In Kiev today, American money for NGOs powers the coffee and pilmeni, as well as privileged, less-crowded tents. As one demonstrator tells me, top-echelon protesters camp in better, American-made tents. This is all the joyous Kiev wedding night of yet another majoritarian regime in the New Straight Order.
"We're left outside Ukrainian politics," lesbian activist Natalia Nahorna tells me. "Is there optimism now with the changes?" I ask. "No," she replies, "People are not tolerant to minorities here. It will take years to change." Nahorna has done research on lesbian life in Ukraine and organized its 2003 pride parade. In the same Independence Square where the Orange opposition demonstration is maintained, counter-demonstrators waved banners: "Deviants get out of Ukraine" and "Homiki are the reason for AIDS" (hamsters, a zoological slur for homosexuals). Viktor Yanukovich, the self-proclaimed winner of Ukraine's fraud-ridden presidential elections, now faces a re-vote. Neither Yanukovich nor his Orange opposition, led by Viktor Yushchenko, cares for the situation of women and gays in Ukraine.
"Lesbians and gays are seen as a zoo," gay activist Vladislav Topchev tells me. "The presentation of us in the media is to satisfy heterosexual interest. Even if journalists are gay-friendly, information tends to be distorted." Homophobia is rampant both in the industrial, largely Russian-speaking East, and the pro-EU and Catholic western regions of Ukraine, Topchev tells me. He hears about physical attacks everywhere. "There is no difference in the level of homophobia."
Ukraine is split several ways. As in other east European countries, economic divisions are rampant. Classism is both felt and acted out strongly: there is a brutal divide between the super-rich oligarchs controlling eastern Ukrainian industry and the media, versus the disenfranchised masses throughout the country. The economic gap continues between men and women, supporting social masculinism that is taken for granted as the natural order. Even matriarchs, the babushkas who enable Ukrainian families to survive, support patriarchy. Feminist scholar Natalia Monakhova comments that women entering the public sphere in Ukraine uphold the division of society along gender lines and subordinate their needs to the seemingly gender-neutral 'primary needs' of the nation. As Monakhova tells me, "Women are unnoticed in Ukrainian politics."
Ukraine is one of Europe's largest countries: it has powerful potential -- fertile soils, mild climate, and massive mineral riches. But Ukraine's economy has been deteriorating. Its environment has been damaged by the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster, pollution, deforestation, and all-too heavy industry. The infrastructure is in disrepair, as is everyday life in Soviet-style apartment blocks and the dangerous streets. Ukraine is plagued by corruption and organized crime. A former Soviet republic, Ukraine is wanted to stay loyal to Russia's sphere of influence. Between the Russian anvil and the US hammer, Ukraine is grappling with its fragile independence. Moreover, the Ukraine is very badly affected by the HIV/AIDS crisis. According to the World Bank, Ukraine and Russia are the two countries where AIDS growth is fastest.
Former Kiev correspondent of The Economist, Anna Reid, writes: "Center of the first great Slav civilization in the tenth century, and divided between neighbors for the next thousand years, Ukraine finally won independence with the collapse of the Soviet Union." Ukraine was colonized by Poland, Russia, Austro-Hungary and the Soviet Union. After a spell of independence after 1918, Ukraine was annexed by the Soviet Union and suffered famine under Stalin. Five million peasants died of starvation during 1932-33. Now Ukraine is wedged uncomfortably between East and West.
Ukraine is not only desirable to both the former Cold War super-rivals, but it has suddenly becoming a lover-darling of the European Union. Poland, a new member of the EU and one that had for centuries colonized Ukraine, eagerly supports Yushchenko as a soul-mate. Rightist, homophobic Polish politicians are leaders in voicing that support. Warsaw mayor Jaroslaw Kaczynski, also head of the ultra-right Law and Justice Party, who banned a gay parade in Warsaw and calls them "deviants," visited Kiev and gave an address in Independence Square. A once-closeted gay (outed by Lech Walesa, Poland's then-president, who publicly invited Kaczynski with "his husband"), Jaroslaw Kaczynski is anti-abortion, anti-secular, pro-capital punishment, pro-Yushchenko, and knows where to find friends.
Ukrainian Unmentionables After the fall of Communism and Ukraine's independence from Russia in 1991, homosexuality remained unmentionable still in Ukraine. But after the election demonstrations "Now, at long last, the word 'gay'" will be pronounced in public in Ukraine says LGBT activist Vladislav Topchev. He tells me how difficult it has been to pass an anti-discrimination bill that includes sexual orientation in employment. The words "sexual orientation" had to be dropped from the bill during parliamentary debates. Although the phrase has been returned, he says "There is no time for a debate of the bill now."
"Hatred of lesbians and gays comes from fear of the unknown, of what people don't understand." Topchev comments "Xenophobia and homophobia go hand in hand in the Ukraine." "And misogyny?" I ask. "Yes. Both gays and women are seen as inferior. There is psychological degradation of them in the Ukraine." Topchev is an aeronautical engineering student, but plans to major in psychology in order to analyze and fight homophobia.
Women and minorities stand to lose the most from a Yanukovich victory, since he is most likely to continue the Soviet and Ukrainian legacy of xenophobic and homophobic hatred. The victory of the Orange opposition, Topchev believes, would make Ukrainian politics more civilized. Publicly, the opposition does not even touch the issue of homosexuality, but privately, Topchev says, gays know that they have supporters among opposition politicians.
The emergence of the LGBT movement in the Ukraine has been difficult and delicate. The Orthodox Church, dominant in eastern Ukraine, has an ambiguous attitude towards homosexuality. As Yale University historian John Boswell proved, the Orthodox Church performed s
In Kiev today, American money for NGOs powers the coffee and pilmeni, as well as privileged, less-crowded tents. As one demonstrator tells me, top-echelon protesters camp in better, American-made tents. This is all the joyous Kiev wedding night of yet another majoritarian regime in the New Straight Order. Tomasz Kitlinski
"We're left outside Ukrainian politics," lesbian activist Natalia Nahorna tells me. "Is there optimism now with the changes?" I ask. "No," she replies, "People are not tolerant to minorities here. It will take years to change." Nahorna has done research on lesbian life in Ukraine and organized its 2003 pride parade. In the same Independence Square where the Orange opposition demonstration is maintained, counter-demonstrators waved banners: "Deviants get out of Ukraine" and "Homiki are the reason for AIDS" (hamsters, a zoological slur for homosexuals).
Viktor Yanukovich, the self-proclaimed winner of Ukraine's fraud-ridden presidential elections, now faces a re-vote. Neither Yanukovich nor his Orange opposition, led by Viktor Yushchenko, cares for the situation of women and gays in Ukraine.
"Lesbians and gays are seen as a zoo," gay activist Vladislav Topchev tells me. "The presentation of us in the media is to satisfy heterosexual interest. Even if journalists are gay-friendly, information tends to be distorted." Homophobia is rampant both in the industrial, largely Russian-speaking East, and the pro-EU and Catholic western regions of Ukraine, Topchev tells me. He hears about physical attacks everywhere. "There is no difference in the level of homophobia." . . .
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