COMMENTARY: Amnesia, or who we are (PART I) (11/27/05)

COMMENTARY

Amnesia, or who we are

by Tetiana Seleznyova

PART I

Strange, strange country - but does it exist? There is a territory, of course. But what about the country itself? Maybe it is a phantom that has misled, become agitated, been divided into parts, or has not given peace to the other "stable and powerful" countries for many centuries?

And does it make any difference to us: Ukraine or the Russian empire, as our kind neighbors keep persuading us? The national identity and the conscience of the people, who through the will chance were born on this land, were always on the blade of a knife, always on the edge.

And the land is truly unique, capable of giving the world thinkers, outstanding singers, musicians, writers, poets, actors, scientists - just like that. Our generous country lets them go and loses them without requiring them to remember where they are from. You might say that it happens in every country or almost in every country. No. The confirmation of this is in the endless lists of names of the most talented people who became famous in foreign lands and never remembered their native land, unless by chance they heard a sad Ukrainian melody and shed a spontaneous, single tear.

And there were others. Oddballs who more than anything loved this land and could not betray it - even giving their lives for it. If not for them, the country would not exist at all. Throughout Ukraine's long-suffering history (and this is a holy truth - you would hardly be able to see such tragic uncertainties, trials, humiliations and betrayals in the "archives" of other countries), there have been luminaries embodying faith and the bloody hope for revival and prosperity of Ukraine.

The issue is not about well-being. We are still far away from that. First of all, in order to live happily and well-fed, we should realize who we are and where we are going. And we should do it together, step by step, faithfully and without getting off track. National consciousness does not begin or end with a Hopak, a folk song or embroidery. It is a deep feeling of identity and responsibility that can enlighten the soul at the age of 27, for example, or it can be with you from your very birth.

I was lucky enough to get it at 27. My country told me loudly that it was alive, inspired and rich in sincere people. Fractures, explosions, radiance, courage, devotion and stubbornness - you can live your whole life and never see or feel these things. Don't tell me that "dreams never come true." I stood on the maidan against audacious lies so that I would be able to get over my fears. I stood there because it was warm, in spite of the frost and rain and snow.

It was for real. I truly felt the warmth of people's concern, their powerful strength, their participation in events and their strong belief in changing everything. That cannot be bought. Let's remember the wisest of tales, where a king sums up a fantastic story: "No money in the world can make a foot tiny or a heart big." But the people who with crooked faces and fake smiles tell us today about the "complete failure of the so-called revolution" probably never read tales and never believed in the victory of good over evil. Moreover, it is no wonder that they cannot feel anything except the smell of lots of money and the steely flavor of power.

Dear friends! Your sarcasm won't deny or change anything that has already happened. A new president was not accomplished - a new Ukrainian people was accomplished! We began a new count of time. If you are not able to hear this clatter, that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. And a belief in "a kind tsar," the desire to have perfect government officials above all, makes demands on those who in power, but not on yourself - these truly are peculiarities of our national thinking. Moreover, these are signs of the difficult Soviet legacy, whereby the most important thing was appearance, a facsimile, not truth or content.

And from what did the Soviet Union begin? The huge and powerful entity began from an epochal murder. The prescient, insatiable and bloody "something" was created on the Romanovs' bones. The room where they were murdered was turned into: a museum. They created theme tours and told of how they finished off a tsar, his wife, his children and his domestics. The haughtily smiling "guide" would say that the "weak" and "uneducated" tsar and his wife crossed themselves while dying of bullets. Of course it's funny - not to know that God does not really exist!

It's not inconceivable that children left the room of horrors amidst the sounds of the "Internationale" certain that they lived in the best country in the world. And entire generations of intimidated monsters were raised who were not responsible for their moral deformity. They were forced to adjust to thoughts based on models, uniform desires, the right expressions. And those who resisted had to be been broken. The intelligentsia was raped, starved or hauled off to the edge of the world. And those who stayed behind degradedly created works in "the spirit of socialist realism." Only. They had to forever forget what fantasy and the "creative will" are.

But against this background, this background for an overall trance and state distortion, there were still people who believed. And their faith also created miracles. It's like a dream in which you are a hero and a happy ending is necessary; in which you smile and there are no sorrows and lies. But it's time to wake up. This can't be avoided. It's time to repent for our crimes, for silent consent. For consent to many years of murder of nature, talents, thoughts and people! For those who say that they lived "better in Soviet times," is it possible they just care only "kovbasa" [sausage] for 2.20 rubles? Is it possible they are only concerned about their personal, petty and trivial happiness, and the rest does not apply?

It doesn't apply until they come knocking at the door of your family and haul off your fathers, brothers and sons. And if that did not happen, they could forever enjoy their kovbasa and nod their condolences at neighbors who met such grief. Such happiness is decadent. There is no development in kovbasa. And where there is no development, everything is dead.

A family will have a lot of problems if it places at the center of its values fraud for the sake of enrichment, betrayal for the sake of peace and disrespect for the nation because it did not make them secure. Such a "family" will destroy itself morally and physically. There are many examples of it. Thank God we were able to weaken the choking "hand of Moscow" on our neck for at least a centimeter and that Ukraine is perhaps the single example of real and unique democracy in the world. This country is still young, it cannot be brilliantly manipulated, nobody knows what to do with it and it has caused icy shock and confusion. All the same, it is a step forward and not a swampy existence.

And a return to the past won't happen. We are moving forward with mistakes, discontent, pain, surrounded by thorns that are tearing our hearts to the blood. Only in due course will we rethink our past, repent and honor those who loved their homeland and gave their lives for it during Soviet times. It is a shame that this hasn't happened yet, that my compatriots still say there was no Famine in 1932-1933. Well, what can be said of other countries recognizing it then?

This country has just started a transformation from a mirage to a real state - free and independent. To declare into infinite vastness "No more lies!" is no joke. It demands an answer. Those who think that they have outwitted circumstances, that everything is past and they won't be called to account are making a big mistake. Life will make them answer. And, of course, I feel sorry for these immature politicians - even more so for the immature people who erased from memory the eyes of thousands of citizens who protected the truth, risking everything they had.

These immature ones are playing games now, compromising with criminals, selling their consciences and the well-being of Ukrainian children for the sake of the illusory "control of the situation," influence and buckets of black caviar every month. I want to tell them, "You are sick." They will never attain the human greatness of an 80-year-old babusia [elderly woman] who could barely walk amidst the crowd of people to the Central Election Committee on November 22.

Tetiana Seleznyova is a correspondent for Radio Era in Kyiv. She is a native of Vinnytsia, Ukraine.

PART I

PART II

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