It is shocking to see how naive people can be:
Ha. Ha. Ha. The world wants to believe Ukrainians did it. So the world will believe just that.
Sixteen years and two weeks ago I was standing at a bus stop next to my building in Ukraine, knowing that I was seeing that street, those houses, that city for the very last time. The van was coming to take me away forever. And it couldn’t come soon enough. All I felt was hatred, alienation, disgust. It had been my organizing principle for years to leave. Never to see those people, those streets, never again. It didn’t matter where I’d go or what would happen next. Leaving was the entire point. The only point. There was nothing beyond that.
On the airplane, I was waiting for the moment when the flight attendant would announce that we had crossed the border. And once we heard, “We are now flying over Poland,” I had the distinct thought in my head, “I don’t care if the plane crashes now. As long as my remains don’t lie in that ground, I don’t care about anything else.”
In the first weeks in Canada, people kept dragging me from the roads because I kept walking into traffic. I’d lost the fear of death. The entire goal of my existence had been achieved and I felt the kind of ecstasy that obliterates any concern with life. Since then, of course, I formulated other goals and found other organizing principles, but let me tell you, that was one potent feeling.
I haven’t been back to Ukraine and I’m not planning to go. I’m not in touch with anybody there, not even relatives. I only go back in nightmares, the ones where my only concern is that I will not be able to escape before I die. In those nightmares, I desperately try to cross a border, any border, just to make sure I don’t get buried in the ground I hate so much.
I’ve written about all this many times before. None of this is new to anybody. (Here is one post, for instance. And here is another. And one more.) But my naïveté is as shocking to myself as anybody else’s. I honestly hoped that this personal history – which is pretty bizarre as immigrant histories go – would prevent people from dismissing me with the condescending, “Oh, who cares what you say when you are so obviously blinded by irrational patriotism.” But that didn’t happen.
It is very disturbing to be so misunderstood. And so naive. People have been so infected by patriotism that they project it onto everything and everybody, and evidence be damned. Given that the nation-state is dying, this intense attachment to a corpse doesn’t bode well for the planet’s future. What won’t people do to keep it around?
Clarissa's Blog 
Reblogged this on Oyia Brown.
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Well, would you then care to explain why you care about what is happening in Ukraine at all? And why have you chosen the pro-Ukrainian side of the conflict? I am not saying that pro-Ukrainian side is wrong or that you should have chosen some other position, but I am just inquiring about how you see the reasons?
Why exactly does it offend you that I, for example, am capable of considering various scenarios, including those in which Ukrainian side does not look so good? So offended that you suggested I should see “Estonia attacking itself”. That’s fine you said it, I deserve it, but where else could it come from, if not from Ukrainian patriotism?
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“Well, would you then care to explain why you care about what is happening in Ukraine at all?”
– I cry about the Spanish Civil War. Which has been over since 1939. Now that’s the real mystery.
“And why have you chosen the pro-Ukrainian side of the conflict?”
– I answered in a separate post.
‘Why exactly does it offend you that I, for example, am capable of considering various scenarios, including those in which Ukrainian side does not look so good? So offended that you suggested I should see “Estonia attacking itself”.’
– No, the offensive part was this exchange about “never discuss anything with people whose country has been invaded.” Because apparently all such people have to be completely overwrought and babbling incoherently. So I was offended by that. But it’s OK, I’m over it now. 🙂
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In your posts, you do identify as a Ukrainian. You talk about Ukraine as your country. I am interested in the situation there, but I’m also interested in South Sudan, and the Venice and Scotland drives for independence. But you don’t write about those places, you just write extensively about Ukraine. You point out, quite correctly, that the West doesn’t care that much about Ukraine. Why should the West care more about Ukraine than about Sudan, Syria, Nigeria, Uganda, Haiti, etc.? If you are really so divorced from Ukraine, why the exclusive focus on it?
Jan 31 2014 We Suck “And then look at us in the FSU. We discussed Stalinism for all of two seconds and then pretended that USSR didn’t happen at all. It is decidedly unfashionable to mention our history.”
Jan 29 2014 Ukraine on the Brink of Civil War “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.”
Feb 26 2014 Ukraine’s Brown Threat (in comments) “I further insist that the overwhelming majority of FSU immigrants does not manage to inscribe themselves into their new country, no matter how long they live there. Hence, immigration is a terrible mistake for our people in most cases and a severe trauma in the best of cases.”
Feb 26 2014 Timoshenko’s Speech in the Maidan “Ukrainians are not as opposed to public displays of emotion as Russians culturally are. We are known for going from laughter to tears and back in a highly charged, dramatic manner. As I mentioned before, when I go out for dinner with my family, waiters keep asking us if we are OK because our discussions of the weather sound like a quarrel. However, even with all that, Timoshenko sounded way too emotional even for the drama-queenish Ukrainians (of whom I am obviously one.)”
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“In your posts, you do identify as a Ukrainian. You talk about Ukraine as your country.”
– Because I am and it is. These are facts of reality I cannot deny.
“But you don’t write about those places, you just write extensively about Ukraine.”
– Please compare the number of posts I have written about the US with the number of posts I have written about Ukraine.
“Why should the West care more about Ukraine than about Sudan, Syria, Nigeria, Uganda, Haiti, etc.?”
– When did I say it should???
“If you are really so divorced from Ukraine, why the exclusive focus on it?”
– It’s like you are reading a different blog, seriously. Have you not noticed ANY of my posts that don’t have anything to do with Ukraine? Not the posts on Israel, or on Quebec, or on Southern Illinois? You are honestly not seeing them?
The quotes from me are beautiful and highly appreciated. But what is the point of them in this context? I also say “Our Calderon is so much better than your stupid Shakespeare” and refer as “we” to Canada, Quebec, Spain, and the United States, depending on the context.
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And it’s interesting how your comment illustrates exactly the phenomenon I’m discussing in the post. If somebody says ‘I’m Ukrainian’ and “we, Ukrainians’, that person just has to be blindly and passionately in love with the “we.”
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I’m glad the savages in the Western Ukraine are being taught a lesson. Long live the Donetsk People’s Republic!
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