A sinful state

“Let shells burst around and machineguns fire, but you must write,” our military journalism instructors, who had wartime experience, used to say. “Take an assault rifle only if the editorial office is bombed out.” None of us thought that we would have ever to recall a war museum phrase, let alone apply it to the unthinkable circumstances of street fighting in our own country, in its beautiful capital which had already seen the nightmares of bloody clashes, where the mournful monuments to the killed were standing like a warning. Neither the city’s European image nor the lessons of history could curb outright aggressiveness. Nor were the authorities and the public brought to their senses by thousands of articles and expert opinions published in the media and intended for those who make and influence decisions. Keenly aware of your powerlessness, you no longer believe it is worthwhile to make any efforts to appeal to reason. It is hard to analyze what has happened, when this country’s top leaders decided to “hustle old history’s horse” and “give the floor to Comrade Mauser” alone [quotes from Vladimir Mayakovsky’s “Left March.” – Ed.]. But it is still harder to keep silent. Silence produces monsters and unforgivable sins which will be eating away at the soul until confession purifies it. Therefore, we must speak up.

There are many factors that caused Ukraine’s ongoing 21st-century tragedy, as is true of any major disaster, where a badly-tightened screw is on a mortal line next to the mistake of an experienced captain and a sudden gust of wind. So, to begin with, let us separate stupidity of the system’s cogs from spontaneous manifestations and criminal negligence of those standing at the wheel. We do not know so far the final price of resolving the institutional and political crisis that has penetrated every nook and cranny of this country. We are only trying to find an answer to the question why the worst has happened – people died – and why whoever raises his or her voice in defense of Ukraine, human rights and freedoms, gets an armed rebuff that surpasses in cruelty what happened on Beijing’s Tiananmen Square a quarter of a century ago.

MAXIMUM ALLOWABLE CONCENTRATION OF POWER

In 1905, Mr. Sergei Witte, one of the Russian Empire’s most influential ministers, not yet a count at the time, wrote in his diary: “Remaining an advocate of monarchy deep in my heart, I think it should be limited… Let the tsar reign and the people rule in the empire.” The idea was implemented in an altogether different empire. Before the beginning of World War One, George V, brother of Nicholas II, delegated practically all his powers to rule the United Kingdom to parliament and the Cabinet of Ministers, still retaining not only the throne, but also a great empire. Throughout the 20th century European states established, each in its own way, a balance of power between monarchs, governments, parliaments, the opposition, and society. The ones that failed to do so received tremendous social shocks associated with the names of dictators Adolf Hitler, Francisco Franco, Benito Mussolini, Antonio Salazar, Miklos Horthy, Nicolae Ceausescu, and Slobodan Milosevic.

The fourth Ukrainian president sided with them on February 18, 2014. He even outstripped Aleksandr Lukashenko in terms of bloodshed. The loudmouthed Belarusian president has not linked his name with any victims of the regime in the 20 years of authoritarian rule – by all accounts, only a few disappeared politicians and journalists are on his conscience. But let us not focus on personalities. The current system of government in Ukraine, conceived as a chain of command, has proved dangerous – like a brakeless tram on a slope. This was established collectively on instructions from above. Judges, MPs, administrators, oligarchs, officials, the military and civilians, spin masters, and musicians, and many others were involved in this. They assigned society the role of humble passengers, and we agreed to take seats behind a reckless driver. So here we are… Standing on the verge of an abyss, we can endlessly put the blame on each other, as the government and the opposition do, but this will not change the prospects and depth of the overall fall. Yet there was and still is a way out. Sharing out his powers, the British monarch won himself longevity and respect, while his Russian brother, who had not wished to share out, had to be a butcher, a victim, and the cause of the death of his own family, not to mention the empire. What prevents us from using the 100-year-old British experience is again the concentration of power. But tear gas sprayed into an MP’s face and a stun grenade shock triggers the self-preservation instinct, until now dormant on the parliamentary bench. Nobody in this country is authorized or willing to deconcentrate power, even though it is a not so difficult job to move the cargo on the deck during a storm so that the ship does not capsize. Instead of a seeing the crew work, we hear the cries: let the sewn wind subside first…

ORIENTAL PERFIDY AND OCCIDENTAL SANCTIMONY

The Ukrainian terrible breakdown occurred here, in the very heart of the capital, where we had been recently going to receive guests from all over the world and teaching our unsmiling policemen to behave courteously, say a few phrases in English, and do “Cheese!” But it turned out 18 months later that they had learned other, far from gentlemanly, things.

In the three months of the crisis, it has been a general trend to write about the Russian scenario of the events and their friendly assistance in the shape of riot police personnel and gear. I will not dwell again on what has not been proved. But still, a bird may be known by its song… Competent analysts used to predict when Putin would order seizing the Maidan, how much this would cost, what ultimatums and to whom he had issued under the light of the Olympic Flame. But what really matters is not rumors and conjectures. The very scenario of the national tragedy is easily recognizable by its cruelty and the way it was carried out. The Ukrainian president was supported according to Syrian plan. The rotten regime and the ruler, who had lost prestige, were to receive material assistance and protection on the international level. The way public opinion was crushed resembles the way it was done in Chechnya. The law-enforcement services, in cahoots with criminals, form the bulwark of the authorities. It is not a conjecture – this is really occurring before our eyes. The impudence of political bosses and criminals, who are sure of being able to go unpunished, makes one think of an essential cover from the East.

The West showed an extremely calm attitude to the Kyiv events. Politicians would visit the Maidan, only to feast their eyes on the pastoral pictures of peaceful tents and a boiling borsch. Many of them never understood until February 18 that what was boiling on the camp fire was not borsch but “outraged minds.” Backstage talks on the different sides of Ukraine resulted in big troubles for all. The world saw the uniform of an invader under the peacemaking guise of Russia. The facade of a common European house was hiding rooms of different classes and a differentiated, with due account of status, morality. Zbigniew Brzezinski, whose expert opinions are quite credible, says that if covert agreements with Putin become overt, tensions will run high and there will be a most unpleasant situation.

It is not only Brzezinski who believes that violence in Kyiv erupted due to passivity of EU commissioners and excessive activity of Russia’s emissaries. This is also the opinion of Visegrad Group leaders who have firsthand knowledge of Moscow’s perfidy and treachery. But public opinion and the press there and in the United Kingdom are putting the blame for dozens of the killed and hundreds of the wounded not only on the Yanukovych-Putin alliance, but also on the EU which failed to protect its followers in Ukraine.

THEY ADDED FUEL TO THE FIRE

The press can never be guilty of murders. Journalists will only shoot if editorial offices have been ruined. But the media can fuel a conflict and incite to violence. The faces of some odious Kremlin propagandists and their not so well known Ukrainian counterparts steeped in malice and lies are clearly visible through the blood on Kyiv’s sidewalks, the smoke and fire. “When propaganda is such as that of Dmitry Kiseliov, it is ideal, for it has nothing to do with reality,” Russian political scientist Gleb Pavlovsky, known for his personal loyalty to Putin, said on this occasion. A propaganda torn away from reality made it possible to shroud the vast areas of Ukraine with poisonous smoke and further enflame the already wild passions. Lies can never be passive. They disorient people and intensify contradictions between the blind and the sighted. The blind begin to believe that they can see, while the sighted cease to believe in what they saw with their own eyes. Chaos in consciousness is the chief goal of propagandistic terror.

SETTLEMENT AS STATE MANAGEMENT

Even if we assume that all the Kyivites on the barricades are terrorists, we will still see flagrant non-professionalism of the police force. Instead of protection of life of civilians, we saw mass-scale a mopping-up and a sea of blood. It is not only the police that have lost knowledge, experience, responsibility, and the ability to observe the letter and the spirit of laws. Incompetence has become the dominant feature of the entire governmental life – from the topmost officials who are hiding God knows where in the hour of a national catastrophe to the village council chairman who does not know how to word a simple official paper. In the past three years, districts, regions, and the entire state have been run by people who make decisions on the basis of their personal idea of standards and have forced the law-enforcement system to serve separate groups. These people are not interested in sociology, statistics, or modern-day experience in public administration. The Day has more than once written about this, calling for giving up the use of “flair” and “sorting out” instead of the true instruments of management. “Flair” failed to warn that society was in a dangerous tension which some people were only heightening with their incredible behavior instead of easing it. When a farmer does not know his land, he will lose the crop. Likewise, a politician who does not know the history of his country, his nation’s ideals, sentiments and capabilities, will not only lose himself, but will also ruin all the others.

In the days when the entire world was watching closely the developments in Ukraine, poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko was glued to a TV screen in the faraway America, where he had undergone serious surgery. Overcoming a physical and spiritual pain, he wrote a few poetic lines to the Ukrainians on the night of February 19, 2014. I think they are an indispensable condition for reconciliation in this country:

“State, be human! Do not avenge yourself but pacify all the others. Stand up above ambitions and the age, and, together with Yulia, forgive. We will all manage to be part of Europe – this was decided in heavens. But think, state, a little: are you not sinful of something?

The whole point is that the state should be able to heed words of wisdom. Otherwise, we must build a new one – the one that will heed.