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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

A Prisoner of Zenda?

13 November, 2012 - 00:00

Reading the news in this country, one sometimes get the impression that he is living in Anthony Hope's mythical Ruritania, a land of comic opera, where heroes are given laurels in the absence of any visible signs of heroism and everyone in authority assures everyone not that everything is all right, while the huddled masses make their way to the bazaar to sell cigarettes for a five or ten cent markup over what they paid at Kyiv's bazaar of bazaars at the Republic Stadium.

Russia's financial crisis is beginning to hit Ukraine, and people are lining up to change their soon to be devalued hryvnias for dollars. This should indicate that the gun-toting (remember Chechnya?) fraternal neighbor to the northeast is not the best of role models. But don't bet on those in power getting the message. They are doing quite well, thank you. And they have adopted the post-Soviet oligarchic role-model unchanged from where it was first worked out — somewhere to the northeast.

One cannot help but recall Gertrude Stein looking out at Oakland, California: "But there's no there there." Valery Khmelko's remarks on the lack of a political nation and the difficulty of forming it bring to mind the lack of a here here. Making a common here for the people who live here ought to have been the first order of business for independent Ukraine. After all, it was at the first session of the Italian Parliament that they said, "We've created Italy, now we have to create Italians." When will they start creating citizens of Ukraine? One can disagree with the formula offered by, say, Slava Stetsko, but at least she is trying.

 

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