“I have to do my part, whatever that may be,” a 22-year-old lad from Hampshire declared, en route to Ukraine. Another Brit bound for Kyiv said, “it’s very black and white - someone has to stand up”.
Doing your part, standing up, explicitly being unsure – as both starkly are – about whether you’ll ever be coming back: it feels breathtakingly brave and insane in equal measure. The height of foolhardy fatalism.
And yet, there’s a part of me that not only admires what these guys are doing – but also wants to head out there with them. To join the fight.
This doesn’t come from suppressed militaristic fantasies. I’ve made enough documentaries about veterans to see the lingering horrors of war. When at Newsnight years ago, I politely declined being sent to Iraq – knowing I’d get PTSD before I even made it out of arrivals at Saddam International. I’m more yoga than UFC.
But for the first time in our lives, we’re face to face with evil. A pure population-destroying, genocide-approaching evil. For all the major conflicts fought (by the West) since 1945, none has such unambiguous moral clarity as this war in Ukraine.
Faced with such evil, passivity just doesn’t feel like an option. The images – the desperate flood of refugees – have unleashed a dormant primal instinct. Perhaps the same instinct that drove several thousand British and Irish to fight Franco in the 1930s or, more recently, the handful of white-collar workers that volunteered alongside Kurds taking on ISIS.
It’s no coincidence that those Brits and others heading to Ukraine seem to be overwhelmingly male. Flying there is not just a chance to make somewhat more of an impact than re-tweeting a meme, it’s an opportunity to pursue something that’s traditionally been central to masculinity: heroism.
Whether through showing valour in conflict or overcoming the adversity of a coming-of-age ceremony, men have craved – and been lauded for – heroism. We’ve been raised on a diet of World War Two films - more than 1,300 and still counting – celebrating that last existential battle against evil. When men could truly be ‘men’.
But in a world of PowerPoint and 360-degree appraisals, how can a modern man even begin to ape the heroism of his forefathers?
I’m more than aware of the limits of what a mid-40s man with no military training and a slightly-dodgy bad back could offer to the war effort. But there are other ways to stand up. The ‘IT army’ seems to be landing a decent cyber punch. Two million-plus refugees urgently need housing and supporting. So, for what it’s worth, rather than recklessly fly east haplessly clad in camo, I’m using my documentary background to help a refugee charity on the ground raise money.
And it may be that to ultimately defeat Putin – by the West as a whole rapidly severing the oil and gas supplies that send a daily fortune his way - we’ll all have to be willing to take a daunting economic and lifestyle hit.
None of us, I suspect, can truly sit out this war.
Tim Samuels is the author of Who Stole My Spear?
