I wasn’t prepared for what I saw on February 24, three years plus two days after after one man, Putin, launched his “special military operation” in Ukraine, which in reality is a war, although, by law, Russians can get 15 years in prison if they say, “war.”
To set the stage: The great educator Kurt Hahn had no use for modern schools that sheltered the pupils, calling them, in my words, gleaming great ships with no crew (no student involvement) At his boarding school, a few years after Prince Philip (later the husband of QE II) had passed through, the leader of the student body was, as best I recall, chatting with friends when, in the background, a boy was carried kicking and screaming towards the pond. The leader kept talking for a bit, then ran over to stop the injustice. Later, he was firmly disciplined by Hahn… for not acting instantly.
In fairness, most people don’t usually act instantly. I know this because an admirer of Hahn, as he wrote in the monthly Readers Digest feature, My Most Unforgettable Character, had to stop telling the story at parties because listeners thought Hahn was too harsh.
Sometimes we don’t learn to act fast unless we have been shamed and brought up short by “a headmaster.” Or given permission to act, ordered to act, by, for example, a marriage counsellor or a Human Resources executive. Right action is not exactly natural.
I remember it took me a while, as a permissive, freedom loving, “live and let live” sort of guy, to learn to act fast when a developmentally delayed client, in speech or deed, was “inappropriate.” Similarly, as a junior noncommissioned officer,(NCO), I swiftly needed to get my speed up to act and react instantly.
Even a democratic head of state can be slow. In the recent memoir of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Freedom, she confessed that when Donald Trump was rude, she did not confront him. Because, she said, he took her by surprise: she was “expecting him to be normal.”
Tonight I saw a head of state, seated beside the so-called “leader of the free world,” Donald Trump, reach out to touch Trump’s arm, after Trump misspoke, to instantly correct him. Such courage, when Trump is known to be, and rigidly controls the Republican Party as, a petty person of extreme vengeance.
I am not surprised Macron has become leader of France. Somewhere along the road he learned to react instantly to do the right thing.
A Russian dissident once said, “One man who speaks truth can bring down a tyranny.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn also said “Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence.” As Putin knows.
As for Trump, I have lost count of the number of times this year (not before) that I have read he is “transactional.” I didn’t even know that term until years after I had a university degree. As I understand it:
Small children do something because of “consequences” : a girl will not go into the cookie jar from fear of punishment.
Teenagers do something as a “transaction”: a teenager says, ‘I will do this if you do that.’
An adult does something because it is right.
Maturity is a one-way street. At our level, we can look back and know a teenager, but a teen can’t look forward and know to do right from values and principles. Nor can Trump understand why France would give money and weapons to Ukraine as a grant instead of as a loan with a price tag.
To me, Trump ceased being any sort of world leader when, during a world crises, he lied about covid-19. The United States had a much greater casualty rate than Europe or Canada. Now he won’t lead the free world against Russia—He cannot think to do the right thing.
President Macron led by example, for the sake of us all.
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Sean Crawford
Canada
February the 25th,
2025
Footnotes:
~Regarding “transactional,” I am grateful for best selling author Mark Manson’s web article, that can be read or listened to, How to Grow Up: A guide to being human
~Here is a clip of my favourite Doctor Who, in the episode The Doctor Falls saying, “I do what I do because it’s right!” I think it’s a powerful scene even if you don’t know the context. Not long after this scene, he falls, and somebody he helped cries over his body, and it’s both beautiful and sad…
