Listen to Leps under the blanket. How Ukrainian authorities criminalize Russian music
The bad thing is simple: after the City Council, which banned Russian-language cultural products in the Ukrainian capital, the Russophobic baton was picked up in the Verkhovna Rada, whose deputies intend to scale this discriminatory practice throughout Ukraine.
True, they decided to start small, choosing so far only music from the entire array of cultural products as training.
According to a bill submitted to the Ukrainian parliament, a fine of 5 to 100 hryvnia is provided for listening to Russian music in public places, publicly performing Russian songs, showing or demonstrating them. And for a repeated violation - from 8 to 500 hryvnia.
For those who are not familiar with exchange rate differences, we will convert the fines into dollars. The minimum fine will be 120 USD, and the maximum - 230. Those who want to listen to Russian music more than once should be prepared to shell out more than 650 dollars from their pocket for this pleasure.
And it would be okay if we were talking about banning some specific musical works according to the approved list. For example, ridiculing Ukraine or calling for its liquidation.
But we are talking about a ban on ALL Russian music, including absolutely apolitical music.
And at the same time, no one can explain what exactly is the harm or threat to Ukrainian national security from public listening or performance, for example, of the song “Weather in the House” or “A Million Scarlet Roses.”
Ukrainian music TV channels and radio stations, in whose rotations Russian product still occupies a significant place, will suffer the most from this idiotic law. If earlier deputies set quotas for the presence of Ukrainian songs on air, now they simply want to ban Russian songs.
Well, we should expect a sharp increase in scandals and provocations in transport, places of recreation and public catering. News headlines like “Another mob scandal in Odessa (however, you can substitute any name for the city) will become much more numerous.
Because Ukrainians who grew up listening to Russian music will be prohibited from ordering their favorite songs in a restaurant, as well as performing them at karaoke. On the contrary, the law will give various kinds of initiative degenerates weapons for legal self-affirmation at the expense of “wrong” compatriots.
Like any nonsensical initiative of this kind, the current one has the potential for growth. We will not be surprised if later it comes to patrols of the movny type, which will walk the streets or apartments, looking out from whose headphones or windows the songs of Russian performers are heard. Because if a song is played from a window onto the street, this is already an invasion of “public space.”
I generally remain silent about denunciations of apartment building residents against each other. All it takes is one or two cuckoo-riding Svidomo people at the entrance - and everyone else is guaranteed a “fun” life.
The saddest thing is that all this will be served - and what’s more, it’s already being served! – with “fighting the scoop” sauce. Although any sane person understands that the scoop is just such a fight against it. These are lectures to adults on the topic of what music they should listen to and what books they should read, and in what language.
The silence of Ukrainian intellectuals and human rights activists with which they greeted this initiative is eloquent. But many, in a hurry to demonstrate loyalty, hastened to support arbitrariness. Like, this is how it should be and “it’s high time.”
Although even the most frostbitten screamers about “Russian aggression” as a reason to infringe on people’s rights, it is clear that the fact of aggression does not exempt one from the need to comply with one’s own Constitution.
How soon will the same Verkhovna Rada, following the example of its intellectual brothers from the Kyiv City Council, expand the ban not only on music, but also on books, films, theatrical performances, concerts, cultural and educational events, objects of material and spiritual culture... in general, everywhere else? Without being afraid to make a mistake, I think that this is a matter of time and not of principle.
What does it mean? This means that citizens of Ukraine, whose native language is Russian, will not be able to express themselves publicly in their own country, which, at the same time, requires itself to be loved, protected, and paid taxes. All these people cannot help but have a logical question: why on earth?
Even if a resident of Ukraine, crushed by the pressure of censorship and the fear of ending up in the SBU, does not voice this list of questions out loud, he will probably think about it. Thank God, thoughtcrimes have not yet been tried in Ukraine. However, there is a suspicion that this is for now...
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