Thread by @Val_Voshchevska

As a Ukrainian, I am expected to ask the world for help, to prove I am worthy of saving. To travel high and low in the hope of receiving aid. But not too intensely. Because then I am told I look desperate. I am told “don’t ask for too much, don’t look too needy."

A thread 🧵

I am required to speak out boldly for my country. For the horrors it experiences & experienced for centuries. But not too boldly. Not about ordinary Russians, Russian culture or Russian colonialism. Otherwise I risk making foreigners, who I depend on for survival, uncomfortable.

I am expected to want peace. To want to stop war. The everyday suffering. But also to give up my land & the people that live on it. To give up my country & negotiate with a state that has been eradicating my people for centuries. And that will keep doing it, until we are gone.

Presenting a facade of being brave is imperative for me. To look strong & resilient. To constantly keep the world enthralled with my story. But I can’t look too resilient. Otherwise I stop looking like a victim. I stop fitting into the mould of what foreigners expect me to be.

I am expected to share spaces with Russian dissidents. To celebrate their courage. To portray a common front against the enemy. And yet the pain this brings me is deemed irrational. I am presented with the “brotherly nations” narrative. The narrative that was used to invade us.

I have to think two steps ahead every time I say or do something publicly. How will my words be perceived and what effect will they have on the survival of my country? I am expected to be considerate to all those around me. Disregarding whether they support my country or not.

In a world where narratives and perceptions shape destinies, Ukrainians—and all other people who have experienced wars before and after us—stand resolute. All we want is to unconditionally be allowed to exist.

So let us exist.

*Bonus point is you recognise what and who this is inspired by.