This is an interesting discussion by Professor Tarik Cyril Ama of "the origin" and nature of Ukraine's Azov "movement", of which he says the Azov Battalion is only a part. He discusses what he considers to be the historical origins of the general far-right ecosystem in Ukraine beginning from the interwar years. etc etc
I like that Tarik Amar provides excellent historical contextualization to a number of important issues relating to the place of the far-right movement in Ukrainian nationalism without allowing host Rania Khalek, an interviewer with obvious prejudgment, to lead him by the nose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5C7DE2KFJHs
| | For those who just discovered Ukraine two months ago, the fact that Ukrainian nationalism has been dangerously intertwined with fascism might sound like Russian propaganda. But is it? How powerful is the Ukrainian far right? Are they really linked to Nazis? Why is the corporate-owned media denying this? To place this war and the Ukrainian far ... www.youtube.com |
Excerpts
Rania Khalek : . . . When did the post-soviet right-wing nationalisms that we see today - when did those emerge? Because it's not just in Ukraine. You have it in a lot of post-soviet countries.
Tarik Cyril Amar: . . . . . . If you use the old Cold War term, it's the whole area of the former Soviet Bloc in Europe, right, where you find this phenomena
And when did it begin? you know, in a way some of it began even before the Soviet Union dissolved, you know, if you look, for instance, just to give you a specific example; if you look at the history of Polish anti-Semitism, right? which plays a role even now, Polish anti-Semitism is quite active during the Communist period, it's up and down and it depends on how it is articulated and sometimes the regime, the Communist Regime, actually tries to co-opt it at the end of the 1960s. That's a particular virulent period, for instance, right?
So in part, some of these things have never been entirely away; they've been sort of underground or flowing along in their own little channels, but it wasn't that they were completely repressed or that they had ceased to exist by the older Traditions at work here.
The other thing is of course, is, there is a Cold war history in the West. Ukrainian Nationalsm. An excellent example of that; they have a very strong Cold war diaspora, especially, right? And here you have to be very careful because I really don't want to stereotype the Ukrainian diaspora which would be very unfair. the Ukrainian diaspora has a long history and some of it is actually very left-wing, but we can see after the Cold. . during the Cold War , is that politically, and I could say, to an extent, in terms of discourse culturally, right? the Ukrainian diaspora in North America, especially and I mean Canada and the United States, but not only, is really taken over by the right-wing and to an extent even by the far-right.
And that's a story that's still going on. So when the Soviet Union collapses and Ukraine becomes independent, it also opens up to this diaspora, this organized diaspora -- not all of them-- again, I wanna draw a distinction, but getting their way back into Ukraine and sort of it's almost like a time capsule, bringing back this sort of frozen right-wing politics back into 1990s Ukraine.
. . . . . . .
Rania Khalek . . . so when we do hear oh, the US was arming the neo-Nazis in Ukraine, is that true or is that just Russian propaganda. How would you frame that accusation?
Tarik Cyril Amar: Let me say one thing. Which is not direct answer to your question. I'll get back to it, but it is related to it.
The biggest propaganda lie on the Russian side is the idea that Russia has to come in to de-nazify Ukraine, and its almost benign, but let's make it explicit, that's a big fat lie – in many ways which it is a lie but we can go on about it.
But once we are beyond this, if anyone in the West reacts by saying because this is a big fat lie, therefore [there is] no issue, no special and disturbing issue with Ukrainian fight-right, they are dead wrong. Absolutely wrong. So that is the complication here. The Russians are using this phenomenon and are distorting it and doing all the things they are doing , propaganda; but the phenomenon underneath this is real. And it is a threat most of all, by the way, to Ukraine and Ukrainians. So you are not doing Ukraine a favor, [as] some people think, by being silent about this.
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Femi J. Kolapo | Department of History | www.uoguelph.ca/history
A thought for the month:
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