[lg policy] Ukraine: Distraction of reasoning produces monsters

Wed Sep 12 14:50:47 UTC 2012

Distraction of reasoning produces monsters
Ukraine is going through a political bacchanalia inspired by
“language” invention of the government

By Volodymyr PANCHENKO, people’s deputy of Ukraine in 1990-94

A lot has been said (including The Day’s articles) about legal
insignificance of the Law “On Principles of State Language Policy,”
thus, there is no reason to repeat it all really. The most important
thing is that it goes contrary to the Constitution of Ukraine. The
principles of the state language policy can be defined exclusively by
it. And if the Constitutional Court was actually defending the Basic
Law instead of serving as a political odalisques, no one would be
thinking about the lame work of the two “K” (the law was drafted by
Serhii Kivalov and Vadym Kolesnichenko). However, one cannot speak of
justice under creeping authoritarianism.

This, in fact, is the main problem – the creeping authoritarianism. If
the majority in the parliament and the president would follow the laws
and considered numerous expert opinions (Venice Commission, Ministry
of Justice, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Culture, Scientific
Expert Directory of the Verkhovna Rada, specialized institutes of the
Academy of Sciences, etc.) they would not have taken this adventurous
path. However, the upcoming elections and the fear of losing power
have pushed the President’s Administration and the deputies, who serve
it to begin playing risky games. Paradoxically, as it may sound, the
president signed the law that destroys Ukrainian statehood. The head
of the state defied Constitution, despite the fact that he swore to
follow it.

Processes instigated by the Law “On Principles of the State Language
Policy” are dangerous due to the fact that they tore Ukraine apart,
provoking conflicts over language and ethnicity. The course of events
has showed that in oblasts and cities where “parade” of regional
languages is in full swing officials believe that regional language is
introduced to replace the official state language. Ukrainian language
is being rapidly forced out from educational sphere (even though
before Ukrainian was not as widely used there anyway), mass media,
courts, and official records. There have formed zones that are
completely free of Ukrainian, which for millions of Ukrainian citizens
becomes hopelessly foreign. Along with this, as it was easily
predicted, all the promises the government made to protect the
languages of other minority groups were empty. Great internationalist
Mykhailo Chechetov: “The most important here is Russian language,” and
not “the languages used by some small groups of people.” Thus, all of
these Bulgarians, Crimean Tatars, Poles, and Hungarians should not
“stir up ethnic strife,” demanding status of a regional language for
their languages.

Russification of Ukraine is deployed in full swing. Regions and ethnic
groups face a conflict. Ukrainian language, which in the status of the
state official language was supposed to serve the unifying role, is
driven into ghetto. And all of this is called “Principles of the State
Language Policy.” All promises made by Viktor Yanukovych and Mykola
Azarov regarding the state programs to support the Ukrainian language
are worthy of a donut hole, because what such program can offer when
legislature has opened floodgates of Russification to the maximum.
When the president signed this unconstitutional law and immediately
ordered to establish a working group that would suggest the ways of
improving it, did it look like an attempt to put on pants over your
head? The working group, of course, drafted a project of alternations,
and quite radical ones, but it is hard to say what will happen to this
document next. It is obvious that everything will depend on the
results of the parliamentary elections.

Thus, the implementation of the Law “On Principles of the State
Language Policy” in the 21st year of Ukraine’s independence put the
issue of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and the future existence of
Ukraine as a state on the agenda. And given the fact that the hundreds
of thousands of billboards from Uzhhorod to Luhansk urge us to get to
federalization of Ukraine, I get an impression that the language
“experiments” are only a part of a larger scenario of state
liquidation caused by both external and internal factors. What do
people in special services financed from Ukraine’s budget think about
it all? There is no way I may know the answer to this. It seems that,
as in the Soviet times, they are more fond of fighting “Ukrainian
nationalism” than of defending territorial integrity and sovereignty
of the state.

So what’s next? I am convinced that the Law “On Principles of the
State Language Policy” should be disavowed and this should be done by
the president. He has a great variety of means for doing this (just
remember the story of red flags). However, Yanukovych apparently
believes that he will manage to balance it all: the law of two “K”s
will remain in force (maybe with some minor changes) and the “bone” in
the form of a state program to support the Ukrainian language will
calm down the rest of Ukraine. There is no way this can happen!

Civic resistance to the policy of Russification of Ukraine that
deprives us of the historical perspective will inevitably grow despite
the current weakness of the political opposition and servility in the
intellectual environment. Sooner or later this will lead to logical
results: government, feudal in its nature, which acts with arrogance
of an invader will inevitably go into oblivion. We should only help
them do it. We have a maximum of two and a half years for this.

http://www.day.kiev.ua/234751

-- 
**************************************
N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to
its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner
or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents.
Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal,
and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message.
 A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well.  (H. Schiffman,
Moderator)

For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to
https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/
listinfo/lgpolicy-list
*******************************************

_______________________________________________
This message came to you by way of the lgpolicy-list mailing list
lgpolicy-list at groups.sas.upenn.edu
To manage your subscription unsubscribe, or arrange digest format: https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/listinfo/lgpolicy-list