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A Balanced View On Ukraine
Mar. 9th, 2014 09:09 amAs i took my short train ride betwixt Faversham and Teynham i noticed a discard Guardian newspaper which i picked up. In it was this measured article by Jonathan Freedland about the situation in Ukraine in the Comments & Debate section.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/07/ukraine-debate-both-sides-wrong
In the article he states that -
"One camp slams the crudity of Putin's lies and deceits – his press conference this week recasting him as a Kremlin version of "Comical Ali", hilariously defying the facts as he insisted that the Russian troops everyone could see with their own eyes in Crimea were in fact Ukrainian civilians who had popped to the local fancy dress shop to stock up on Russian military uniforms. His charmingly retro claim that Russian forces had been invited into Ukraine by the latter's ousted president – just as Soviet troops were invited into Hungary in 1956 and invited again into Czechoslovakia in 1968 – had one commentator suggesting Putin had lost his mind."
and that
"Standing against them is the opposing camp, which urges you to look instead at the new forces ruling Ukraine. This camp notes the influence of far rightist groups Svoboda (which traded originally under the historically resonant name of the Social-National party of Ukraine) and the Right Sector, now rewarded with seats in Ukraine's government, and of the fascistic paramilitaries patrolling the streets of Kiev wearing swastika armbands and parroting anti-Jewish slogans. They alert you to the torch-lit parade of ultra-nationalists commemorating Stepan Bandera, hailed a hero of Ukrainian independence despite his wartime collaboration with the Nazis."
and adds
"Yet it should be possible to face the truth of both these situations, to condemn Putin's de facto dictatorship in Moscow and to be appalled by the presence of fascists in a 21st-century European government in Kiev. Yet too often the warring camps close their eyes to one even as they denounce the other. This goes not only for commentators and pundits, slugging it out online and on air; John Kerry and European Union foreign ministers should realise that it would not undermine their stance against Russian interference in Ukraine if they were to condemn the racist thugs who played a role in the Maidan uprising and have won a slice of power. It is possible to hold both positions at once"
and concludes with the epithet
"It is rarely black v white. It usually requires us to hold two apparently contradictory thoughts in our head at once. Life is not either/or. It is both."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/07/ukraine-debate-both-sides-wrong
In the article he states that -
"One camp slams the crudity of Putin's lies and deceits – his press conference this week recasting him as a Kremlin version of "Comical Ali", hilariously defying the facts as he insisted that the Russian troops everyone could see with their own eyes in Crimea were in fact Ukrainian civilians who had popped to the local fancy dress shop to stock up on Russian military uniforms. His charmingly retro claim that Russian forces had been invited into Ukraine by the latter's ousted president – just as Soviet troops were invited into Hungary in 1956 and invited again into Czechoslovakia in 1968 – had one commentator suggesting Putin had lost his mind."
and that
"Standing against them is the opposing camp, which urges you to look instead at the new forces ruling Ukraine. This camp notes the influence of far rightist groups Svoboda (which traded originally under the historically resonant name of the Social-National party of Ukraine) and the Right Sector, now rewarded with seats in Ukraine's government, and of the fascistic paramilitaries patrolling the streets of Kiev wearing swastika armbands and parroting anti-Jewish slogans. They alert you to the torch-lit parade of ultra-nationalists commemorating Stepan Bandera, hailed a hero of Ukrainian independence despite his wartime collaboration with the Nazis."
and adds
"Yet it should be possible to face the truth of both these situations, to condemn Putin's de facto dictatorship in Moscow and to be appalled by the presence of fascists in a 21st-century European government in Kiev. Yet too often the warring camps close their eyes to one even as they denounce the other. This goes not only for commentators and pundits, slugging it out online and on air; John Kerry and European Union foreign ministers should realise that it would not undermine their stance against Russian interference in Ukraine if they were to condemn the racist thugs who played a role in the Maidan uprising and have won a slice of power. It is possible to hold both positions at once"
and concludes with the epithet
"It is rarely black v white. It usually requires us to hold two apparently contradictory thoughts in our head at once. Life is not either/or. It is both."
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