Read most of the following article, think it's well worth a look and perhaps a discussion here. Quoting a bit from the introduction and the conclusion...
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February 1, 2023
What kind of people are these? I asked as I considered, in my previous commentary, the bottomless corruption and cynical theft that have lately bubbled to the surface in Ukraine. What kind of polity is this? What kind of country is Ukraine? To advance this line of inquiry we must now ask: What do we talk about when we talk about Ukrainian nationalism and Ukrainian nationalists?
Volodymyr Zelensky offers us a nation of admirable patriotic pride and fervor. But does Ukraine’s president represent the sentiments of Ukrainians so faithfully as our corporate-owned media lead us to assume? There are too many reports of Zelensky’s political vulnerability to dismiss as he takes the nation in what amounts to a frenzy of self-destruction—destruction, this is to say, of the nation he purports to be saving. The New York Times and the other major American dailies, which print when the Times prints and are silent when the Times is silent, do not tire of telling us Zelensky came to office in a landslide electoral victory four years ago. I wish they were honest enough to note that one policy, more than any other, won Zelensky 71 percent of the vote. This was a commitment to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Ukraine’s Russian neighbor and mend the fracture running down the center of the country between its western and eastern provinces.
What kind of national leader is this man who betrayed his electorate and now advertises himself as standing for them? Volodymyr Zelensky used to make his living as an actor, a performer, and it seems to me he continues to do so. What drama is he performing?
The Azov Battalion, which has emerged as a critical component of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, dropped the Nazi Wolfsangel as its regimental symbol in mid–2022. This had proven problematic after hostilities began a year ago this month. When, with the war on and the West pouring weapons into Ukraine, members of the Azov Battalion went to Washington and then Disney World—an interesting itinerary—their sponsors required them to wear long sleeves to cover up their tattoos of the Wolfsangel and the Schwarze sonnen, their black suns, which figured prominently as occult symbols of Nazi SS rituals. Why? Because we like you!
[snip]
This is where I come out on the neo–Nazi presence in Ukraine and the professions of nationalism emanating not only from the ultraright but often enough from the regime itself. I do not doubt their will to power, that they are in their war with Russia to win it. But the project is not to build a nation: Ultranationalist elements have done diabolically well tearing apart what remains of one. When, not long after he was elected and before he had caved to the Americans, Zelensky went to the front line while the Ukrainian forces were bombarding their Russian-speaking countrymen in the eastern provinces, ultraright officers threatened to lynch him when he ordered them to stop the shelling. Whereupon Zelensky stepped back and the bombardments went on for many years. What does this tell us? These people have no interest in making a nation of Ukraine or serving a democratic citizenry. They have no idea of any such responsibility and no thought of assuming one. The project is to submit to an ideology that prominently features violence and a consuming hatred of others. War becomes the perfect “duty,” the thing one must do, the pure expression of the authoritarianism to which they are dedicated.
This is my “nationalists without a nation.” To take at face value what Ukraine presents of itself, and the reproduction of this presentation by American officials and in American media, is merely another form of submission, nothing more.
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Full article:
Patrick Lawrence: The Pathology of Ukrainian Nationalism | Scheerpost
**
February 1, 2023
What kind of people are these? I asked as I considered, in my previous commentary, the bottomless corruption and cynical theft that have lately bubbled to the surface in Ukraine. What kind of polity is this? What kind of country is Ukraine? To advance this line of inquiry we must now ask: What do we talk about when we talk about Ukrainian nationalism and Ukrainian nationalists?
Volodymyr Zelensky offers us a nation of admirable patriotic pride and fervor. But does Ukraine’s president represent the sentiments of Ukrainians so faithfully as our corporate-owned media lead us to assume? There are too many reports of Zelensky’s political vulnerability to dismiss as he takes the nation in what amounts to a frenzy of self-destruction—destruction, this is to say, of the nation he purports to be saving. The New York Times and the other major American dailies, which print when the Times prints and are silent when the Times is silent, do not tire of telling us Zelensky came to office in a landslide electoral victory four years ago. I wish they were honest enough to note that one policy, more than any other, won Zelensky 71 percent of the vote. This was a commitment to negotiate a peaceful settlement with Ukraine’s Russian neighbor and mend the fracture running down the center of the country between its western and eastern provinces.
What kind of national leader is this man who betrayed his electorate and now advertises himself as standing for them? Volodymyr Zelensky used to make his living as an actor, a performer, and it seems to me he continues to do so. What drama is he performing?
The Azov Battalion, which has emerged as a critical component of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, dropped the Nazi Wolfsangel as its regimental symbol in mid–2022. This had proven problematic after hostilities began a year ago this month. When, with the war on and the West pouring weapons into Ukraine, members of the Azov Battalion went to Washington and then Disney World—an interesting itinerary—their sponsors required them to wear long sleeves to cover up their tattoos of the Wolfsangel and the Schwarze sonnen, their black suns, which figured prominently as occult symbols of Nazi SS rituals. Why? Because we like you!
[snip]
This is where I come out on the neo–Nazi presence in Ukraine and the professions of nationalism emanating not only from the ultraright but often enough from the regime itself. I do not doubt their will to power, that they are in their war with Russia to win it. But the project is not to build a nation: Ultranationalist elements have done diabolically well tearing apart what remains of one. When, not long after he was elected and before he had caved to the Americans, Zelensky went to the front line while the Ukrainian forces were bombarding their Russian-speaking countrymen in the eastern provinces, ultraright officers threatened to lynch him when he ordered them to stop the shelling. Whereupon Zelensky stepped back and the bombardments went on for many years. What does this tell us? These people have no interest in making a nation of Ukraine or serving a democratic citizenry. They have no idea of any such responsibility and no thought of assuming one. The project is to submit to an ideology that prominently features violence and a consuming hatred of others. War becomes the perfect “duty,” the thing one must do, the pure expression of the authoritarianism to which they are dedicated.
This is my “nationalists without a nation.” To take at face value what Ukraine presents of itself, and the reproduction of this presentation by American officials and in American media, is merely another form of submission, nothing more.
**
Full article:
Patrick Lawrence: The Pathology of Ukrainian Nationalism | Scheerpost