13:17
  of bigger and richer countries'.
• 13:22
  There's still a discussion in the European Union.
• 13:25
  That's why European Union sometimes is so slow with its bureaucratic
• 13:29
  problems and procedures, but every small state has a chance to be heard.
• 13:36
  And I think this is what Ukrainians aspire to, to be heard, and to
• 13:42
  not be scared of being heard.
• 13:55
  On Save Democracy, we like to ask if there's any ideas you'd like to
• 13:59
  share with our listeners who want to engage more in their democracy where
• 14:02
  they are, beyond casting their vote.
• 14:08
  I think one of the main ones, to be honest, it's to be humble
• 14:15
  with our opinions and to be open to communication with people who
• 14:22
  have, other than our opinion.
• 14:25
  Because we can have our truth, we can believe in something, we can
• 14:31
  be a hundred percent sure that this is what it is, but we never know
• 14:36
  what other person is going through.
• 14:39
  We never know what the other person was taught.
• 14:43
  We never know what other person believed in and we cannot reject the
• 14:49
  other person just because they have different experience than we have.
• 14:55
  It's not about our chance to prove that we are right.
• 15:01
  It's about communication and dialogue.
• 15:03
  And that's why I think this humbleness, this understanding of differences that
• 15:11
  we have, and patience with which we can listen to other person, and or like even
• 15:20
  motivate them to explain their views, and to share with them our perspective and
• 15:26
  our views without implicating that they will go and they should join our church.
• 15:32
  Like you can be you, I will be me, but if you want, I can
• 15:37
  share with you my perspective.
• 15:40
  I want to listen to your perspective.
• 15:43
  And sometimes we have a really interesting debates coming from it.
• 15:48
  And we have a really interesting results because, I'm practising
• 15:53
  this like the last two years.
• 15:57
  I try to talk to people with really different opinions, not only different
• 16:04
  than mine, but just different, and sometimes radical opinions because
• 16:09
  they're so sure that they have the right to be right and anybody else who is not
• 16:15
  right, they need to be done with it.
• 16:20
  And often I can see that we have the same goal.
• 16:25
  Often I can see that we have the same goal.
• 16:29
  Everybody wants to be happy, everyone wants to be fed,
• 16:33
  everybody wants to be fulfilled.
• 16:37
  But we chose just different roads to this goal.
• 16:44
  But I think it's what, right now, is lacking in our society, with all the
• 16:51
  political polarisation and all the efforts to prove somebody's right.
• 17:00
  What we are lacking is some
• 17:04
  maidans, not only to express our views, but also to listen to the views of
• 17:10
  others and to try to understand them.
• 17:13
  So maybe more maidans, less social media.
• 17:19
  Thank you, Artem.
• 17:20
  It's been wonderful to hear your perspectives and reflections
• 17:24
  on democracy, and your honesty.
• 17:27
  Thank you, Katherine.
• 17:31
  If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review or rating on your
• 17:35
  podcast platform to help others find it.
• 17:38
  I'm Katherine Davies and this is Save Democracy.
• 17:42
  Thank you for listening.