On the outskirts of the city of Kharkiv, Ukrainian paramedics recently towed dead Russian bodies into a truck. If the heat-swollen bodies of these men left behind were not recovered by Ukrainians, they would rot unidentified and never be buried on their own land.
“If the Russians can fill their pockets with sunflower seeds, something beautiful will grow out of them when they die here,” an old Ukrainian woman said when the invasion had just started. Last week fixer Andrea repeated these words to Volkskrant journalist Michael Persson in the southern Ukrainian trenches. Almost poetic, that war.
Of course, it is not the case that there are sunflower seeds in the pockets of Russian soldiers, or that with every rocket there is a bag of seeds to land in the fertile soil in a city like Vinnytsia when it explodes. If it were, then the shot and tormented Ukrainian ground would be full of colorful war memorials in no time. Thousands of war memorials in a battle that is far from over. Human lives would still collapse every day, but in a brightly colored environment.
Spectacular aerial photos of Ukraine would appear: small and large areas of yellow everywhere. A map would be made showing, among other things, the place where a young boy, raised in Putin’s Russia, had his head blown. It is said to show a location where a Ukrainian rescuer stepped on an anti-tank mine. There would be a yellow dot right where 4-year-old Liza walked through the park with her mother on her way home from school, exactly where she was taking her last steps before being fatally shot. New ones would appear every year from the seeds of the previous sunflowers.
In recent years, civil servants in the Netherlands have been working in working groups to find ways to make excuses for missteps with horrific consequences. After a long search for the right words, sorry was said to the victims of the allowance affair, for Srebrenica and the Dutchbat soldiers also received an apology. I wonder what would happen if officials used flowers instead of words. (By the way, I’m not saying that a dead Russian soldier turning into a sunflower is a fitting excuse for the inhumane and ghastly war crimes that are being committed.)
I would like an up-to-date map of the Netherlands, showing that all of a sudden, official blue tulips are appearing everywhere. In the streets of Dutchbatters, in front of every benefit parent house, in sagging streets in Groningen, in front of old buildings that exist thanks to our VOC wealth. (No apologies have been said for the Dutch slavery past, too many apologies at once is complicated, I heard, maybe flowers are an interim solution?)
Officials, fill your pockets and briefcases with tulip bulbs. Plant them secretly or very showy where you think they are needed. Come back every year, plant as long as you like, until the soil is clear of blame and guilt. And, dear people of the interdepartmental working group Apologies, if you think this is a great idea, you can probably also send some sunflower seeds to the Russian embassy, a small and simple gesture. A monument is thus made. There is no need for endless meetings.
Lisa Weeda is a writer. This summer she is a guest columnist for de Volkskrant.