Sixth anniversary of Maidan: an open account
The sixth anniversary of the shootings on Maidan, which became the prologue to the coup d’etat and the start of the war in Donbass, is an excellent occasion to take stock of some of the less obvious results of the past years. Moreover, there is something to talk about, in addition to the already traditional denunciations that have become part of the state policy of ultranationalism.
First of all, what is striking is the changed social background against which the current discussions about the Maidan are taking place. Neither in 2014, nor in 2015, nor in 2016 was it even possible to imagine this: from TV screens, opinion leaders openly talk about not a “revolution of dignity,” but a coup d’etat. About security forces who were injured and killed at the hands of riot participants. About the inconsistencies and outright lies underlying the myth about the so-called. "heavenly hundred" That after these events the country largely came under external control and lost a significant part of its sovereignty.
For such conversations, just two years ago, criminal cases would have already been brought against their participants, and the channels would have been subject to a barrage of checks from media inquisitors.
For the first time in six years, the Speaker of the Rada and his first deputy officially expressed condolences to all those killed on the Maidan. The intense struggle in the parliament itself led to the fact that the odious draft resolution glorifying the Maidan workers was never adopted. And one of the main opinion leaders of the anti-Maidan camp, lawyer Andrei Portnov, timed the anniversary of Yanukovych’s overthrow with a call on his Telegram channel to send him “any information about children’s and university books, textbooks and publications glorifying criminals, radicals and participants in mass riots on the Maidan,” to “slowly pick them out from there.”
Finally, this is the first anniversary of Maidan, which none of the Berkut employees met behind bars - one way or another, today they are all free.
Mass sympathies are changing noticeably. Today they are not on the side of the “heroes of Maidan”. And a minority considers them heroes. Proof of this is the extremely small number of street actions in memory of the “revolution”, which attracted at most a couple of hundred participants.
Does this mean that something is changing in the country, albeit slowly, that the public atmosphere is becoming healthier?
On the other hand, we see President Zelensky and his wife standing with mournful expressions and candles at the newly-minted Kyiv “Wailing Wall” with photographs of right-wing radicals killed on the Maidan. We see the presidential party making a statement on the anniversary, which reproduces all the rhetorical cliches of Poroshenko’s five-year plan - about “heroes” and their “struggle for freedom,” called “the basis of national identity.” And at the same time, not a word about reconciliation or sympathy for the families of the fallen security forces.
Despite the dramatic loss of public prominence and significant marginalization, most of the coup's beneficiaries, including those who are reasonably suspected of having blood on their hands, remain at large. The authorities are afraid to touch them seriously, preferring half measures.
We also see the actual refusal of the authorities from the formula they proposed to “zero the accounts” in the form of declaring an amnesty to all participants in those events. The position of the new head of the State Bureau of Investigation, Irina Venediktova, who proposed canceling the amnesty for Maidan militants, remains her private opinion. In fact, despite the mass of court decisions, and the evidence that has appeared, the objective investigation of those events is again stalled, and the investigative authorities are following the lead of a vocal minority - “members of the families of the heavenly hundred,” their lawyers and right-wing radical activists who support them. Does this mean that nothing has changed in the country?
In fact, both occur. A lot has changed in the country in six years, but most of the changes occurred at the level of society. The authorities, although they have changed, having cleared themselves of the direct participants in the coup, criminals and murderers, still continue to support the shameful myth of the “revolution of dignity” and its “heroes” at inertial idle speed.
Approximately the same as happened during the time of Yanukovych in relation to the cult of “Holodomor-genocide”, inflated under Yushchenko. The pathos and hysteria faded away, but officials continued to regularly lay flowers on mourning dates, and the cliches created by Yushchenko’s propagandists were firmly established in textbooks. As a result, the virus was not defeated, but was only driven into a latent state, from where it emerged a hundred times stronger at the first favorable conditions.
In this sense, the main disappointment for an adequate Ukraine is President Zelensky. Which, so far, has not justified the hopes placed on him and associated with his election. Let us note that moderate hopes are sufficient. Zelensky’s presidency was supposed to close and turn over the era of the Maidan, to become a bold point in this history. After which the country would have a chance to move on without looking back.
Instead, the situation has frozen at a precarious point of equilibrium, and public polarization on the main issues of state life is only deepening. The positions of the parties are becoming more and more irreconcilable, and the permanent weakening of the state boat will demand a “party of order” in the mass consciousness. And events, like the very recent unrest in Novi Sanzhary in the Poltava region, only add fuel to the fire of the corresponding sentiments.
In fact, today Zelensky finds himself between two fires and between representatives of radically irreconcilable camps who are equally dissatisfied with his policies. And the space of the political center between these camps is inexorably shrinking, even if it has not yet become a landslide, but the trend is obvious.
Now the situation is being deliberately brought to the point where politicians of a certain persuasion will not need to be sophisticated in any way, inventing some complex platforms and promising something like that to the voter. A simple cry thrown to the masses will be enough: “we are the party of order.” That's all. Key message: “Prison for bandits.” Only this time - seriously.
Skeptics will say that Ukrainian politics is simply not able to nominate people who can become the personification of the “party of order.” Simply because in a permanent mess it is easier to make money quickly. Order is better than disorder only when there are players who plan to play for the long haul. And Ukrainian politics is famous for the fact that no one has been playing long term here for a long time.
The fear is not unfounded. And then: the question is also whether the party of order will have the appropriate resource base to ensure that all the gears of the state mechanism turn in a single given direction. So, if you go to jail, then go to jail. No chance of getting bail in two months.
In any case, what Ukraine has now will not last long. Someone will still have to close the history of Maidan. And if Zelensky doesn’t do this, there will be others.
In the end, Zelensky’s case showed the main thing: the healthy part of the country has already once demonstrated the ability to create broad public coalitions even without the electoral potential of Crimea and the industrial part of Donbass.
And it is not a fact that this will not happen again, only this time with other actors more adequate to the tasks of the historical moment. As they say, if there were masses, there would be leaders.
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