Whoever pulled the trigger for the deadly shot into Iryna Farion, 60-years old Lviv’s professor, a prominent linguist and an ardent Ukrainian nationalist, that shot was made by Moscow’s hand.
Firstly, because from the Ukrainian’s point of view that was an absolutely inappropriate target for a political murder.
Secondly, we don’t like murders here at all. Actually we do enjoy watching the endless fights and clashing on everything between very different and sometime deviant characters in our political life during decades (and miss it even in the time of the war!). President Zelensky reacted to the murder very fast – he expressed his condolences and he had said that it is obvious that any violence deserves only condemnation and that whoever responsible for this attack must be held fully accountable.
Thirdly, there were Russians who called Farion a “nazi” and made her very lovely object for their propaganda’s machine. But we still have a good memory – Putin directly mentioned some strange new word “denazification” as a his war’s goal, when he started the invasion in 2022, and he has mentioned this word, time to time. That brazen shooting into the head of the elderly civilian woman in a day time, in the peaceful Lviv, Western Ukraine, that was “denazification” he eagers exactly for. And now Putin’s propagandists said – “look, some Ukrainians stop getting on well with Ukrainians nazi’s and start this “denazification” by themselves! Look they’ve shot Farion!”.
Fourthly, only Russians could expect that this murder will divide Ukrainian society for and against her murder, her values, her issues, her words and her beliefs. That has not happened, we still on the same page here – it is just a murder. It is a terrible murder. And we know who murderer is, mr.Putin.
But after this shooting there are some voices that have arisen who asks, will the new Ukrainian politics be written with the blood after the war? Not with arguing, mutual accusing, jocking and laughing, as we used to, but with shooting and murdering. Because OK, that definetely were Russians, who killed Farion, but maybe we will just considering here some other fairly candidates to exterminate.
Do you considering Arestovych, for example, they said. I consider that Arestovych is considering these risks on his own, he is not here (and it seems good for him). I must also say that his problems aren’t rooted from his political beliefs, but due to this very fact of his physical absense in this country right now. And the problems aren’t linked with his contraversial thoughts and ideas, but due to the fact that he has been sharing these ideas with Russian mediapersons, who are a part of Russia’s propaganda machine.
Ukraine’s Politics in the war time exists underway, but I guess we have two opposite polarities here. We have nationalists, like late Iryna Farion, who believes in Ukrainian nation, an authentic culture, language and history and who sees Ukraine’s future as a nation’s rise.
Farion knew everything about liberals, socialists, communists and nowadays political thoughts and movements, and she more or less tolerated them all during her political carrier. Her nationalistic views always stayed very political. She behaved herself. Those were just beliefs. Provocative, but nothing scary.
And we have – I’m sorry, but I must be a bit of sensational here – new imperialists in Ukraine. Some of whom want speculate with motto Make Kyivan Rus’ Great Again! They promises the future after the war more than bright. They see Kyiv as a capital of the new empire.
And, of course, these opposite polarities, they deeply hate one another. Because an imperialist knows that an Ukrainian nationalist won’t let him to be something bigger or different from just OK to good-old Western Ukraine. And a nationalist also knows that an Ukrainian imperialist plays in a very dangerous game with good Russians, because this game eventually leads to current situation here. Bloody war after centuries of peaceful co-exist, and so on.
There are opposite polarities, of course, there are two extremal points. On the one side there are late Farion and so. On the other side are the guys like Arestovych and so. But in total we could hardly count more than 10 to 20 percent of people’s potentially votes for these discourses. If your ask me about 80 percent, about majority of further voters, I must to say that we are nationalists and imperialists at the same time, in the same skin.
Yes, that’s true. That were us, who builts that Russian Empire. Who co-participated in every gloriuous and shameful event from Soviet Union’s history. And yes, that is also true, and everyone must say it at loud – that’s my glory, but that is also mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. But we capable on everything. And we can not only to win this war, but rule that Russia. Because we built it.
But in the same time, we are Ukrainians. And our ancestors, our relatives were suppresed by Russians – they had cleaned out even historical memory for most of us. So, we already know that we are Ukrainians, but we still remember how to rule an empire.
What’s the difference beetwen an Ukrainian and a Russian? That’s huge yawning difference. We’re individuals, they’re collectivists. We believe in human person and human dignity, they believe in the state and in the power. We’re europeans, they’re not.
The truth is that even inside war-rawaged Ukraine no one isn’t political opponent to anyone, including this nationalist-imperialist’s axis. We are writing new History right now by own people’s blood, and we shouldn’t write a new Politics by their blood. We should forgive one another for everything because of our belonging to Ukrainians.
So, we talk to Ukrainians, we shoot into Russians invaders (on the battlefield), and we don’t mess it up, guys.
