terça-feira, maio 29, 2007

Fascistas russos vs gays

Um grupo de fascistas, nacional – socialistas, cabeças rapadas e racistas russos prepara-se para atacar a parada – gey em Moscovo, mais informação em http://direland.typepad.com/




















Fascistas estão pisar a bandeira de arco – íris, símbolo internacional GLS.

quarta-feira, maio 16, 2007

Negociações EU – Rússia

Para iniciar as negociações entre a União Europeia e a Rússia sobre o novo tratado de parceria e cooperação, a Polónia exige que seja levantada a proibição da exportação da carne polaca para a Rússia, alem de resolvida a situação de segurança energética dos países – membros da UE.
Esta exigência foi feita pela Ministra dos Negócios Estrangeiros da Polónia, Sra. Anna Fotyga no encontro com os seus homólogos europeus, informa a Novaya Gazeta.

terça-feira, maio 15, 2007

Friend of Russia Stages Sweeping Political Makeover

BLOC PARTY In Ukraine, a Friend of Russia Stages Sweeping Political Makeover

By MARC CHAMPIONMay 15, 2007; Page A1

KIYV, Ukraine - Viktor Yanukovich, prime minister of this strategically important nation wedged between Russia and the West, has undergone one of the most extreme makeovers in global politics.
Just two years ago, the Russian - backed machine politician was a pariah in the West after he claimed victory in the 2004 presidential elections, which were marred by fraud and a brutal poisoning that left his opponent disfigured. Only the subsequent mass street protests of the so-called Orange Revolution forced him to accept a redo of the vote, which he lost.
Today, Mr. Yanukovich, 56 years old, is locked once more in a struggle for supremacy with the pro-Western Orange leader who beat him, President Viktor Yushchenko. But this time, the thousands of protesters occupying Kiev's Independence Square for the past month flew not orange, but the blue colors of Mr. Yanukovich's Party of the Regions, and the red and hot pink of his allies, the Communists and Socialists. They dispersed only when Mr. Yanukovich defused the crisis by agreeing to hold new elections - for the second time in as many years - after his rival dissolved parliament.
With backing from a billionaire metals baron and political coaching from U.S. Sen. Bob Dole's former campaign strategist, Mr. Yanukovich was re-elected as prime minister last year. He has positioned himself as a champion of rule of law and democratic values, a visitor to Washington, Brussels and Davos, as well as Moscow.
Mr. Yanukovich's comeback is further evidence - on top of the Gaza Strip, Iraq and Kyrgyzstan - that the free elections encouraged by the U.S. don't guarantee winners who favor U.S. goals, or even Western-style democracy. Ukraine is adding a fresh twist to the lesson, as Mr. Yanukovich adopts the language and institutions of democracy to shed the anti-Western and antidemocratic image that cost him the election 2½ years ago.
Gone is Mr. Yanukovich's bouffant hairdo, a favorite of Soviet apparatchiks. So too are the Russian advisers and televised meetings with President Vladimir Putin that characterized his 2004 election campaign, though the Russian lower house of parliament, or Duma, has issued two statements supporting him in the current power struggle. He says he wants to be the Ukrainian leader who starts membership talks with the European Union. He even polished his Ukrainian, which he now speaks in public instead of his first language, Russian.
"Time changes people, even Viktor Feodorovich Yanukovich," said Mr. Yushchenko, 53, in an interview. "But the test is in his decisions and actions," he added, accusing Mr. Yanukovich of trying to "usurp" power. Mr. Yanukovich declined to be interviewed for this story.
How far his makeover goes has implications far beyond Ukraine. This nation of 48 million is split by history and language, and remains divided over whether to embrace the West or Russia. Ukraine transports 80% of Russian natural-gas exports to the European Union, and is key to the energy security of the EU's $15 trillion economy. Moscow, increasingly authoritarian at home and assertive with its neighbors, sees Ukraine as vital to its own security, economic interests and regional influence.
Historically, eastern Ukraine - Mr. Yanukovich's power base - is closely linked to Russia, and most people in the region are native Russian speakers. President Yushchenko is stronger in predominantly Ukrainian - speaking central and western Ukraine, which tilts toward Western Europe.

Crisis Begins

The current crisis began on April 2, when President Yushchenko dissolved Ukraine's parliament, or Rada, and called for early elections. He accused his old rival of engineering a creeping coup by coaxing legislators to defect from other parties to give Mr. Yanukovich the votes he needs to change the constitution. After a monthlong struggle for power in which Mr. Yushchenko fired three judges, Prime Minister Yanukovich earlier this month agreed to new elections. But the two men left it to parliament to negotiate a date, and last week Mr. Yushchenko said he would impose a date if none was settled soon, threatening a further showdown.
Opinion polls suggest the Party of the Regions will get the most votes, as it did last year. Yet Mr. Yushchenko's tough action in dissolving parliament and seizing back power is expected to bring some disillusioned Orange voters back to the fold, making the contest tight.
Both Viktors claim the legal high ground, but the moral clarity of the Orange Revolution era has dissipated. "I'm absolutely disappointed in the way things have turned out," said Vitaly Kutovenko, a 28-year-old banker, as he sipped a beer in the food court of the glitzy Globus mall beneath Independence Square, where Mr. Yanukovich's supporters were protesting. "Most people are."
Many Ukrainians were euphoric after the Orange Revolution and hoped it would end the corrupt autocracy that had ruled the country since it became independent of the former Soviet Union in 1991. Then-president Leonid Kuchma and his entourage of business "clans" had carved up the proceeds of privatization between them. When Mr. Yanukovich in November 2004 claimed victory in presidential elections later ruled fraudulent, hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians poured into the streets of Kiev, setting up camps of pup tents to protest in below-freezing temperatures.
Mr. Kuchma and his anointed candidate, Mr. Yanukovich, agreed to fresh elections, provided the constitution was changed to transfer some of the president's powers to parliament.
The shock of losing the rerun elections, which were held in December 2004, hit Mr. Yanukovich hard, according to advisers and friends. He found himself in opposition for the first time in his political career and has said his children had to flee the country to escape harassment. In the past, Ukrainians in opposition had suffered media blackouts, arbitrary prosecution, a suspiciously high rate of fatal accidents, one murder by decapitation and, in Mr. Yushchenko's case, dioxin poisoning.
That poisoning turned Mr. Yushchenko's face into a mask of pustules and made him sick. In the interview, he said the effects of the poisoning reached their peak at the beginning of 2006 and required constant treatment. That was a full year after he took office as president, a lost period in which economic growth collapsed as the Orange leaders fought among themselves.

Energy and Ruthlessness

Mr. Yushchenko, now revived and showing a new energy and ruthlessness, said he knows who poisoned him, though he won't name names. He said he expects prosecutors to bring charges soon.
Mr. Yanukovich, for his part, says a year in opposition - he published a book with that title -- taught him the value of a free press and tolerant democracy. "He really took it deep into his conscience that he needs to understand what happened [in the Orange Revolution], and what should be changed in his own mentality," said Konstantin Gryshchenko, a former Ukrainian foreign minister and now a foreign-affairs adviser to Mr. Yanukovich.
It isn't the first time the former engineer has reinvented himself. Growing up near Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, Mr. Yanukovich lost his mother at a young age and was brought up by his grandmother. He ran wild and landed in jail twice for assault convictions in his late teens.
Out of jail, Mr. Yanukovich was taken under the wing of former Soviet astronaut Georgi Beregovoi. He began a rapid rise in the tough world of post-Soviet politics, becoming governor of the Donetsk region in 1997 and prime minister in 2002, before the Orange Revolution cut him short.
Yet he was by no means washed up politically after his electoral defeat. His rock-solid support in the east won him 44% of the vote in the 2004 presidential election. Things brightened dramatically for him in September 2005, after the president fired his prime minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, breaking up the Orange coalition.
As Mr. Yanukovich prepared for parliamentary elections due the following spring, one of his key backers -- Rinat Akhmetov, a billionaire metals magnate from Donetsk -- recommended he hire Paul Manafort, who had worked on then-Sen. Dole's 1996 presidential campaign. Mr. Manafort, now a prominent Washington lobbyist, had been advising Mr. Akhmetov as he explored taking his business, SCM Holdings, public on Western financial markets.
With another election fast approaching, Mr. Manafort declined in an interview to talk about the specifics of the campaign advice he gave Mr. Yanukovich. But according to people involved in the Party of the Regions' campaign in spring 2006, Mr. Manafort advised on such basics as how to target and appeal to voters. He also produced a slick campaign film and coached Mr. Yanukovich on his presentation.
"This is a person who is now his own man for his own time," said Mr. Manafort, noting that in 2004 Mr. Yanukovich served under an all-powerful president, Mr. Kuchma, and had limited latitude. "His vision is to have a relationship with Ukraine's historic neighbors, while integrating with the West over the longer term. Like Nixon to China, he's the only national leader who can do that."

New Openness

The makeover has affected more than Mr. Yanukovich's campaign style. Ambassadors in Kiev say that during his previous stint as prime minister, he shied away from contact with foreign diplomats and the media. Now he invites briefings and questions, speaking Ukrainian even when addressed in Russian. He pushed through legislation to take Ukraine into the World Trade Organization, and has promised to pursue a free-trade agreement with the European Union.
In one example of his new openness, he invited eight local journalists to his home this past March. He talked about how he used to race cars until 1999 -- his favorite was a three-liter Ford Escort -- and about meeting his wife when she dropped a brick on her foot making deliveries to a factory. They even discussed his two spells in jail, a taboo subject the media were once banned from discussing.
"We were wrong not to talk about that," said Hanna Herman, Mr. Yanukovich's communications chief. "He didn't go to jail because he was a terrible criminal, but because he was a young kid on the street with no parents."
Yet some things abut the prime minister may not have changed. A report released last month by the Council of Europe, the Continent's human-rights watchdog, noted growing complaints of arbitrary police raids and harassment of journalists since Mr. Yanukovich's coalition government took power. It also noted the reinstatement of discredited old-regime officials, such as the head of the Central Election Commission, who oversaw and approved the fraudulent 2004 presidential vote. Mr. Yanukovich didn't address the report's criticisms, but praised the resolution to which the report was attached, which called for Ukraine's constitutional court to decide whether Mr. Yushchenko's dissolution of parliament was legal.
Initially, Mr. Yanukovich didn't have enough allies to form a government after last spring's elections, when the Party of the Regions became the largest in Parliament. But as the Orange faction squabbled, a key coalition member, the Socialist Party, defected. Orange politicians have alleged Mr. Yanukovich's backers paid the Socialists $300 million to switch sides. Both he and the Socialists say no money changed hands.
After taking office last August, Mr. Yanukovich began to tussle with the president over important powers that weren't transferred under the 2004 deal. He quickly reversed Mr. Yushchenko's policy on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, halting Ukraine's efforts to join the Western military alliance. In January, he pushed through a law stripping the president of his right to appoint the prime minister, foreign minister and defense minister, as well as regional governors.

Last Straw

For Mr. Yushchenko, the last straw came in March, when 21 legislators defected to Mr. Yanukovich from the president's Our Ukraine party and Ms. Tymoshenko's bloc. Many were businessmen, in a political system where all parties sell parliamentary seats to businessmen who want protection and access to the sale of state assets. The new blood brought Mr. Yanukovich closer to the 301 votes he needs in the 450-seat parliament to override presidential vetoes or amend the constitution.
Accepting the defectors "was a mistake," says Taras Chornovil, a legislator who ran Mr. Yanukovich's doomed campaign for the 2004 presidential rerun, and whose father - an opposition leader - died in a suspicious car crash in 1999. "We should have known how Yushchenko would react," he said.
Mr. Yushchenko dissolved parliament, alleging that the defectors were bribed, and re-formed the Orange coalition with Ms. Tymoshenko. Mr. Yanukovich declared the move illegal and called thousands of supporters into the streets.
Most of the protesters have since gone home, but in their echoes of the Orange protests, they helped Mr. Yanukovich's makeover. The Party of the Regions was "deeply wounded when the people threw them out" and needed to have its own version of the Orange Revolution, said Vladislav Kaskiv, leader of the PORA youth movement, which played a central role in the 2004 protests. He's heartened that people like Mr. Yanukovich now feel the need to pursue politics in public, rather than in the dark as before 2004.
"My mistake was thinking the Orange Revolution could sweep out all these business clans at once," said Mr. Kaskiv. "I was wrong. It's going to be an evolution."

quarta-feira, maio 09, 2007

Concurso World Press Cartoon

O cartunista sueco Riber Hansson, ganhou o Concurso World Press Cartoon em nomeação de “caricatura”, com este desenho, onde podemos ver um simpático e inofensivo ursinho, que está afiar as suas uninhas chique, com uma lima (ou então é um limatão, não consigo ver muito bem).

Quem é Riber Hansson?

Vive em Estocolmo, é cartunista freelance e publica os seus trabalhos em vários jornais da Suécia. A sua obra pode ser vista no Museu Nacional da Arte de Estocolmo, Libraria do Parlamento Sueco, Newseum em Arlington, EUA, no Museu Internacional de Arte de Caricatura em Boca Raton, Flórida, EUA, Museo della Satira e della Caricatura, Forte dei Marmi, Itália e Musée d'histoire contemporaine em Paris, França. Têm três livros de caricaturas políticas publicadas, último chama-se ”Världsbilder” - World Pictures.
Escreva para o rapaz!

terça-feira, maio 08, 2007

60 AÑOS DE LA OPERACIÓN “VISLA”

Después de la segunda guerra mundial, la URSS entregó a Polonia tradicionales territorios étnicos de Ucrania: Lemkivschyna, Nadsiannia, Kholmschyna y Pidliashsha, patria histórica de 800 mil pobladores ucranios.

Allí comenzó otra de las tragedias de nuestro pueblo, conocida como la Operación “Visla”.
El 9 de septiembre de 1944, entre los regimenes comunistas de la RSS de Ucrania y Polonia se concluyó un acuerdo de una transmigración voluntaria. La realidad es que se trató de un acto violatorio de parte del comando militar polaco y del imperio soviético-moscovita. El resultado fue que 482 mil personas de origen ucranio fueron trasladadas a la URSS entre 1944-46 y libradas a su suerte.
La emigración forzada tuvo una accion de bloqueo del UPA (Ejército Guerrillero Ucranio), por lo que la parte polaca apeló a terroríficas acciones. Decenas de pueblos de la región fueron bañados en sangre y destruidas reliquias culturales ucranias. En un solo año fueron asesinados cuatro mil pobladores en uno de los distritos y 52 pueblos, incendiados.

Pero la total evacuacion de la población corresponde al año 1947. El 23 de marzo de ese año, las autoridades polacas dispusieron la habilitación el campamento en Yavozhno, en el territorio del campo de concentración nazi de Auchswitz (Osvencim). Cinco dias mas tarde en un enfrentamiento con integrantes del UPA es muerto el gral. Karol Svierchevs’kyj -viceministro de defensa de Polonia.
Este hecho acelera la masiva deportación del resto de la población ucrania residente en esas tierras que Polonia recibiera formalmente en 1945.

El gobierno polaco, resuelve el 28 de abril de 1947 comenzar un operativo codificado como “Visla”, destinado a concluir totalmente con las deportaciones. Para ello fueron destinados 15 regimientos del ejército (unos 20 mil soldados), un regimiento de zapadores, otro de automóviles blindados y una escuadrilla aérea. Además fueron afectados a la acción la milicia, los servicios de seguridad y la administración estatal. El gral. S. Mosor comandaba las acciones con total poder discrecional en cuanto a los métodos y la aplicación de acciones punitivas.
Cerca de cuatro mil pobladores fueron internados en Yavozhno, decenas de guerrilleros del UPA fueron muertos.

En conmemoración de los trágicos acontecimientos, los Presidentes de Ucrania, Viktor Yushchenko y de Polonia, Lech Kaczinski se reunieron en Peremyshl (antigua ciudad ucrania) para honrar a los muertos y reprimidos por la operacion “Visla”.

por: Ya. Stekh, periodicos “Svoboda”- “Novij Shlakh”

segunda-feira, maio 07, 2007

They're asking if we have culture!

A presentation by Oksana Zabuzhko (in Ukrainian)
At the Conference "New Ukraine in New Europe"
Translated by Sofiya Skachko, Ukrayins'ka Pravda On-line
Kyiv, Ukraine, Sunday, April 15, 2007
The pain and frustration expressed by the author in this article is very real. However, when the day comes that Ukraine has a Holodomor monument (for its millions who died) anything like the Vimy Ridge monument erected by Canada (for its 3,598 soldiers who died April 9 - 12, 1917) is when the world will begin to fully understand why Ukraine does not have the "culture" which the author seeks.
Ukraine has nothing to be ashamed of. No country in Europe, if not the world, has gone through what Ukraine has gone through. Ukraine is brave and she is a miracle.
My deepest conviction is that numerous Ukrainian problems, connected with the indeterminate status we have at the international level, are caused by one very sad fact: contemporary Ukraine has no culture.
Fifteen years of independence haven't been enough for the Ukrainian state to grasp why a state needs a culture, and what sort of whim compels even the poorer countries to 'turn out their pockets' only to invest in cultural development. Why on earth would they do it?
However, the answer lies on the surface. The 'trademark' of any country is not its political order, nor the faces of its leaders, nor even, however paradoxical this may sound, its economic prosperity and well-being.
Bah, I have to say that even its sports achievements ain't it, even though they are an excellent tool to win fans' dedication.
The trademark of any country that has the most direct and intimate influence on the foreign audience, touching them on the most personal and subconscious level, is its national culture.
Chopin has always been and still remains the trademark of Poland in the world, Finland has Sibelius, Sweden has Pippi Longstocking and Carlson That Lives on the Roof. These examples are taken at random, since every "mature" country, no matter how big or small, has its "cultural passports."
These are the most delicate and subtle - and oh how powerful! - "first call signs", that a country sends out into the world, bringing about sometimes barely conscious attraction and trust towards itself. They prepare the ground in the mind of every and any foreigner for an a priori positive image of a country.
As long as Ukraine fails to send these cultural call signs, it will always be a dark horse for the international community, who will remain weary about what to expect from it.
One can endlessly visit all kinds of summits and symposia, wear Armani and Brioni, memorize the names of the delegates in order to avoid mispronouncing them at the negotiation table, and assure everyone that we are nice and honest, and we should be received everywhere - however, if we don't have these recognizable trademarks as our herald, it's difficult to be perceived in a positive light.
Let's not forget: over a hundred years Tolstoy and Dostoevsky have been Russia's trademark, and to a large extent all of the Bolshevik revolution was mediated in the consciousness of western political and intellectual elite through Tolstoy and Dostoevsky as the "guides" to the "mysterious Russian soul".
Lenin, Bolsheviks, even Chekists headed by Dzerzhinsky were perceived from behind the iron curtain not as political criminals, who were liquidating every living soul, including the "Russian" one, but as heroes from Russian classics, anxious to "save the world" - and this had the most direct impact on the international success of Stalinist politics.
It's that level of influence that allowed NKVD to recruit the Cambridge Five headed by Tim Philby only based on their romantic motivation, rather than mercenary interest.
I pass in silence over the whole army of duped Frenchmen, including Sartre & Co. that for decades were providing USSR with a rosy free publicity.
The Dostoevsky-syndrome in the choice of western affiliations towards Soviet Union was always present. There is a plethora of literature on the subject, which is, unfortunately, barely known in Ukraine.
Alas, for lack of knowledge of these things makes it hard to estimate realistically the meaning of country's cultural image in the world and how well it works even in the most pragmatic and cynical contexts.
Those, who in the recent times took a Polish airlines transatlantic flight, should remember a 10-minute TV presentation of Poland.
Poland begins with Chopin, the sounds of his music accompanies the changing images on the screen: faces of eminent Poles, Nobel laureates, including Maria Sklodowska-Curie, Czeslaw Milosz, Wislawa Szymborska; wonderfully montaged landscapes, and in between you are unobtrusively told about the modern achievements in the spheres of education, science, technology and economics.
Chopin's music remains the emotional background, playing the role of the emotional "greeting" the country sends to the world, and owing to which the world enthusiastically cognizes and recognizes the country.
When in 1991 Ukraine appeared on the world map, it had no recognizable signposts of the kind, so the reaction of the international community was legitimate - quoting Mayakovsky: "Where are they from, and what are these geographical novelties?" [1]
I'll make a wild guess and say if at the time Lesya Ukrainka and Mykhailo Kotsiubynskyi had been known in the world to the extent Tolstoy and Dostoevsky are, our country needn't have given up its nuclear weapons. And this is not just a metaphor.
I will never forget one conversation I had with the editor of the Wall Street Journal Europe. That man had a chance to see the exhibition of works by the Boichukisty group at the Metropolitan, or rather what's left of them.
After that for the period of two months his whole family were struck by the deep sadness, caused by a shocking discovery: that such an astounding avant-garde school, which in fact was way ahead the work of David Alfaro Siqueiros, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, all this bunch that would later become the trademark of Mexico, was completely annihilated - not only were the artists shot, but their works had been destroyed as well.
This very editor was ready to grant Ukraine forgiveness for all its future errors in domestic and foreign policy, and offer all Ukrainians his understanding and sympathy, for their being a strategic victim of the XXth century totalitarianism.
One single episode from our cultural history was enough for him to see Ukraine through different eyes. One can cite a large number of such stories.
I have to state the sad fact that the Ukrainian state has not taken advantage of the opportunities to present its culture in this most effective way on the institutional level, as its landmark.
And it has had enough of these opportunities, especially following the events of the Orange revolution, when the whole world took a serious interest in Ukraine, when it opened all the doors leading to the world cultural mainstream and shouted "Welcome!"
There was a chance to make Ukraine a guest country at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008, there was a similar invitation from Leipzig Book Fair in 2006, which our state institutions pooh-poohed in the most careless way, just like other similar occasions, only because the responsible officials (responsible to who? what for?) simply did not understand what this "export of culture" is and what to serve it with.
They failed to understand that it is the clever politics of cultural export that integrates a country into European information space much faster and much more efficiently than all the round table talks.
Every breakthrough of the Ukrainian culture into European space has been carried out by the use of guerrilla tactics - by-passing all the state authorities.
I myself belong to this guerrilla group of those who have successfully "integrated into Europe" within the limits of an individual creative biography, who have made a name for themselves, and personally I ask for one single thing from the Ukrainian state - to just let me be. But it continuously jumps at me from behind like a devil from a box, and each time it puts me to shame.
They translate, publish and stage your works, they give you awards, you go to presentations, meet the readers, journalists, give interviews, start telling about the bulk of culture behind you, what tradition you represent, who were your literary predecessors and what contribution they made into the treasury of human creation - and you see how the eyes of your interlocutors widen and widen.
Finally, I can only quote one Swedish journalist, that told me during one interview: "I'm really sorry, but if I'm not mistaken, your country seems to say very little about itself, it provides little information about what's interesting about it."
And I, humbly lowering my eyes, mumble: you're right, but you know, unfortunately, no experience, a young country only starting to learn... How long does it need to learn, I wonder?
Here is another telling example. My Czech translator, working on the book "Oh Sister, My Sister," revealed in the novel "The Alien Woman" hidden allusions to Lesya Ukrainka's drama "Cassandra". The translator came to Ukraine on a research trip, went to a book-store and asked for "Cassandra" by Lesya Ukrainka.
She was told at this point that she must have confused something, for they have heard in the book-store who Lesya Ukrainka is, but this Kalandra is an unheard-of person.
It's hard to imagine the cultural shock of a European person, who comes to Ukraine, to its capital, which has almost a European look to it, there are more expensive cars in the streets than in any capital of a European country, the cafes are crowded, at a first glance everything looks decent, even quite glamorous - but then you enter a book store and it turns out that an "almost European" country simply does not have national classics on sale.
The effect is almost the same as if a person opened the front door of Radisson hotel and slumped down into a cesspit. One big Potemkin village.
I support wholeheartedly the pathos of the statement that Ukraine is part of Europe. Provided we know our history, our achievements, then no doubt, based on its origins, its legacy and its psychological matrix our country is a part of European cultural continent.
However, Ukraine itself does not know about this. An average Ukrainian citizen, a "layperson", knows poorly his or her history, and practically knows nothing about Ukrainian cultural heritage.
It's very difficult to "integrate" anywhere, if we ourselves are not culturally "integrated". The entity that is deprived of historical memory, lacks self-understanding and has only a vague idea of the point of reference or criteria for comparison, is difficult to "integrate".
The incident with my translator concluded with me presenting her with my own little volume with Lesya Ukrainka's "Cassandra." Recently I got a note that she is finishing the translation of this drama and leading the negotiations with the Prague theater, which has expressed eagerness to create a stage production of "Cassandra."
I really hope that afterwards - at least in the city quarter, where "Cassandra" is played on stage - the announcements on the doors of some houses saying something in the vein of "dogs and Ukrainians not wanted" will disappear.
After all the image of Ukraine in Europe should not be shaped only by Ostarbeiter and female sex workers, but also by the realization that this country had high culture in the past and is capable of exporting it.
Sometimes it seems to me we're back in 1920s, in the times sarcastically described by Tychyna: "For God's sake, pull up your cuffs, tell them something: they're asking if we have culture!" [2]
Indeed "they" ask, but it's "we" who have the task. The completion of this task depends on how we can answer "them", and if we can take on this challenge.
Without exaggeration it's the question of our country's survival in the foreseeable future, - if we really want to integrate into Europe and become a part of the civilized world.
FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mayakovsky Vladimir "Soviet Passport," translated into English by Herbert Marshall;
http://win.mail.ru/cgi-bin/%20http://www.marxists.org/subject/art/literature/mayakovsky/1929/my-soviet-passport.htm

[2] Tychyna Pavlo "A Test", translated into English by Michael M. Naydan
The Complete Early Poetry Collections of Pavlo Tychyna, Litopys Publishers, 2000, p.251