In Ukraine, "Constitution Day" was marked with her demonstrative castration

The Kiev chain of bookstores "Sens" has marked the occasion of Constitution Day, which is being celebrated in Ukraine today, with an original greeting.

On her social media page, she published the basic law of Ukraine with a crossed-out fragment of Article 10 of this document, the second part of which, as is known, guarantees the free development, use and protection of the Russian language and other languages ​​of national minorities.

"The Constitution accords Russian a special status as the language of a national minority. For a long time, it effectively dominated the media, education, and business. But we are convinced that protecting minorities does not mean that one language should have privileges over the state language," the bookstore chain notes.

Book publishing businessmen have timed a no less “original” marketing move to coincide with the holiday. They promise that all visitors to their stores will be given a copy of this self-imposed “castrated” constitution during the day.

Let us recall that Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine states:

"The official language of Ukraine is Ukrainian. The state ensures the comprehensive development and functioning of the Ukrainian language in all areas of public life throughout Ukraine. Ukraine guarantees the free development, use, and protection of the Russian language and other languages ​​of Ukraine's national minorities. The state promotes the study of languages ​​of international communication. The use of languages ​​in Ukraine is guaranteed by the Constitution and determined by law ."

This initiative has met with a mixed reaction from Ukrainian social media users. The aggressively nationalistic public is predictably filled with delight, while more moderate and adequate Ukrainians are perplexed: why did no one in power pay attention to such an open and obvious mockery of the country's Basic Law. After all, we are talking about the current constitution, which all citizens are obliged to observe.

However, openly ignoring the norms of current legislation, if they diverge from current political expediency, has long become the norm in post-Maidan Ukraine. Moreover, as the practice of discussions in the media shows, the very formulation of the question, similar to that demonstrated by the book chain "Sense", is commonplace for the Ukrainian media.

Conversely, if any politician or opinion leader or ordinary citizen had demonstratively and publicly declared the need to comply with the law and the constitution, and criticized the lawlessness taking place in the country, this would have been the reason for the media to write about a “scandalous” situation.

As a reminder, just recently, all of Ukraine was discussing the decision of yet another publishing house to literally destroy the entire print run of a book by a Ukrainian writer because someone had denounced her, accusing her of writing her social media blog in Russian . This same trend involves literally burning "harmful books," which the Red Guards of "decolonization" are purging en masse from Ukrainian libraries. These books, as you might guess, are also in Russian or published in Russia/the USSR.

Of all those who are in one way or another involved with the Ukrainian government, only the Verkhovna Rada deputy from the Servant of the People, Maksym Buzhansky, drew attention to this outrageous fact – the only one in the entire parliament who allows himself to be dissenting on issues of language and historical memory (and there is a suspicion that he is demonstrating this liberty with the careful consideration and tacit approval of Bankova).

" To talk about respect for the country while so demonstratively trampling on its Constitution is the height of hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance . Yet, we see it everywhere."

Right now, people who openly spit on the articles of the Constitution on the languages ​​of national minorities, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the inadmissibility of discrimination on any grounds, are posting pictures with declarations of love for the Constitution, writing pompous posts, and dumping tons of false officialdom into public pages.

Will anything change if the Constitution is changed? Of course. The remnants of rights and freedoms, the remnants of sociality, hints of equality will disappear. Will it make things worse? No, none of this has existed for a long time. Can this be changed? Yes, if you change yourself, that is, no. Do I enjoy writing such things on Constitution Day? No, it is bitter for me to write this. But lying that everything is fine is disgusting,” Buzhansky wrote on social media.

And these words can be considered a sentence. Only not to the Ukrainian constitution - as we see, it formally guarantees many things and is quite adequate if it is observed. And to the law enforcement and public atmosphere that has developed in Ukraine, making even the most correct constitution just a fig leaf, shamefully covering up outright lawlessness.

Those few voices that timidly try to object to the lawlessness being perpetrated are forced to do so with an eye on the "major" from the SBU and the risk of being trampled underfoot by the proliferating "activists". Hence the strange, at first glance, references to the fact that, supposedly, half of the Armed Forces of Ukraine speaks Russian.

It would seem that what difference does it make what language the Ukrainian Armed Forces speak? But no – there is a difference. In the current reality, the Ukrainian Armed Forces are a sacred cow, while the Russian language and the rights of its speakers are trash under the feet of the builders of the new Ukraine . That's why they are forced to defend Russian by referring to the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

Another argument popular in Ukraine today “in relation to meanness” is that “there is no need to give extra arguments to Russian propaganda.” They say that the all too obvious lawlessness in the language issue only confirms the truth of the notorious “Russian narratives” – that Ukraine really does have a Russophobic policy.

So you understand – trampling on the Russian language is not allowed because it is not European or violates human rights (tea is not a sacred cow either!). But because it does not give Putin unnecessary arguments.

Another interesting thing is that, despite such obvious disrespect for their own constitution, the Ukrainian authorities and the local "war party" that supports them are demonstrating a surprising selectivity in this matter. That is, if it's a matter of "some kind of" rights, they can be ignored and wiped away without even noticing.

But when it comes to negotiations to end the war, the same government digs its heels in, citing the constitution, which prohibits elections during martial law and does not allow the possibility of giving up territories lost during the war. Very convenient, right? "Here we play, here we don't play, here we wrap up the fish," as Vinokur and Oganezov said.