Ukraine Plain And Simple
Today I got a comment from "anonymous," begging me to stop referring to Ukraine as THE Ukraine - the name of the country is in fact UKRAINE, plain and simple. I was criticized for my poor grammar - a sensitive issue for me, as many of you know (e.g., my favorite Anne Tyler character had to break up with his girlfriend because of her "unfortunate habit" of saying "between you and I"). The comment is indeed correct, but I rejected it because I won't accept anonymous comments. I know, I know, there is an earlier "anonymous" comment on the Blog, but that one came to me in the form of an email from our friend Raber who gave me permission to publish it as a comment. I published it as coming from "anonymous" because I thought it was funny, given the context. So to "anonymous" out there - thanks for your correction, but next time leave your name!! Here I am, exposed to the world in my Blog - if you want to leave a comment you have to let me and my readers know who you are!
I realized I made another mistake yesterday. When I was describing my encounter with the workers at LOOK, as I tried to get orange T Shirts with the map of Ukraine imprinted on them, I wrote that one of the workers mentioned "Yushenko" when I insisted on orange - and that is in fact what happened - they were clearly referring to the Orange Revolution. But I should not have said "tak, tak" when they said his name because, right now, I feel, as I believe most Ukrainians feel (based on my very limited poll!), that Yushenko has betrayed the Orange Revolution and all the Ukrainians (I think I can use the "the" there!) who supported him. He had 18 months to do something here, and he did nothing; and worse, he has now made an alliance with the very man that people here went out in the streets (in subzero temperatures) to demonstrate against. Everyone I talk to about it is says, "Why did we go out there in the freezing cold, why did we demonstrate in support of this man Yushenko against the fraudulent election of this man Yanakovich, whom Yushenko has now made Prime Minister?" It is a very sad state of affairs.
I realized I made another mistake yesterday. When I was describing my encounter with the workers at LOOK, as I tried to get orange T Shirts with the map of Ukraine imprinted on them, I wrote that one of the workers mentioned "Yushenko" when I insisted on orange - and that is in fact what happened - they were clearly referring to the Orange Revolution. But I should not have said "tak, tak" when they said his name because, right now, I feel, as I believe most Ukrainians feel (based on my very limited poll!), that Yushenko has betrayed the Orange Revolution and all the Ukrainians (I think I can use the "the" there!) who supported him. He had 18 months to do something here, and he did nothing; and worse, he has now made an alliance with the very man that people here went out in the streets (in subzero temperatures) to demonstrate against. Everyone I talk to about it is says, "Why did we go out there in the freezing cold, why did we demonstrate in support of this man Yushenko against the fraudulent election of this man Yanakovich, whom Yushenko has now made Prime Minister?" It is a very sad state of affairs.
posted by Susan Spivak at 10:28 AM
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