Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The 5th anniversary of Maidan is almost there (or is already here, depending on when you start counting from, the first round of voting or the second), and every now and then I re-read what I was writing in Nov. 2004. Today, I ran into this post, about my father, his best childhood friend and the politics that got between them in the early 1990s. Papa's friend, Dima, died of cancer just a few months ahead of papa, in early 2007. We didn't tell papa about Dima's passing. It hurts terribly to re-read that post, to be reminded of how intense and positive everything was back then, of how idealistic we all were, and of how quickly it all turned into crap, and of how it all ended for Dima and for my father. When we were searching for papa, I stopped by at the hospital where Dima had died and was directed to a so-called hospice for the elderly located nearby - the conditions there shocked me then, and this is still a very vivid memory - a horrible memory. I guess one of the things I'm trying to say here is that politics and reality do not seem to overlap much in Ukraine, and even though back in 2004 it appeared briefly that such an overlap was possible, I don't think many people hold on to this illusion anymore. Yushchenko calling Tymoshenko 'a bum' and Tymoshenko calling Yushchenko 'a terrorist' - this so undignified, and so irrelevant.

1 comment:

  1. For me there is one overlapping aspect : both the health staff and the politicians are entwined in a system that prevents them from acting differently than the others. If you are the only honest person in a system, you are in for trouble, mobbing, even worse.
    I'm thinking of my brother-in-law who is a cop in Russia, he started with idealistic outlooks : helping "the widow and the orphan" as we say in French. Seven years later, he lives on bribes and has adapted to the hierarchy's tricks and chain of concealment.
    As for how these people sedate their conscience to have a sound sleep at night ... Mystery...
    It was very moving to read your 2004 and 2007 posts
    Bye
    Genia

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