“We are fixing the 350-year old mistake — Ukraine is Europe,” Arseniy Yatsenuk, the prime minister, told the Parliament, known as the Rada.
From a Times article today — “Ukraine Moves to Strengthen Ties With Europe, and Bolster Truce“ — about the Ukrainian parliament passing “a series of laws…meant to cement the country’s Western orientation while strengthening its truce with pro-Russian separatists in the southeast.”
Being considered on the inside of the bounds of European civilization is not just what every civilized nation should aspire to, but being in a position external to Europe was always a “mistake” — a misconception, we really are and always were Europeans — and now we’re righting that misconception. Nationalism is always creating new fictions that it passes off as the restoration of a pre-Fall condition. And everybody buys it.
Go to Donetsk or Luhansk, go to Dnepropetrovsk…or Khar’kov or Poltava even, and tell me you feel like you’re in a place that even remotely resembles what you call or think of as Europe!
(click)
–
Comment: nikobakos@gmail.com
–
Jadde: from Bosnia to Bengal 