Snippet

Character

Comment

Leading

Trauma

2 May 2025

3 min read

Could I strike a deal after a public humiliation?

How to come back from setback after setback.

Jean Kabasomi

Jean is a consultant working with financial and Christian organisations. She also writes and broadcasts.

President Zelensky speaks and a caption reads ' on the economic partnership with the United States.

The art of the deal.

x.com/ZelenskyyUa

‘USA and Ukraine sign a minerals deal.’

Two months ago, this headline looked impossible. The world watched in horror as President Zelensky was mistreated in the Oval Office and then appeared to be booted out of the White House before scheduled negotiations for the deal could begin. Zelensky left Washington having been publicly humiliated by the most powerful leader in the world.

Whether he was blindsided, underprepared, badly briefed, misguided, disrespected, the victim of bullying or some combination of all of the above, the stakes for both him and Ukraine were as high as it could possibly get.

These sort of political bust-ups if they happen, happen behind the scenes. But this was in the open, on air, for all the world to see. Not only then but it is available to view online in perpetuality.

Now for just one minute, put yourself in President Zelensky’s shoes, what would be your next move? Me, I am probably going to cry, check my socials, go to sleep and say I am going home. I am done for the day. So many thoughts would be going through my mind. In all honesty, I would probably be going through all the stages of grief!

Denial – ‘I can’t believe that just happened. Did they really just throw us out?’

Anger – ‘What was J.D. Vance doing? Why did they gang up on me? I thought we were allies. I am not coming back here ever again.’

Bargaining – ‘Let’s get them on the phone. Does anyone have a contact we can reach out to? Can someone try to call the Secretary of State, Marco Rubio on private number?’

Depression – ‘What have I done? I have made things infinitely worse for my people and our country. Will we ever win this war? Will I be responsible for the surrender and end of Ukraine? Maybe I should resign and we hold elections?’

Acceptance – ‘It has happened now. No use crying over spilt milk.’

At this point I would say, ‘I am going to bed. Let’s start again in the morning’ (I think you can see why I am not a political leader).

When I put myself in President Zelensky’s shoes and I think back to that day in February, (putting the war itself aside) and contrast it with his recent meeting with President Trump at Pope Francis’ funeral alongside the minerals deal, I am reminded of old wisdom found in an old book - the Bible.

'Even if good people fall seven times, they will get back up.'

Public humiliation, shame, disappointment and failure are often times when we give up and disqualify ourselves. Rather than view it as a moment in time, we tend to claim our failure, mistake or mishap as part of our identity. This often causes us to walk away from good opportunities and hold ourselves to an unattainable standard. My Christian faith teaches me to place my identity not in anything I do but in what Jesus Christ did for me when he died on the cross for my mistakes. Jesus like Zelensky, faced public humiliation and shame. He is the ultimate example of how I ought to respond in the face of opposition. Jesus did not respond to his accusers and remained focus on his mission to save not just a one nation but an entirely broken world. Every so often I need to be reminded of this.

Very few of us, if any of us, will ever face the level of public humiliation or as high stakes as President Zelensky did on that day (even if it feels otherwise). Things will go wrong, we will make mistakes, people will cause us embarrassment, but it will only be for a moment in time. This new minerals deal is a reminder that things can and will get better. Our mistakes or bad circumstances do not define us, we can and will recover if we are able to get up and try again.

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Column

Assisted dying

Care

Comment

14 November 2024

4 min read

Proposed euthanasia safeguards insult our NHS

We must defend a collective sense of care and generosity.

George Pitcher

George is a visiting fellow at the London School of Economics and an Anglican priest.

A gable end mural depicts a nurse in scrubs and a mask turning and looking towards the viewer.

A mural of an NHS nurse during COVID, Manchester.

Mural Republic

It was, I believe, the late political satirist Simon Hoggart who coined the Law of the Ridiculous Reverse, which held that, if the opposite of a statement is plainly absurd, then it was not worth making in the first place.

This law comes to mind when Labour MP Kim Leadbeater promises that her Assisted Dying Bill will have the “strictest safeguards in the world”, one of which is that those patients who have ordered their fatal dose “would be allowed to change their mind at any time.”

Where, exactly, has it ever been suggested that an individual, having asked for an assisted death, would not be allowed to change their mind? I’m just wondering which legislator or medical professional has proposed that once a lethal draught has been prescribed then there is no turning back.

I’m struggling to picture the circumstance in which a terminally ill patient is pinned down and killed, the last words that they hear being: “I’m sorry Mrs Simpkins, but everyone’s gone to a lot of trouble. You asked for it and you’re jolly well going to get it.”

This is important because, apparently, being able to change your mind about asking for help to kill yourself is one of the strictest safeguards in the world. I hope Ms Leadbeater will forgive me for pointing out that this doesn’t really stack up.

And what’s serious about it is that it’s also a massive straw man argument. The clear and rather devious implication is that one of the arguments being made against the introduction of an assisted suicide law is that patients won’t be able to change their minds about it, which I think we can all accept simply isn’t a fact at all. It’s absurd – a Ridiculous Reverse.

So I’ll defend the NHS with a religious fervour. To my mind, healthcare is a holy mission. We meddle in law with the Hippocratic Oath at our very deep peril.

It’s also hugely contemptuous of the medical profession in general and rude to the NHS in particular. That’s because there’s a snide impression behind Leadbeater’s comment there may be hundreds of budding Harold Shipman out there, but her powerful safeguards are going to protect us from them.

We’re in danger of becoming inured to this kind of insult from politicians directed at the NHS. And it’s worth exploring why they might think we need to be protected from unscrupulous doctors and nurses. In this case, one possible reason is that the NHS isn’t being particularly helpful in giving the euthanasia enthusiasts what they want.

Doctors and their staff have plenty of ethical objections to assisted suicide. But leave those aside for a moment. At the practical level, the NHS has made it clear that it doesn’t have the infrastructure to operate a policy of assisted deaths safely. And it can’t afford to set one up. So a government that introduces assisted suicide is going to have to organise and regulate its own assisted death agency.

“Oh,” the assisted dying lobbyists seem to exclaim, “we’d presumed you’d do as you’re told.” Just hand out the hemlock. Take your instructions from the legislature.

But the NHS is better than that. And it’s that kind of high principle that so infuriates feckless politicians. It was the late Nigel Lawson who said, somewhat ruefully, that the NHS “is the closest thing the English have to a religion”. The right wing of politics regularly tells us it’s time to renounce that religion.

To worship the NHS as a religion would, literally, be idolatrous. But it’s not so to acknowledge its religious qualities. Just look at the word – the Latin religio means something like “good faith”, the essence of who we are, what makes us good.

The NHS, in its post-war incarnation, has been central to who we are as a people and what defines us. It’s something to do with our collective sense of care and generosity to one another. Its members, like our national Church, make up a single body.

This is not to co-opt the NHS as the medical wing of the Church. It’s no part of the NHS’s brief to proselytize – rather the reverse; Christian medical staff have been in deep disciplinary trouble for evangelising. It is a profoundly secular organisation.

So the NHS emphatically isn’t in the business of propagating the gospel. But that’s not to say that we can’t be in the same business. Many priests have stories of their most affirming work being in the company of people of other faiths or of none.

The NHS’s proud heritage is to offer treatment free to anyone at the point of access. Put another way, it will seek to heal anyone who comes to it. I make no apology for saying that sounds familiar.

So I’ll defend the NHS with a religious fervour. To my mind, healthcare is a holy mission. We meddle in law with the Hippocratic Oath at our very deep peril.

And when NHS professionals tell us where we can stick our assisted suicides, I respectfully suggest we give it our solemn attention, rather than patronisingly offering a Law of the Ridiculous Reverse.