Jennifer Baker
Ukraine Riots: “Involuntary ejaculation of fire”
What happened yesterday in Grushevskogo street in Kiev, and is still going on, is a natural result of government’s actions and opposition’s impotence. This is the best event in Ukrainian politics in January 2014.
Politicians are estranged from the people to such extent that they simply cannot grasp the society’s mood. The government showed astounding inadequacy on 16 January, having pushed through the laws which are unacceptable for the considerable part of the society. Even if it’s only a minority, it’s an active minority. The “dictatorship laws” were a direct invitation to burn police buses, and they lit up on January 19th. The government hadn’t expected this. They thought the threat would calm down demonstrators. Perhaps they had a plan but it obviously didn’t envisage so large scale of riots and so evident humiliation of the government.
The opposition failed to organize a decent parliamentary crisis which would involve the dissolution of the Parliament and reelections. The by-elections showed that they are unable to make use of the protest wave and win even in Kiev. The “three-headed Hydra” failed to lean on NGOs and civic initiatives, it didn’t play into the hands of the local governments in the Western regions which it controls, it failed to create parallel power structures. They are even unable to decide on the single candidate for the upcoming presidential elections.
Euromaidan activists’ disillusionment and rage are due not only to the actions of the stupid government which leans on the police and thugs, but also to the total failure of Klitschko, Yatseniuk and Tiahnybok to put forward any plan for overthrowing the government.
This is the natural act of desperate people who are sick of all politicians and who are not ready to accept the state of emergency. This is not a revolutionary act of the people, this is not parliamentary masturbation – simply an involuntary ejaculation due to long lasting abstinence from sensible and purposeful actions.
The “Right Sector”[1] is guided in these events by the sincere feeling of insult. Yanukovych “stole their culture” and started implementing the fascist program without their participation. If they came to power, they would pass the same bills as those passed by the Party of Regions and the “Communist” Party, only with a racist agenda.
One more funny story. The storming was started by the signal from Automaidan[2]; sometimes during last week the “Right Sector” called them a mob of “opportunist, conciliatory, capitulant” elements, sometimes they acknowledge their achievements. Anyway, if it were not for people from Automaidan and their speech, the “Right Sector” simply wouldn’t have been able to gather that many people in Grushevskogo street. This would have been a usual cheap provocation by the bone-headed national revolutionaries. After all, they are really dumb. Dumber than an average cop, for example. Only large numbers of “liberal fellow travelers” saved their Aryan asses from serious problems.
So, what we see today is not a triumph of the far-right, it’s an act of armed “democratic opportunism”.
Every action of the rightists is being labeled as provocation not because of stupidity (that’s what the activists of the “Right Sector” think) but because they are unable to do anything right. Usually far-right organizations consist of narcissistic infantiles who can assert themselves only through violence. They are unable to put two and two together, therefore everything they do by themselves causes shame and loathing in their allies. Also, it’s important to understand that many of those people could be proud members of Berkut or other police forces but for some reasons they failed to make a career doing the only thing they are fit to do. It’s no coincidence that Svoboda called themselves “the commando forces of the opposition”. This self-identification with aggressive swine in the uniform is very telling.
When national revolutionaries draw adorn their shields with “14/88” and their helmets with Wolfsangel, they see themselves as great warriors of the white race, while everyone else views them as dick-head dumb Nazis who weaken the international support of the cause. So, even when it seems that they use violence in the right place and time, they still smear everything with their filthy hands.
By the way, beating innocent people, pouring water on them, shooting them with rubber bullets and kicking them out in freezing streets – those are the things which could have been done by the police as well as by the “right sector” people. Stylistically, fascists and cops differ very little. This time it was riot cops who amused themselves in such way, but it doesn’t prove anything. They have common essence – all of them are idiots dangerous to society.
[1] The “Right Sector” is the coalition of all major Ukrainian far-right militant organizations and football hooligans which was formed in the early days of the Euromaidan and since then takes responsibility for most violent incidents and clashes with police there.
[2] Initiative of vehicle owners who use them for staging mobile pickets and blocking roads, especially near the dwellings of the most notorious people in the government.