So many noteworthy things have been happening domestically in Ukraine, and in the external sphere, that it’s been hard to keep up.
The coronavirus pandemic recently spiked again necessitating new lockdown measures.
On the Donbas contact line in Russia’s war against Ukraine, the precarious cease-fire has been abandoned by Russia’s proxies and Ukrainian soldiers are being killed again virtually every day.
President Volodymyr Zelensky, however unevenly, has been intensifying his fight against the oligarchic setup that still holds Ukraine hostage in its economic and political stranglehold, as well as against the judicial mafia that brazenly continues to invoke its constitutional “immunity” to perpetuate its quasi-lawfulness and impunity.
Only the blind, or very biased cannot see this. Yes, more is awaited from the Ukrainian leader, by the skeptics, wary, and optimists. to confirm that he has indeed crossed the Rubicon and that this is indeed a battle to the end against the hitherto seemingly almighty oligarchs and untouchable fifth columnists.
And in the meantime, the new U.S. President Joe Biden has put Russia’s strongman, President Vladimir Putin, in his place by acknowledging publicly that he is indeed a killer and by, among other things, reaffirming his support for an independent, though less corrupt, Ukraine.
Okay, he has not done everything that Ukraine and its supporters would wish for. Namely, openly call for the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 pipeline project to be abandoned. But the American leader has let Kyiv know in other ways that, if it delivers in the fight to curtail corruption and clip the wings of the oligarchs, Washington will sustain, and probably increase, its support.
And in the meantime, we have witnessed what I see as a diversion carried out by provocateurs and fanatics.
On Feb. 20, supporters of the unsavory Ukrainian activist, Serhiy Sternenko, recently sentenced in an obvious miscarriage of justice by a biased court in Odesa to seven years imprisonment on the basis of dubious charges, demonstrated outside the presidential administration in Kyiv.
Although not antagonized by the police, some of them – radicals, provocateurs, paid agents? – vandalized the entrance, daubing the walls with slogans, breaking windows, and apparently even attempting to set fire to the building itself.
The scenes and aftermath, shown in numerous videos and photos, were shocking and disgusting. This was hardly the best of Ukraine’s patriotic vanguard protesting. Those responsible for the political vandalism were anti-state extremists, whether consciously, or “under the influence,” or simply provocateurs, getting a kick from desecrating a major symbol of Ukraine’s statehood and in this way sticking their fingers up at the rest of Ukrainian society and the norms of behavior it aspires to.
The result was also damaging to Ukraine’s image abroad and played into the hands of the country’s detractors, especially the Kremlin.
At the end of the day, the Sternenko case, as perhaps several others, is symptomatic of the corrupt judicial system inherited by, but not created by, Zelensky and his administration.
Yes, the Zelensky team could, should, and are trying to confront this challenge. Too, slow you may say, but does the Ukrainian Constitution and legislation, give him the president the right to remove corrupt judges and courts? Yet, the built-in obstacles are formidable and cannot be removed quickly without inviting charges of creeping dictatorship, going against European values, etc.
And here, to paraphrase Shakespeare, I want neither to bury the Ukrainian president nor to praise him. But to help us all understand where we are and what is at stake.
First, let’s be fair and recognize that that the legal system in Ukraine is an enduring embarrassment. There are innumerable vested interests interested in perpetuating the status quo and resisting the overhaul of the judiciary and law enforcement agencies.
Zelensky has acknowledged this and declared he has taken on this “mission impossible.” He needs help, monitoring, and a healthy combination of carrot and stick, and not simply criticism and rejection.
This mighty and critical undertaking should be a “team effort” on behalf of all of Ukraine’s constructive forces, not simply that of the present political group in power under fire from all around.
And responding to those “patriots” whose constant negativism and hostility translates into a loss of time and de facto sabotage.
I’m fed up with hearing the repetitive hollow arguments, that so and so is a hero and worthy of our respect, support and indulgence because he or she are patriots. And especially that they were volunteers, or soldiers, who fought against the Russians in the Donbas.
I’m not a psychologist, nor a psychiatrist. But it seems that though certain things are evident enough, at this stage they need to be re-emphasized.
The fact that someone can be depicted as having defended Ukraine against the Russian aggressor at the front, does not make each one of them heroes or role models.
Not so long ago, it was Nadia Savchenko – most of whom we supported when we believed her to be a political prisoner in Russia and yet, most of whom to this day do not know whether we were taken for a ride, politically speaking, and our well-meaning intentions exploited. The same today with others, such as, in the most recent case, Sternenko.
Real heroes are one thing: those who use war and conflict for self-serving ends often masked as patriotism, or who in turn use others for this purpose, another.
Wartime, unfortunately, is an opportunity and magnet for, among others, opportunists, those with serious psychological problems and complexes, sadists, and yes those who relish blood and death, frustrated egocentrics, and failures in everyday life who want to affirm themselves by whatever desperate means.
This is related to the entire idea of patriotism. Being motivated by and doing something that is connected out of a sense of solidarity and potential self-sacrifice to the higher cause of one’s own nation and its security and welfare, rather than just one’s own self-serving interests, however disguised, is what it’s about.
Otherwise, it’s cynicism, exploitation, and self-promotion, the standard underlying ingredients for public relations and populism.
Remember the still very apt Old English expression: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
How true and relevant for Ukraine today! So many self-proclaimed patriots tap the genuine concern for Ukraine and its future for their political and financial ends.
This is a problem that, as the English saying indicates, is by no means new, nor peculiar to Ukraine. But in a country currently still at war with Russia, we need to be particularly mindful of this.
Let’s recall that Adolf Hitler also started off as a patriot, though in effect as a traitor to his own country. It is rarely mentioned that he was born in Austria and moved to Germany in 1912.
Hitler fought in World War I for Germany, or rather his “cause,” that of Germany, in reality the greater “pan”-German, that is, German-speaking, or German-minded, world, much akin to what today’s Kremlin rulers would have us recognize as the pan-Russian, “russkiy mir” of Russian speakers and those who identify with Russia, culturally if not necessarily always politically.
Perhaps some Germans in the 1930s justified the radical extremism of the Nazis by saying, “Well, young Hitler fought for our country. After all, he’s a real patriot.” In view of the lessons hopefully learned, should Ukrainians today not ask what do some of the “patriots” promoted by themselves, or others, actually represent?
And, on another, tough related matter. Quite frankly, as a British Ukrainian, the offspring of refugees from World War II, when two totalitarian monsters fought over the land of my parents, I am sickened to see some of the right-wing “patriotic” demonstrations in Ukraine relying on techniques which to me, and I suspect, most of the Western world, seem to emulate Nazi methods and messages.
Torchlight processions and chanting mechanically the slogan “the nation above all else – death to the enemy” (as the far-right Svoboda party has been in the habit of doing) is not only politically and historically ugly, but begs the question who are you to decide what is the nation (ethnic, political, democratic, totalitarian?), and who is the enemy (external/external?)
Emulating the Nazis, or for that matter, Bolsheviks is not what Ukraine needs at this moment in its history. Understanding, unity, and compromise should be top of the agenda, not hatred, hostility, and division.
With all due respect to those genuine Ukrainian patriots and civil rights activists who took part in the demonstration outside the presidential office last Saturday, do not allow yourselves to be used so cheaply by those who not only discredit you, but Ukraine as a whole.
Let’s keep the pressure on the authorities to deliver on what the country needs, and our allies expect, but in a civilized manner, worthy of Ukraine’s patriotic and democratic traditions.
