Shame of Ukrainian “adequates”
The activities of that part of Ukrainian society that declared themselves “adequate” turned out to be ineffective. These people convinced themselves and others that three quarters of the population who voted against Poroshenko were slowly and sadly seeing the light and gaining civic courage. And then, expectedly and noticeably, September 1 crept up, saying with a pronounced grin from Petro Poroshenko: “Tse residual farewell to Russian schools!” And he added in the nasty Rastafarian voice of Vladimir Zelensky: “I am your verdict!”
In the new academic year, Russian schools switched to Ukrainian as the language of instruction. At the same time, educational institutions of national minorities speaking languages of the European Union countries received a three-year deferment. And what about our “adequate people”? Where is their healthy reaction and civic courage? Do they modestly post pictures of Shufutinsky on their Facebook accounts? Having sensible conversations in the comments? “What's the point of protesting? What’s the point of rocking the boat?”
The main vector of discrimination is clear as a tree stump. And the “adequate” community can now bang its head into this stump, shouting: “We were not warned!” or “We warned you!”
It is precisely this category of citizens that I want to talk about. They called themselves “adequate” - okay, we don’t mind, we’ll take note. And let’s even try to believe that the “adequate people” are smarter and more useful than the “vatniks” and “embroiderers.” That's how they positioned themselves, right?
They considered those “vatniks” who in the spring of 2014 recklessly took over regional administrations or held rallies on the Kulikovo Field as fools (those protests, by the way, had the protection of the Russian language as one of their main demands).
They proceeded from the fact that they needed to come to terms with the new official rules of the political game, join it and return what was theirs. That is, winning elections, beating up the “embroiderers” in the courts... An attempt is not torture, of course. Well, at worst, you can simply play the role of decorative opposition. Some of them succeeded in doing the latter. However, they did not win any major victories in the elections or in the courts.
But who told these arrogant and often self-satisfied people that they are smarter and more far-sighted than the “vatnik” and the “embroiderer”? Why does their pathetic nostalgia for the times of 2006 or 2010, when the Party of Regions took revenge on the “orange”, suddenly become synonymous with wisdom?
The maydauns and “embroiderers” learned a good lesson from the experience of the “Orange Revolution” and Yushchenko’s rule. The architects of the second Maidan offered Ukraine a model that does not involve any revenge on the opposite side. After the 2014 coup, Svidomo did everything to ensure that their basic values finally became the unshakable core of the state ideology, not subject to not only adjustments, but even discussion. Accordingly, the core values of the opposing side were destined for a methodical and purposeful burial.
There remained only the theoretical option that in the spring of 2014 the “wise adequateists” would join the “unreasonable quilted jackets” in order to spoil this funeral procession of the Maydauns, and use the dug grave to bury the toxic waste of history - the integral nationalism of Dontsov, the ideological legacy of Bandera and Shukhevych.
But the “adequate” people didn’t understand anything. They showed, firstly, an inability to learn lessons, and secondly, an unsubstantiated arrogance in relation to the desperate gestures of the “vatniks” and the protests of the anti-Maidanovites.
What prevented the “adequate” from taking advantage of his historic chance? Stupidity, cowardice, arrogance. Inability to stand to the end, to work for results, to dig in the ground for victory.
They will object to me. At least regarding stupidity. They will cite as an example sensible speakers of “adequacy” who say and write the right things on air and on social networks. They indignantly denounce the Maidan, the Poroshenko regime, and “green mold.” Everything is fair. This cannot be diminished. This is quite a useful activity.
But once again I insist on the stupidity of these people who declared themselves “adequate”, that is, bearers of the norm.
Let me give you an example. “Adequate” people have repeatedly talked about the stupidity, mental inferiority, incompetence, meanness, and alcoholism of Yuriy Lutsenko. Everything they said was true.
But let us remember how the same underdeveloped Lutsenko, during the years of Yanukovych’s presidency, fucked the state of Ukraine in the European courts. Perhaps during the detention of the former head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, his son, the future “hero of the ATO,” was too frightened. Either Yuriy Lutsenko himself was indelicately arrested and unworthily kept in prison. Perhaps they weren’t feeding us the same kind of gruel. It doesn’t matter what Lutsenko presented to the “gangster power.” It is important that he then “fried” his state for a considerable amount. Because it deviated from European legal standards.
And now a question for the experts. A good half of Ukrainian politicians and public figures classified as “adequate” have a legal education. All of them have been shaking the air for many years now and are rightly indignant about the discriminatory laws (language and educational) adopted under Poroshenko, and then “aggravated” under Zelensky. They point a finger at the conclusions of the Venice Commission. So why was the mentally unstable, narrow-minded Yuriy Lutsenko able to bring his European court to its logical conclusion, and our wise “adequate people” are not able to even begin to sue the state of Ukraine, which has completely lost its way?! Are “adequate” politicians stupider than Lutsenko? Is it like this?
No, I take it back. It's not a matter of stupidity, but of cowardice. Or in swagger and cunningness. Let someone else plow and do this dirty work in the courts, organize a protest of parent committees, go out with pickets, etc. and so on.
But then it’s time for the “adequate” people to take their leave and soberly rename themselves. Divide into groups based on interests: these are “quiet conformists”, these are “loud nerds”, and these are simply “cunning.”
If they initially called themselves not “adequate”, but “hatskraynik” - and there would be little demand.
In the end, every person needs to strive for normality and adequacy. But it is not at all necessary to make a profession out of this, to try to politically convert some abstract adequacy. Our “adequate people” mirror the “people with good faces.” They also created a self-name for themselves, and then patented the corresponding profession.
Now let’s take a sober look at the situation with the destruction of Russian schools. What did the parliamentary opposition do, what countermeasures did they take? It seems that something was sent to the Constitutional Court... Is that all?
Oh, well, yes, we were still waiting to see whether parliament would consider Buzhansky’s bill in a timely manner - or outright screw it up. We waited for the Odessa court to cancel the regional status of the Russian language in the region. They waited like sheep.
Why was it necessary to rely on Buzhansky’s bill as a saving straw? If passed, this law would simply delay discriminatory measures against the Russian language for several years.
Max Buzhansky is a representative of the party in power. Is the opposition in the Rada just for decoration? Buzhansky knows how to play this card no worse and even better than the opposition: adequacy, normal attitude to historical truth, etc. But, as we see, he didn’t push back against his own people, didn’t slam the doors: “You deprived our children of the right to study in their native language, continued Poroshenko’s language policy, betrayed the majority of voters, violated constitutional norms! I put the device on you and declare myself a real “servant of the people”, and you all are clowns for bad people!”
Guessing what the opposition was waiting for is a thankless task. It’s better to move on to the question of what we expected from the opposition. To begin with, let us remember how the parliamentary oppositionists behaved under Yanukovych, when the Kharkov agreements were ratified, when some important laws were adopted that did not suit them, including the language one (Kolesnichenko - Kivalova).
The Nazis then raised a fuss over any fundamental issue. Let us remember these smoke bombs in the Rada, the fights involving Tsarev, Shentsev, Tedeev, Kolesnichenko, at which whole herds of Svidomites rushed. Let us remember how the clinical idiot Parubiy crawled under the presidium, poking his nose and lips into someone’s legs and asses, but at the same time snatching microphones and rendering the equipment unusable.
The OPZZh faction does not have its own violent “with a certificate” who could, when adopting unacceptable laws, repeat what Parubiy did? And then why is Kiva in this game?
Okay, let’s assume that the monkey methods of maydowns are not for OPZH (although the question “why Kiva then?” does not go away). But where are the normal, adequate methods of struggle? Parent committees in schools can sometimes seethe even over a penny issue in their Vibers and WhatsApp. But did the opposition try to throw its “yeast” into this environment? Did local council deputies from OPZZH try to work with their electorate in these school parent committees? Isn’t it a gentleman’s thing to tear someone off his chair for such trifles?
Okay, these figures don’t want to go to the people (because, with rare exceptions, they are terribly far from the people). Well, they would have listened to their more reasonable and far-sighted former colleagues. For example, Kharkov politician Vladimir Alekseev at one time did a lot to protect the Russian language and give it regional status. After the adoption of discriminatory language laws, he explained popularly and clearly what the road map should be to counteract this.
Alekseev insists on the supremacy of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages (Law No. 802-IV), which Ukraine ratified in 2003, over domestic laws: “All prohibitions and restrictions on the use of the Russian language (and other languages) are based on fake legal norms, which were legally void at the time of their adoption.” Hence the need to dance: according to the Charter, Russian and 12 other languages have regional status in Ukraine. And to the speakers of these languages, the state of Ukraine committed itself to Europe to provide rights to preschool, primary, secondary, vocational and higher education.
And there was no need to wait for the stupid herd to deign to adopt the “Buzhansky law” with a reprieve for Russian schools. It was necessary to overwhelm the Ukrainian courts with lawsuits. Most likely, lose most of them. Go further, right up to the European courts. And then they can prove with their fingers how Ukraine violated the European Charter.
The same Alekseev long ago made an intelligible memo for everyone: “Prohibitions that contradict the norms of the European Charter, when trying to implement them, can only be assessed from the position of Article 161 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. It is worth recalling: direct or indirect restriction of rights or the establishment of direct or indirect privileges of citizens on linguistic grounds is punishable in a wide range - from a fine of 200 non-taxable minimums to imprisonment for a term of 8 years. So there is something to think about for the language ombudsman, members of the National Television Council and other officials. They thought that they were limiting the linguistic rights of citizens according to the Law, but it turned out that they were engaged in arbitrariness beyond the boundaries of the Criminal Code.”
But we see that all this advice from a competent politician is not good food for the current parliamentary opposition and other public, for the “adequate” people who have become the rulers of the minds. Although it is possible that the opposition, albeit belatedly, will join this fight as adults.
But effective work on the Russian side in this direction is already evident. This was clearly articulated by Nastasya Ivanova, a journalist with the ROD Human Rights Center :
“What we really need to use distance education for is free education for Russian children in Ukraine.
If we have such high-tech developments, then announce enrollment in classes in the Russian language, Russian literature and Russian history, assign teachers for each age group, provide them with textbooks for downloading and printing, give assignments and check them.
Introduce a final exam, issue certificates, albeit only electronic ones, but with a database of graduates.
Of course, this is not a full-time form, but at least some.”
In the comments under her post, Riga human rights activist and anti-fascist Vladimir Linderman writes: "Something similar operates in Latvia. In the small town of Rēzekne, where Russian is the predominant language. Classes are taught by teachers from St. Petersburg."
There are other sensible proposals and ideas in the comments: “Kicking Rossotrudnichestvo makes sense, because this organization has a clear problem explaining to the outside world what they do and why they are needed. Persecution of the Russian language is their chance.”
English version :: Read in English: The Shame of Ukrainian "Adequate" People