A very dangerous status
Ukraine has turned from the east, but has it returned to the west, if the “Kuchma gene” is still part of its genetic code?
“When asking Ukrainian politicians and public figures about their attitude to the law granting a ‘special status’ to eastern Ukrainian regions now ruled by gangsters supported by the Russian military and security services, it is better to put that question bluntly: ‘Do you like Leonid Kuchma’s reincarnation?’ It prompts an instant reboot in them. What has Kuchma to do with it? Well, President Petro Poroshenko was unable to find anyone else able to play such a humiliating part,” I heard from a politician. Indeed, Poroshenko is suffering from a noticeably personnel shortage. Inviting Klitschko as a forward of the presidential team, even though his only claim to political role is that he has proven that the Kyivites like to surprise everyone sometimes by electing Leonid Chernovetsky or a famous boxer, suggests, perhaps, that Poroshenko likes to keep decision-making for himself. The appearance of Kuchma at talks with the gangsters is a clear sign of an entirely different phenomenon.
“Kuchma said that he would like to see Ukraine without Kuchma. However, Ukraine is still ruled by a Kuchma,” co-organizer of the famous “Ukraine without Kuchma” campaign Volodymyr Chemerys said. “Viktor Yushchenko was a Kuchma, Viktor Yanukovych was one as well, and even co-founder of the Party of Regions [Poroshenko. – Ed.] is a Kuchma too.”
That is, Kuchma is a permanent fixture, who, it appears, has never disappeared, but stayed as the invisible shadow of our modern history. This is true, because the nature and principles that Kuchma has brought to the government system are based on eternal vices. One of these vices, which has prospered wildly, is corruption – total corruption, which has become an axiom of our life, engulfing hospitals and universities as well as highest levels of government. Everything is for sale, from land to the governor’s office. Kuchma, like the devil tempter, just allowed people to rob each other, and the quickest pulled ahead. The system worked well, so well, in fact, that it has withstood well assaults from two Maidan protests, and even from the war.
Journalists traditionally gathered in Independence Square on September 16 to commemorate their murdered colleagues. Candles of sorrow were burning as pot-bellied plainclothes policemen slowly marched following the journalist procession, and people laid flowers at the plaque with a list of murdered journalists. The dark bronze surface of the plaque is inscribed with names and dates that seemingly hint what the entire Kuchma era really was. One of the names belongs to my countryman: similarly to the Kyiv commemoration, colleagues and friends gathered yearly at Petro Shevchenko’s grave in Luhansk. We did not know then that these names would be more than just the face of a tragic era, becoming the seed from which dozens of future deaths of journalists would grow. The Kuchma era not only is not over, it actually blossomed with lost lives of ordinary people who died at the Euromaidan and thousands of soldiers who fell in eastern Ukraine, it has, like a tumor, grown so much that the state began to choke on it, putting at risk its very existence. What Kuchma has to do with it? Kuchma is not just the man, it is the system now. This is the poison that we urgently need to remove from Ukraine’s blood.
Journalists are not perfect either. Marching once a year is good, but not enough. Civic stance and control have to be manifested constantly. For example, how are we to understand the fact that Ukrainska Pravda, founded by Heorhii Gongadze, was a major media partner of the 11th meeting of Yalta European Strategy [funded by Kuchma’s son-in-law Viktor Pinchuk. – Ed.]? And this is just one example. Unfortunately, reluctance to notice actions of the Kuchma family, or even supporting them, has become the norm for our journalism.
Boys in balaclavas stand in Independence Square and ask passersby to help the army, while girls, smiling ironically, offer them to buy a ticket to Mariupol [that is, to the frontlines. – Ed.]. Old women sitting on bench in Khreshchatyk Street discuss a relative who returned from the Donbas without legs. “Did Poroshenko sign it? What is it? Why did we fight then?” they ask when digesting the latest news, and one of them waved her hand apathetically, like a done person. They are tired, I think. They are ready to close their eyes in hope that the storm will bypass them, and the country will somehow reach the “bright future” without the Donbas and Crimea. After all, Vladimir Putin will not go for Kyiv, will he? Really? Yes, he may well not go for the city. He is a KGBist, whose essence is recruiting agents. He will buy and intimidate, beat and flatter, sign agreements and violate them until his target is recruited. Kyiv will not even notice how it will eventually become a provincial city with people wearing embroidered shirts. Is it unbelievable? Look at those who ruled us for decades, and think hard whether we were not just such a province, which we have been trying to leave behind during the Maidans. Displaying patriotic enthusiasm and maximalist heroism, we aim to become a full-fledged nation that is able to defend itself, and then once again turn into a political project.
Kuchma has won. The Verkhovna Rada, as if wanting to hide its shame, voted by secret ballot on the “special status,” but two parties (part of the Batkivshchyna and all of the Svoboda party) defiantly held up their card to show that they were “washing their hands” of the actual surrender of the Donbas. Some excited people beat up the pretty Yurii Miroshnychenko, some showed the overly imposing Vitalii Zhuravsky into a trash can. Ukraine has turned from the east, but has it returned to the west, if the “Kuchma gene” is still part of its genetic code? Maybe, Putin will allow us to hold the parliamentary elections in late October. Maybe they will even return an overly patriotic parliament. Maybe the Kremlin, which has clearly overstepped its bounds and has gained a bunch of problems in addition to the war in the Donbas still, will be willing to satisfy itself with digesting what it has managed to tear away so far. However, it all is very much temporary, for a short while only. We currently have an abscess at hand, inflamed appendicitis with a very dangerous status, which will cause peritonitis in time. And may be even then some will ask: What has Kuchma to do with it?
