Collaborate and Help

From Ukraine to Turkey, it is clear where humanity does best

It has been a heartbreaking week with all the news coming out of the Turkey and Syria where a devastating earthquake has now cost over 17,500 lives with unfortunately more to come. There are no analytical tools for me here, this is a force of nature at which we can only stand in humility and realize that the human capability to avert disaster has its limits. There are no precise predictive mechanisms for this, let that be clear. Nothing protects you from an earthquake this forceful. It is unstoppable and unforgiving.

What can be assessed is how the world responds and in it there are rays of hope. Here in Israel - which was one of the first nations to dispatch relief and medical teams - it was reported how Israeli and Iranian planes stood jointly together on the tarmac in Gaziantep ready to provide relief, two nations that are nominally at war with each other. In The Netherlands the country is now rallying behind Dutch-Turkish singer Karsu - I wrote about her here - who has lost a number of direct family members and who is now on TV rallying everyone for support. The clearest statement however came from Dutch-Turkish journalist Yesim Candan who announced that there was no point in keep saying on Twitter how terrible it all is. Today she is off to Turkey to roll up her sleeves and help.

So with the Turkish diaspora leading the charge and enemies standing together to support, you can see the contours of how humanity can do something meaningful in the face of this terrible disaster. Support networks get activated, relationships re-energized, wallets are opened and vast military resources can be re-purposed for medical and logistical support.

And in a way for almost a year we have been doing the same thing in getting Ukraine back on its feet following the brutal Russian invasion. Both on the military and humanitarian side it was heartwarming to see how different groups, parties, nations and individuals came together to embrace a deeply suffering nation.

With an undeterred and again mobilizing Russia, the country - and the world - are bracing for a bloody spring season and Ukraine’s Zelensky realizes as no other that only continued and far-reaching international support is now required more than ever. In other words: we need to keep going. Today he addressed the European Parliament in Brussels and the night before he met France’s and Germany’s leaders Macron and Scholz in Paris. Ukraine has for a long time been angling for EU membership and relentlessly pushing more military support, in particular from Germany which under Scholz has not been the most pro-active supporter of the Ukraine war effort. And as expected, he has moved on from tanks two weeks ago, to inquiring about long range missiles and fighter jets, as expected and probably as required in order to make any progress.

Zelensky’s diplomacy blitz also serves to keep the issue in front of any European by making it clear that Ukraine’s suffering will be Europe’s if Putin’s destabilizing aggression is allowed to continue. He also wants to ensure that the EU will accept Ukraine as a full member as a way to closer integrate into Europe economically and politically, but to also make it harder for Europe to drop the embattled nation. And for that a direct appeal to the average European, weary of war and its economic impact, was necessary today in the heart of the old continent.

Turkey will disappear from the front pages soon. People’s attention spans are quite short and Ukraine as an issue also faded after a while. Yet in both cases we witnessed our extraordinary strength in collaborating in the face of human disaster. In the one case we are sending blankets and bandages, in the other bullets and bombs. It is a weird way to juxtapose these two efforts, but that is what they are essentially. The reports of suffering and injustice can bring us to action while overcoming our differences. The hard part is to keep it going, for the survivors in Turkey and Syria, and for those on the frontlines in Ukraine. This week may be the starting point to overcome these crises and re-build houses and fledgling nations.