I would like to hear a big apology from those who, on the eve of the 2012 European football championship, wrote in overblown language and broadcast with selective video that Ukraine has a toxic and dangerous element of racism, discouraging some visitors from travelling to the host cities.
Let’s hear it: A giant mea culpa.
As the finals approach, I am reasonably confident that any isolated incidents of racism will be just that — rare incidents that would happen regardless of the country where the championships were held, with the possible exception of a pitch on Vatican territory.
The European leaders who stayed away from Ukraine due to its more oppressive political climate didn’t “dis” Ukraine’s political leaders. They disrespected the people of Ukraine, who are — many would agree — better than their leaders, who currently clock in with less than a 15 percent approval rating.
On an anecdotal and personal level, I would not have warned my son, who is black, to avoid attending the games, had he been so inclined.
Rob was in his late 20s when he came to Kyiv in 2005 as “Life the Guardian,” his stage name as a hip-hop singer. He would go out in the evening after his performances at Pa-ti-pa and Art Club 44. I warned him about skinheads, and he took minimal precautions. He made many friends in Kyiv.
The reality is that there is racism most everywhere in some form or another. I have seen fewer examples in Ukraine than I have seen in other parts of the world where I have live or visited.
When young, I was asked to leave a private college in Florida by the board of trustees, after as editor of the school newspaper I challenged the school’s motto: “Teaching Christianity and American Democracy.” I wrote that the school should accept African-Americans. When I refused to leave voluntarily, they relented, only to repeat the same exercise a month later following another editorial to which they objected. The result was the same. I was not their favorite student.
I have seen racism close-up as a reporter covering civil rights in America’s south. I covered a riot of fire and gunplay in Tampa, Florida, the night that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated by racist James Earl Ray on April 4, 1968. I later covered some of Ray’s legal proceedings in Tennessee.
In Ukraine, we have an aberrant core of ultra-lunatics, but measured against Ukraine’s population their size is that of a flea on the back of a great big dog. I have Asian acquaintances who have been hassled from time-to-time in Kyiv. However, they say, the harassment usually is at the hands of the police.
However, to place a spotlight on Ukraine prior to the games in a sensational manner was simply over the top, particularly, in my view, the BBC’s Panorama program. Titled “Stadiums of Hate,” it focused on both Poland and Ukraine. There were also several articles about Ukraine in the British press, and then it seemed a general piling on by other publications.
As for the politics of it, European leaders, by staying away, made a mistake by attempting to punish Ukraine’ s government for imprisoning former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. This is sort of like being hit with the proverbial wet noodle. One feels it, but it doesn’t sting.
For the European leaders who stayed away, it was hardly worth more than a press release. This Ukrainian president doesn’t seem to be losing much sleep due to the downward spiral of his country’s reputation in the eyes of the West or, apparently, even Russia.
As an adviser to the U.S. Senate leader in 1980, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, I opposed linking the actions of a country’s leadership to a sporting event. The leader, Sen. Robert Byrd, withdrew a major treaty on Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT II) from consideration instead. That was proper retaliation.
However, President Jimmy Carter went further: He barred U.S. athletes from participating in the Olympic Games in Moscow, and he ended grain exports to Russia. The first hurt U.S. athletes, the second American farmers. Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev didn’t seem fazed and went elsewhere for grain.
On the racism issue, the truth will out, of course, after the games. I’m going on record here as predicting a rather normal Euro 2012 championship in a sometimes abnormal country. If I am proved wrong, cancel that apology. Otherwise, Ukraine should have the apology delivered in Dolby Sound and Technicolor.
Kyiv Post CEO Michael Willard can be reached at [email protected]
