Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Trash update: yesterday, there was none - neither inside the containers, nor outside - and they weren't burning anything, either. It wasn't ideally clean, but compared to those really bad days, it was ideal.

It turned out to be a collective effort: our neighbor did call the district administration numbers I had given her and the guy I couldn't rich reach :-) talked to her, very politely. She took some photos, too, and is going to send them to the mayor - and, possibly, to some newspapers.

Now, jumping way sideways, sort of: it's really easy to talk about Ukraine's willingness to join the EU/NATO/WTO/whatever, it's easy to bullshit everyone saying we're moving in that beautiful direction, westward, away from Russia. It's really easy to talk about moving toward Russia, too, of course. But this is all such abstract talk. When that trash lay rotting for the second week in a row and no one gave a shit, I finally began to understand why certain countries make it very difficult for Ukrainians to obtain their entry visas - and I couldn't blame them for it. They have enough of their own shit to want some of ours. All our current political mess is as abstract as all those promises and statements made by Yushchenko, Tymoshenko, Moroz or Yanukovych - while the mess in the beautiful Pushcha Vodytsya is totally real, and so is the mess in many local administrations, and in many other places all over Ukraine, beautiful or ugly.

1 comment:

  1. Dear Veronica,

    Excuse me for saying so, but I simply cannot see why the effects of defunct politics and administration should make it more difficult for individuals to travel freely - no matter what nationality they might have. I do not believe you think so either.

    Ukrainians are not different from the rest of us. If there is no public morale, why should one bother to make an effort beyond the confines of one's own existence?

    I know that saying so is a load of crap as most of us anyway cannot help contributing to the common good in some way, as you and your neighbours obviously did...

    I would be sorry to see that individuals became object of some sort of collective punishment for the mess in their country of origin. I was so happy when Ukraine abolished visas for EU citizens last year and was hoping that the EU would come around doing the same for Ukrainians sooner or later.

    So, perhaps exactly because much is shitty in Ukraine at the moment, we "westerners" should instead make more of an effort to open up for Ukrainians than prejudicially shrug our shoulders saying: "It's just a shitty country so why bother?"

    Yours,

    Vilhelm

    ReplyDelete