My Jewish Ukrainian colleague irrupted into my office and told me in a suddenly heavy Ukrainian accent that the events in Ukraine make her feel like her heart has been wrenched out of her chest. The worst part, she says, is seeing how indifferent everybody around her is to this horrible situation. So I promised her I would write about this so that at least my readers know what is happening. These are some highlights from my long conversation with my colleague.
. . . At this point, the reason why people in Ukraine are protesting in the streets has nothing to do with the EU, Russia, or anything external to the country. People are objecting to the new legislation that prohibits peaceful gatherings of protesters. This is the basic democratic right that is being trampled by the President of Ukraine, the convicted rapist Yanukovich. Many people have been jailed for protesting already, so now the goal of their comrades in the streets is to liberate them.
. . . The special forces are beating and torturing peaceful protesters. Their methods include stripping the protesters naked and leaving them in the woods. The weather in Ukraine is far below freezing.
. . . Over a hundred people have been reported missing and nobody knows what happened to them.
. . . The special forces shoot plastic bullets into protesters’ faces, aiming to hit them in the eye. Dozens, maybe hundreds of protesters, have lost their eye-sight but they can’t go to a hospital because there are regular patrols of the hospitals checking for people who are there getting for injuries received at the hands of the police.
. . . A 72-year-old scrawny little man was arrested for attacking a group commandos with “dangerous weapons.” His dangerous weapons consisted of a loaf of bread, a piece of salo, and a roll of toilet paper.
. . . The protesters’ collectively adopted rule is that there will be no alcohol involved in the protests. But the special forces guys drink like they’ve been paid to do it. Which they probably have. So every morning begins for the protesters with cleaning the public squares where they gather from mountains of empty vodka bottle and pools of vomit left by the defenders of law and order.
. . . Russian media are engaging in a shameful xenophobic propaganda campaign that makes seemingly normal people writhe in the grip of a racist hysteria. From the intensity of their rage, you’d think we were the ones to keep them as our colony for 300+ years, prohibiting their language and destroying their literature and culture. The argument that is put forward in Russia is that Ukrainians are lazy degenerates. If you’ve done any post-colonial studies, you will recognize this argument.
. . . The so-called Western democracies care about nothing but oil. They will tolerate any dictator and allow him to inflict anything he wants on his own and neighboring countries as long as he gives them their fix of this drug.
Clarissa's Blog 
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
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This is very sad and makes my heart hurt. I’m glad you are posting about it. People seem to think it’s either inconsequential or minor. And this is a major issue.
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Everybody in Europe has protested peacefully and a lot. In Spain, people have been protesting by the million for years. And nobody shoots them in the face for that. Why can’t Ukraine have basic democratic freedoms? Because they annoy Putin?
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I have no words for how horrible the situation is.
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The justification that Ukrainians are lazy degenerates doesn’t hold water because this is not the appropriate response to laziness. They don’t hate laziness, they hate Ukrainians.
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Good point. 🙂
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What do you think of this http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/29/ukraine-fascists-oligarchs-eu-nato-expansion and what do you think of the US sanctions which are apparently in preparation?
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The article is disgusting Russian propaganda. This is what one hears verbatim on the Russian state TV channels. And as a result, Russians say very openly that every Ukrainian is a Nazi. My mother had this said to her by seemingly normal people from Russia like it was a well-known fact that did not require even a pause for thought.
I hate The Guardian.
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Very interesting — what do you think of the US sanction plan?
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Frankly, I’m disgusted. The sanctions don’t distinguish between protesters and state leaders. This sounds like, “Shut up and stop causing a disturbance. As long as everything looks peaceful, we don’t care what else happens in the region.”
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Do you see differences between this situation and others, e.g. South Africa back in the day? (I have no agenda with this question, I am just curious.)
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I’m not that familiar with South Africa. But what I do see is that all of this talk about the US wanting to promote democracy in other countries once again turns out to be just talk.
Also, I was about to write to you to remind you about the letter. The yearly report will have to be submitted soon.
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I know, I have been meaning to write you to strategize about, it is on my list for this week. Should have been before and I have been having issues about how to frame. Creating it for purposes of annual as opposed to tenure review makes it easier.
ZA, the divest movement was about stopping being close economic ally of that government and ruling class. ZA is rich so there were many investments in it, much cooperation.
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Thanks for the interesting report re Ukraine. Sadly, the US press has never been much on reporting news from abroad, with the exception of NY Times and Wash Post, and back in the day, The Baltimore Sun. With the meltdown of the newspaper industry, our ignorance of the rest of the world is worse than ever.
By coincidence, I’m reading a Tom Clancy novel (with Mark Greaney), “Command Authority.” Not the sort of thing I usually read, but I needed some light, escapist reading. I was thinking that the outrageous plot and action, with a fictional Russian president named Valeri Volodan, seemed little more than Western propaganda against Russia. Sad to say, your report makes the Tom Clancy fiction sound almost believable.
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In the 1980s the best newspaper for international coverage was the Christian Science Monitor. I don’t remember the Washington Post ever being very good on international coverage as opposed to US foreign policy.
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You are so right! It is very upsetting that Putin seems dedicated to making the worse anti-Russian stereotypes seem true. Although, he doesn’t drink, so that’s a departure from a stereotypical Russian already.
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Happened in Zimbabwe. A friend of mine was caught in a roundup of people stealing from the local diamond mine and was forced to lie in a field overnight, whilst many were beaten.
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The situation has really deteriorated in the past few weeks. Recently I read a background article (written several weeks ago before the violence) which pointed out that there was a split between East and West over whether to go with the EU or the Russian customs union. Hmm – own country vs. satellite state… This violence doesn’t surprise me that much because there’s a heck of a lot of money at stake. I suspect that greed may vie with patriotism here.
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“This violence doesn’t surprise me that much because there’s a heck of a lot of money at stake. ”
– No, not in the least. Yanukovich is getting paid by Putin, but he’s getting that money no matter what. And the people in the streets are defiitely not hoping to get any money out of this.
“Recently I read a background article (written several weeks ago before the violence) which pointed out that there was a split between East and West over whether to go with the EU or the Russian customs union”
– The struggle is not about that and hasn’t been about that for a while. Also, the idea of the East/ West opposition is beloved in Russia but very far from the truth. And we all know why Russia finds this myth so useful and appealing.
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Exactly. Yanukovich wants to stay in power and continue getting paid by Putin. Power and money are what drive most dictators. There aren’t many dictators who forego the opportunity to live like kings, with the finest and most expensive of everything going to themselves, family members, friends, useful cronies. The article I mentioned above intimated that most small business people wanted to go with the EU even if it cost more in fuel prices, etc, to do so, while the companies connected with the government and ruling party wanted to deal with Putin’s cronyist corruption-friendly administration. Most people want independence and democracy, the individuals in power want to keep the power and think that they can subdue the populace and not be held to account. George W. Bush paraphrase: Running the government would be easier if I were dictator.
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