Best Article on the "Crisis" Yet. . .

I got the follow article, which I think is the best statement on the crisis in Ukraine that I have read so far, from a list-serve that, if you are interested in Ukraine and are not on it, you should be! It is the Ukraine List compiled by Dominique Arel, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the U of Ottawa. Write to him at darel@uottawa.ca to get on the list. . .

I like the article as the writer does an excellent job of pointing out just how disingenuous the quite one-sided attack on Tymoshenko is that is coming from much of the Western press and from Yushchenko himself. Also, she does a good job of making, in her own way, the statement that many others are making: The current crisis, far from signaling the end of the OR and of a regression of the short-lived growth of Ukrainian democracy, actually shows how much has indeed changed in a positive direction. The best statement on this latter matter can be read here; it's an article entitled, "Democracy is Alive in Ukraine," by political science professor Alexander Motyl, whose writing on Ukraine I always find crisp and poignant.

It's a long article, but a MUST read; the added emphases are mine, of course. . .

The Orange Revolution: Round Two
by Tammy Lynch
Behind the Breaking News
A Briefing from the Institute for the Study of Conflict, Ideology and Policy
14 September 2005

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko opened the parliamentary election campaign by firing Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko, sparking debate as to whether this action would instigate open war between the two or whether the former Orange Revolution partners would find a way to coexist peacefully. Signals suggest that war will be the mode of operation until the parliamentary elections in March. The war scenario could provide new life to those who appeared so discredited just eight months ago, while disillusioning a citizenry that had just begun to believe in a government "for the people."

However, this scenario should concern Western officials. Yushchenko should be made to understand that strong actions, not just words, are necessary to demonstrate his commitment to honest, fair, accountable government. At the moment, a perception is developing-true or not-that this commitment may be wavering. This perception has grown in part, because Yushchenko has chosen to attack his former prime minister in lieu of aggressively examining corruption allegations leveled at his closest aides.

On Tuesday, Yushchenko lashed out at Tymoshenko, suggesting that she had attempted to use her position to eliminate $1.5 billion in debts that he said had been incurred by a company she owned in the 1990s. (1) The company, United Energy Systems of Ukraine (UES), made
Tymoshenko one of the richest people in the country-although some observers suggest Tymoshenko walked the edge of the law to gather much of that money.

UES was broken up by government officials during the Kuchma era after Tymoshenko began an opposition movement against the then-president. Both Russian and Kuchma-controlled Ukrainian law enforcement bodies attempted to jail Tymoshenko at that time, based on events surrounding, among other things, the debts of UES. While he was in parliament, Yushchenko fought these efforts. Tymoshenko claimed strenuously that all charges against her were politically motivated, and despite years of investigation, neither Russian nor Kuchma officials publicly produced any credible evidence to the contrary. For his part, Viktor Yushchenko stated his support for Tymoshenko–until now.

Tymoshenko quickly responded to Yushchenko's charge, saying that her company had no debts to forgive. She suggested that Yushchenko was "picking up [former President Leonid] Kuchma's baton and trying to get rid of me in the same way." (2) Her statement is given some added, if possibly coincidental, credibility by a recent meeting between Acting Prime Minister Yuriy Yekhanurov and former President Leonid Kuchma in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. The two, according to the Financial Times, "greeted each other with broad smiles and kisses on the cheek." (3) Later, Kuchma praised Yushchenko's decision to fire the cabinet, calling it "absolutely correct," and calling on his supporters not to oppose the president. (4) The specter of Kuchma as Yushchenko's new ally and Tymoshenko as his new opponent will undoubtedly raise the eyebrows of many who protested on Yushchenko's behalf as he stood hand-in-hand with Tymoshenko against Kuchma during the Orange
Revolution.

The financial questions about Tymoshenko and UES may or may not be true, and should be independently investigated. It is worth noting, however, that Yushchenko's claim appeared on the same day that Tymoshenko suggested she will run against him for president in 2009 and contradicts Yushchenko's earlier statements that he had wanted Tymoshenko to remain in his government. It therefore could be perceived as persecution against an opponent rather than an honest attempt to root out corruption.

With these recriminations against Tymoshenko, it is easy to forget that the political crisis that ended in her dismissal began not with corruption charges against her, but with corruption charges against the president's closest aides.

On 3 September, Yushchenko's Chief of Staff and former Campaign Manager Oleksandr Zinchenko resigned, charging that the president's closest aides were corrupt. In particular, Zinchenko singled out National Security and Defense Council Secretary Petro Poroshenko, presidential aide Oleksandr Tretyakov, and the head of Yushchenko's political party, Mykola Martynenko.

Zinchenko's statement has not been distributed extensively throughout the mainstream Western press. Below is a rather long but illustrative passage:

"A small group of adventurists is trying to take advantage of the achievements of last autumn, of the wishes and desires of the entire people, or the heroic efforts of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian patriots. They have set up their own clan, they have orchestrated an information blockade of the president and pushed him into a virtual, unreal world, they have cynically twisted the real situation, neglecting the hopes of their compatriots. Step by step they are implementing their plan to use power for their own enrichment, to privatize and grab everything they can (while forcefully opposing reprivatizations. . .Stefan). They want a monopoly, they want to take over instruments of power as soon as they can. I will name just a few. The secretary of the NationalSecurity and Defense Council Petro Poroshenko, first presidential aide Tretyakov, and some of their partners, such as Martynenko, are cynically implementing their scenario of using power for their own purposes. This scenario has the following main points: property, judiciary, law-enforcement agencies, personnel policy, media and power. It was Poroshenko who insisted on, and finally managed to illegally subordinate the judiciary to the National Security and Defense Council, even though it is by definition independent.

"I asked the president several times to stop Poroshenko. At [my] last meetings with Yushchenko, removing Poroshenko and his team from their posts was the condition of my further work in the president's team. Why didn’t I speak about this earlier? Under the circumstances, I tried to preserve the unity of the team. But everyone has a choice. One can put up with this and share the profits. I cannot and do not want to put up with this shameful violation of the law. I made my choice at Independence Square." (5)

Zinchenko's charges were unsurprising to many observers of Yushchenko's administration. For months, some Western officials privately complained of the growing influence of Poroshenko and Tretyakov, at the expense of the prime minister's office, and have been concerned about persistent signs, although unproven, that Poroshenko was mixing politics with business. However, they had expressed the hope that the situation could be dealt with quietly, without damaging the fragile trust given to Yushchenko and Tymoshenko by the voters of Ukraine. This was not to be the case.

Charges by Zinchenko and others against Poroshenko included that he and/or his allies had pressured judges for verdicts in his or his friends’ favor, had circumvented customs regulations to receive favorable conditions for his business products, and had brokered a deal for the sale of a television station to an ally by using threats of legal persecution. Poroshenko strenuously denied all of these charges, but the damage was done.

It soon became clear that Poroshenko would need to resign. He did so, but only when the cabinet also was dismissed–a decision that shifted the focus away from him.

When announcing the cabinet's dismissal, Yushchenko cited a need to end the public turf battles that had developed between Tymoshenko and Poroshenko, and accused the government (which was interpreted to mean Tymoshenko) of lacking "team spirit." He suggested that Tymoshenko's policies had led to a drop in economic growth, and that she had bungled the reprivatization of enterprises that previously were sold illegally. At the same time, he announced Poroshenko's resignation and Tretyakov's suspension, but noted that he believed the charges against them were "groundless." (6)

Yushchenko's comments also made clear that it was not corruption or economic concerns, but politics, that eventually led to Tymoshenko's dismissal. He lamented that, following three days of intensive negotiations, he had made an agreement with Tymoshenko that would have kept her in the prime minister's chair. But at the last minute, he said, she had pulled out. "Yesterday, I spent all day and night trying to produce the best possible answer-if the team spirit does exist, we should remain together. Such an agreement was reached. Unfortunately, things changed overnight. But it was not I who changed them, he said. (7)

Individuals close to the negotiations suggest Yushchenko's team was concerned that the government balance of power would shift to Tymoshenko if Poroshenko resigned. Therefore, they insisted on a signed guarantee that she would support Yushchenko in the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections before announcing Poroshenko's resignation. This contention seems to be supported by Yushchenko's new Chief of Staff Oleksandr Rybachuk. "A formula of political cooperation with quotas, agreements and guarantees for the forthcoming parliamentary elections, which gives a clear outlook for the next five years" was developed, he said, but not signed by Tymoshenko. Therefore, "Yushchenko had no choice, but to accept the Cabinet's resignation." (8)

Tymoshenko in turn complained that she could not sign an agreement in which Yushchenko could veto anyone's inclusion on the electoral list, even her closest allies, for a campaign in which Poroshenko may continue to play a pivotal role. (9)

She also suggested that Yushchenko was frustrated that she would neither publicly denounce Zinchenko nor express confidence in those he had accused. "The first condition is that I have to extend my hand not to the president but to his team-Poroshenko, Martynenko, Tretyakov, Bezsmertnyy-that I should give them my hand," she said. "But how could I extend my hand to them if their hands are constantly busy stealing something?" (10)

She emphasized that she did not believe the president himself was corrupt, and has gone out of her way in public statements to separate him from "his environment." Regardless, the details of these negotiations suggest that economic concerns and corruption charges against Tymoshenko were not foremost in anyone's mind as her fate was being decided.

By replacing the strong-willed prime minister with an unquestioning, close ally, Yushchenko will likely reach his goal to create a more unified public government face. But what of the corruption allegations against his aides?

Many within Ukraine questioned whether the cabinet's dismissal was a pretext to divert attention from the corruption charges, or even more, to weaken a potential rival just six months before pivotal parliamentary elections. Now, Yushchenko's new allegations against Tymoshenko, made public after he was asked about the decision to fire her, and echoing those brought during the discredited Kuchma administration, raise new doubts.

If Yushchenko fired Tymoshenko because she was corrupt, why was his first choice for her to remain in his government? Why did he wait more than four days to mention this particular concern? Why, when discussing this alleged corruption, does he not also refer to the allegations against his aides?

And most importantly, why was it necessary to replace the cabinet now, weeks before the deadline for completion of negotiations for entrance into the World Trade Organization, and days before the 2006 budget must be submitted to parliament?

Some commentators and analysts have simply sighed with relief that the public battles between Poroshenko and Tymoshenko will now be over. But was it necessary to dismiss the entire cabinet to end these battles? Could Yushchenko have better defined the duties of his team, asserted his authority, dealt with corruption within his own administration and preserved the unity of the governing coalition?

Other commentators have cheered that Tymoshenko's "populist" politics will end. Clearly, Tymoshenko deserves some criticism-particularly for her often rash handling of the "reprivatization" issue. However, it is important to note that many economic policies now criticized by Yushchenko were originally supported, either partially or wholly, by him. (11) While Tymoshenko certainly made mistakes and enemies, she did not make all of them alone. And it is unfair to suggest that everything she did was incorrect or that every negative event should be attributable solely to her.

Regardless of Tymoshenko's negatives or positives, the Ukrainian president must remember that the crisis that ended with her dismissal began with corruption allegations against others. Yushchenko should ensure an independent investigation of the charges against Tymoshenko, and if evidence is found to support the charges, she should be prosecuted. If no evidence is found, she should not. He must do the same for the charges against his aides. Each individual, whether friend or opponent, should have equal access to findings of both guilt and innocence. Selective prosecution or non-prosecution must be a thing of the past. So far, the president's efforts have raised some concerns.

Yushchenko said he will personally oversee the investigation into all corruption claims-even apparently those involving Poroshenko, who is a long-time friend and the godfather to one of his children. The president has ordered a quickly formed "state commission" to present its findings on "who in this country is involved in corruption" in ten days. (12) The Security Service will reportedly announce "first conclusions" this week. Oversight of a corruption investigation by the president, in a country with a history of political interference in law enforcement, sends a dubious and perhaps unintended signal. This is especially true when the president has already given his personal assessment of the claims.

The corruption crisis has the potential to undermine Western trust. But more important, it has the potential to disillusion the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who stood in the cold for weeks listening to Yushchenko promise an end to lawlessness. In a new democracy, disillusionment, apathy, and anger are destructive.

In the months following the Orange Revolution, Ukraine made some important strides on its path to democracy. The press is freer. The number of private entrepreneurs has risen, as the environment is slowly cleared of bureaucracy. State salaries have increased and are now paid on time. Investment is gradually improving. Yushchenko, Tymoshenko and their allies should be commended for this progress.

It is this progress that, ironically, allowed the current crisis to develop. A corruption scandal could never have toppled anyone last year in Ukraine. This year, the uncensored media reaction to Zinchenko's charges, the monitoring of government activity, the pressure from international organizations being courted by Ukraine, and most of all, the understanding by many government officials that they must be accountable, all forced the government to act. Ukraine is not the same place in 2005 that it was in 2004. A stronger signal from Yushchenko that he will not abide corruption anywhere around him would demonstrate that progress is continuing, and would once again confirm the Ukrainian people's faith in him.

Source Notes
(1) Associated Press, 13 September 2005; via (http://abcnews.go.com).
(2) Associated Press, 13 September 2005; via (http://www.macon.com).
(3) Financial Times, 12 September 2005, "Kuchma backs Yushchenko in Ukraine Turmoil," p. 6.
(4) Ibid, and TV 5 Kanal, 10 September 2005, 1300 GMT; via ProQuest.
(5) TV Kanal! 5, 5 September 2005, 1200 CET; via ProQuest.
(6) TV 5 Kanal, 8 September 2005, 0940 GMT; BBC Monitoring, 8
September 2005, via The Action Ukraine Report, 9 September 2005.
(7) Ibid.
(8) ForUm, 13 September 2005, 1525 GMT; via (http://en.for-ua.com).
(9) Ukrayinska Pravda, 9 September 2005, 1329 CET; via (http://www.pravda.com.ua).
(10) Ibid.
(11) For comments by Yushchenko on the government's economic policies, including oil and meat pricing, and social spending, see Ukrayina Moloda, 28 April 2005, p. 8-10.
(12) Interfax-Ukraine News Agency, 1550 CET, 11 September 2005; BBC
Monitoring, via ProQuest.

Back to Ukraine Politics

Finally some major analysts are writing clearly that the division in the orange elite is about policy, and not just accusations of corruption, mudslinging, media parades/circuses, etc.

Here's a passage from an RFE article published today on the RFE site; it's all about reform policy. . .

'Many have questioned, though, why Yushchenko should have resurrected the issue of Unified Energy Systems now, when apparently it did not trouble him when he asked Tymoshenko to be his running partner in the November 2004 presidential elections. Askold Krushelnycky, a British journalist who is writing a history of the Orange Revolution, believes the real issue is an ideological dispute over economic policy.

"The issue of reprivatizations has been one of the matters at the heart of the dispute because even during the end of the election process last year, before they'd even taken hold of government, he had said that privatization or renationalization, is not a word that he liked, whereas she'd already made clear that she wanted to investigate a huge number – 3,000 privatizations under Kuchma," Krushelnycky told RFE/RL.'

And then there is this from Taras Kuzio.

A Tid-Bit on Literature. . .Not P O L I T I C S

For a break from politics, I thought that I would mention that I am presently obsessing with getting a hold of copies of two books by one of my favorite writers, Paul Bowles, the great ex-pat writer. Bowles spent a great deal of time traveling Europe, N Africa and Latin America (and India, and. . ., and. . .) during the '30s, '40s, '50s, and a bit in the '60s, after which he settled down mostly in Tangiers, I believe. But whatever be the case, he is an interesting essayist and novelist whose writing makes him the wanderer's wanderer.

(Note: There is a difference, to my mind, between a wanderer or traveler and a tourist; the former stays put in a place for a while before moving on and often will learn to do things the way the native does them, and thus gets a more genuine picture of how things really are, while a tourist of course just rapidly zips in and out, with the approach toward movement somewhat akin to the riders in the tour de france).

I have often read Bowles while I was myself a wanderer, and I am really hankering to read him again right now, for some reason. Chances are slim that I will find any of his books anywhere here, in eastern Europe, that is. Zhal.

Thus I would endeavor to quote him, but can't--no books at hand. But I will recall here how I discovered Bowles. I had heard lots about him from friends around me, but never picked up any of his books. However, in the summer of 1995, I think, I was a hippie kid with long hair turning into dreadlocks driving a VW bus that was stuck in Denver, Colorado, for a week. I was waiting to get started on a contract job that I landed through my father, a good Ukrainian-American businessman who didn't much care for the long hair, nor the VW, nor the leftist politics and hippie-hygeine of his son at the time! While waiting in Denverto start the job and squatting in a house full of hippies and other wanderers, I found a local counterculture coffeehouse that had copies of two Bowles books, The Sheltering Sky and Their Heads are Green and Their Hands are Blue. I would recommend that you pick up both these books, if I have at all peaked your interest. The first is a novel based on, it would seem, autobiographical moments during his travels in N Africa, and the second is a selection of writings from the journal he kept as he wandered N Africa as part of a Smithsonian-funded project collecting N African music in the late 1940s.

And to read more about Paul Bowles, check this out.

Aslund and Lavelle: Up to Usual Tricks

I am really enjoying abdymok these days, for it seems that he and I are of the same basic mind regarding the Yushchenko-Tymoshenko dispute. For example, check this out, where he mocks Anders Aslund's most recent article on Ukraine with his own comments and emphases in bold print. Agreed.

And check out this quote from an article about the situation in Ukraine by the sometimes interesting writer Peter Lavelle that disturbed me when I read it the other day (full article here):

Acting Ukrainian Prime Minister Yury Yekhanurov has ruled out the possibility of re-privatizations. He stated that "Where there are problems caused by election campaign promises of rivers overflowing with milk and honey, there will be a negotiation process, there will be a negotiating table, and, I think, there will be out-of-court settlements... I think our friends will understand the government's policy, and we will try to conduct negotiations as professionally as to not have problems afterward. So that they should live in Ukraine and not hide away on some islands." What sounds more like deal-making behind the scenes is now official policy.

My alarm about this fellow is still to be proven all for not.

The Plot Thickens. . .More on Tymo- v. Poro- shenko

The plot thickens in Ukraine, for me at least. This is a VERY interesting and important article from RFE, a MUST read; again it's here.

It makes me even more suspicious about Poroshenko. I am really grateful that someone has been looking into this matter with this much detail (the article's author, Roman Kupchinsky also writes for RFE's crime and corruption watch). I am eager to learn more, and hope that more such detailed articles will be appearing. . .

And then this from the EDM (the ful article here)

Yekhanurov promised to stop the re-privatization campaign launched under Tymoshenko, which has turned many Western investors away from Ukraine after the Orange Revolution. "Sensitive privatization issues should be settled in negotiations with the possibility of out-of-court settlement," he said. In an attempt to woo domestic tycoons, who have suffered from re-privatization most, Yekhanurov promised "professional talks" with them "to make sure that they live not on the islands, but in Ukraine." Yekhanurov must know what to tell them, as it was he who shaped privatization rules in the mid-1990s, when he was getting the State Property Fund off the ground as its first chairman.

In foreign matters, Yekhanurov may be more pro-Russia than his predecessor. He was not shy to voice support for the plans for a Single Economic Space (SES) with Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan at the height of the Orange Revolution, when this concept was not popular. Now he has promised, "The SES issue and ties with Russia will be greatly improved."

Yekhanurov said that Yushchenko tasked him with improving relations with Moscow. "What sort of relations with Russia's cabinet can a Russian-born have? I hail from Siberia, and I believe they will view me as a fellow countryman," Yekhanurov said on September 9. He was born in Russia's northern Yakutiya republic, but moved to Ukraine as teenager.


All of this is supposed to be better for Ukraine? A guy who was involved during the first wave of corrupt privatizations? Betrayal of the promises of the OR to right the wrongs of the past by refusing to go further with reprivatizations? Being the lackey of western investors who don't like populist reprivatizations, who cherish stability over justice? Closer ties with Russia (in light of the murky schemes that continue to go on, as outlined in the above article) and someone who talks in the rhetoric of eastern Ukrainian politicians that on both sides of the border are fellow countrymen?

I hope my alarm is proven all for not.

Another Comment on New Orleans

Before posting the next piece that I have discovered on the New Orleans debacle, I want to say that I have not chosen the articles to post here just because I am a negative person. There is a big difference between being critical, in a constructive way, and being plainly unable to see the positive in any situation. There is much that is positive about the response to New Orleans. I have friends and friends of friends who have gone down there to do relief work. But the reaction I am hearing from all of them is one of totally inadequate response to the crisis. There are reports of journalists not being allowed to do their real jobs. Thus, although there have been heroic deeds in response, for many, the level of crisis and ineptitude is so great that it can not go un-commented-upon. But the American press is not telling the whole story. Big surprise. The truth on the ground is, as usual, being sanitized. The other side has to be told. And those of us who see that this is necessary usually are called negative by those whose drive to be positive is only but a will to apologize for the status quo and for the massive failures of policy that lead to debacles and crises in the first place.

In this case, America's problem has been its attitude and policies toward the poor.

And oh, for those who want to pretend that they occupy a moral high ground by decrying that such disasters are not the time for polemicizing, a history lesson: natural disasters have a long history of being the source and impetus of great debate about and change in society. For example, read about how the Lisbon Earthquake of 1755 shook not only the rock beneath Portugal and much of Europe, but European society and politics in general. And turn to the article below about how a flood in New Orleans in the 1920s was part of the developments that led to the New Deal.


This from Greg Palast:

Bush Strafes New Orleans Where is our Huey Long? by Greg Palast Friday, September 2, 2005 E-Mail Article Printer Friendly Version The National Public Radio news anchor was so excited I thought she'd piss on herself: the President of the United States had flown his plane down to 1700 feet to get a better look at the flood damage! And there was a photo of our Commander-in-Chief taken looking out the window. He looked very serious and concerned. That was yesterday. Today he played golf. No kidding. I'm sure the people of New Orleans would have liked to show their appreciation for the official Presidential photo-strafing, but their surface-to-air missiles were wet. There is nothing new under the sun. In 1927, a Republican President had his photo taken as the Mississippi rolled over New Orleans. Calvin Coolidge, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," promised to rebuild the state. He didn't. Instead, he left to play golf with Ken Lay or the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day. In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial. As depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for balancing the budget. Then, as the waters rose, one politician finally said, roughly, "Screw this! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat cats that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they push your kids under. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your rightful share!" Huey Long laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, an end to wars for empire, and an end to financial oligarchy. The waters receded, the anger did not, and Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana in 1928. At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. Governor Long taxed Big Oil to pay for the books. Rockefeller's oil companies refused pay the textbook tax, so Long ordered the National Guard to seize Standard Oil's fields in the Delta. Huey Long was called a "demagogue" and a "dictator." Of course. Because it was Huey Long who established the concept that a government of the people must protect the people, school, house, and feed them and give every man or woman a job who needs one. Government, he said, "We The People," not plutocrats nor Halliburtons, must build bridges and levies to keep the waters from rising over our heads. All we had to do was share the nation's wealth we created as a nation. But that meant facing down what he called the "concentrations of monopoly power" to finance the needs of the public. In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt and the party establishment, scared senseless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, called it the New Deal, and later The New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered. America could use a Democratic Party again and there's a rumor it's alive -- somewhere. And now is the moment, as it was in '27. As the bodies float in the streets of New Orleans, now is not the time for the Democrats to shirk and slink away, bleating they can't "politicize" this avoidable disaster. Seventy-six years ago this week, Huey Long was shot down, assassinated at the age of 43. But the legacy of his combat remains, from Social Security to veterans' mortgage loans. There is no such thing as a "natural" disaster. Hurricanes happen, but death comes from official neglect, from tax cuts for the rich that cut the heart out of public protection. The corpses in the street are victims of a class war in which only one side has a general. Where is our Huey Long? America needs just one Kingfish to stand up and say that our nation must rid itself of the scarecrow with the idiot chuckle, who has left America broken and in danger while he plays tinker-toy Napoleon on other continents. I realize that the middle of a rising flood is a hell of a bad time to give Democrats swimming lessons; but it's act up now or we all go under. ********** A pedagogical note: As I travel around the USA, I'm just horrified at America's stubborn historical amnesia. Americans, as Sam Cooke said, don't know squat about history. We don't learn the names of a nation's capitol until the 82d Airborne lands there. And it doesn't count if you've watched a Ken Burns documentary on PBS. I suggest starting with this: read "Huey Long" by the late historian Harry T. Williams. If you want to ease into it, get the Randy Newman album inspired by it (Good Old Boys) with the song, "Louisiana 1927." Listen to part of the song here. Do NOT watch the crappy right-wing agit-prop film, "Huey Long," by Ken Burns. Greg Palast is the author of the New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. Subscribe to his commentaries or view his investigative reports for BBC Television at www.GregPalast.com.

Masters of Misinformation: Embedding Begins in New Orleans

I am catching up on my reading about Katrina. I have posted these comments here, as they relate to what I and many othres consider to be the most important struggle in the world today, whether in Ukraine or anywhere else; namely, the information struggle. The Bush administration and it stooges are masters of ''embedding" false images and half truths in the American mind.

One could also call it the sterilization of truth.

This is from Democracy Now! I reccommend reading the site for on the ground coverage of what is really happening among the city's people (also try reading the European press).


Friday, September 9th, 2005
Is the Government Trying to Stem the Tide of Images From New Orleans by Threatening Journalists?

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Journalists covering New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina report that militarization in and around the city has hindered their work and threatened their physical safety. We hear from two journalists who were reporting in New Orleans recently. [includes rush transcript]

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The journalists who have been covering Hurricane Katrina have literally been risking their lives for the last week. Reporters have been stationed in and around New Orleans since the Hurricane hit and have tirelessly reported on the devastation to the city. Some journalists have expressed enormous outrage at government officials for their slow response. A few television reporters openly broke down on air as they report the horrific conditions and the desperation of victims. Reporters have witnessed the militarization of the city and are starting to feel the effects of the government crack-down on information gathering. FEMA is now rejecting requests by journalists to accompany rescue boats searching for storm victims. In addition, journalists are being asked not to photograph any dead bodies in the region. NBC News Anchor Brian Williams reported on his blog, that police officers had been seen aiming their weapons at members of the media. And a blogger named Bob Brigham wrote a widely read dispatch that the National Guard in Jefferson County are under orders to turn all journalists away. Brigham writes: "Bush is now censoring all reporting from New Orleans, Louisiana. The First Amendment sank with the city."

Earlier this week, Reporters Without Borders issued a warning about police violence against journalists working in New Orleans. They highlighted two cases – in one case police detained a Times-Picayune photographer and smashed his equipment to the ground after he was seen covering a shoot-out with police. In the second case, a photographer from the Toronto Star was detained by police and his photos taken from him when police realized that he had snapped photos of a clash between them and citizens who the police claimed were looters.

• Tim Harper, reporter with the Toronto Star
• Jacquie Soohen, Independent film maker with Big Noise films. Among her films - "Zapitista" and "Fourth World War," where she traversed the globe – from South Africa to South Korea, from Argentina to Iraq- documenting anti corporate globalization struggles.
  

The interview is here.

The Shaming of America

I got this title from this week's Economist magazine on the New Orleans debacle. I don't always jump to comment on eveything that is in the news, but I find these words from Cornel West quite right on:

Excerpt from: Exiles from a city and from a nation

By Cornel West
Sunday September 11, 2005

It takes something as big as Hurricane Katrina and the
misery we saw among the poor black people of New
Orleans to get America to focus on race and poverty.
It happens about once every 30 or 40 years.

What we saw unfold in the days after the hurricane was
the most naked manifestation of conservative social
policy towards the poor, where the message for decades
has been: 'You are on your own'. Well, they really
were on their own for five days in that Superdome, and
it was Darwinism in action - the survival of the
fittest. People said: 'It looks like something out of
the Third World.' Well, New Orleans was Third World
long before the hurricane.

It's not just Katrina, it's povertina. People were
quick to call them refugees because they looked as if
they were from another country. They are. Exiles in
America. Their humanity had been rendered invisible so
they were never given high priority when the well-to-do
got out and the helicopters came for the few.
Almost everyone stuck on rooftops, in the shelters, and
dying by the side of the road was poor black.

In the end George Bush has to take responsibility.
When [the rapper] Kanye West said the President does not
care about black people, he was right, although the effects
of his policies are different from what goes on in his soul.
You have to distinguish between a racist intent and the
racist consequences of his policies. Bush is still a 'frat
boy', making jokes and trying to please everyone while the
Neanderthals behind him push him more to the right.

Poverty has increased for the last four or five years. A
million more Americans became poor last year, even
as the super-wealthy became much richer. So where
is the trickle-down, the equality of opportunity?
 Healthcare and education and the social safety net
 being ripped away - and that flawed structure was
 nowhere more evident than in a place such as New
Orleans, 68 per cent black. The average adult income
 in some parishes of the city is under $8,000 (£4,350)
a year. The average national income is $33,000, though
 for African-Americans it is about $24,000. It has one
 of the highest city murder rates in the US. From slave
 ships to the Superdome was not that big
a journey. . .

They shot brother Martin [Luther King Jr.]dead like a dog
in 1968 when the mobilisation of the black poor was just
getting started. At least one of his surviving legacies was
the quadrupling in the size of the black middle class. But
Oprah [Winfrey] the billionaire and the black judges and
chief executives and movie stars do not mean equality, or
even equality of opportunity yet. Black faces in high places
does not mean racism is over. Condoleezza Rice has
sold her soul.

Now the black bourgeoisie have an even heavier obligation
to fight for the 33 per cent of black children living in poverty -
and to alleviate the spiritual crisis of hopelessness among
young black men.

Bush talks about God, but he has forgotten the point of
prophetic Christianity is compassion and justice for those
who have least.

(Most christians long ago forgot that Jesus opposed war,
opposed wealth, spent his time among the poor and
disenfrachised, preached a doctrine of turn-the-other-cheek
and universal, unconditional love and compassion, while
also preaching that one should throw away the Old Testament
with its angry, vengeful, warlike God--Stefan; I couldn't help
myself but to add some words here. . .),

Hip-hop has the anger that comes out of post-industrial,
free-market America, but it lacks the progressiveness that
produces organisations that will threaten the status quo. There
has not been a giant since King, someone prepared to die and
create an insurgency where many are prepared to die to upset
the corporate elite. The Democrats are spineless.

There is the danger of nihilism and in the Superdome around
the fourth day, there it was - husbands held at gunpoint while their
wives were raped, someone stomped to death, people throwing
themselves off the mezzanine floor, dozens of bodies.

(These are crimes of poverty, not just "crimes" alone; and crimes of
poverty bare a collective responsibility, while a crime is individual
--Stefan)

It was a war of all against all - 'you're on your own'- in the centre
of the American empire. But now that the aid is pouring in, vital as it
is, do not confuse charity with justice. I'm not asking for a revolution,
I am asking for reform. A Marshall Plan for the South could be
the first step.

· Dr Cornel West is professor of African American studies and religion at 
Princeton University. His great grandfather was a slave. He is a rap artist 
and appeared as Counsellor West in Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions.

Day Off, Kind of. . .

Not much time to write today. I'm back in Riga, spending time with my daughter. Today we went out to an outdoor sculpture garden in Kurzeme (the Courish province, as it was once widely known in English, on the sea that was once famous in Europe for the quality of its shipbuilders). We have now stopped at home in Riga to pick up some things before heading off for "pirts" at the house of some friends in the Riga suburbs. "Pirts" is Latvian word for sauna or banja.

But, have a read of the following that was sent to me as a comment. I have a response to it written in my head, but no time to write until tomorrow. It is thought-provoking, or at least was for me, in the sense of in-between moments of laughing and playing today, I have obsessed with a response to it. . .

Anonymous said...

"populist (i.e., NOT socialist but Keynesian/FDR/New Deal) reform"

But how do you explain NPF? ending up in PrivatBank control?
This is not Keynesian/FDR/New Deal) reform but straight up cronyism and nepotism.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Keynesianism.htm

"From the very first months of work, the members of both teams started to accuse each other of corruption. The main battle happened in this past June, when the government took upon the fate of Nikopol Plant of Ferrosmelting (NPF).

Before the "orange revolution," this plant belonged to the structures associated with Viktor Pinchuk -- son-in-law of former President Leonid Kuchma. Pinchuk bought the plant some time ago, while outbidding Dnipropetrovs’k group "Privat." However, then Pinchuk decided to sell his share in NPF to Russian oligarchs -Alexander Abramov and Viktor Vekselberg. Two groups inside of Ukrainian leadership took the opposite sides of the conflict. Timoshenko was lobbying the Privat, and Poroshenko --Russian oligarchs. The fight was accompanied by the powerful wave of mutual accusations, black PR and compromising materials.

The court, which ended last Friday, gave victory to Timoshenko’s team. The privatization of NPF by Pinchuk was recognized as illegal and the control share of the enterprise was returned to state coffers. The meeting of the shareholders elected new management and the plant went under control of Privat group. The plant's employees went on strike. And on Monday the ownership argument transformed into the full-blown power crisis when Alexander Zinchenko resigned."
http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=607278

This is in direct contrast to what was supposed to happen with NPF - a return to the state and then a public sale. Tymoshenko has supported Privat Bank - "In September Yushchenko warned Tymoshenko about supporting one oligarch group (Pryvat) over another (Interpipe) in a re-privatization dispute." http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2370197
Privat BTW has been on a spending spree with also attempting to gain control of 1+1.

Squabbling with another command because they are impeding your ability to enrich your own command.

The worst part is that she let down the UA people and her supporters by her actions. She was dismissed, rightly so, and perhaps she will more effective as an opposition leader than she was as PM.
"First six month of Tymoshenko government"
http://www2.pravda.com.ua/en/news/2005/8/7/802.ht

Nu, do zavtra (well, then, 'til tomorrow). . .

PS--today is 9/11. Condolences to those who lost, applause for those who cry out, "Ņot in my name!"' against the war in response, and I think that the lessons of 9/11 were largely lost on those who support war in response. Is the world any safer? And don't blame just the "terrorists". . .one-sided blame always is a failure to see one's own complicity.

Tymoshenko

My photo, once again, of this woman on Taras Shevchenko Square in the center of L'viv on Independence Day. Interesting that I did not see anyone holding similar images of Poroshenko (or Yushchenko). . .

Random Thoughts About the Mess in Ukraine

First, Abdymok gets it:

Check this out from Ukraine blogger abdymok; it makes a simple statement that says a lot, and with which I agree. Here's also a great photo he has on his site:


Also, I talked with family today in Pidhajtsi. Shock, disillusionment, and grief. Tymoshenko is well liked in those parts--Poroshenko not much at all. Activists of the batkivshchyna party were central to organizing the OR events in the area.

Also, another thought: Yushchenko's comment about PR was a cheap shot. Really cheap.

All of this is a battle over the ideology of reform: populist (i.e., NOT socialist but Keynesian/FDR/New Deal) reform, or laissez-faire capitalism? Its not about all these characters turning out to be running just another semi-authoritarian, crony-capitalist regime. . .the cynics still are not right about that.

The accusation that Tymoshenko was merely trying to shuffle the country's wealth from one oligarchic clan to another with the reprivatizations is too simplistic and cynical; as Terry Hallman once pointed out here, she was working hard to make good on some of the populist promises of the OR. And it is interesting to note that most of the people reporting today on this controversy over reprivatizations mention that some of the oligarchs of the old power who stood to loose what they had questionably gained had rallied around Poroshenko. . .

And oh--I always got the feeling that Poroshenko was an egoist; Tymoshenko strikes me more as earnest. This earnestness, turning into rashness at times, was part of her current (and hopefully temporary) downfall.

Reaction to Tymoshenko's Dismissal

I wrote this last night, then hesitated a bit to post to it with the thought that maybe I was being too one-sided in my frustration. But today my frustration is stronger; and it just got a boost by my reading of this from Roman Kupchinsky at RFE.

So, yesterday's thoughts:

I am back in Riga for a while, so the aftershock of today's bombshell from Ukraine just hit me. Here are my initial thoughts:

To begin with, I do not buy the myth that is kind-of circulating in blogland of Yushchenko's nobiltiy in this case, as though he has nobly been acting as father to all these quarelling, bad children. He, too, did not start things off so well: Did he not create the post that Poroshenko occupied? Did he not create too many redundancies between posts of his presidential administration and the prime minister's government? Is he not thusly responsible himself in some ways for the bickering, and also by not being forceful enough earlier? Did he do anything to reign-in Mr Poroshenko as he overstepped his legitimate sphere of authority (read Kuzio here for suggestions on how Poroshenko has done so)? Yushchenko is taking decisive action far too late to be acting in any saintly way (and that he acted lately is the reason why he has had to act so severely by dismissing the whole lot of them), and for us to be thinking about him in any saintly way. And why fire the whole government and appoint in its place a former Kuchma-era politico when recent accusations of corruption were aimed primarily at members of Yushchenko's own presidential administration (read Kuzio and Kupchinsky again)? And other reasons why Poroshenko smells bad: He defended Zvarych. Oh, but wait, so did Yushchenko. But so did Tymoshenko, too (right now, I am thinking that she was actually playing along with the team on this issue. . but .maybe I am thinking so foolishly, maybe blindly). Hm. Anyway, Poroshenko also took off to negotiate on his own in Moscow, like his buddy Lytvyn did. Hm. And why isn't Gongadze solved? Does it maybe have anything to do with Poroshenko once having had pledged to remain loyal to Kuchma's administration?

Some have suggested that this is all just a coldly calculated election ploy. Some have commented that while Tymoshenko is more popular than Yushchenko, her popularity is supposed to increase now that she can fashion herself as a victim, and this will bode well for the reform government in the spring elections. But what kind of reforms are we talking about, once and for all? Reforms of a neoliberal, laissez-faire, American-styled capitalism kind, or of a more more populist, and to my mind balanced, kind? This is the chore issue. There were two ideologies of reform in the orange government; on the one side were mostly people in Yushchenko's administration, the market guys. Then there was Tymoshenko's populism. Poroshenko is closer to Yushchenko. So I don't at all buy the story that this really was calculated to help strengthen Tymoshenko's position. It is about consolidating a single ideology of reform. And guess whose is probably out of the picture now? My confidence in Yushchenko is the most severely shaken with this. Read Kuzio here for more (same article as other 2xs) .

And one more thing. Yushchenko says he wants them both to come back and work with him, both Tymoshenko and Poroshenko: yeah right! It is clear, at least to my mind, that this is mostly about marginalizing not the person but what she represents: populist-based reform. He is telling Tymoshenko, I think, that we will continue to work together if you give up your populist fantasies (I don't think they are fantasies, but I think that Yushchenko and Poroshenko think that they are) and get on with pure neoliberal reform. I will have to write a more detailed thought on this. But my initial reaction is that this is about ending the bickering by consolidating a government of people who all agree with Yushchenko's, and Poroshenko's, more neoliberal, market-liberalization reform orientation.

It was necessary for Yushchenko to finally take a side on this matter. There are two theories of reform, and both sides were getting in each other's way. Yushchenko now can not pretend to be a populist. He is, once and for all to my mind, purely a free market ideologue, or a market liberal, or just plain liberal in the classic sense of the word.

To my mind, what Ukraine needs right now is not radical capitalism but a more balanced one; it needs Keynesian theories and State assistance of the New Deal type that the Reaganites and Thatcherites and Milton Friedmanites and Thomas Friedmanites and the whole lot of US neocons and the worldwide class of neoliberals detest.

On Ukraine's Increasing Orange Hangover; More Photos from Ukraine

Read the following RFE article on growing disillusionment with the orange government here.

My comments on the growing disillusionment as I have observed it:

In a previous post, I mentioned that it seemed to me that all the rumors are true, that the majority of people in Ukraine seem increasingly disillusioned with the orange government, as I like to call it. However, after having spent more time in Ukraine since then, I have now come to feel that this comment, while true, needs to be strongly qualified.

But first, one should know that the degree of disillusionment varies.

To begin with, everywhere I have been thus far in Ukraine (Kyiv, Poltava, Yabloniv in the Carpathians, Ivano-Frankivsk, L'viv, Pidhajtsi), people say that things now are much worse than they were a year ago. In some senses, this is certainly true. The economic situation in Ukraine indeed has become more difficult, but for a variety of reasons which I will discuss more below. However, the most disillusioned folks in Ukraine like to blame the orange government entirely for this, and such people are also the ones who most frequently claim that orange politicians are oligarchs just the same as Kuchma et al. We'll call these folks Group A (GA).

And by the way, I am talking here about people who voted for and supported Yushchenko, of course; the pro-Yanukovych camp has been making noise since Yushchenko was inaugurated, and so one can't say that they have become disillusioned. In fact, one should investigate the opposite case among them: How many former Yanukovych supporters now, almost a year later, have come to support the orange government, either actively or passively?

Then there are those whose disillusionment is a bit more nuanced. The more-nuanced-but-yet-disillusioned folks show an appreciation for the difficulty of the tasks facing the orange government (Ukraine being ranked for 2004 as one of the top 25 most corrupt governments in the world), and some even show an understanding that the entire world economy is facing crisis (especially in energy). However, this group of people usually say that inspite of all these obstacles, they still blame the orange government for all the problems facing Ukraine almost a year after the OR because, as they say, it has incompetently handled and thus done nothing to contain or alleviate these global economic and geopolitical pressures on Ukraine's very fragile internal situation, making things worse in Ukraine today than they should be. We'll call such folks Group B (GB).

Thus, one can say that Groups A and B have turned against the orange government; and I will mention below one west Ukrainian with whom I have talked who has gone from skeptical approval of Yushchenko during the OR to outright support of his former opponent, Viktor Yanukovych.

Then there are those of Group C (GC) whose overall approval of the government is still very high, even if they are upset in many ways with the orange government. They usually agree with the GB people in general, but are willing to forgive the orange goverment for its errors and youthfulness, and say that of course the economic situation in the country can not have improved much in hardly a year. They also have, in my opinion, a better and more significant appreciation of how the world energy crisis and Russian control of Ukraine's oil supply really has the orange government's hands tied. The real or main cause of this group's unhappiness was the first-brat affair and Yushchenko's handling of it. Also, some in this camp remain bitter that Zvarych remains in government, and they also are not pleased at what they percieve to be the weak way in which the government has gone after corrupt officials, but also are grateful for what has been accomplished in this respect. Many also have a low opinion of Poroshenko, and some within this group will say that they think less and less of Yushchenko and more and more of Tymoshenko.

Finally, there is Group D. These are the folks whose dedication and approval of the orange government is unchanged. They usually are folks who don't know much about history or politics, and/or are painful idealists, etc. These are the people who practically deify Yushchenko.

Now, for my comments. First of all, this obviously is not a scientific study but comments entirely based on my conversations with quite a large number and variety of people: professional people, students, professors, and former journalists; average workers, taxi drivers, etc.; and then villagers engaged in everday subsistence farming, etc. I have also talked with former Pora! activists and one person with a current government post (at the county or rajon level, one who is ranked third in his county administration).

The people of Group D and C are people who, in general, played a very active role in the OR. They are those who before the OR canvassed for Yushchenko or openly talked a great deal about him, who went to rallies before the elections, or who in general were quite engaged. later they went to demos either in Kyiv or locally, etc., and they are one who went not because it was the cool thing to do at the time, but because of real feeling. They were not passive observers of change, but among those who were the active makers.

It is my feeling that most of the people of Group B and just about all of those of Group A were people who watched things last year as they took place on TV. For example, the most vehement of disillusioned haters (I would say) of the new orange government that I have met is a west Ukrainian who I know watched the whole thing on TV, who did not even go to a single local demonstration in his hometown, and whose son in fact worked for the local Yanukovych campaign headquarters. The son at first said that he did so because he had the noble goal of promoting political pluralism in his hometown that was clearly, overwhelmingly in favor of Yushchenko; later, he claimed he did so as a spy for the Yushchenko campaign. Everyone knew, however, that it was just for the money (the Yanukovych campaign paid something near $1,000 or more to his campaign workers in certain parts of western Ukraine, demanding in return that they deliver a certain percentage of votes, by whatever means necessary). This man told me that, "If they say we are going to Kyiv this year with machine guns and that we are gonna open fire at the parliament and shoot down all of the politicians, this time I would be going!"

The majority of Ukrainians did not actively get up and demonstrate during the OR. The critical mass of Ukrainians however did, and they did represent the feelings of anger and frustration and disgust held by the majority. This is true of every revolution; the majority may support it with their anger and rage, but only a critical mass actually join in the fight. The majority of Ukrainians did vote for Yushchenko, and given that the majority of those who voted did not demonstrate, it is no suprise to me that the majority of them are now feeling disillusioned to the point of rejecting that government they voted for--they expected the world to change, as they free-rode on the efforts of others. Those who actively participated continue to actively support the orange government in general. Those who sat and waited and passively thought about things are the first ones to have become severely disillusioned. As my friend Volodymyr Kish in Kyiv said to me, things would be much easier for the orange government if it had not come to power through a revolution.

Ukrainian Independence Day2005 in L'viv, by the Monument to Taras Shevchenko

RUNvira on Shevchenko Square on Independence Day 2005

RUNvira is one of a few groups in Ukraine who oppose Christianity and that seek to rejuvenate the pre-Christian or animist religion of the ancient Slavs. I have sympathy with their appreciation for animist religion; however, this group holds some really cooky and zainy views, at least officially-- I don't know if individuals hold much of them. One zainy view is the notion that Volodymyr the Great was from a northern dynasty (i.e., a Russian one) who imposed a foriegn religion (christianity) on the Rus'. So, in other words, Orthodoxy is Russian Imperialism and it all began with Volodymyr. To save Ukraine, Ukrainians need to reject Orthodoxy. Also, the founder of the movement was a virulent anti-Semite, and said to be a Nazi collaborator. In this case, I don't think this is mere propaganda to discredit the group. I think it is a truth about the founder and perhaps a number of followers. But there is much that is interesting about attempts to rejuvenate pre-Christian religion, if it can seperate itself from the tendency toward anti-Semitism and silly, or wily-nily, Russophobia.

Anyhow, RUNvira showed up on the square in front of the Taras Shevchenko monument on Independence Day to protest their exclusion from the all-denominational ceremony that took place there. There were maybe three or four of them.

Chornabryvtsi

An interesting story: A year or so ago, a major Chinese director came to Yabloniv, a village outside of Kolomyja where a good friend comes from and where I have spent much time the last two summers with her and her family. I forget the name of the director, but he wanted to film a major Chinese release here about a love story. He somehow was acquainted and enchanted with the Ukrainian Carpathians, and wanted to film a scene of his two major protagonists making love in a field of chornabryvtsi, the flowers pictured above. So a local crew was hired to plant an entire field for the shoot; however, when the director saw the field, he decided it would not work for the film. The people of this village still talk about how the Chinese film crew just spent money flagrantly, from the perspective of a poor villager. One guy talks about how he got $20 for giving a crew member a short ride! $20 can be 1/3 of a monthly wage in many parts of Ukraine!

Village of Sheshory in the front range of the Ukrainian Carpathians, State of Ivano-Frankivsk

Hutsul Musicians at the Restaurant "Arkan," a Very Touristy Spot in the village of Sheshory, State of Ivano-Frankivsk

Z Jablonova do Frankivsk avtostopom (Hitchhiking from Yabloniv to Ivano-Frankivsk)

Pidhajets'ka Korova (A Pidhajtsi Cow)

Baba Slavka z Kuramy (My Grandmother's Sister with the Chickens)

On Going Back to School in Ukraine; On the Back to the Village Movement or Authentic Folk Culture Perfomance in Ukraine

Old Polish Cathedral in Pidhajtsi

Pecherska Lavra, Kyiv (Monastery of the Caves in Kyiv)

The Folklore Music Group "Bozhychi"

This photo is from last Wednesday night, Aug. 31, and was taken on the campus square inside Kyiv Mohyla Academy. Students arrived en masse to Kyiv from all over Ukraine that day, as classes began the next day. Initially, I had wanted to take a train on Tuesday night from Ternopil to Kyiv, getting in Kyiv on Wednesday morning, but alas I discovered only too late that there were no tickets--students wanting to get to Kyiv the day before classes began had already bought them all up. I have no idea how many universities are in Kyiv, but there are many, and I did not think about the fact that there would such mass movement from the provinces to the capital. Fortunately, my luck was that I was able to hitch a ride that night instead with my second-cousin Ostap, who was driving his girlfriend to Kyiv. His girlfriend is starting her first year at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, and also had no luck getting on the trains from Ternopil. So we set out from Pidhajtsi mashynoju (by car) at 4 AM and arrived in Kyiv at 12 noon. The distance from Pidhajtsi to Kyiv is shorter than that from Minneapolis to Chicago (maybe 300 miles at most), and yet it takes about 8 hrs. to drive there--you must add at least two hours Ukrainian drive time for slightly less than the same distance. If you go by bus or train, it will be an overnight venture, or you can also take a daytime bus that will leave western Ukraine in the morning aroud 7 and get to Kyiv by 8PM.

However, word is that they are now planning to add a high-speed train from Lviv to Kyiv. There already are high-speed trains connecting Kyiv to Kharkiv, I know for sure, and I think there is one to Dontesk, I think, as well (the high-speed train from Kyiv to Kharkiv zipps from the capital to Poltava, and then to Kharkiv). It is typical that eastern Ukraine has more modern services such as this high-speed train while there has been nothing but neglect for the western part of the country. It is also typical that eastern Ukrainian cities got more money for renovations under the old oligarchy while the beautiful, very Mitteleuropa-styled architecture of L'viv is still crumbling and neglected. I hope that the Orange government will be making a priority of evening out the way that tax-money and development resources are allocated in the country. Keep this in mind: the tax-system in Ukraine is centralized, so that all tax money, at least in theory, is supposed to go from the regions back to the center (i.e., Kyiv) from which it then is supposed to be redistributed back to the regions. The opportunity for corruption along this money-trail, both too and fro from the regions, is obvious. Ukraine is not a federal but centralized state--there is basically no or very little local-level independence, at least in theory. State administrations are part of the central government, with the President appointing the governors. So another problem is that the tax money is supposed to be redistributed according to regional needs, but it is very obvious that the infrastructure and major cities of the eastern and central regions have benefited from the lion's share of the tax and development money under the old oligarchy. In part, western Ukrainians have subsidized some major projects in (as well as profits for the oligarchs of) the central and eastern parts, while their roads, water pipelines, powerlines and transformers, and major cities, are in various states of severe decay, by comparison to what exists in much of the central and eastern parts. This is not to say that the situation in the central and eastern parts is perfect. Not at all. Not at all. But western Ukraine is, in general, in a state of greater decay, and it is in part because of this reason of the uneven allocations of tax and development money. However, part of the reason for this uneven allocation is the fact that the central and especially eastern parts of Ukraine are the industrial powerhouses, while western Ukraine has mostly an agricultural economy that is, for the most part, limited to mere subsistence farming and limited sale of cash-crops, such as sugar beets. The economic incentive for doing more about infrastructure in the central and east is obvious, but many people with whom I have chatted feel that the unevenness of development has more to do with the fact that the formerly-ruling oligarchic clans all hailed from the central and east, and thus allocated state money from taxes and development funds accordingly (to their hometowns as much as to their own coffers).

Anyhow, back to the musicians. This photo was taken on the square inside of Kyiv Mohyla Academy in Kyiv, were there was a dance and concert for the students arriving to begin classes the next day. The evening began with social or recreational folk dancing. As far as I am concerned, this is the closest one can get to the ''real thing," by which I mean, seeing how our ancestors really danced in their villages. In other words, if you want to see how people, including our Ukrainian ancestors, really danced in their villages anywhere in eastern Europe, go to the villages, or go to the recreational folk dancing clubs, or go and see dance troupes that have very deliberately distanced themselves from the style of dance that reigned supreme for most of the 20th Century in eastern Europe--a very formal style involving mostly ballet moves and only a little folk dancing. In other words, avoid Virskyj, Russia's Mosiev, and most of the dance companies in the diaspora!

But before I am slain for this comment, let me explain it: When I go to a folk performance, I want to be transported to another time, and feel like what I am watching is people dancing in their village--albeit in a village in which every person is a talented dancer! However, I don't get this sense when I see Virskyj or most of the Ukrainian diaspora groups. I can tell you from personal observation that the way most groups peform dances like arkan or hopak only vaguely resemble the real way the dances were/are done in Hutsul or central Ukrainian villages, respectively.

However, I do get the sense that I am in a village watching people dance when I see Hungarian and Bulgarian groups. That is because the Hungarians and Bulgarians (and Latvians, at least musically if not in dance) were leaders, starting in the 1970s, of a back-to-the-village movement that changed how folk culture was presented and performed. Throughout the 20th century, and usually under Soviet tutelage, a style of performing folk culture was developed that added loads of ballet and classical music to folk dances and music. It was as though the music was too dissonant or unharmonious, and the dances too rough, for the stage, and the Soviets, inheriting the all-Russian imperial culture's obsessions with appearing as cultured as any people in Europe, proceeded to suffocate, to my and many others' minds, authentic folk music and dance with a typically Soviet and Imperial Russian formalism. Formalism came into folk dance via ballet, into folk music via classical music training, and for the most part, what groups like Virskyj do is better described as character ballet than folk dance. And this is the style that most of us growing up in the diaspora learned. I certainly did.

However, in the 1970s, a back-to-the-village movement began in much of eastern Europe, especially in Hungary and Bulgaria and Latvia, whose participants tried to jettison all of the Soviet formalism (that one of my dance teachers in the US likes to call "Sovietski Bullshitski;" more on Don LaCourse later. . .) and to return to a more authentic, village based style of performace. The results are astounding. This has meant a change in choreography as much as in footwork and musical accompaniment, and one really should see how major ensembles in Hungary and Bulgaria perform. Most members of ensembles there still do have a great deal of professional ballet and music training and the dancers do ballet warm-ups, but the end result is completely different from what was the norm in Soviet times and continues to be the norm in Ukrainian diaspora folk performances. I am waiting for the passion for authenticity to catch on in the Ukrainian folk performance world, and it is starting to. . .

There is a back-to-the-village movement in Ukraine. There are lots of groups who know how to play the music as the village musicians used to, and not just as the Philharmonic Institute students of Soviet times have been trained to. The photo above is of one such group. The violin player is in another group, called Buttja, in which he plays with his father and his sister. I saw them playing on the street in front of the Arsenal'na metro station in Kyiv, a busy and touristy one since it is the closest station to Pecherska Lavra and Stalin's gigantic Mother statue marking the Soviet victory over the Nazis in Kyiv. Buttja has recorded 14 albums of authentic music from all over Ukraine. They spend much time seeking out musicians in rural parts of the country, those without much formal training and who know village music from traditions within their families, etc., and Buttja don't change the music so that becomes easy listening for bourgeois ears. There are more of such music groups around.

Also, social or recreational dancing of folk dances, as what was going on last Wednesday at Kyiv Mohyla, was and is still a major part of the back-to-the-village movement. Many of those musicians and dancers who made and make field trips to the villages will come back and play the authentic styled music and will teach the authentic style of the dances at social clubs. In Riga, they get together every T night in the old town. I was told that in Kyiv, there is somewhere to go every Fri. And in Budapest, in the fall though spring, there is a very lively tanchaus seen. It is very worth checking all of these things out, and I hope some day Virskyj will jettison all of the ballet (the Sovietski Bullshitski) and will come to resemble something more like the Hungarian or Bulgarian National Ensembles.

And more thing: in countries like Latvia and Hungary, such movements for authenticity or back-to-the-village played a major role in the anti-Soviet resistance. This was especially so in Latvia, where the singing of folk songs became such a big part of the anti-Soviet resistance that the anti-Soviet rebellion that led to independence is called "The Singing Revolution." The back-to-the-village movement played kind of a role in Ukraine, especially of course in western Ukraine, but the movement was not as well developed as in Hungary or Latvia, it seems to me. Today, just as in the US, most of the enthusiasts of such authenticity are part of a subculture that includes lots of hippies, punks, more educated and artistic people, etc.--people whose tastes tend to deviate from bourgeois norms. But plenty of people with average middle class tastes have also grown to love and appreciate the more authentic styles wherever they gained supremacy, as in Hungary.

And oh, one other thing: if you are in the US, you can check out either the Ethnic Dance Theater of Minneapolis or the Tamburitzans of Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. These groups take their cue from the back-to-the-village style and do it very well. I may be a little biased, as I danced for years with the Ethnic Dance Theater, started by one Don LaCourse from whom I have learned a great deal about the big difference that exists between the authentic and the Bullshitski. . .

I also want to mention that my Ukrainian dance instructor as a teenager, Oksana Bryn, also worked hard to move things toward the more authentic; perhaps I took my cue from her! (And both Oksana and Don start their rehearsals with ballet warm ups; it is good to know it, but folk dance is folk dance and not character ballet!)

Well, more later on my adventures in Ukraine. I am, at present, really inspired to finally be meeting people of the back-to-the-village movement and mentality!