Formulas like “sorry,” “excuse me,” “my apologies” are very good and all, but there are occasions when no amount of polite talk can alter the impression of the unfortunate event that cannot be undone. It was a shameful event, to speak frankly. Social networks already have some comments (though there are too few of them) on the unprecedented outrage committed by the presidential security detail on the Anniversary of the Holodomor (November 28), when they prevented from participating in the commemorative events (citing her absence from the list of invitees...) Natalia Dziubenko-Mace, the widow of James Ernest Mace, the scholar who told the world the truth about the Great Famine in Ukraine.
What is outrageous about it, rather than just surprising? Suppose that the presidential bodyguards had no idea who James Mace was and what he did for Ukraine. Let us assume that their education level was too low for it. However, higher-ranking officials on the president’s staff had, yes, had to take care in advance (on such a day, and when it came to persons of Dziubenko-Mace’s importance) to see Mace’s widow definitely getting on the list and allowed for sure to enter the Holodomor Victims Memorial Museum, instead of spending a long time near metal detectors and asking humbly for what she had the right to (because Dziubenko-Mace herself, personally, invested years of her life into studying the Tragedy).
Top officials have apologized, with Deputy Head of Presidential Administration Rostyslav Pavlenko and MP Iryna Herashchenko saying sorry, while head of Poroshenko’s protection service Valerii Heletei called Dziubenko-Mace in person and asked for forgiveness. Significantly, though, she posted on Facebook that it clearly looked like the Presidential Administration and the protection service were urgently looking for... “scapegoats” who would take the responsibility and suffer their superiors’ anger. It is not what we need, though. The fact is that such outrageous, brutal incidents are growing systematic (and Dziubenko-Mace was similarly treated before as well). The question arises, then: how sincere is the government that swears literally daily that it is committed to “the European values”? After all, such a display of rudeness would be impossible by definition in any European country, or would at least have led to a wave of resignations.
