Martin Luther King, Pearl Harbor, September 11: Zelensky’s speech bewitches the US Congress

From Martin Luther King to Pearl Harbor, from September 11 to Mount Rushmore, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky offered the US Congress a speech full of American quotes. If when he spoke to the British he used William Shakespeare and Winston Churchill, this time Zelensky changed the register, citing the American giants, trying to immediately get in tune with the members of the House and Senate, who appeared united for the first time after years of clashes. The Ukrainian president, actor, producer and screenwriter, showed up wearing a green T-shirt with the symbol of the Ukrainian armed forces printed on it. Behind him the white wall. To the right of him, the yellow and blue flag of Ukraine. Having become one of the modern heroes of the Ukrainian resistance to the Russian invasion, Zelensky confirmed that he was a communication professional, and he did so without losing substance. If the goal was to get maximum help from the United States, this was a necessary step, even emotionally.

Zelensky wanted the declaration of a “no-fly zone for humanitarian reasons” over the skies of Ukraine. “But if it is not possible – he added – give me an anti-missile defense system so that I can protect my people”. The president called for “more aid”, called on Washington to “do more” to punish Russia, called for sanctions on all members of the Russian parliament and called on “all American companies to leave the Russian market” and to do so “immediately “. The Ukrainian leader spoke of “new institutions and new alliances” to stop the war, a message that some have read as an overcoming of NATO itself, whose aspired accession of Ukraine is considered by the Kremlin to be the fatal sin, at the basis of the invasion. Zelensky paraphrased the famous “I have a dream” by Martin Luther King, declining it in “I have a need”.

«I have a dream – he said – each of you knows these three words well. Today I say, I have a need. I need you to protect our sky. I need your decision, your help, which means exactly what you feel when you hear the words ‘I have a dream’. ” You compared the Russian invasion of Ukraine to “Pearl Harbor,” the Japanese attack in 1941 on American military installations that was seen as an official declaration of war. You mentioned the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, saying that in Ukraine “September 11 has happened every day for three weeks”. And then Mount Rushmore, one of the most loved monuments by Americans, where the faces of four great presidents of the United States are represented – George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln – to remember how Ukrainians also love the “right to freedom, independence, democracy “, put” under attack by Russia “.

The cold-blooded murder of an elder in Mariupol: a Russian tank fires on the Ukrainian civilian for no reason.

The surgery lasted about twenty minutes and was marked by moments of great emotion. From the bipartisan standing ovation that Congress dedicated to Zelensky, at the opening and closing of the speech, to the video on the war in Ukraine, with the touching review of images of the faces of children in tears, frightened, defenseless, wounded, of bodies thrown into the pits towns, cities devastated by bombs. Images that seemed to belong to a distant page in history. “What is happening – recalled Zelensky – has not been seen in Europe for eighty years”. Eventually, the Ukrainian president went directly to Joe Biden, who was following the intervention from the White House. «I don’t see a sense in life if the deaths cannot be stopped – he said – this is my main question as leader of a people, the great Ukrainians, and as leader of my nation. I turn to President Biden: you are a leader of the nation, your great nation. I wish you to be the leader of the world. Leader of the world means leader of peace ». It is not enough to be the leader of a nation, he reiterated, you must be the leader of peace.