In Defense of Friends
When this writer was researching the Holodomor in the 1980s, suddenly there were two glimmers of light from the black wall of silence that surrounded the topic in the former Soviet Union. In Moscow, the journal Ogonek began with letters to the editor and then articles, but the most unexpected and most welcome was the newspaper Silski visti (Village News) with its column, “We Have Not Lost Hope.” It was a very human exercise in helping those who had lost contact with relatives in World War II to search for and sometimes find them, but then it began to publish inquiries about the still officially non-existent Manmade Famine at a time when they continued to say, “In Moscow they might rap your fingers, but in Kyiv they’ll cut them off.” This was an act of civic courage by the editors of the newspaper in question. This writer did not highlight it overly much in the Commission’s 1988 Report to Congress, for fear of the dubious praise that Dmytro Dontsov, the ideologist of Ukrainian nationalism, once lavished on Mykola Khvyliovyi, the clarion voice of the lost generation of Soviet Ukraine’s literary renaissance of the 1920s. In such cases, the obituary that emigre writer Yevhen Malanchuk wrote about his Soviet Ukrainian colleague Maksym Rylsky echoes eternally: we knew you were with us in our aspirations for Ukraine’s freedom, but we knew that saying so during your lifetime would bring you only woe. Now that you are dead, we can say how much we loved you. In the case of this newspaper, of course, it is closed for the nonce by a court decision but far from dead. I suspect it is ready to come out screaming like a newborn baby when slapped on the butt at delivery.
I did not read the article allegedly stirring up hatred for the Jews. As one who, unfortunately, was not born into the community allegedly offended, I abhor all such stupidity, but one can go to Independence Square and read the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and all kinds other such idiocy to one’s content. Anti-hate laws are inherently very difficult to implement in a free society, which this one says it wants to become. My Jewish friends have been consistent in producing people who say that even those who do not like them have the right to say so, and I stand with my friends. I am always ready to defend myself from whatever charges, as are our Jewish friends, a not altogether inarticulate minority in whatever society they grace with their presence. Clearly, there is something else at play here.
All the media has an institutional interest, Constitutional right, and moral obligation to defend the freedom of the press for all. I may not always agree with every article in the newspaper under attack, but I will die for the right for them to say that they disagree with me. This is not simply a matter for journalists but for all who hold dear their right to know the news and to know what we think about it. We are diverse, but our diversity unites us. Let them attack me. I am always ready to defend myself from those who might think me the most clueless of poetasters. In the Euro-Atlantic world, where Ukraine has said it wants to be, we might disagree but do not close down each other’s media outlets. I will always stand with my brethren and sisters for the people’s right to know various things from various perspectives. That is how this American was raised. That is one of the bases of civil society, without which representative self government cannot function. The civilized world knows this and is watching very, very closely. To call this outside interference, when it is really only the scrutiny of the outside world, taking measure of whether this country is prepared to live up to the rules of those who are where Ukraine says it wants to be, is simply scandalous.
