Ukrainian history of farce

Derek Monroe is a writer/reporter and consultant based in Illinois, USA. He has reported on international and US foreign policy issues from Latin America, Poland, Japan, Iraq, Ukraine, Sri Lanka and India. His work appeared in Foreign Policy in Focus, Alternet, Truthout and Ohmynews, and has been published in over 20 countries.

3 Sep, 2015 15:39 / Updated 9 years ago

This week's events in the ongoing saga of the EuroMaidan "revolution” has cooked up another old cliché coined in Karl Marx's 1851 letter that: “first time history enacted presents itself as grand tragedy, and the second time as rotten farce.”

Any observer can make assumption of the kind looking at the turn of events, for instance, in Syria which is on the way to an even more hardcore apocalypse than ever thought possible. But in the case of Ukraine and its national statehood, the self-inflicted wounds of the 2004 Orange Revolution, 2014 EuroMaidan and the current 2015 Maidan (EuroMaidan 2.0) are a farce of needlessly spilled blood of almost 7000 Ukrainians with no end in sight to the chaos.

While President Poroshenko denounced the riot at the Verkhovna Rada, calling out yesterday's "freedom fighters" as today's out of control "terrorists", it is amazing to see the sudden change of colors and political labeling du jour in the US and its friendly international media. AP, AFP, ThomsonReuters, Bloomberg and others are now selling the message of "courageous and law enforcing" Poroshenko administration standing up to terrorists appearing out of nowhere, ultra-nationalists and even anarchists hell bent on bringing destruction to Ukraine as a state.

It is all served cold and calorie free in a historical version of Diet Coke sans any retrospect or context that could result in indigestion caused by memory. Never mind the political "night of the long knives" that is currently taking place at the highest echelons of the political elite in Kiev while many factions and personalities are now feeding themselves on the corpse of the country. The real and always available "culprit" in Ukrainian narrative bordering on delusion: Putin is now presented as instigator of fascist violence in Kiev in which three policemen lost their lives.

Unfortunately for the Ukrainians, they are now exposed, and are slowly waking up to the nightmare of government that came about as a result of the February coup and the historical truth of "chickens coming home to roost" is now visited upon them. Despite seeing the same old movie of the Orange Revolution that was supposed to bring the break with the past in 2004, they are seeing the re-run of the same production. This time around with the US and EU subtitles enforced by political sign language open for any interpretation and manipulation possible, thus yesterday's friends and allies are today's foes and vice versa .

While the economy is being effectively decimated, the oligarch class is holding all the cards on and off the table in the same time while securing its own interests in the Rada and abroad. The failed state that is a de-facto new Ukraine has reported cases of children paralyzed in Ukraine in a polio outbreak while the Kiev government is going to European capitals hat in hand asking for a military and political support. In this spirit Poroshenko just announced his new military doctrine that will redeploy and invest money the country doesn't have in the south and east as bulwarks against perceived "Russian imperialism".

In other words the government will be defending itself against its own population in the east, its own ex-allies in Kiev while continuing its own propaganda war against Putin and the "evil" empire supported by the "good" empire in conjunction with austerity program imposed on whatever is left of the Ukrainian economy.

This will in turn create a fantastic investment landscape for the foreign vulture investor class coming in and getting everything for pennies on the dollar. If the "coupon" privatization was ever a rip-off, wait to see this scheme playing out in free money environment cooked up by Western central banks and the US "private" Federal Reserve. If this is the recipe for success then I would hate to see the recipe for failure as in the parallel universe of Ukrainian political reality, the chocolate cake prepared by the chocolate king can obviously eat itself and be intact in the same time. In the "real" reality the joke might actually be on the EU when looking at the current waves of refugees coming out of Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan. Ukraine is actually not that far behind and the resulting exodus will be the unpaid bill for the adventurism it chose to partake in.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

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