Joyce Fegan: How Putin miscalculated the power of people

If a tiny country such as Ireland can raise more than €8m in a single week, then it looks like Putin has vastly underestimated the power, and the capability of people, in the third decade of the 21st century

Gaelcholáiste Mhuire principal Donal O'Buachalla and Aileen Ní Aonghusa, Comhairle Na nDaltaí co-ordinator, with Svetlana Zakharova and her son Arthur Zakharov, and fellow student council members  Sorcha Vandyoussefi, Stacey Nic Ambróis, Emma Ní Laoire, and Caitlin Ní Chathaláin. Picture: Jim Coughlan

‘They'd give you the shirt off their back” should be our nation’s motto.

That violent war criminal Vladimir Putin considered and employed the use of social media in the waging of his war is beyond doubt. However, it is unlikely that he considered the powerful combination that is social media and human goodwill.

It’s this mass miscalculation in the age of hyper-connectivity that has seen millions of people, including our own, rise up against him — and there is nothing he can possibly do about it.

As this week unfolded, dozens upon dozens of donation drives for Ukrainian people popped up all over this country. From cafes to local tennis clubs, and from gyms to schools, drop-off hubs were springing up everywhere. Social media was alive with information — there were posts about medical items needed and WhatsApp groups diligently shared messages with updated locations and times.

“You can’t not do something,” the people said.

People’s homes became hubs too. One woman described her sitting room as “like a huge Tesco” such was the inundation of goods dropped and headed to displaced Ukrainians in Poland.

Then word got out that the giving of tangible goods might not be the best way to contribute. Trucks could get caught up on the continent. There was even advice from experts with experience of these crisis situations that goods might even end up in landfill.

Word of the importance of cash donations being a more practical way to exercise our goodwill filtered out. Giving money to the likes of the Irish Red Cross started to ramp up towards the end of the week.

By yesterday afternoon we had donated €6m in just a few short days to the Irish Red Cross alone. On Tuesday that figure had stood at €1.3m. This was before donations from last night’s Late Late Show, dedicated to the Irish Red Cross, were even counted.

Small businesses were getting in on the act too. Gardening Well will donate €2 to the Irish Red Cross for relief in Ukraine for every pack of sunflower seeds sold. Expect every Irish garden, window-sill, and porch to be donning a sunflower come summer.

Bigger businesses joined in too. Musgrave this week donated €250,000 to the Irish Red Cross and Unicef. Shoppers in SuperValu, Centra, and Donnybrook Fair can donate €2 via a “tap to donate” function at the till.

Bigger businesses again, such as Zurich, with lots of employees here, donated hundreds of thousands of euro and are encouraging staff to give what they can and they’d match that amount too. Money-sharing platforms such as PayPal and newer kid on the block Revolut also made it possible for people to safely donate cash via their apps.

People with public profiles joined the efforts, with businesswoman Pippa O’Connor putting on a flash sale of some of her goods. In 30 minutes she had raised €20,000 for the Irish Red Cross.

Dublin law firm Mason Hayes & Curran donated €50,000 to Unicef’s humanitarian relief programme in Ukraine, saying: “Any step, no matter how small, that business can take to try and mitigate the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine matters.”

On Thursday, Unicef Ireland announced that people and businesses here had given €2m so far. That was €2m in the space of a week.

Add that to how much we gave to the Irish Red Cross and it means every man, woman, and child on this island has given more than €1 each.

Meanwhile, the donations, fundraising, and raffles go on. Sanctuary Runners has organised a Run for Ukraine for all over Ireland today. Whether you crawl, walk, or run, all you have to do is post a picture of yourself to social media and donate what you can to the Irish Red Cross.

It’s not a solo effort either. Sanctuary Runners teamed up with Swim Ireland, Athletics Ireland, the IRFU, Rowing Ireland, and the Olympic Federation of Ireland to make today’s fundraiser happen.

There are the individual displays too. Artist Isobel Henihan put one of her paintings up for sale and 100% of the proceeds will go to the Irish Red Cross and Unicef Ireland.

People had received the memo and were not going to stand idly by paralysed by the ravages of war. They also got the message very quickly that cash donations and fundraising were now the way to go and pivoted accordingly.

All thanks to our robust and free media and the powers of social media sharing.

There are also the people who have pledged to open their homes to Ukrainian people who will need shelter here. A formal plan isn’t in place yet, but by yesterday afternoon 180 Irish households had pledged their support via the Irish Red Cross’s website. If our people’s will alone could pave the way to peace, Putin would be long defeated.

Death by a thousand cuts

Outside of Ireland, online retailers such as Asos and Boohoo have suspended sales in Russia. Disney is pulling The Batman from Russian theatres. Aeroflot, the Russian State airline with about 200 planes in its fleet, can barely sell tickets as the world’s largest online ticket-booking service cut ties with it. Apple has paused all physical product sales in Russia. Adidas has suspended its partnership with the Russian Football Union. The list is long and economists have described it as economic death by a thousand cuts.

All of this, be it in Ireland or abroad, are actions taken by people and companies that have been rapidly mobilised by our online world and facilitated by all of our online systems.

People even logged on to Airbnb in Ukraine to book in for stays, with no intention of staying, as a way to get money directly into the hands of people on the ground.

It is 2022, not 1922, and the people of the world are more connected and informed than ever. If a tiny country such as Ireland can raise over €8m in a single week, it looks like Putin has vastly underestimated the power and capability of the people in the third decade of the 21st century.

Let us be buoyed on our power, not paralysed by Putin’s.