As 2023 lumbers to a close, causes for alarm about the future of freedom are all around us: in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Europe, even in the United States. We don’t seem to be poised for a very happy new year. But one of the challenges facing us is how to stop the alarm from turning to pessimism.
In Ukraine, a hopeful outlook at the end of 2022 has given way to one of doubt at best, doom and gloom at worst. This summer’s Ukrainian counteroffensive achieved some modest successes but clearly did not live up to expectations, or to its own declared goals. The dominant narratives in the media are of exhausted soldiers and war-weary civilians in Ukraine and “Ukraine fatigue” among its Western allies. Increasingly, there are predictions that Ukraine will be pressured into making land concessions to Russia in exchange for a probably tenuous peace.
What’s more, this is happening while Vladimir Putin’s emboldened regime not only reaffirms its goal of installing a pro-Kremlin government in Kyiv, but abandons its last pretensions to even a façade of democracy and human rights at home — shifting, some Russian dissidents say, from authoritarian to full totalitarian mode. The continuing persecution of jailed opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who is facing new trumped-up charges of promoting “terrorism” and whose current whereabouts are unknown while he’s apparently being transferred to a colony with harsher regulations, is a horrifying demonstration of this devolution. So is the stepped-up persecution of domestic and even foreign journalists.
Western aid to Ukraine is imperiled not only by political squabbles in the United States, where the Republicans are using it to force an immigration deal, but by a perilous situation in the Middle East. Israel, only recently poised to further normalize its relations with Arab countries, now finds itself embroiled in a brutal war in Gaza and facing growing international isolation. The war is a response to a terrorist attack by Hamas that involved unspeakable brutality toward civilians including children, and the condemnation of Israel has been rightly criticized for double standards. Nonetheless, Israel’s current predicament is at least to some extent the doing of its own right-wing government whose reckless policies have contributed to the crisis, and whose alliance with far-right ultranationalists has lent some credibility to accusations that it’s using this crisis to carry out ethnic cleansing in Gaza.
Meanwhile, a backlash against large-scale migration is boosting the fortunes of far-right parties in major European democracies such as France and Germany. And America’s own democracy seems to be in trouble: Our principal options for 2024 include an increasingly belligerent Donald Trump, who openly proclaims his intent to wreck institutions and wreak vengeance on his enemies, and aggressive moves by the courts to deny the American electorate the choice of voting for Trump — which some say amounts to eviscerating democracy in order to save it.
So yes, things are looking rather dark at the end of the year. But there are also the silver linings. There are many signs that Ukraine is faring far better than the pessimistic narrative allows, while the Putin regime is weaker than it seems. The anti-authoritarian mood is also growing in Israel.
As for America, our political system is rooted in values, both liberal and conservative, that have liberty at their core. Those values have been severely tested and threatened before. We must do our best to ensure that they also survive the current crisis — and remember that we live in an era that confounds predictions.
Opinions expressed by Cathy Young, a writer for The Bulwark, are her own.
Cathy Young is a writer for The Bulwark.
As 2023 sunsets, war and the rise of extremism imperil freedom
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22.12.2023
As 2023 lumbers to a close, causes for alarm about the future of freedom are all around us: in Ukraine, in the Middle East, in Europe, even in the United States. We don’t seem to be poised for a very happy new year. But one of the challenges facing us is how to stop the alarm from turning to pessimism.
In Ukraine, a hopeful outlook at the end of 2022 has given way to one of doubt at best, doom and gloom at worst. This summer’s Ukrainian counteroffensive achieved some modest successes but clearly did not live up to expectations, or to its own declared goals. The dominant narratives in the media are of exhausted soldiers and war-weary civilians in Ukraine and “Ukraine fatigue” among its Western allies. Increasingly, there are predictions that Ukraine will be pressured into making land concessions to Russia in exchange for a probably tenuous peace.
What’s more, this is happening while Vladimir Putin’s emboldened regime not........
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