Vienna 3/02/2022
When I found out that Volodymir Zelenskyy had stayed in Ukraine after Russia declared war, his image gained a lot in my eyes. You have to have the courage not to hide in a mouse hole or simply disappear abroad in the face of a world power threat. There is nothing easier for the special forces of Russia to find the head of state and neutralize, kill, to have an easier task of containing the enemy. He stayed in Kyiv and did what he was supposed to do: defend his homeland. It sounds pathetic, but that’s what I think.
Zelenskyy, 44, previously known to his countrymen as an actor in a popular series, took office in May 2019. During the presidential campaign in December 2018 he said: I am a completely independent person. I don’t want to offend anyone, but the one who will control me has not yet been born. If true, he would be the world’s only independent candidate for the presidency of any country.
Why did I have a bad opinion of this man? Personally, of course, I have nothing against him. However, I have some criticisms of his policy towards Poland. You will probably say that in the current situation you shouldn’t throw him on your feet. I agree, so I will not remind him of 2019, announced in Ukraine as the Bandera Year, of the unclear issue of the massacre in Volhynia or the blockade of transport from China to Poland. We can talk about it when this war is over.
However, I find it difficult not to write about the only ethno-segregation law in Europe after the end of the Second World War. On the Government of Ukraine website you can easily find the Law on Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine. Don’t speak Ukrainian? That’s not a problem – I don’t know either, although I can read Cyrillic texts and understand more important aspects. I have automatically translated the draft of this law and the explanation. After being signed by President Zelenskyy, this law came into force on July 22, 2021.
In the explanatory note we can read: The purpose of the Draft Law of Ukraine “On Indigenous Peoples of Ukraine” (hereinafter – the Draft Law) is to determine the legal status of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine and to create legal guarantees for the full possession of all human rights and fundamental freedoms of the indigenous peoples of the Ukraine established by international law, as well as provided for in the Constitution and laws of Ukraine. In fact, this law distinguishes between indigenous Ukrainians and the rest, to whom Ukraine does not guarantee full human rights.
In the Predicting Results we read: Adoption of the draft law will allow the indigenous peoples of Ukraine to fully enjoy all human rights and fundamental freedoms as defined in international law and the Constitution and laws of Ukraine. In addition, the implementation of the draft law will help ensure the right of indigenous peoples of Ukraine to self-determination, self-determination of their political status and free exercise of their economic, social and cultural development in a manner that does not contradict the Constitution and laws of Ukraine.
Are Putin’s accusations that the Ukrainian government is a Nazi really wrong? There is certainly no discrimination against Jews in Ukraine. For the simple reason that there are too few of them to blame for the country’s economic and corruption policy failures.
I want to emphasize that I wholeheartedly support any kind of help for refugees from Ukraine. Yesterday I saw an interview in Polish on banbye.pl where one of the Ukrainian women who came to Poland says with horror that in this crowd of refugees not many people speak their language. She also spoke about how women in Ukraine were thrown off the train to be replaced by those who had paid the appropriate fee to the appropriate people.
As refugees flee Ukraine, immigrants from Africa also come to Poland.
This does not apply to immigrants and here it is mostly men. Nobody in Poland picks them up, so they wait at the train station.
The author of the article: Marek Wojcik