He has never been their president
In New York, the place of location of the UN, people like to say: “UN is a place where leaders who oppose freedom of speech want to be heard.”
Ukrainian President is not an exception.
During his visit to the UN he wanted to be heard.
And seen.
As in case with photo session with the President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle.
Yanukovych even had to patiently wait in line in order to be in one of the pictures. Diplomatic protocol provided him with such level of humility that the President rarely shows to the citizens of his own country. Recently, he has rarely had an opportunity to appear before the head of a Western state, and therefore he made sure to use this one.
As well as the opportunity to freely express his opinion about the world and its security from the UN podium, while in his homecountry the parliament completely controlled by his party makes free expression of though for the rest of the Ukrainians nearly impossible due to the adoption of the law on defamation.
Ukrainian Diaspora in America noticed that and came to New York for a demonstration.
The recent attack on freedom of speech is not the only issue that bothers local Ukrainians and defines their attitude towards the current Ukrainian President. Actually now it is very difficult to imagine what the President might do to make Diaspora like him.
Perhaps, only if he resigns.
Yanukovych is not the kind of person the local Ukrainian community could picture as the head of their nation.
He has never been a person of such kind.
This is because emigrants are a special type of patriots. When it comes to love for their native land, they rarely agree to anything other than beautiful, perfect image of the land which gave birth to them. The memory of the daily challenges and suffering back in that land eventually becomes blurry leaving just the image of the garden with cherry blossom near a house, of the kind and hardworking people, who respect one another and speak their language.
It is a nice image, even if it only exists in someone’s imagination.
For some reason, they think that the President does not suit that image. And despite all the efforts of local Ukrainian Ambassadors to appease them and their community leaders their attitude remains the same.
In 2005 all of them decisively voted against this President, they came here in record numbers, New York cops had to stop the traffic on the streets so that all the excited and exalted Yukis could vote if they wanted to do it so badly.
Now they came to New York in order to protest against the person, whose ruling (the way they see it) made their home country more isolated, where crime became organized, where democratic freedoms are disregarded, and where political persecution is again a part of the reality. They came to protest against the man, who, in their opinion, distorts the image of their native land, which is so dear to them even despite the fact that it is so poor.
They also came to state another fact – seven years ago they were right.
