February 4, 2015

Word: Ukraine

Nicolai Petro is professor of politics at the University of Rhode Island and spent much of the last year on a Fulbright research scholarship in Ukraine. His pieces include ”The Real War in Ukraine: The Battle over Ukrainian Identity.”

Nicolai Petro - This conflict is about whether Ukraine should be a monocultural or pluricultural nation. Peace is unlikely until Ukrainian politics are brought into conformity with the country’s bi-cultural reality.

The gridlock of the past two decades that prevented reforms, were Ukraine’s way of dealing with its internal split. When advocates of Western Ukraine ousted the popularly elected president in February 2014, they broke the fragile balance and conflict became inevitable.

The new political majority in Kiev believes it can create a culturally homogeneous Ukraine in which the East is assigned a permanent subordinate status. Military victory over the rebels might give them the power to do this, but Kiev’s unwillingness to compromise means more or less permanent turmoil in the Eastern and Southern parts of the country.

Western proposals that ignore the domestic roots of this conflict cannot succeed in achieving a viable Ukraine.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ukrainian ex-prime minister calls for new constitutional arrangement

http://www.interfax.com/newsinf.asp?id=569400

Anonymous said...

Steven Cohen is a Russian scholar of some note teaching at Princeton and New York University. He's posited some alarming words about the Ukrainian long before its eruption last February, and his analysis has proven insightful since. He recently appeared on Democracy Now with Amy Goodman.
The transcript is well worth the read as events continue to infold into proxy war:

http://www.democracynow.org/2015/2/3/is_ukraine_a_proxy_western_russia

Anonymous said...

Anyone still recall the name Robert Kagan, Brookings Institute scholar, champion of 'American global activism', and husband to non other than Victoria "fuck the EU" Nuland?
Quite a couple they are as they negotiate the corridors of government career bureaucracy in service for the empire.
consider:
http://www.rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/kagan_robert

Anonymous said...

The only reason for "multiculture" in Ukraina is the history of Tsarist and Soviet subjugation and occupation of Ukraina's breadbasket and industry. The Ukraintsi do not like the self-styled "Great Russians" nor to be called "Little Russians" as tho their history and culture were poor copies of Russian history and culture.