Josh Cohen — Vladimir Putin calls Ukraine fascist and country’s new law helps make his case

Will the New Time and Washington Post pick up on this. So far, Americans are largely in the dark about who they are supporting. And it's not just this new law. It's been that way from the get-go. Those who don't know the history of the region or read relevant blogs and news sources would not be aware of the reality on the ground since they are not being told by the mainstream media. (How many Americans have ever heard of Galacia (also transliterated as Galicia), or even Babi Yar? The view times that allusion has been made in the media (like the NYT), it is usually to "nationalism" and "a few bad apples" or romanticized as overenthusiastic teenagers rather than being attributed to neo-Nazism in spite of history and current events.

As Ukraine continues its battle against separatists, corruption and a collapsing economy, it has taken a dangerous step that could further tear the country apart: Ukraine’s parliament, the Supreme Rada, passed a draft law last month honoring organizations involved in mass ethnic cleansing during World War Two.

The draft law — which is now on President Petro Poroshenko’s desk awaiting his signature — recognizes a series of Ukrainian political and military organizations as “fighters for Ukrainian independence in the 20th century” and bans the criticism of these groups and their members. (The bill doesn’t state the penalty for doing so.) Two of the groups honored — the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) — helped the Nazis carry out the Holocaust while also killing close to 100,000 Polish civilians during World War Two.

The law is part of a recent trend of contemporary Ukrainian nationalism promoted by those on the extreme right to break with the country’s Communist past and emphasize Ukraine’s suffering under the Soviet regime. In addition to the moral problem of forbidding the criticism of Holocaust perpetrators, the law hinders Ukraine’s European ambitions — and validates Russian President Vladimir Putin’s claims that the country is overrun by neo-Nazis.

Why should we care? Because this is at the center of the conflict among eastern and western Ukrainians and it also includes the attitude of Russia toward the crisis. This is a moral fight over fundamental principles in which can be no compromise on either side. WWII is still being fought in this region and it has the potential to spread. Americans assume that Nazism just disappeared with the defeat of Hitler and the Third Reich. They would be wrong. Just as traditional religion is resurgent after the fall of the USSR, so too is fascism.

Reuters
Vladimir Putin calls Ukraine fascist and country’s new law helps make his case

Josh Cohen
ht Lambert Strether at Naked Capitalism