In 1971 in the United States, there was a trial in the case of “The New York Times against the United States”. American journalists defended their right to publish a secret Pentagon report, devoted to the Vietnam war. The process they won. The U.S. Supreme court justice Hugo black in his opinion on the process wrote that a free press is necessary to “protect a crucial role in a democracy” and therefore must be “managed, not the managers”.
Those who remember this formula, are divided into two groups. Some say it’s an example of how the media should protect the citizens from the state, and the professionalism to put above citizenship. And the second is inclined to interpret this story as an example of what the media in the conflict strong and the weak have to be ready for the defence of the weak. In the end, the whole epic is built on a doomed resistance initially initially superior. But because for centuries people sympathize with the Davids and not the Goliaths, the Spartans and not the Persians.
And if the role of the weak is the whole state — it changes nothing.
Revenge indifferent
All the past twenty three years the Ukrainian government belonged to the people the meaning of his existence is seen in the privatization of a public good. The Maidan has become a window of opportunity when inside the old system infiltrated by agents of civil society. Which turned out to be in the minority there.
We used to accept Ukraine as a battlefield between supporters of Moscow and supporters of Brussels. But it is not — struggle in the country is between those who want a future for the country, and those to whom it is indifferent. Because the future is possible only in conditions of market and competition, the turnover of power and effective judicial system. Future is impossible without private ownership and reducing corruption tax.
All who are not interested in it, put your personal interest above the collective. And in this sense there is no difference between the corrupt, privatisierungen public good, and paternalista dreaming of a well-fed irresponsibility. Because both of these behaviors are equally deprive Ukraine of the prospects. And it doesn’t matter that many fans of a free lunch sincere in his delusions: involuntary manslaughter does not cease to be a crime.
Especially if we are talking about the fate of the whole country.
After the victory of the Maidan was dominated by the feeling that from now on the proponents of change — strong side. Reform seemed inevitable, corrupt — outgoing nature, and nostalgic for the Soviet Union — a minority that deserves care and missionary work. And three years later it turned out that opponents of change are able to derail any reform.
In this sense, the difference between “coat” and “vyshivatnik” critically small, while the gap between them and the technocrats who know the laws of the market and the logic of prosperity is infinitely big. And the battle today in Ukraine is not between Stepan Andreevich and Stalin, and between common sense and sharkovshina. And the technocrats — the “Spartans”, which protect tomorrow from homegrown langoliers.
State dystrophy
Quite often, when from Russia to Ukraine runs another dissident, he missed the “social activities”, starts to do the usual — to criticize the government.
This is not surprising: the Russian liberals grew up with the feeling that the state machine is a monster, which in addition stozevno, oblo and lay. And the only meaning of life a liberal in Russia is fighting against the state machine.
But that is a feature that Ukraine is a weak state. This is largely due to the social contract of the past two decades, the content of which was to cut off the Soviet legacy on all levels.
Someone squeezed ourselves factory and someone put a garage in the Playground. The only difference was in scale, but not in the content — and those who turned a collective good in personal. This entire process was due to the “state”, it is over and over again we squeezed as shagreen.
In the end, the country was in a situation when any financial-industrial group may compete with the state machine not only in terms of its efficiency, but also by the degree of influence and available resources. And often the only one working in the country, the Institute is Facebook: a weak state, fearful and often listens to those who shout louder.
Yes, for the last three years, the state has an army, but the army keeps the external contour of the country, and inside this loop the state monopoly on violence continue to challenge. And any attempt to restore order to bump into cries of repression and terror. Perhaps the reason is that behind the Ukrainians — century life in the wrong state projects, when vertical has always been something serving the interests of the metropolis. And for a quarter century, people did not used to perceive the state as “its”, while continuing habitually he became frondeurs and, where necessary and where not.
Devil’s advocate
The last three years in the country there is a correspondence competition for the mantle of “the weak and the persecuted”. Her claims not only the former Victor Yanukovych’s environment, talk of harassment and terror. In the same queue are Pro-Soviet citizens, who, after watching Russian television, believed the junta and fascism. Her claim to the apolitical ordinary people who believe that change is when you change someone, but not you.
Fans of simple solutions that fans of a free lunch, aggressive, inert mass, waiting for handouts, not opportunities — all these people are furiously pretending to be weak and persecuted minority. Even though they are in the last quarter century remain a mainstream in Ukraine. It they vote for Chernovetsky and Yanukovych. That they do not pay taxes and are parked on the tram tracks. This they habitually talk about “all the same” and “truth does not exist.” Because they are placed only in the fifty hues of life! gray.
But real weak in Ukraine — all those who are trying to breathe life into the state. Those who volunteers at the front, and the civil service. Trying to change rusted through the machine, the preservation of which the interests of the old elite. Each one individually can be quite strong and valid. But together, they’re a vanishing minority, which is surrounded by old elites and the obedient to them people.
Today, Ukraine is weak everything that can become a Foundation for the future.
The most “civil society”, which went to the Maidan and went to the front. People who are able to write the laws and control their execution, ready to pay taxes and create jobs. We have long believed that they are the new mainstream, and it turned out that they relate to the rest of the country in the same way in which the locomotive is correlated with the cars. He gives a vector, but they determine the inertia.
And if you still haven’t decided where Spartans, Persians and where, if you feel curious idea that it is necessary to protect the rights of Goliath from their trampling of David — perhaps you do not understand anything about the country.
