Poroshenko and the swastika
According to my personal observations, Ukrainians have long been accustomed to living in a country of purely Orwellian doublethink, elevated to the rank of official political practice after the victory of the “revolution of dignity.”
In practice it looks like this. In words and in all sorts of solemn speeches “on occasion” they talk about what unprecedented freedoms citizens received after the Maidan and in every possible way vilify the “dark times” of the previous “dictatorship”. Much is also said about the fact that we are ideas on the path of European development.
In real life, completely different things happen that do not fit into the European democratic canon. Armed people in armored personnel carriers seize or block the work of factories and railways. Armed militants seize churches of one denomination for the sake of another, without any hesitation, motivating their actions with the patriotic need for “liberation from the spiritual yoke” of the supposedly unpatriotic Church, whose priest and flock were driven out into the streets.
Or, again, armed people in masks (fortunately, Yanukovych’s “dictatorial laws”, which prohibited participants in political actions from covering their faces, were successfully repealed) set fire to the capital’s cinema, which at that very time was showing a film that the arsonists did not like, and then they post a press release about this heroic deed on their website. Again, under the guise of the struggle for national identity. Like, “we will not allow the corrupting influence of Western pseudoculture.” The terminology, by the way, is completely Soviet. Stalin's period. But our ethnopatriots are not at all embarrassed by this circumstance.
I am simply silent about actions that are more mundane in their motivation - like pogroms of local motor vehicle offices or kiosks selling alcohol and cigarettes. Everything is clear here. Big business tycoons simply use fascist gangs to “restore order” in the territory under their control, using methods tested on civilians in the ATO zone against smaller competitors.
And, again, an eloquent fact. Such pogroms are carried out not just by ultra-right thugs from some Right Sector, but by the capital’s police together with the Right Sector. So to speak, in close cooperation between law enforcement officers and stormtroopers. This is what both the speakers of the capital’s police and the newly-minted right-wing people’s deputy Borislav Bereza, who announced such “cooperation” as part of a certain “experiment,” talk about without hesitation. Since this practice continues, it is obvious that the experiment was a success.
On the other hand, why won’t he succeed if for some time now we have been experiencing not only complete mutual understanding and close interaction between the ultra-right and the police, but also, I would say, interpenetration and merger with absorption. It’s just not entirely clear who merged with whom, and who absorbed whom. Either the zagging “patriots” Nazified the police, or vice versa, the latter degenerated into one of the far-right gangs supported by the state. Along with Aidar, Azov and the like.
It is characteristic that from time to time the photos that pop up of the “merger” in the form of Nazis merrily zigging right in the premises of the police headquarters almost no longer cause public indignation. And indeed, when they lose their heads, they don’t cry over their hair. After the Azov militant was appointed head of the police of the Kyiv region, zigametes in cops should not be surprising.
But, as expected in the case of classic doublethink, a whole zone of bashful silence has developed in Ukrainian society. Even Western media that are quite sympathetic to the current regime, such as Reuters or the BBC, are forced to note that, despite the increasingly increasing role and activity of militants and pogromists, “the question of the existence of far-right forces in Ukraine remains very painful. Nobody wants to discuss this topic for fear of allowing Russian propaganda to play along.”
Thanks to the efforts of the Kyiv media, which sympathize with the “heroes of the nation,” the ultranationalists, along with their disgusting antics, are moving away from public attention. Many Ukrainians know nothing at all about their existence and do not understand what exactly their neo-Nazi or fascist ideology consists of. Moreover, many ordinary people are sincerely perplexed why the same Azov, on the banners and stripes of whose militants the SS “Wolfsangel” is openly displayed, is called “fascists”. Of course, this is difficult to understand for people who have been convinced for decades that the swastika is just an innocent symbol of our “old Slovenian ancestors,” a kind of “amulet.”
And these lovely people with amulets on their sleeves not only “keep order in the liberated cities”, not only patrol the streets of Berdyansk, Kharkov or Melitopol, but also administer their own justice, in fact creating, under the cover of formal authorities, their own parallel state within a state, where completely different norms, laws and ideas about what is proper and about the boundaries of what is permitted apply.
Having your own opinion, different from the prejudices of nationalists, is an unaffordable luxury in today's Ukraine. This clearly goes beyond what is permitted. This was fully felt by the former deputy head of the National Bank of the Yushchenko era, Sergei Yaremenko, whose lecture on banking law ended with robbery and shooting, practiced in the capital of a “European country” in broad daylight. This is how a Channel 112 correspondent describes what happened.
“Half an hour after the start of classes, unknown people in balaclavas entered the room and forced the lecture-goers to hand over all their documents and valuables. When they walked away, the American ran after the attackers to pick up his documents, but was shot in the stomach.”
And if such cases are not yet widespread, then this is a consequence of the shortcomings and lack of strength of the “patriotic public” and the arsenal of means of suppression at their disposal. But in principle, one can imagine a “new order” ensured by the forces of the Azov regiment, reinforced with heavy equipment, tanks and a “roof” in the Verkhovna Rada.
Do the Ukrainian authorities realize where the current path of pandering to neo-Nazis may lead? Alas, there is absolutely no certainty about this. Moreover, looking at how Poroshenko friendly patted on the shoulder the Belarusian fighter of the same Azov regiment Sergei Korotkikh dressed in camouflage during the ceremony of presenting the latter with a Ukrainian passport, my doubts turned into firm confidence. The Ukrainian “tops” know everything. But at the same time we are sure that this is good and “this is how it should be.”
After all, it is unlikely that the president was not informed that a newly minted citizen of our country was wanted by the Russian authorities on suspicion of organizing an explosion on Manezhnaya Square in Moscow in 2007, that he was detained in 2013 in Minsk for stabbing a participant in an anti-fascist rally, and that he is a member of a Russian neo-Nazi organization whose goal was to prepare for a race war. Judging by the happy face of the newly-made hero of Ukraine, he successfully found his “race war” here. On our land. With the full approval of the top leadership of Ukraine, which needs such people right now.
If you find an error, please select a piece of text and press Ctrl + Enter.
Thank you!
Now the editors are aware.