Unfortunately, it could not be cleansed by scoring some goals in football competition. And, in case no one had noticed, political prisoners in Ukraine were ineligible for the “saturnalia” during Euro 2012.
Confirmation of Ukraine’s present status as a captive nation came with the latest parliamentary ploy on July 4, in effect pushing the Ukrainian language another notch off the cliff.
Remarkably, mixed with football fever was a cacophony in European media about racism in Ukraine and Poland. It spilled into Ukrainian press with a torrent of comments, some of which were passionate and some distasteful.
One lead article had connected, by hearsay, the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists to anti-Semitism in World War II, expecting perhaps to send those who disagree on another scholarly denial trip.
Particularly provocative was a Nazi flag photographed in the stands at an earlier football game in Kyiv — ostensibly the work of some local fans – almost certainly to vilify by insinuation the visiting Karpaty team from Lviv. If this is not Ukrainophobia, what is?
There is, undoubtedly, a sick atmosphere in Ukraine, but not primarily along racial minority or ethnic lines. It is the majority that is being rolled.
Quote: “There is a war being waged in this country – a war being waged by some of the wealthiest and most powerful people against the working families….The reality is, many of the nation’s billionaires are on the warpath. They want more, more, more. Their greed has no end, and apparently there is very little concern for our country or for the people….”
Sounds familiar?
This quote is actually an excerpt from a speech delivered in the US Senate on November 30, 2010 by Senator Bernie Sanders from Vermont. He obviously was addressing the issues that are paramount in the United States, and was referring to America’s oligarchs that bear a striking resemblance to Ukraine’s ruling elite, although the former presumably have descended straight from the American dream.
Paradoxically, as election time comes in both countries this fall, a very large part of the working class in Ukraine, as in the USA, is going to vote for the party of the oligarchs — for the Regions Party in Ukraine and for the Republican Party in the USA. Race is a political factor in the USA, where whites, regardless of income level and economic self-interest, are siding mostly with the Republican Party and its regressively self-addictive plantation mentality acquired in right-wing captivity since the 1990s.
In Ukraine, regional differences play a key role. The voters elected Viktor Yanukovych as president in 2010, as the pro-Russian Party of Regions prevailed over Yulia Tymoshenko’s national democratic camp, albeit by a small margin — and with disastrous consequences. That choice was mainly the result of bad economy, linked to the worldwide recession after Wall Street meltdown in 2008.
When falling under an authoritarian regime, the most inscrutably imbedded pre-disposition of Ukrainians is to grapple with it by trying surreptitiously to beat the system, but in effect becoming part of it and its Aegean stables of corruption, rather than attempting to change it by initiative and collective effort.
This tendency exists even when the regime is so morally disreputable and palpably shaky that it could be blown away by any populist (yes, populist) movement with the hearts and minds of Femen. But it can not be done by lackadaisical manhood that makes parody out of the lofty words in the national anthem, as an easier option.
Remarkably, the stain of judicial corruption in the country that now convicts political opposition leaders under false pretexts does not seem to faze, much less infuriate many young people who grew up during Ukraine’s twenty years of independence.
Tymoshenko led the parliamentary opposition against the regime of thugs, was jailed, and guess what. She is left high and dry by her compatriots. The people will not go to the barricades for her, is the message we hear, even when her personal loss of freedom, incarceration of other opposition leaders, and the latest blow to the Ukrainian language define Ukraine’s destination. Some had nit-picked on her faults and used them as smoke to protect own turf and comfort.
A student offered an explanation: “Poor race.”
Without vigorous, spirited leadership in the street, masses will be subdued like sheep – a replay of Soviet political layout in the 1920s.
Before anyone takes offense, recall Ukraine’s national bard Taras Shevchenko, who in his memorable: “My friendly message to the dead, the living, and unborn my countrymen” brought an allegory of “the golden Tamerlane’s miserable posterity.” He made many Ukrainians blush in shame of themselves and of their acclaimed elites consisting of “slaves, bootlickers, and Moscow’s dirt.”
Then check with “Sheva, ” modern-day football great Andriy Shevchenko, how he would call it. Also, if indeed the big-time football unifies a nation, as some have mused, ask someone what such unity will do – with or without all the festive clowning — to get political prisoners out of jail.
History shows that freedom is not won by spectacles. It comes the hard way: it must be earned.. It requires “lives, honor and property” on the line, as well as a nucleus of critical mass to build and maintain a civil society.
If Ukrainians had taken a tough, massive stand in defense of Tymoshenko and other political prisoners, and carried the day — instead of displaying a national character deficit – it would have changed the debate. The language boondoggle, a logical next step in Yanukovych’s agenda to dismantle the Ukrainian state would not have seen the light of day.
Boris Danik is a retired Ukrainian-American living in North Caldwell, New Jersey.
