Posts Tagged Ukraine
Europe in Ukraine: many things to many people
Posted by ravotrpeter in in English, Oekraïne on 2013/12/08
Sunday, 8 December, 2013
Article, written for Libcom where it also can be read.
Again, on the protests in Ukraine; this time mostly on the attitude towards ‘Europe’ among the several forces within the protest.
Again, there is mass protest in Ukraine. On Sunday, 8 December, hundreds of thousands have been gathering in Kiev, the capital. Demonstrators torn down a statue of Lenin, still seen as symbol of Russian domination. Opposition politicians are announcing that the protests will continue till government and president are gone. One opposituion leader is giving president Yanukovych 48 hours to resign. Otherwise, his “residence will be blocked”. The demands of the rally, according to an English-language announcement : “Current Ukrainian President and government must resign”; new elections and the forming of a new goivernment should follow; “Stop persecution of innocent people who participated in the peaceful protests”; freedom of assembly and of speech should be guaranteed; “Sign the Association Agreement with the European Union”. Yanukovych ‘s refusal to do so triggered the protests. What makes people so angry about this deciosion, and so insistently ‘pro-European’? Read the rest of this entry »
Ukraine: what’s going on, and what does it mean?
Posted by ravotrpeter in in English, Oekraïne on 2013/12/03
Tuesday, 3 December, 2013
My Libcom piece on Ukraine, posted there this evening
Some thoughts on the protests happening in Ukraine. Things are not completely what they may seem.
The mass protests unfolding in Ukraine are raising a few eyebrows here and there, as well as the usual hyped-up talk of people’s revolt and even revolution. The eyebrows are justified. Mass demonstrations of many hundreds of thousands in the winter cold, people blockading government buildings, attacking a presidential palace and occupying the city government office, calls for president and government to resign, talk of a general strike…all in support of closer ties to the EU? It all seems a bit odd. Add to the strange brew a strong element of extreme nationalism, and the picture of a movement that is right wing, reactionary and unsupportable from a radical, libertarian communist point of view becomes even clearer. What has been going on? I think there are at least three elements to all this. Read the rest of this entry »