<< The people in the western part, mostly agricultural, ethnically Ukrainian and pro-western.........and the eastern regions where the majority of the 8 million ethnic Russians live ....The people in the industrial East were feeling increasingly nostalgic for their factories that used to spew suffocating smoke into the sky during Soviet times. And they were ready to make an unequal deal with Russia, to surrender their sovereignty in exchange for a dose of temporary financial stability. >>
I generally like your articles about GUS, but not quite this one. It’s a stereotype and a too strong simplification that eastern Ukrainians are nostalgic about the Soviet Union and somewhat “not very intelligent” … pardon me, for I understood you that way too. In my opinion this is a nationalistic wording, which is often used by politicians to plead for justification of their failures in the Ukraine. Why not face the fact that both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko didn’t do much to strengthen democratic institutions, the judicial system and the electoral process. The problems they encountered on their approach to power, hit them themselves. Tymoshenko doesn’t deserve jail, but her incompetence as prime minister contributed to that she is now going to be planted there. / / The Ukrainians in the east and the west are not as divided as someone may think. Aren’t Americans living in the southern U.S. look a bit like Mexicans? And, given that, does it divide the American nation into several parts? Just such nationalistic rhetoric pushes the Ukraine into the conflict. The two Maidan friends failed, but neither the folk nor any part of it. Finally, I believe that “Russian influence” has been exaggerated in your article too, for the reason that unlike Belarus the Ukraine has been a chaos.
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Date: 17/8/11 20:54 (UTC)I generally like your articles about GUS, but not quite this one.
It’s a stereotype and a too strong simplification that eastern Ukrainians are nostalgic about the Soviet Union and somewhat “not very intelligent” … pardon me, for I understood you that way too. In my opinion this is a nationalistic wording, which is often used by politicians to plead for justification of their failures in the Ukraine. Why not face the fact that both Yushchenko and Tymoshenko didn’t do much to strengthen democratic institutions, the judicial system and the electoral process. The problems they encountered on their approach to power, hit them themselves. Tymoshenko doesn’t deserve jail, but her incompetence as prime minister contributed to that she is now going to be planted there. / / The Ukrainians in the east and the west are not as divided as someone may think. Aren’t Americans living in the southern U.S. look a bit like Mexicans? And, given that, does it divide the American nation into several parts? Just such nationalistic rhetoric pushes the Ukraine into the conflict. The two Maidan friends failed, but neither the folk nor any part of it. Finally, I believe that “Russian influence” has been exaggerated in your article too, for the reason that unlike Belarus the Ukraine has been a chaos.