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Samizdata quote of the day Rather than engaging Russia in a futile pre-modern discourse about race and ethnicity, Ukrainians should integrate into multicultural, multiracial, tolerant Europe.
As for Russia, it would have done a lot better if after the collapse of the Soviet Union it had declared itself a new nation, born on the day it rose up to defeat the hardline communist coup in August 1991. Had it started from a blank page, the way the United States did in 1776, it might have freed itself of its damaging 19th century imperial hangups.
– Alexei Bayer
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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Maybe it should have declared itself five new nations. Or even ten. The world would have been better with ten new nations starting with a blank page and w/o the flaws of the past.
It isn’t too late for other peoples to do as we prefer. Russians should start tomorrow.
Then the five, or ten, Russian nations could have had a member for each new country in the U.N. Who gets the permanent Security Council Seat?
The Russian Seat would just vanish.
And that would also improve the world; for if a bad influence left the UN and Security Council I don’t sense a downside.
I favour that the Ukraine should submit to NEITHER Russia or to the E.U. (that “tolerant Europe”).
As for Russia – there is a lot of good in Russian civilisation and tradition, which Mr Putin (like the Soviets before him) has obscured.
By the way the view of America expressed is mistaken.
The American Revolution was conservative (which is what the word “Revolution” meant in 1776 – to restore things to what they had been).
The person quoted seems to be confusing it with the French Revolution – which had basically the opposite principles. And was indeed about creating a new society, cut off from tradition.
Much of the responsibility for the debacle in the Ukraine is down to European ambitions and interference. By employing monetary inducements to favourable Ukrainian elements it helped bring about the downfall of the elected head of that nation. While President Viktor Yanukovych was hardly a competent leader, and lets face it that is a common enough failng, European actions were bound to create a reaction from Russia, after all it is their backyard.
What is also fair to say is that the Ukrainians have gone onto ensuring division by embarking on a military campaign against some of their own citizens, not all of whom are either ethnic Russians, and even those that are, are not necessarily keen to be governed by Mr Putin. The situation cried out for a steady emollient hand, instead we have human stupidity at work. Brilliant!
Sorry Barry but you are just parroting the Kremlin’s propaganda line 100% and are wrong on every single point.
The reason this is so idiotic (sorry but it is), as it acts as if Viktor Yanukovych could ever have been ejected democratically in spite of massive amounts of Russian money and direct involvement. Yet in your view the very minor involvement of EU (tantamount to cheering from the sidelines) make the EU responsible, but the pervasive involvement of Russia via money and head cracking Russian Brownshirts goes without a mention? Yanukovych was overthrown because he de-legitimised himself by throwing his political opponents in prison and murdering critics, so the notion he was elected and therefore inviolate, even if you ignore the bear-in-the-room Russia factor in that election, it is still preposterous because there was no other way to get rid of him.
Competence was not the key driving issue, it was imprisoning or murdering his opponents. And strangely all the Euromaiden demonstrators I know (who were not paid by anyone) take the view they are not Russia’s backyard but their own frontyard. Your logic that Ukraine had it coming because they are in Russia’s backyard is very like the “she had it coming, she was wearing a short skirt” argument.
Yes that is what nations do when foreign backed insurgents reinforced by serving members of a foreign military occupy part of their country. They go to war.
You need to stop listening to Russia Today, you really do.
Not really all that mistaken, because that is only how it was at the start, it is not how it was at the end. They constitutionalised a great many things they never actually had under the Crown, which is hardly conservatism.
Perry, unfortunately I never look at RT, like many others today I read little from the main media resources. In this case my understanding was primarily derived from Richard North over at EU Referendum with an odd bit from elsewhere.
If I recall rightly the funding from the EU sources amounted to 400 million plus. Now that maybe less than Russian funding, but it is hardly insignificant.
As you point out Yankovych was not one for kid gloves, sordid, but one integral with his general incompetence. I consider this fundamental. We must agree to differ.
I recognise your belief in that taking up the cudgels was justified, however the area being fought over has a diffused population that include both Ukrainian supporters and opponents. I would have thought there was a case for seeking a negotiated solution rather than killing one another.
Thinks! Good God Bazzer, your suggesting the olive branch. Sure your feeling OK.
Keep up the good work Perry.
“multicultural, multiracial, tolerant Europe.” Surely he jests!
Or do I need another cup of coffee?
So you think that compared to ethno-fascist Putin’s Russia, with its talk of “one volk” etc, that Europe is not multicultural, multiracial and tolerant?
The trouble with that theory is that the current lot in power in Kyiv are scarcely more ‘competent’ than Yankovych’s lot. So why have they not been turfed out by Euromaidan Mk.II? The reason is obvious: come the day they can be voted out if there is anyone plausibly any better. Why? Because however dismal the current lot are, they are not wholesale murdering and imprisoning all their opponents. This is a point of no small significance 😉
Yes indeed, so why do you think that has not happened? Hint: exactly what sort of ‘negotiations’ were on offer before the Crimean anschluss?
Perry,
Your reading more into my comments than was there!
I wrote:-
(The EU) ‘by employing monetary inducements to favourable Ukrainian elements it helped bring about the downfall of the elected head of that nation.
This may well have been to the good, but it is a dangerous game, though one played often enough as doubtless you know. As for how competent the current government is, well in my terms they are more competent if they avoid having to resort to knocking off those who criticise, unlike Mr Putin who feels unable to tolerate any who contest his fiat.
Looking back a bit it seems to me that once Russia swallowed the Crimea with little international reaction, he realised two things, one was that the EU had nothing beyond monetary blandishments, and two the US under Mr Obama has lost its willingness to stand up for democracy and the right of people to choose their own direction. This emboldened Mr Putin to the point of recklessness. You comprehend this I am sure.
So given this understanding why did the EU not realise that it was prodding something that would and could react and if it did they would do nothing about it. It was at this instance that various movements in the Ukraine needed to exercise the utmost caution. They did not do so, the consequence is what we have today.
The judgement that the EU had a hand in the civil conflict in the Ukraine stands Perry, your sarcasm does not undo it.
It is to the EU’s lasting credit that they did not remain completely indifferent, even if it was by no rational definition the cause of the Euromaidan revolt and by no rational definition what actually enabled the Euromaidan revolt… which is to say absent EU ‘support’, I cannot see how *anything* would have played out differently, other than possibly emboldening Russian intervention even sooner. The root cause and the drivers are overwhelmingly found in Ukraine and Russia, not further west. It is like saying Belgium ‘had a hand’ in causing WW2.
Perry, Of course the drivers of this situation are to be found in the unhappy attitudes between the Ukraine and Russia, however, why you are so determined to deny the realities that EU policy makers progressively sought to influence events in the Ukraine. Efforts that policy makers must have realised might provoke an ugly response from Russia, one which they could not prevent because Europe has no meaningful military will.
In the absence of this meddling I feel Ukrainians would have been forced to be more careful about offending Russian sensibilities. Yes, they might have turned on their government and thrown them out, rightly, and yes, Russia would have been alarmed at this, but the chances of gaining any acceptance of such a shift were compromised by Russian suspicion of EU ambitions. Naturally I must concede that Russia could have behaved in exactly the same way irrespective of any EU role, we will never know, but in these games you need to be conscious of what you are doing. Europe’s policy was at best naive. What is worse in encouraging rebellion the EU apparatchiks failed to say that if push came to shove they would do little.
As this is my last response, let me add this, we are broadly on the same side, but there is need to recognise that what Britain or Europe or the US does, or for that matter any nation to another, has more than one side. When embarking on a policy that seeks to expand influence there is a need to recognise that not everyone will necessarily be happy. Some will not take it lying down.
You cannot turn on a pro-Russia government who were effectively making Ukraine a Russian client state AND be ‘more careful about offending Russian sensibilities’. These are simply mutually exclusive things. The only way the Euromaidan protesters could not have precipitated Russian actions is if they had gone home and left the pro-Russian government in power and assorted political opposition members in jail: at which point, yes, no doubt about it, the crisis would be over, Yankovych would still be in power and the Kremlin would have won.
And that is why it is bizarre to think that the piddling EU has any ‘responsibility’ for the current mess, because even if the EU had said exactly nothing, it would have changed nothing… the Euromaidan rebellion would still have happened (because EU actions were essentially cheerleading, nothing more) and the Russians would have done what they did subsequently.
This is what is so exasperating: the EU and US did.not.cause.Euromaidan. Yankovych did, with Russian assistance that was a great deal more than just cheerleading.
Those protesters, some of whom I know, were not lured to Euromaidan by ‘Dark Forces’ (i.e. the CIA or (snicker) Brussels), they were driven there by the actions of the then Russian backed Ukrainian government. That’s it. The EU role was simply not decisive or even that important.
Perry – the Bill of Rights is a classic conservative statement (as well as a Classical Liberal one).
Nothing about the rights of the collective people (Rousseau) in it.
All about the rights (against the government) of individual persons.
Very medieval.
And I mean no insult by that.