Ukrainians Are Nothing

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Clarissa

February 20, 2014

Here is what I don’t get. When Americans march on Washington, they are the heroes of the Civil Rights movement. When Egyptians come out into the Tahrir square, they are defending democracy. When Spaniards protest in Madrid, they are fighting against global injustice. But when Ukrainians do the exact same thing, they are “nothing but a pawn”:

When I am not being cynical and flip, I do (ineffectually) wish the Ukrainians the best–some maximum of liberty, some minimum of loss of life. It doesn’t mean much, but I don’t really regard them as nothing but a realpolitik pawn.

What do Ukrainians need to do to stop being “nothing?”

Note that when Russians protested in 2011-12 against their own corrupt president just like Ukrainians are protesting against theirs, nobody said Russians were “pawns.” Except Putin who said they were Hillary Clinton’s puppets.

And how obnoxious is the quoted sentence? So much posing, so much self-admiration, and all just to say that Ukrainians are nothing.

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16 responses to “Ukrainians Are Nothing”

David Bellamy

February 20, 2014

This is beyond bizarre. Of course, it is often the case that when one group marches in Washington, other groups dismiss them as unimportant. But I cannot imagine why anyone would consider Ukraine unimportant. If anything, I would have guessed that most Americans would have felt that they were more important than Syrians, etc.

I cannot make sense of it at all.

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xykademiqz

February 20, 2014

Much of the US considers anything east of Berlin to be Russia. The FSU and Russia are viewed as indistinguishable and many people believe that insisting on differences in what people are called, what they want, what their culture and history are, to be about as ridiculous as e.g. Oklahoma insisting it’s not really USA. This also extends onto many countries that were never part of the FSU but were considered part of the FSU influence domain. To a scarily many people, it’s all Russia…

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1. J. Otto Pohl
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  Historically there is a difference between Rossiiskie and Russkie. My ancestors were Rossiiskie nemtsev even though they were never in what is today the RF. Instead they lived in what is today Poland (then it was Congress Poland and the official monarch was the Tsar just as the Tsar was the official monarch of Finland) and western Ukraine (Volhynia). Rossiia as a territorial designation is often used to refer to the territory of the former Russian Empire regardless of natsional’nost. So there are Germans, Koreans, Greeks, and Finns that are and were Rossiiskie, but they could never by Russkie.
  
  http://jpohl.blogspot.com/2005/08/why-it-is-russian-german-and-not.html
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    “Historically there is a difference between Rossiiskie and Russkie. ”
    
    – And the distinction has a huge political repercussions today. Putin is very much into the concept of “Rossiyane” (everybody who lives in the RF) and the Russian nationalists hate the term and prefer “Russkie” meaning “ethnic Russians” (which, in itself, is a very problematic concept.)
    
    ” So there are Germans, Koreans, Greeks, and Finns that are and were Rossiiskie, but they could never by Russkie.”
    
    – Exactly. This is a hugely important distinction.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  “Much of the US considers anything east of Berlin to be Russia.”
  
  – Oh yes. How often do I hear, “Oh, you are Ukrainian! I know somebody who is also from Croatia. Or Romania.” The same people, though, always insist that there is a huge difference between people from Vermont and Texas.
  
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  1. David Bellamy
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    The same people, though, always insist that there is a huge difference between people from Vermont and Texas.
    
    Which, of course, there is!
    
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    1. Clarissa
      
      February 20, 2014
      
      Of course, but it is hardly greater than the differences between Ukrainians and Croatians who don’t even speak the same language.
      
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Pen

February 20, 2014

Unrelated question: Do you know what’s going on in Venezuela? I’ve been hearing bits and pieces, but I haven’t found anything that tells me exactly what’s happening and why. Also, I’ve picked up some information on what’s happening in Ukraine, but very few pieces I read talk about why there’s a revolt. I know it’s something to do with turning down an EU trade agreement, but that’s all I’ve got.

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1. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  In Ukraine, the whole issue started when the president rejected a trade agreement with the EU. People came out into the streets to protest peacefully.
  
  Then the president sent troops and later gangs of criminals to beat the protesters.
  
  Many protesters were jailed.
  
  Then the Parliament declared an amnesty and the protesters started getting released from jail.
  
  The next two weeks were quite peaceful.
  
  But then the President started arresting people who had participated in the protests again.
  
  So the protesters are back in the streets demanding the release of these prisoners. At this point, the struggle is over the right to assemble and protest peacefully in public places.
  
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  1. Clarissa
    
    February 20, 2014
    
    I will be able to speak about Venezuela next week when I prepare my lectures on the subject for my class.
    
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Benoni

February 20, 2014

Ukraine is both poor and has little diplomatic power, so to most people in the west it’s not worth thinking about for longer than ten seconds.

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1. J. Otto Pohl
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  If Ukraine is not worth thinking about where does that leave Africa?
  
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  1. el
    
    February 21, 2014
    
    // If Ukraine is not worth thinking about where does that leave Africa?
    
    How many people think about Africa, in your eyes? In Israel people think about partly refugees and partly illegal African immigrants, who cross from Egypt to Israel in search of a better life, and are concentrated in a poor part of Tel Aviv, against the locals’ wishes. And recently there was a small article of 3 paragraphs at the last page of a paper about some African king coming to Israel with one out of 14 his wives. As a curiosity.
    
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2. Clarissa
  
  February 20, 2014
  
  “Ukraine is both poor and has little diplomatic power, so to most people in the west it’s not worth thinking about for longer than ten seconds.”
  
  – And even that would be fine if people abstained from writing silly blog posts if they can’t be bothered to think, you know?
  
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3. zinemin
  
  February 21, 2014
  
  I don’t think this is true. The Ukraine has been the main topic of German news for days, and the editorial comments I read are not at all cynical or distant about it, but very worried and sympathetic with the protesters. I think in general reading about a government shooting protesters is something that is very upsetting, and if the protesters want things that one can identify with, even more. And that is the case here. Also the entire development is extremely worrying because nobody wants the Ukraine ending up like Belarus. Not that it helps anything, but the people I talk to and the newspapers I read do care.
  
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musteryou

February 20, 2014

As I’m also “nothing”, and have always been so, I can sympathise.

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