Comradely Greetings (11 page)

As if echoing this dark past, Putin's official Russia presented the Crimean referendum as a choice against (Ukrainian) Fascism, while the entire European neo-Fascist Right (Hungary, France, Italy, Serbia) was firmly supporting Russia. (And another irony: Ukrainians were tearing down statues of Lenin, forgetting that the golden era of Ukraine was in the first decade of the Soviet Union when they established their full national identity.) But Putin's Russia is not an exception here: from the Balkans to Scandinavia, from the US to Israel, from central Africa to India, a new Dark Age is looming, with ethnic and religious passions exploding, and the Enlightenment values receding. These passions were lurking in the shadows all the time, but what is new now is the outright shamelessness of their display. So what are we to do in such a situation? Mainstream liberals are telling us that, when basic democratic values are under threat by ethnic or religious fundamentalists, we should all unite behind the liberal-democratic agenda of cultural tolerance, to save what can be saved and put aside dreams of a more radical social transformation. However, the conflict between
liberal permissiveness and fundamentalism is ultimately a
false
conflict—a vicious cycle of the two poles generating and presupposing each other.

So what about the liberal-democratic capitalist European dream? One cannot be sure what awaits Ukraine within the EU, beginning with austerity measures. In my books I often use the well-known joke from the last decade of the Soviet Union about Rabinovitch, a Jew who wants to emigrate. The bureaucrat at the emigration office asks him why, and Rabinovitch answers, “There are two reasons why. The first is that I'm afraid that in the Soviet Union the Communists will lose power, and the new power will put all the blame for the Communist crimes on us, the Jews and there will again be anti-Jewish pogroms—” “But,” interrupts the bureaucrat, “this is pure nonsense, nothing can change in the Soviet Union, the power of the Communists will last forever!” “Well,” responds Rabinovitch calmly, “that's my second reason.” We can easily imagine a similar exchange between a critical Ukrainian and a European Union financial administrator. The Ukrainian complains, “There are two reasons we are in a panic here. First, we are afraid that the EU will simply abandon us to Russian pressure and let our economy collapse—” The EU administrator interrupts him, “But you can trust us, we will not abandon you, we will tightly control you and advise you on what to do!” “Well,” responds the Ukrainian calmly, “that's our second reason.”

So yes, the Euromaidan protesters were heroes, but the true fight begins now, the fight for what the new Ukraine will be, and this fight will be much tougher than the fight against Putin's intervention. A new and much more risky heroism
will be needed here. The model of this heroism is found in the Russians that you mentioned, Nadya, who courageously oppose the nationalist passion of their own country and denounce it as a tool of those in power. What is needed today is to make the “crazy” gesture of
rejecting the very terms of the conflict
and proclaiming the basic
solidarity
of Ukrainians and Russians. One should begin by organizing events of fraternization across the imposed divisions, establishing shared organizational networks between the authentic emancipatory core of Ukrainian political agents and the Russian opposition to Putin's regime. This may sound utopian, but it is only such crazy acts that can confer on the protests a true emancipatory dimension. Otherwise, we will get just the conflict of nationalist passions manipulated by oligarchs who lurk in the background.

But let me now really conclude on a more personal note. After reading your last letter, I found myself by chance listening to “Stenka Razin,” that most universally known of Russian folk songs, and its content reminded me of your point about how crucial it is for the subaltern to speak for themselves, and to break out of the situation where the sympathetic others (humanitarians, etc.) speak for them. The song describes how the mighty Cossack ataman was proudly sailing on the Volga with his beautiful young bride, a kidnapped Persian princess, at his side. But then, from behind, he heard a murmur: “He has exchanged us for a woman! He spent only one night with her, and in the morning he has become a woman himself!” The furious Stenka immediately decided what to do:

For me, the crucial moment of the song is the final reversal: when the common warriors get what they demanded from Stenka, their reaction is stupefaction, horror, even weeping, and Stenka, in the true gesture of a Master, makes them accept the gift of what they wanted as a source of joy—you asked for it, now you got it, so be merry! But the feature that is really shocking for us today is the absence of the woman's point of view: she was first kidnapped, raped, then killed, so how did she experience the situation? What about her own song, rendering her own horror? I think that you, Nadya, and your fellow fighters are creating something similar to the imagined song of the Persian princess …

So I am looking forward to our common struggle, with friendship and solidarity,

Slavoj