Jail Time

 

It has been said that there are no athe­ists in a fox­hole. Here, after my show trial and four and a half months in a cell, I have dis­cov­ered that there are no athe­ists in prison, ei­ther.

When, de­spite un­bear­able pain, you are in­ter­ro­gated – in­clud­ing in your cell – for dozens of hours with­out a break, and an au­thor­i­tar­ian regime’s en­tire sys­tem of co­er­cion, in­clud­ing its media, is try­ing to dis­credit and de­stroy you once and for all, prayer be­comes the only in­ti­mate, trust­ing, and re­as­sur­ing con­ver­sa­tion that one can have. God, one re­al­izes, is one’s only friend and only avail­able fam­ily, be­cause – de­prived even of ac­cess to a trusted priest – there is no one else in whom to con­fide one’s wor­ries and hopes.

In this sea­son of love and fam­ily, the lone­li­ness of a prison cell is al­most un­bear­able. The gray, dead si­lence of night (guards peer in voyeuris­ti­cally through a slot in the door), the sud­den, dis­em­bod­ied shrieks of pris­on­ers, shrieks of dis­tress and rage, the dis­tant rat­tles and clangs of prison bolts: all make sleep im­pos­si­ble, or so rest­less as to be a torment.

But what is strange is that your senses are not dulled by this dead and dread­ful world. On the con­trary, they are ig­nited by it: your mind is set free from mun­dane con­cerns to pon­der the in­es­timable and your place within it – a free­dom of spirit that is a truly un­ex­pected gift this Christ­mas sea­son. In the cell’s dark­ness, I gather strength and hope from the fact that God some­how seems so near to me here. For where else would Christ be but with those who suf­fer and are per­se­cuted?


In­deed, I have re­cently been read­ing Di­et­rich Bon­ho­ef­fer’s sub­lime and chal­leng­ing Let­ters from Prison, in which he yearns for a Christ ca­pa­ble of of­fer­ing mercy to a world, our world, then in the process of being mar­tyred for a sin­gle man. Writ­ten in a cramped, dank, and pu­trid cell, where hope was meant to die be­fore the body, Bon­ho­ef­fer crafted a book rich in faith, open­ness, pos­si­bil­ity, and, yes, hope – even in hu­man­ity’s dark­est hour.




One par­tic­u­lar pas­sage res­onates with me as I con­tem­plate Ukraine’s plight. As he awaited his ap­proach­ing ex­e­cu­tion by the Nazis, Bon­ho­ef­fer wrote that, in prison, “the god­less­ness of the world is not...​concealed but, rather, re­vealed, and is thus ex­posed to an un­ex­pected light.”



So I take some com­fort this Christ­mas in know­ing that the god­less­ness, in­hu­man­ity, and crim­i­nal­ity of the regime that is now rul­ing in Kyiv is, at long last, being ex­posed to the world in a clear light. Its de­mo­c­ra­tic pos­tur­ing has been un­masked as cyn­i­cal po­lit­i­cal the­ater, its claim to de­sire a Eu­ro­pean fu­ture for Ukraine’s peo­ple re­vealed to be a lie, and the ra­pa­cious­ness of its klep­to­crats has been laid bare. The regime’s con­tempt for the con­sti­tu­tion and the rule of law is now un­de­ni­able, and that clar­ity is em­pow­er­ing.

More im­por­tantly, the suf­fer­ing of Ukraine’s peo­ple has also be­come more widely known, and we are no longer so alone in our plight. Al­le­vi­at­ing it has been em­braced as a just cause across Eu­rope and around the world. The every­day op­pres­sion, sti­fled media, and shake­downs and ex­tor­tion of busi­nesses for bribes all point to a mafia state on Eu­rope’s bor­der. Now our Eu­ro­pean friends can no longer deny the smug vile­ness of the regime with which they are forced to deal. And I am thank­ful this Christ­mas for being able to be­lieve that de­mo­c­ra­tic Eu­rope will not tol­er­ate this state of af­fairs. Ukraini­ans will be strong know­ing that they are not alone in their fight.

I do not pre­tend to be an ex­pert on re­li­gious faith and spir­i­tual val­ues. I am only a be­liever who can­not ac­cept that our ex­is­tence is the re­sult of some freak cos­mic ac­ci­dent. We are, I be­lieve, part of a mys­te­ri­ous yet in­te­gral act, whose source, di­rec­tion, and pur­pose, though dif­fi­cult to grasp at times, does have mean­ing and pur­pose – even when one is con­fined be­hind prison bars.

It is only faith in the idea that our lives mat­ter, and that our de­ci­sions must be judged by their moral con­tent, that we in Ukraine, and else­where, will be able to find our way out of the mis­ery, un­hap­pi­ness, and de­spair that has con­sumed us over the last two years. It is within our power to re­cover or rein­vig­o­rate our free­doms and our so­ci­eties, not by in­di­vid­ual ef­forts, but by join­ing forces with like­minded peo­ple all over the world. I know that we will man­age this.

This Christ­mas, I ask my fam­ily and friends every­where not to worry about me. As Anna Akhma­tova, the great po­etic chron­i­cler of Stalin’s ter­ror, said, “I am alive in this grave.” In­deed, I am more alive, I know, than the men who have im­pris­oned me here.

Christ­mas is meant to mark the pos­si­bil­ity of a new be­gin­ning for all men and women.

As Bon­ho­ef­fer af­firmed with his last words: “This is for me...​the be­gin­ning of life.”




Yuliya Tymoshenko was Prime Minister of Ukraine and is currently leader of the opposition.

I am amazed she has this amount of ability to speak to the world at large. Here is her website: http://www.tymoshenko.ua/en/
Point of correction here: She is not a "Mr." Mrs. Tymoshenko is not only a female leader but a very beautiful woman. She is determined and courageous and very sharp. But this is a vicious game she is in, now locked away in cell 260 while those who've taken over ravage Ukraine.




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“AB900 allows the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to authorize $7.8 billion in lease-revenue bonds to fund the addition of 53,000 new prison and jail beds while bypassing the electorate.”



BY NAOMI WOLF