ALL POWER TO YOUTH!
Last week seemed to have started earlier than the calendar showed. An event that could well symbolize it took place in its middle. I mean “Energy” Company and its plan to attract billions of dollars in investment. It appears in Ukraine at certain periods, almost like Haley’s Comet (we saw the company last about two years ago), promising mountains of gold and then disappearing. The trouble is that many believe in its plans, and worst of all, so do their authors. This was evident from a statement made by Bozhenar, finally out of prison. Everyone thought he was an innocent victim of a dirty political game. But no, he said his imprisonment was the result of a conspiracy involving foreign secret services, because other countries envied his brilliant plans aimed at making Ukraine a superpower. Those familiar with Thomas More’s Utopia and Tomasso Campanella’s City of the Sun should be happy that Mr. Bozhenar’s ideas were never translated into life.
And so the last week’s slogan should be something like “Life is Utopia.” Natalia Vitrenko demanded that she be made responsible for forming the Cabinet. She also promised never to let nationalist repatriate Slava Stetsko read out the Oath in Parliament (she will as the oldest MP) and the fact that such was a constitutional proviso did not seem to matter to the Progressive Socialist leader.
It was not difficult to find a whipping boy after the IMF refused the stand-by credit. Finance Minister Ihor Mitiukov who, in the President’s words, “will not find it easy to just leave the Cabinet.” It would be understandable if the budget deficit depended on him, but... Yevhen Kushnariov made a most surprising statement, commenting on the Cabinet - particularly Pavlo Lazarenko’s - mistakes and domestic government bonds: “Despite considerable budget returns, we have to give away all this increment as interest on loans.” Not being a mathematician, this author has always believed that a part is less than the whole, which appears to be wrong.
Seriously, the past week vividly demonstrated the horror of power being wielded by the stagnant generation. No matter what political camp they belong to, these people are very like one another. They all consider (openly or secretly) that the economy can be given orders and must obey them and that society is an anthill. They are incapable of recognizing any rules and they have turned political play into a cheap farce but with victims and blood. They have made our daily life a nightmare. Worst of all, these people of the 1970s are physically young, meaning that long years will pass before they do.
