Test for civil courage and maturity

Memorial week is nearing its climax – on Saturday Ukrainian people will pay tribute to the victims of famines and political repressions in Ukraine. On that day hundreds of candles will be lit on windowsills of Ukrainian homes nationwide. In the nine years since Mace launched this living initiative through the newspaper Den it became national. Despite the fact that the previous government tried to assign it to its accomplishments, and the current government would rather avoid this action. (On November 21 there was no announcement about participation of the head of the state in Saturday’s commemoration events on his website. The Memorial Week has almost passed without much involvement of government.)

For the fourth time before the anniversary of the Holodomor-genocide of 1932-33 Den announces the winner of James Mace Civic Stand Prize. (In the previous years the Prize was awarded to publicist Ihor Losiev, historian Ihor Siundiukov, and publicist Serhii Hrabovsky.) When in 2009 the chief editor of Den founded the award she realized that the attitude to the greatest tragedy in the life of the Ukrainian people is a measure of civic position of journalists, politicians, historians, and philosophers. It is a test for our civic courage and maturity.

This year the Prize was given to Oleksandr PALII, political analyst, Ph.D. in Political Science.

“In his time James Mace showed considerable courage to not only consistently prove in Ukraine that the Holodomor of 1932-33 was a genocide against the Ukrainian people, but also to demand that the world would recognize this tragedy. His efforts led to the moral and even physical persecution against him and other researchers. There have been made many attempts to erase his conclusion that the Holodomor of 1932-33 was an act of genocide by the latest pseudo scientists from the Institute of National Remembrance, the political heirs of the communist ideology, and numerous carriers of the empire virus of ‘the Great and Indivisible.’ Therefore, today it is not easy to be a Ukrainian, a patriot, to write about national wounds, and try to awaken our consciousness. But Oleksandr Palii has power to do this. He has vision of a thoughtful analyst who examines current events through the prism of history. Besides, he has a rare gift of being able to speak in simple words about the most important things, he is able to awaken minds and reach the hearts of his readers with the help of his sharp pen,” said Natalia DZIUBENKO-MACE to Den on the phone because due to personal circumstances could not be present in person at the event.

“I looked through the article about Oleksandr Palii on Ukrainian Wikipedia,” said Serhii HRABOVSKY. “At first I got genuinely upset but then I was incredibly pleased. To make my emotions more clear to the audience (because not everyone has stable access to the Internet) I want to quote some things from this article with all its ideological blunders: ‘Oleksandr Palii (born on October 7, 1974 in Cherkasy oblast) is a Ukrainian expert-politologist, political consultant. In his ideas and principles is guided by Ukrainian nationalist rhetoric and Western liberal view of Soviet and post-Soviet reality. Palii is a supporter of market relations, civil society, freedom of speech, and protection of human rights. He is an adept of Western powers in Ukraine, hates all that is Soviet and Russian, while sincerely believes that all the troubles of the Ukrainian people are caused by Moscow’s intrigues. Palii has obvious and hidden support from governmental and non-governmental organizations of Western Europe and the United States.’

“Even the fact that in this text the author used the word ‘proiski’ (Russian for intrigues) instead of Ukrainian word that has the same meaning, indicates where the wind is blowing,” said Hrabovsky. “Well, constant invectives against Western liberalism and nationalism (Ukrainian, of course, as specifically noted), democracy, and civil society prove that Oleksandr Palii touched a sore spot of Kremlin, KGB, and its satellites in Ukraine. What can I say? Keep up the good work! And do not pay attention to the nonsense. They wrote even worse things about James Mace. And the both young and mature age of the researcher is a guarantee that he will write even more things that would be interesting and useful to the readers. The main thing here is to continue to learn, to engage in thorough self-development, and not to lose the taste for the new things. Then, hopefully, James Mace Prize will become only a milestone on the way to other socially significant distinctions. Because even the ‘sworn friends’ from Wikipedia have to acknowledge the great scientific, popular-science (we should not forget this vital genre!), and journalistic achievement of Oleksandr Palii.”