Amid a frozen conflict in the Donbas, outright surrender of national interests and the election race, politicians desperately need distracting beacons to extinguish sense of disappointment and resentment among the public. Therefore, there has been a number of bills proposed in that period that have even their flashy names chosen specifically to distract people from shame and betrayal now facing our society. In particular, the recent law on the reform of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA) was such a flash. Now, we have seen the law on lustration or purging the government to surface in the midst of political struggle, which contains the formula of a “sieve,” which according to its co-author Yurii Derevianko would be able to sift the government through. Many have criticized this law as one likely to be used to settle political accounts. Indeed, in a country where there is no effective framework for the implementation of laws, where the latter are either formalities or excuses for abuse, any law is a priori distrusted. Changing processes by changing the law applies only where the law itself is a product of the natural demands of society, and when the public and the system are ready for it. The law is a superstructure over the social relations that have to be formed below provided harmonious relationship between the people and the government. Developed countries took years to reach this stage. We are a country of contrasts, just not ready to enforce even the fairest, most humane and most urgent law.
That is why the law on purging the government is currently part of the show that the elite is engaging in. The ruling circle is currently going through a special period of spotlights and cameras, slogans and paid-for performances. The top leadership has clearly left this base existence for other areas of life, distinct from those in which the people and the country are finding themselves. Direct allusions to the disaster of the enslaved Donbas are tarred as “panic of the sofa troops.” The presence of notorious pro-Russian politicians in the capital, who openly called Ukrainians Nazis, as well as their entry to the Parliament, goes without notice. To somehow decrease the irritation brought by this fact, they regularly stage performances of beating the Party of Regions’ members or putting them into garbage bins. Thus, it works, on the one hand, to discredit the very subject of genuine lustration, and on the other, to lower the degree of discontent by getting such primitive satisfaction. People need to have circuses, otherwise they will remember they need bread.
Poroshenko’s soothing remark to reporters that the worst of the crisis has already passed means that the president either was in too festive mood before his birthday, or there were some behind-the-scene arrangements at the Minsk meeting. Given that the war in Ukraine is unique by the virtue of having our president pay taxes to the aggressor country, soothing tone of our helmsman looks only more alarming. It appears that the president has made a bid to preserve his wealth at any price on the one hand, and offered a likeable message on the other hand to the tired part of the population, which is ready to freeze conflict in the Donbas under any conditions. This population also makes for a great deal of the electorate, which has just got tired of fighting in the distant Donbas and watching the relentless rise in prices, which is justified by the war. The message is as follows: “Stopping the war will bring back quiet life, allowing us to do lustration and have the economy to recover. Everything will be fine!” The president looks sure of it, and journalists in the hall support warm aura of the press conference by asking playful questions. I was prevented from finally yielding to good feelings by the waiter in a cafe, who turned the TV’s sound off angrily. It turned out he was in the thick of the fighting at the Euromaidan, and I had to ask him to let the TV blare on.
As a finishing touch to the picture drawn for us by a number of “revolutionary” draft laws, I would raise the likely appointment of Viktor Yanukovych-era Deputy Prosecutor General of Ukraine Viktor Voitsyshen as head of the Presidential Administration’s Main Directorate for Law-Enforcement Issues and Combating Corruption. Some media report it, at least. It is a clear sign of real meaning of the law on the MIA’s reform and the lustration law as well.
On the other hand, we also have to realize that regarding personnel, we are once again in a situation similar to which the country was in throughout the 1990s, when old cadres were sometimes the only choice. Komsomol functionaries with extensive experience of bureaucratic and organizational work were in high demand then, as the country was still living on the inertia of the old principles of the government, which could work only when staffed by experienced Soviet functionaries. It concerned not only leadership positions, but also the outer darkness of innumerable divisions, subdivisions, branches, departments, and so on. We just physically could not follow the Baltic nations’ example. We were too young to resist the neighbor’s influence, and too big to not encounter the problem areas. We chose the path of least resistance, and it has led us up against the impregnable wall of history. Only youngsters born in the independent country look encouraging as our chance of future substantial renewal of the government system. Given the inclination of the young population to activism, up to staging the Euromaidan, we can say that the only reliable way is to work with them. The 20-year-olds of today have to become a quality base for change in 10 or 20 years, unless of course they will be killed or frightened by cauldrons similar to that near Ilovaisk, or depersonalized in provocations of evil “geniuses,” turning into a new generation of career functionaries. By the way, given the enthusiasm with which both heroic soldiers and known journalists who had been images of the new reforms became political brands, such threat exists. It is even more dangerous than the current government of pot-bellied corrupt officials. No lustration law will answer the question of how to save this generation from the virus which is transmitted through corridors and cabinets as well as present in the interiors of expensive cars. Self-important bureaucrats have been with us for ages, and the trouble is that their pens are sometimes working better than bullets, and their seals hit harder than shells. Thus, it is a great temptation.
Therefore, at a time when the old elite are queuing to take offices in Kyiv, pushing their people even into lists of completely different, ostensibly democratic and patriotic parties, any talk about lustration sounds somewhat ironically. The formulas of forgiveness, reading “resigned of his own accord,” that apply to those who opposed the Euromaidan but are now sponsoring people who seemed to be its supporters, are totally maddening for your average observer. The law on purging the government is for now not a sieve, but rather a pocket, to store payoffs in and buy indulgences from. Is anyone really surprised by this, though? “Our Washingtons” are now swallowing sandwiches without taking a seat and work into the night, past 9 p.m., not getting enough sleep and coming late to the subway. They have proved that at some point they may don helmets and go to brave the system’s bullets. We have to keep them safe, enabling them to dig a door to the future in the wall of history. In the meantime, we will continue to participate in the game “deceive me once again.” We are used to it, after all.
