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A commander in chief’s prayer on the battlefront

In the darkness of winter and war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy evoked the light of innocence.

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Reuters
Women take a picture in front of the public Christmas tree in Sofiyska Square in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Dec. 19, 2022.
  • By the Monitor's Editorial Board

The city of Bakhmut in the Donbas region of Ukraine has in recent months become the battleground of all that matters in the war. For Ukrainians, a defense of their national identity and right to self-determination. For Russia, a reversal of humiliating defeats. Yet it may be words that one day define Bakhmut for something else: a defense of innocence.

“I think that the heroes of Bakhmut should have what every person has, that everything should be OK for their children, their families, that they’re warm and healthy,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a visit to the front lines Dec. 20. “I’d like to wish them light. ... The main thing is for there to be inner light.”

Around the world, from Ethiopia to Colombia to Syria, numerous societies emerging from war or striving to do so are grappling with how to build durable peace through transitional justice. That reflects an increasingly universal recognition that mercy and forgiveness are indispensable to peace. Justice modeled on reconciliation has enabled countries like South Africa and Rwanda to move forward from their traumatic histories. It provides a pathway for combatants and perpetrators of violence back into their communities through acknowledgment and remorse.

But it makes hard demands on those who have suffered the most. It bids them to live side by side with those who have done them harm, and to draw a distinction between those who have committed violence and those who have ordered it. As journalist Natasha Gural wrote in Forbes recently, “Extending justified abomination for [Russian President Vladimir] Putin to all Russians harms our collective humanity and undermines the cultural fabric that serves to comfort, inform, and enlighten us in times of strife.”

In its embrace of reconciliation as a means for post-conflict social healing, humanity is seasoning justice with selflessness and sacrifice. In his battlefront prayer for “inner light” this week, Mr. Zelenskyy alluded to the deeper spiritual substance of peace – the inextinguishable glow of each individual's divinely bestowed innocence.

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