A time to be silent and a time to speak
In the two months of the government’s resistance to people’s will, shadows of the forgotten ancestors have mirrored in the windows of Kyiv streets. The times of the Pereiaslav Treaty, the free Cossack spirit, the Koliivshchyna peasant rebellion, and the Kruty tragedy have pressed into a lump of present-day anxieties, hopes, and doubts. This lump tickles the throat like Chernobyl dust and causes the eyes to smart with the tears of Baturyn despair – it is our reflection on Ukraine. What kind of future awaits our fatherland? This question has frozen on the lips of millions. And another, a conformist but equally honest, question: what awaits us?
A warm winter has stepped back in front of the shields in the hands of the camouflaged men who are standing like wall against similar people in plain clothes. The easterly wind has brought on cold. There are dead bodies on Kyiv’s snow-white roads. What is going on in the city seems to be a surreal picture or at least a modern-day setting for a film being made after Bulgakov’s novels. In reality, the silhouettes of casualties on the snow are outlines of the scenes of an ongoing, not enacted, civil war.
What forces, people, and ideas have caused a tragedy, adding another bloody page to our history of struggle? Undoubtedly, this will trigger arguments about who started all this but will still remain pointless like any attempt to find a relationship between a human life and a political expediency. This is not just a statement but the experience of our civilization since the times of Nero, when his ideological opponent Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucanus) opened his veins in protest against civil war and despotism. It is not the gods and fate but treachery and greed that cause upheavals, the pre-Christian-era poet said. We know only too well how many times his apprehensions have come true in the past two thousand years. To betray means to flout the duty, violate an oath, go back on a promise, and abuse trust. The chain of rapid events that have turned a peaceful Kyiv into a military fortress allows us to speak about high treason and apostasy without too much bombast. It is just the way people do things today.
Our establishment, i.e., people who hold the office of minister or governor, 450 members of parliament, the former presidents, NGO heads and trade union leaders, i.e., thousands of persons who can and must influence the developments in this country, has vanished out of sight for two months. Some may have been spotted at a press conference, on a barricade, or in a TV program, but, apart from Vitali Klitschko, Andrii Parubii, Petro Poroshenko, Arsenii Yatseniuk, Oleh Tiahnybok, and some more politicians, we have seen none of those whom we elected or those who were appointed through no will of ours on the seething streets. The presidential chain of command and its friendly elite have hidden behind Mr. Yanukovych’s back, leaving him to clear by himself the logjams that were heaped up collectively. That was the first and main step to the abyss. For, whatever is being said about concentration of all power in the hands of one man, this does not mean that all sounds should be concentrated in one mouth and the same thought should be in all the brains. The lack of a societal dialogue, which we have felt in all the years of Yanukovych’s rule, has turned into a bridgehead of hostility in the past few months. It is always dangerous when people with sound vocal organs keep silent. Whenever family members stop communicating, this will create an oppressive atmosphere a few days later. In this case, any misdeed or lie is destructive. But, living in a big country with millions of people of different persuasions and levels of wellbeing and culture, we are keeping stony silence, when people open their mouth only to lie and sing their own praises. We seem to have returned to the Lower Paleolithic, where gestures, howling, and growling express emotions, while the first words have no effect, so far, on consciousness. It is an overall catastrophe, no matter which camp we say we belong to.
Emergency measures – the pet subject of some little and big people – will further tighten the noose of silence around the country’s neck. Telecommunication companies will sustain losses, as will small- and medium-scale businesspeople whose cafes and retail outlets will remain without customers. Businesspeople will make full use of the force-majeure item in their contracts, which will justify anything, including mass-scale layoffs. But who will tell me where those free of work and cut off from information will go? Have you noticed how many young people are today on the streets, at the anti- and pro-governmental rallies? What do these guys have in common apart from the age and outerwear? Both categories have no prospects in the future. The system built in Ukraine and the one Putin is offering to Yanukovych will not turn the protesters into masters of their own lives, nor will it suit agents-provocateurs. The state of emergency will only inspire in them a hope to beat the blues and make it romantic to throw grenades. For every warrior believes he serves a right cause. Ask all the courageous Palestinians, Chechens, Serbs, and Somalis who hold M-16s and AK-47s in their hands – they will say they are patriots. God forbid adding Ukrainians to this list.
The world will views us as savages, and it is only Robert Mugabe in the remote Zimbabwe to whom Mr. Azarov, already barred from the Davos forum, will be able to explain “the government’s plans.” Those who hide corpses in the closet will have to testify in a place other than Davos.
The peace in and the integrity of this country depends on whether we will manage to force the authorities and politicians to speak to the people and ourselves to speak to each other. Dozens of civic organizations and people who are concerned about the destiny of Ukraine are appealing now to the protesters and the authorities. Crimean Tatars are heading for the Maidan, Jewish communities are speaking out to stop the bloodshed, and former security chiefs are calling on their colleagues to obey laws… The domestic and international reaction to violence in Kyiv is mounting. But, as before, Viktor Yanukovych remains unperturbed. He has found himself among the rulers who refuse to follow common sense and are guided by the considerations and motives that we do not know. There have been instances of this kind in history. About 150 years ago, King Ludwig II of Bavaria rolled in luxury and kept building palaces for himself – one richer than another. The king had a “fairyland forest” planted next to the castles, where peacocks and outlandish beasts were to roam and manmade rivers were to run. The king would fire the ministers who dared slash his mindless expenses. But one day, when there was not a penny left in Bavaria’s coffers, courtiers announced that their king was insane. They mustered enough courage to do so during absolutism. The Russian autocrat Nicholas II, a better known figure in our history, was also loath to deny himself whims and opportunities. Was it so difficult for him to heed his populace and wise people in the empire? Then, maybe, there would have been no Soviet power… In today’s civilization, such insensibility to public demands occurs very seldom – usually in the faraway backward countries. What has happened to us if, after so many tuxedoed forums and champagne chats about a radiant future, we have ended up in medieval dirt with an intent to burn and kill? Maybe, because many of us were all too ready to kowtow to the boss and fulfill any of his lordly desires? So here is the result – leaders with tied-up mouths and uniformed servants. High-ranking lackeys will do whatever your tell them to.
But, in the face of a common danger, it is time to shake off the bureaucrat-style stupor. There are several options to avert a war and ride out the crisis. Those who suggest them are competent specialists rather than oppositionists or Maidan activists. Is it really impossible to muster courage and force the rulers to consider these documents and begin to speak with the people? The populace themselves cannot do this because if they burst into palaces, they will not be begging the masters just to sit aside. And it is high time for those who have access to top offices and chambers to ponder over their moral duties. Lift your or his eyelids, open the eyes! Speak up – not only with the opposition in the person of a parliamentary faction leader, but also with Right Sector representatives. Everybody must speak except for grenades and sniper rifles. Let the latter sink in silence.
