New Wave or Dirty Foam?

It was clear, of course, even earlier that the slogan “We hold our elderly in esteem” is not exactly their style. Conversely, they took on the first part of this line from a Soviet song, “Our young have all roads open to them.” Moreover, judging by the vim of their leader and the number of television ads, the “boys and girls” are determined to make their way with elbows, fists, and other hard parts of the body. However, while you can dismiss the promotional clips and the appeals to follow suit and take a lie-detector test as an annoying spin, the leaflet our photo reporter came across in Kyiv’s Podil stirs other feelings.

Under Article 51 of the law On the Elections of People’s Deputies of Ukraine, “pre-election agitation can be conducted in any forms and ways that do not contradict the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.” As we see, this agitation can sometimes assume an absolutely freakish form. Tellingly, this specimen of printed art bears, in full compliance with Article 52 of the law mentioned, the name of the firm that printed it, the KP print shop, the circulation of 15,000 copies, and the name of Klymenko, the executive editor.

Although this fly sheet not only insults any normal well-bred individual but also challenges public morality as a whole, it would be impossible to bring to book the authors of this masterpiece. As to the moral aspect, it looks like this “new” generation not only does not associate the words moral code with builders of communism or a once popular rock-group but is totally unaware of what it is. Worse, the otherwise correct reasoning that it is high time new wave politicians entered the Ukrainian political scene loses any sense against the background of such antics. If this new wave is in fact nothing but dirty foam, if orthodoxy and old stereotypes give way to loutish behavior referred to as political technologies and spin, then do we really need such change?

Yet, it cannot be ruled out that the New Generation has fallen victim to somebody’s cynical provocation and has in fact nothing to do with this picture. In that case the party would do good to adequately react to what happened, i.e., to deny involvement in this leaflet, of course if the group intends to keep a solid footing in grownup politics.