A message from Paper Crown’s Founder, Katie Carlson-Akuno
I am a Canadian by birth, and a woman of Ukrainian heritage. My great-great-grandparents traveled to Canada on a cattle boat generations ago to build a better life for themselves (acknowledging that ‘Canada’ itself is the traditional territory of diverse First Nations communities). I am the daughter of that legacy, and I am proud of and humbled by my Ukrainian history. Though our Ukrainian family in Canada is far from the country of Ukraine, that heritage is kept alive through Ukrainian language, traditions, food and customs. As a feminist activist and a Ukrainian daughter, I feel compelled to speak out about the war in Ukraine that is currently unfolding.
The war in Ukraine is a feminist issue. Why? Because wars are fundamentally about power and privilege, and feminist thinking and practice, at its core, seeks to dismantle harmful systems of unequal power and privilege. The ability to declare war on a country, unprovoked, and to have the military might to do so is one of the greatest forms of power one can imagine in our times. This is what we are seeing right now as Russia invades Ukraine for its own political gain, with no thought given to the hundreds or thousands of lives that will be lost in the process, and the trauma that will be the legacy of all who survive the invasion.
The war in Ukraine is also a prime example of toxic masculinity and the promotion of dominator culture. Toxic masculinity promotes an idea of ‘manhood’ that glorifies the use of force, violence, domination and oppression as a means of asserting one’s self and identity as ‘a man’ who is to be feared and respected, with the ultimate purpose of maintaining control of families, societies and entire countries. Dominator culture is about conceiving of the world and the people within it as a place of fear and aggression, where one group or community must always be in a dominant position over another. Dominator culture conditions us to believe that there is no other way to live on this earth, than to be either dominated or dominating others. This is a fallacy that has led humankind to the brink of total destruction, again and again and again.
Dictators are powerful, but they are not unstoppable. We know this to be true. As a society, we must reflect on our own beliefs and behaviors, and reject the notion of dominator culture as the only way of being and living in the world; we must always think critically about how we speak and behave, and reject violence as a means to an end. We must instead work twice as hard to foster the values of human rights, respect, inclusion, equality, diversity, empathy and compassion. All sustainable life depends on this. Our thoughts, prayers and power are with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people during this terrible time, and Paper Crown Rwanda stands against this war and all wars, violence and injustice that continue in the world today. We will keep working, we will keep striving, we will never give up. We hope you will join us. ❤️