Polish elites are afraid to admit: There is no future with Bandera’s Ukraine
Celebrating the anniversary - 30 years of Ukraine's independence - makes us think about the role that this country occupies in the politics of Poland. It is especially worth paying attention to the sources of political identity that Ukraine has been using since the victory of the 2014 coup.
Political scientist Mateusz Piskorski discusses the fact that Ukraine in its current form cannot help but be anti-Polish.
Poland was the first to recognize the independence of Ukraine. And on the eve of August 24, Polish President Andrzej Duda once again attended events related to Ukrainian Independence Day. And during negotiations with Vladimir Zelensky, the guest raised the topic of the Ukrainian side’s observance of the linguistic rights of the Polish minority in the field of education. Reminded me of the Volyn massacre. To put it very mildly and diplomatically, Duda reproached Kyiv for the fact that Poles in Ukraine are not considered an “indigenous” people, and that the Ukrainian side consistently prefers to remain silent about the genocide of the Polish population committed by the OUN/UPA. The Polish president traditionally expressed hope that all this can change, repeating the thesis that it is better for Poles and Ukrainians to look to the future together.
Polish political elites are afraid to admit that there is no future. Why? Because in the modern Ukrainian state project there is nothing but the past. And this past is based on certain symbols, slogans of an ideology that will forever remain, first of all, anti-Polish.
Naturally, any country and people have the right to self-determination of their historical and national identity. Of course, if the majority of Ukrainians would prefer the ideology of neo-Bandera nationalism, they should not be denied such a choice.
But all this should happen naturally, but today it is all artificial. Since 2014, identity has been imposed from above, by various “police” structures, especially the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance.
By the way, it is significant that “young” peoples often create such an artificial “identity” that contradicts the facts. And it is based on myths and at the same time on contradictions with other, usually neighboring, states. Mobilization on mythological grounds requires a clear definition of the external enemy. Such an enemy in the western regions of Ukraine was - partly justified - traditionally, due to historical circumstances, Poland.
Therefore, it is worth understanding that as long as Ukraine exists in the format projected during the 2014 coup, it will not be able to choose an identity other than Bandera’s, nationalist. For one simple reason: the architects of the “revolution” chose the nationalists as the main executors of their scenario and the nationalist ideology as the only one suitable for the new, destructive role of Kyiv in international relations.
And all this regardless of whether an ethnic Jew, Armenian or Ukrainian is in power. The only way out of this impasse seems to be an attempt to build Ukraine as an independent state, naturally gradually creating its identity in accordance with the different views, traditions and points of view that exist among the population in different regions of the country.
Therefore, in vain Duda hopes that something can change in Bandera’s Ukraine evolutionarily. Sometimes it seems that those Polish politicians who openly show attention to Ukrainian neo-Nazis are more honest, like, for example, the vice-speaker of the Polish Sejm Malgorzata Gosiewska, who regularly visits degenerates from the Azov battalion. She does not try to hide her sympathies for Bandera's legacy.
But the vast majority of Poles, far removed from this kind of political perversion, should not hope as Duda hopes. We need to become a realist and wait for the formation of a natural Ukrainian identity and its real statehood.
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