Off topic. Today's Polish newspaper "Rzeczpospolita" has an interview with the leader of "The Right Sector", an ultra-nationalist Ukrainian group that has been involved in a lot of hard fighting with Yanukovich's thugs from the Berkut. I have translated the interview and have decided to post it here without a comment, except for noting that his thinking seems rather similar to one regular commenter on this blog.
Q: Why do flags of UPA and portraits of Stepen Bandera fly over the Maidan?
Andrij Tarasenko: Our organisation, The Right Sector, carries the name of Bandera. He is the symbol of the revolutionary struggle for the independence of our country. If it were not for him, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) would not have existed and without OUN there would be no independent Ukraine today. Our nation lived for hundreds of years lived under the occupation of various empires and those who fought for liberation united around great heroes: Mazepa, Petlura, Bandera. The same it true today.
Q: For the inhabitants of east Ukraine Bandera is, however, not a hero but a traitor. Would it not be better to find someone who unites Ukrainians rather than divides them?
Andrij Tarasenko: It is not Bandera who divides Ukrainians but the propaganda of imperial Russia. Moscow always acted on the principle:divide and rule. That’s why it presented Bandera in negative light. If not for that Bandera would unite today all Ukrainians. I myself come from the east, but I am a follower of Bandera.
Q: However, Bandera was the inspirator of the Volhynia massacres, as a result of which more that 100,000 Poles were murdered. Isn’t he responsible for genocide?
Andrij Tarasenko: This is rubbish. I know exactly the history of UPA and know that this is simply false. Admittedly, Bandera recommended using radical methods, but one has to resist the occupier by all means. Particularly when the occupier does not want to leave your land.
Q: But these were the years of war so is hard to claim that the Poles were “occupiers”.
Andrij Tarasenko: Our country was occupied by Germans, Poles, Rumanians, Hungarians and Russians.
Q: Poland is today the most important ally of Ukraine in its fight for independence. Isn’t it for this reason a tactical mistake to display on the Maidan the symbols of UPA?
Andrij Tarasenko: I understand this but we are Bandera men and we cannot give up our convictions for tactical reasons.
Q: Are the current borders of Ukraine just ones?
Andrij Tarasenko: A nationalist is someone who aims at united all the ethnic lands of his nation, those where Ukrainians lived for thousands of years. Otherwise he cannot be called a nationalist. After the war the “Operation Vistula” caused Ukrainians to be expelled from these ethnic lands but justice demands that they should return to Ukraine. I am speaking about Przemyśl and a number of other districts.
Q: How do you intend to achieve this.
Andrij Tarasenko: My diplomatic means. We are not an imperial nation, we do not demand the lands of others, we want only what is our own.
Q: However, one cannot be a member of the EU and at the same time demand the change of borders.
Andrij Tarasenko: The place of Ukraine is not in the Union; this would be contrary to the idea of the national state. Anyway, even in Poland there are many people dissatisfied with the fact that the international structures limit the country’s sovereignty.
Q: Ukraine will not be safe balancing between Russia and Western Europe.
Andrij Tarasenko:: That’s why we must have nuclear weapons. We have may experts in Ukraine who can restore them very quickly.
Q: When will the Maidan revolution end?
Andrij Tarasenko: When Yanukovich leaves. In order to achieve this, we are ready to use all means, even the most radical ones. This is what Bandera did. Yanukovich understands only force, and if we had not used it, he would not have offered negotiations.
Rzeczpospolita’s interview with Tarasenko has (not surprisingly) caused a huge uproar in the Polish media so the “Right Sector” today published a response.
http://espreso.tv/new/2014/01/...
Unfortunately it is only in Ukrainian so I will this time only summarise the contents.
The interview is described as a “provocation”. The provocation consiste in asking “provocative” questions and then quoting replies “out of context”. Next follow the “correct” views of the Right Sector, grouped into 5 points.
1. About Bandera. Every nation can choose its own heros. Other nations do not have to view them as such. For example, just as Ukrainians do not view Józef Piłsudski as a hero so they don’t expect Poles to view Bandera as such and they are counting on Poles getting rid of their chauvinist assumptions and accept other nations right to have their own heros.
2. As for the event is Volhynia: they should be seen in the wide historical context (which includes the Polish occupation and colonisation of Ukrainian lands). Ukrainians killed Poles and Poles killed Ukrainians and that was a tragedy for both nations. Not is not the time to make out of this tragedy a wall that divides the two neigbouring peoples.
(My addition: the fact that the victis of the Ukrainian massacres of Poles in Volhynia outnumbered the victims of the later Polish retaliation by 50:1 is probably considered by the Right Sector as, to borrow the famous phrase from Le Pen Senior, “a historical detail”.
Also nobody mentioned the large number of Jewish victims of UPA, whom nobody could describe as “occupiers” or “colonisers”.)
The third point is the most interesting:
3. These days it makes no sense to bring back old territorial claims. Both Ukrainians and Poles face two dangers: on the one hand Moscow imperialism and on the other (wait for it)
globalism, american imperialism, the power of transnational corporations and demo-liberal dictatorship.
This last phrase sounds quite familiar. The only new thing is the phrase “demo-liberal”. The usual one that one hears from people of similar views is “neo-liberal”.
4. Ukrainian nationalist consider Ukrainians of Polish origin as follow citizens and have no problems with them.
5. Ukrainian nationalist seek an alliance with Polish nationalist against their common enemies, as described in 3.