For all his faults and his pride, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has an undoubted quality: courage.
This has become apparent for a memorable moment over three years ago when Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine.
An exceptional and endless chronicle of Russian reservoirs and other armored vehicles had violated the border in a pattern of pliers.
In the interrupted face of an overwhelmingly intimidating display, the defeat seemed nearby.
Kyiv seemed to fall. Zelenskyy and Company would be arrested or killed as a deadly exclamation point while Russian President Vladimir Putin installed a puppet regime to bow and obey.
The actor has become an improbable leader in wartime did not start. He stood on the ground – on the sacred ground of Ukraine.
To reassure the Fretful Ukrainians, Zelenskyy published a short video On social networks featuring surrounding several officials and ministers of the cabinet.
“The president is here,” he said. “We are all here … defend (ING) our independence.”
I remembered this remarkable scene while I read accounts in recent months from a disparate group of Americans, including artists and academics, leaving their beloved homeland in the painful wake of the oval of President Donald Trump to the oval office.
Before continuing, I have to make two instructive points.
First, by invoking Zelenskyy’s wish to stay in Ukraine despite the disturbing risks, I do not want to imply that enlightened Americans choose to give up living and working in the United States, lack courage.
Far from it.
Each of us has confronted or faced a decisive dilemma in due time: stay or go.
Answering the thorny question can arouse doubt and anxiety. Making a choice, whatever management, is a daring act. It is necessary to resolve to exchange the familiar for the unknown.
Second, I avoided the word “flee” to describe why some Americans choose to emigrate because of Trump’s flagrant Modus Operandi. “Leak” evokes impulsive panic or self-preservation, rather than deliberate and thoughtful decision-making.
However, Zelenskyy offers a convincing example of the reason why it is necessary to stay instead of escaping in Canada or in Europe when an intimidator threatens the values and principles that you will hold dear – equity, truth, empathy, tolerance, justice, diversity and intelligence.
So, the illuminated Americans, I urge you to insist like Zelenskyy: we are all here.
Your presence in America to fight for its promise is a duty and a responsibility.
Together, you can shape a formidable and real estate against the miserable aspects of Trumpism – its attack on facts, the erosion of democratic norms, the adoption of authoritarianism and the corrosive pursuit of division and fear.
This competition cannot be won at a distance – far from the epicenter of the urgent battle. He must be fought face to face with an uncompromising opponent and a hand with other enlightened Americans, thin on the privileges and the resources that allowed your exit.
Trumpism prosperous when the opposition retires. The absence creates a space for extremism to hide even more deeply and widely in the already effiled and discordant fabric of America. The withdrawal only comforts the Trumpists determined to cancel dissent and erase resistance by edicts, threats and coercion.
Departure can also be considered as an admission of defeat – a concession that an angry and broken country is beyond redemption or salvation.
Dynamic governance is not independent; This forces citizens to maintain the struggle, especially when it tries. By abandoning the arena, some enlightened Americans lose their ability to shape the present and the future.
On the other hand, standing with and by enlightened Americans remaining behind, confirms that America belongs to all its people, not only to caricatural characters shouting the strongest or demanding the most attention.
Trump welcomes the idea that discouraged Americans build new lives in new places because he is president. It is, I suppose, a point of pride because it suggests that its vindictive program works.
For Trump, the exodus of “liberal elites” or “out of contact” artists is proof that the old establishment, never subscribes to its notion Jéjune of the “greatness” of America, is replaced by “authentic” patriots.
This answer is, of course, symptomatic of Trump’s wider political strategy – to draw a line similar to a Berlin wall between the “real” American – his supporters – and everyone.
By celebrating the phenomenon of the Americans who separate, it promotes the insidious attitude that the protest is not an essential ingredient of a mature and confident nation, but a form of disloyalty.
Trump is not interested in unity or persuasion. As such, he supervises his presidency as a decisive test of loyalty. If you do not love it, you are encouraged to join the discouraged diaspora – and, in its yellowed view, good storage room.
Despite their arguments And reservations on resettlement to avoid depressing capitulation of the main law firms, universities and corporate media, the Americans are confronted with an uncomfortable truth: the exit will not help to drive.
Researchers and intellectuals with courage and means to challenge obstinate power should join the fight where it counts: in classrooms, on the air, in town halls.
The statements of the foreigner, so poignant, do not replace, repeatedly, in person to remind America this kindness, resilience and decency.
Trumpism prosperous on the show, and little understand the power of the spectacle better than celebrities.
A lot Awarding America Adieu did it with challenge, brandishing a chair in foreign coast. Despite this, symbolism without substance is hollow.
The return means to attack – frontal – disorder, contradictions, the tarnished ideals of a beaten nation which is always worth imagination and effort.
Public figures should take advantage of their popular platforms not only to condemn, but to galvanize, to transmit resistance not as an elitist contempt but as a shared obligation. It would impress more than a chronicle of sharp opinion in the New York Times or a wire of derogatory tweets could never have been able.
Zelenskyy knows that hard work is still done on the ground. This is where returnees can make a tangible difference – not like parachutic saviors, but rather as allies to collaborators sharing the same ideas that do this hard work without notice or applause.
Trumpism can be ascending, but it is not invincible. What he fears the most is solidarity that draws the class, the race and the background – solidarity which declares that America is not that of Donald Trump to disfigure or define.
The bruised and disillusioned exiles can recover their legitimate place in this tomb of the grave – if they return home.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.