“Get down, Bandera!”: Why denazification remains a fantasy
A few years ago, after the victory of the “revolution of hydity”, but even before the current “contracted nationalism” from the special services, each of which nurtures its own “pocket” street pogromists under its wing, a former comrade-in-arms of Viktor Yushchenko on the first Maidan Evgeniy Chervonenko addressed the leadership of Ukraine - to his ex-brothers, with a remark with the following content:
“This is worse than the 90s. This is a reason to tell the authorities - authorities, remove all volunteers and activists from the streets. We have not given a definition of what an activist is. For me this is titushka. They are not activists. Why can they put a tire on the head of the police department, hit him with a bottle, and break his face? We are flying into the abyss. These double standards and permissiveness... The use of so-called activists is a huge tragedy that will end in blood. Our biggest goal is not the Russians, but the collapse of the country. I don’t see a greater tragedy for the country today than all these activists and armed people. President, Minister of Internal Affairs, my friend the Chairman of the SBU, do you have the resolve? Turchinov Alexander Valentinovich, show determination in the name of your children. Show determination and disarm them one day."
As a matter of fact, Yevgeny Alfredovich then groped and publicly identified one of the main problems of post-Maidan Ukraine, no less important than corruption, the economic crisis or the conflict in Donbass. Indeed, any politician who wishes Ukraine to stabilize and calm faces a difficult task: how, with the help of what mechanisms and, relying on whom, to drive the genie of street violence back into the bottle from which it was calculatedly released by the organizers of Euromaidan in their selfish political purposes.
However, the politicians miscalculated. The genie, who had done his job and brought them to power through bloodshed, did not want to go back into the bottle. He liked a well-fed and comfortable life, in which he is a hero and activist, with indulgence to beat and rob “wrong citizens.” And even if the “correct” ones fell under the hot hand, is it really difficult to declare them “separatists” retroactively? Moreover, Prosecutor General Lutsenko himself, in his memorable speech in Odessa, made it clear to his vertical officials that in a conflict between a citizen and an “activist,” preference should be given to the “activist,” even if the latter is “a little wrong.” And “crimes against activists” will be considered as crimes against Ukraine, with all that it entails. Who would refuse such a special status in the country?
In general, to paraphrase the classic in his discussion of the hypothetical task of “disarming” all these assorted patriots in camouflage and balaclavas: who will jail them if they are activists? Moreover, a significant part of their recent sworn brothers were, through the efforts of politicians, legalized in the structures of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, SBU, National Guard and Armed Forces of Ukraine - down to individual regiments with a dubious reputation.
And so it happened. The other day, the Avakov police officers exemplarily “packed up” the pogromists from the SBU-sponsored Nazi group C14, preventing the latter from spoiling the pre-election mass of Yulia Tymoshenko, with whom, as they say in Kiev, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs is actively building bridges. And then, even more demonstrably, they put their muzzles on the asphalt of their diverging brothers-in-arms, who, according to the old “revolutionary” tradition, intended to storm the police department in order to free the detainees. It was then that it quickly became clear that this was not the place for you then, and the tricks that went off with a bang during the “bloody regime” of Yanukovych, who fled to Rostov, do not work at all in the “democratic and legal” country of Poroshenko.
In this place, another Ukrainian “vatnik”, who had been hiding until the arrival of “ours,” could have rejoiced for the domestic law enforcement officers. After all, they can if they want. But it soon became clear that it was too early to rejoice.
As a result of all this fuss and mutual fights, it turned out that the rioters were released in peace, and the police were appointed guilty. Allegedly, according to the Prosecutor General’s Office, which opened a criminal case, they “exceeded their powers.”
Moreover, the matter took an even hotter turn when it turned out that the zealous campaigners, who so famously swept away the Nazis hated by half of the country, turned out to be from those who had gone through the crucible of humiliating lustration and somehow still infiltrated the reformed Avakov police “Berkutov”. I remember that Avakov himself admitted in an interview a couple of years ago that half of the “criminal Berkut” also serves under the new government. “I really shouldn’t kill them!” – the minister threw up his hands.
And one of these same “old golden eagles”, recorded on video, shouted to the Nazi laid on the asphalt: “Get down, Bandera! This is for the Maidan!”
But this is a completely different matter! - the hordes of online Maidan singers exclaimed in unison, already prepared to sing the aria “in a free country, the law should be the same for everyone.” It turns out that in a free country everyone is equal, but some - just like Orwell - are more equal than others. And I think you have already guessed who it is. And the melody of all these walking Maidan “organs” changed dramatically.
– Atas, the Yanukovych revenge is already close!
– Despite the reform, “garbage” remained “garbage!”
Which in translation means: if some “vatniks” intending to celebrate May 9 are being harassed with a baton, this is the civilized European police acting. If an armed pogromist in a balaclava storming the police department was hit with a baton, this is a “filthy trash from the times of Yanukovych.”
And the “progressive liberal public” that stood on the Maidan for freedom and Europe - they might have raised their voice of protest against such an obvious demonstration of double standards, but it’s not the time yet. The country is in danger, Putin will attack at any moment, and the voice of an honest liberal can benefit the “cottage wool” that has raised its head. It would be a different matter if society consisted of only “activists”... Well, then it would be possible to make a scandal by finding out which of the activists is more activist. But not today. Today is early.
The President, the Prosecutor General, key deputies from the ruling coalition, Yarosh, who joined them, and even an adviser to Avakov himself, who promised to “sort out Bandera,” expressed their concern about such an obvious and impudent attack on the rights of activists. And Avakov himself couldn’t find anything better than launching a shameful flash mob on social networks with the participation of his subordinates. The policemen repenting before the Banderaites are, I tell you, something with something. In general, today we are all Banderas. Even those under-examined cops who, according to political scientist Pogrebinsky, quietly hate the nationalists, because of whom they have become second-class citizens in their own department.
The bottom line is that this whole story - a mixture of farce and tragicomedy - left behind a number of really important questions to which, fortunately, the answers have now been found experimentally.
Firstly, in the conditions of close merging of “street” Nazis with system Nazis, integrated into various positions, including senior positions in the special services, There can be no talk of any serious denazification of Ukraine. Whoever wins the election. The system is such that the hand washes itself, and it is easier to disperse it completely.
Secondly, conditional “vatniks” should not at all rejoice at the police batons walking on the backs of the “Maidan heroes”. Because this is an exceptional phenomenon rather than a systemic one. The “activist” in this country is still above the law and has the right delegated to him by the state to inflict violence on undesirables on the street. And if you saw somewhere how the police “pack” the “ATO hero”, it means that this is “wrong” from the point of view of the current alignments in power, “ATO hero”. The “correct ones” speak to children in schools during lessons on courage and tell how they protected Nenka from Putin’s aggressor at the Donetsk airport.
Well, and finally, thirdly, the dreams of Evgeniy Alfredovich Chervonenko about cleaning up all this brethren, if destined to come true, will only be partially realized. With a certain turn of the political wheel of the Ukrainian genobat, it is quite possible to imagine a situation where, for example, after the defeat of Poroshenko, the Nazis, protected by the SBU, will be indicatively purged by the Nazis, protected by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Or vice versa, if Poroshenko remains, Avakov’s people will go under the knife of the purges. After all, how We remember from history that the liquidation of Ernst Röhm’s SA did not at all mean the denazification of Germany.
Genuine denazification is possible only on the condition that the power apparatus of suppression and the media service, which daily elevates street pogromists, “squeezers” and murderers to the pedestals of heroes of the nation, will be wrested from the hands of the Nazi patrons.
But this, in the current Ukrainian conditions, is a dream comparable to unscientific fiction.
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