Despite his affiliation with an ultra-nationalist group, parliamentarian Boryslav Bereza looks more like a sophisticated metrosexual than a hardliner.
He
sports an earring in his left ear and has a spooky resemblance to his friend
Dmytro Yarosh, leader of the Right Sector nationalist group.
Bereza, the group’s 40-year old former
spokesman, is of Jewish descent but at the same time espouses Ukrainian
nationalism. He represents the community jokingly dubbed the Jewish Banderites
– a reference to Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera who came to
symbolize Ukrainian nationalism. This community includes, among others, major
tycoon and Dnipropetrovsk Governor Ihor Kolomoysky.
Bereza sees no contradiction between
being a Jew and a Ukrainian nationalist and says that he supports civic, not
ethnic, nationalism.
“You know why I was working with the
Right Sector, not with Svoboda?” he said in an interview with the Kyiv Post,
referring to a nationalist party whose members have been accused of
anti-Semitism. “Because the Right Sector doesn’t do anti-Semitic stuff.”
The Right Sector unites Ukrainians,
Belorussians, Russians, Armenians, Jews and other ethnicities. It had started
off as an umbrella organization for a handful of other groups. “The melting pot
of Maidan has forged all of us into Ukrainians,” Bereza said, referring to the
EuroMaidan Revolution in late 2013-early 2014.
Bereza, who speaks Hebrew and goes to the
synagogue sometimes, worked and lived in Israel in 1991-1993. He believes that
Ukraine has a lot to learn from that country.
Israel is hailed for building a vibrant
and prosperous economy despite being surrounded by enemies – which is
comparable to Ukraine’s situation – and having few natural resources. “They
turned a desert into a garden,” Bereza says.
Instead of yielding to enemies who
greatly outnumbered them, the Israelis have created a highly efficient military
and security apparatus. “Enemies of Israel don’t go unpunished in any part of
the world,” Bereza said.
He believes that Ukraine should emulate
by creating a strong, well-functioning state capable of cracking down on crime
and corruption and withstanding external aggression. “But now we have a strong
society and a weak state,” he says.
In 1993 Bereza returned to Ukraine,
intending initially just to visit friends but eventually deciding to come back
for good. Subsequently he was involved in book-selling, set up a literary
agency and was a host on Ukrainian television shows, including book-related
ones.
Speaking of his penchant for books,
Bereza said that he had diverse interests ranging from Mikhail Bulgakov’s Days
of the Turbins and Spartacus by Rafaella Giovagnolli to J.D. Salinger, a Song
of Ice and Fire by George R.R. Martin and Niccolo Machiavelli.
Bereza entered politics during the
EuroMaidan Revolution, when he got acquainted with Yarosh and became the head
of the Right Sector’s information department. “Ukraine was given a second chance and I
realized it should be used to change the situation,” he said, implying that
Ukraine had lost its first chance after the 2004 Orange Revolution.
Despite being the Right Sector’s
spokesman, he did not formally join the organization.
He was subsequently elected to the
Verkhovna Rada in the Oct. 26, 2014 parliamentary election, running in a
majority constituency in Kyiv’s Troeshchyna, a working class neighborhood. Bereza stepped down as the Right
Sector’s spokesman in December – a move that he attributes to his busy schedule
in parliament.
Bereza is unhappy with traditional
parliamentary politics, with parties united not by ideas but by allegiance to a
specific politician – former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, President Petro
Poroshenko, Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk etc.
At the Verkhovna Rada, Bereza believes
himself to be part of the “constructive” and pro-Ukrainian opposition, in
contrast with the pro-Russian Opposition Bloc, the political heir of ousted
President Viktor Yanukovych’s Party of Regions.
Bereza and his allies have created the
Ukrop group, which unites lawmakers whose political base stems from the
EuroMaidan movement, rather than from traditional elites. The group also
includes Yarosh, former Dnipropetrovsk Deputy Governor Borys Filatov and
EuroMaidan activist Volodymyr Parasyuk.
It
is not clear whether Ukrop has been officially registered. Filatov told the
Kyiv Post that it already formally exists but the Verkhovna Rada’s Web site
lacked information on the group. “Ukrop is a group of like-minded people of the
right-wing opposition,” Filatov said.
The group has initiated bills to recognize all members
of volunteer battalions as participants of the war and to facilitate the
activities of volunteers who help to supply the army.
Bereza
and other Ukrop members are unhappy with the parliamentary majority, which
consists of supporters of Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk. “The Verkhovna Rada is
diverse,” he said. “There are people who want to change something but they’re
not in the majority.“
Bereza is also displeased with what he
thinks to be Poroshenko’s excessive clout at the parliament. “Not a single law
passes without the president’s approval,” he said.
Unlike other pro-European lawmakers,
Bereza opposes a bill seeking to strip parliamentarians of immunity in an
effort to punish lawmakers involved in corruption. He believes that it could be
used by the government to crack down on the opposition.
Bereza also voted against the
appointment of Viktor Shokin as prosecutor general earlier in February, arguing
that he was part of the old system and would not be able to make progress on
high-profile cases. Another measure that he opposed was the hasty adoption of
the 2015 budget in December 2014, when lawmakers voted for it without seeing
the actual latest figures and allegedly violated parliamentary procedures.
Kyiv Post staff writer Oleg Sukhov can be
reached at [email protected].
