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Oksana Bashuk Hepburn
Oksana was a 15 year Canadian Public Service executive and president of her consulting firm emphasizing policy and communications. Her extensive involvement in the Ukrainian Canadian community resulted in policy changes locally and globally, including focus on Holodomor recognition by Western governments; equal treatment of Ukrainian issues in Canada. Her commentaries are read internationally and she edits the popular Nasha Doroha, a bilingual quarterly. Oksana's book on Akcija Visla and her docu-novel on the Canada-Ukraine links through three generations of women are both noteworthy.
The 2011 Ukrainian Best & Worst List (UBaWL) Almost everyone has favorite lists this time of year-- best movies, books, persons… For the 9th year, here is my list of the BEST and WORST issues, events and personae that have impacted profoundly on the global Ukrainian community. BEST 1/ Former Prime Minister of Ukraine and key political opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko--for her fighting spirit during her ‘show trial.’ She condemned presidential interference and the corruption of the judicial process thereby drawing a line between Ukraine’s present governance and where it needs to be as a full-fledged member of the democratic community. BEST 2/ Ukraine’s journalists--for tenacious pursuit of independence despite the fact that over 60 have died for the cause of truth since Ukraine’s independence. BEST 3/ Canada’s Prime Minister, Stephen Harper--for a tough message to President Viktor Yanukovych, a letter in which Harper asked him to stand firm on his “commitment to democracy” and warning of “negative impacts” stemming from the politically motivated trial of Yulia Tymoshenko. [ ... ] WORST WORST 1/ Ukraine’s political leaders--for failing to learn and apply the sine qua non of democracy: the separation of powers of parliament, the executive (administration) and the judiciary thus putting Ukraine at the top of the world’s corruption scale and losing its formerly high ”free” rating. WORST 2/ European thinkers and leaders (except Poland)--for locking into the ‘old think’ regarding Ukraine and failing, for the last 20 years, to incorporate it into the European community, a mistake made after WWI and again after WWII with disastrous consequences for Ukraine, Europe and the world. WORST 3/ President Victor Yanukovych and Prime Minister Mykola Azarov--for entering into agreements favouring Russia’s interests rather than Ukraine’s, specifically the Kharkiv Accords allowing Russia’s Black Sea Fleet prolonged usage of Ukraine’s space; the creation of Ukroboronprom to facilitate defence integration with Russia; and the Free Trade Agreement aimed at Russia’s dominance of Ukraine’s economic sector. A gift for Russia It is not easy to write an opinion piece on Ukraine’s current politics. Much is in flux prior to the European Union-Ukraine Summit on Dec. 19. The day, according to Ukraine’s Julian calendar, also marks the feast of St. Nicholas; time to dispense gifts to the deserving. What gifts might the players expect to receive at the summit? Canada taking lead on democracy in Ukraine It is crucial that Canada finds the public policy approach that will help Ukraine reach an international stature that will allow it to become a country comfortable in the full spectrum of its international relations. Prime Minister Stephen Harper stepped forward and called upon Ukraine’s president, in a letter, to address the escalating crisis of confidence in that country’s progress toward democracy. It was a direct and resounding call for a reversal of the recent spate of ‘legal’ attacks against opposition leaders. Although the Prime Minister’s language was unequivocal—it warned of “potential negative impact”—the message was unmistakably from one friend to another one on the verge of losing his way. The Prime Minister’s letter dealing with the conviction of Ukraine’s opposition leader Yulia Tymoshenko, is a serious response to a serious situation. Will Mr. Yanukovych be persuaded? Canada’s friendship has been evident from the very first days of Ukraine’s independence where the vast Ukrainian Canadian community, which helped build Canada, has long cherished the hope of an independent and democratic Ukraine. Other Canadians have been party to that dream; its leaders have done much to support it. However, there is now a universal quandary among democratic nations: how best to deal with the crumbling pillars of Ukraine’s democracy? Where have all the women gone...?
Òà êîëè æ âè, íàðåøò³, íàæðåòåñü! When will you have finally gorged yourself enough?! http://www.infoukes.com/newpathway/41-2011-Page-7-2.html Mental Callisthenics with Vujko Ilko“Why aren’t the women protesting,” asks Uncle Ilko as we settle with our cappuccinos. I have no idea what he’s going to raise this time but it’s bound to be interesting if it deals with women. “Explain, please, why that feisty woman is not being supported by Ukrainian women’s organizations of the free world?” Vujko is out to do battle with Ukrainian women in the diaspora. My sense is to advise him to stay gender-neutral, but he’s off. “She’s been given seven years, for goodness sake and there is no protest. She’s a woman, a PhD, a politician, a world-class figure - everything these organizations stand for. Where is the outcry to the male chauvinists of the recidivist Party of Regions who aim to make a Joan of Arc out of her and democracy in Ukraine a loser.” Vujko is devoting this session on matters Ukrainian to Yulia Tymoshenko, former Prime Minister of Ukraine, put on trial for allegedly abusing her authority in the gas wars with Russia, widely condemned as being pretence to eliminate her as a political force. Yanukovych and his road to salvation While driving Vujko Ilko to church on Sunday, I’m exposed to his mental callisthenics - insights into matters Ukrainian. “I’ll start with the good news,” says Vujko. “That Ukraine-hater Tabachnyk is being removed from Ukraine’s Cabinet.” Uncle Ilko means the Minister of Education, Science, Youth and Sports who has been one of the most odious government figures; a seditionist and Ukraine hater, and a lightning rod for anti-Yanukovych sentiments. “He claims Ukraine is not a nation; Ukrainian not an important language but urges studies of Hebrew. A man like that would have fallen in Canada before he could finish his breakfast.” “What do you think this means, Vujku?” “President Yanukovych is tilting westward. He’s concerned about being swallowed-up by Russia. Ukraine’s oligarchs, as self-serving as they are, don’t want to move into the free zone with Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. They made the President propose a 3+1 option, but Russia said ‘nyet’.” “This is a seriously independent position. Will Russia let Ukraine win?” Can the Tymoshenko fiasco bring salvation? On the eve of its 20th birthday, politics in Ukraine are not good. Its President and other key players -- Russia, the family of global democracies, the diaspora-- need a turnaround if they care about moving forward, image and peace. It may surprise, but the fiasco involving the Aug. 5 arrest of ex-Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko could become the catalyst for such good tidings if wisdom prevails. Although Russia has influenced political backsliding in the neighborhood, it is Ukraine’s president who is responsible for the mess at home. Most odious, of course, is the persecution of the opposition with the over-the-top arrest of Tymoshenko. It was precipitated by her request to have Prime Minister Mykola Azarov’s testimony translated into Ukrainian, the official language of the country! If consequences weren’t so dire the situation would be laughable. But President Victor Yanukovych is playing with a time bomb and must defuse it or the situation may turn catastrophic. Some countries moved to higher diplomatic and military alert. However, things are rarely simple and the Slavic world has a long history of “enigmas wrapped in riddles” situations; this one is no exception. Consider this. Vujko Ilko…: A country is not run by questions Snail-mail brings a letter from Uncle Ilko. His distinctive scrawl devotes several pages to mental callisthenics, his designation for matters dealing with Ukrainian issues. It’s all here in point form: In Ukraine: · Don’t give up on Ukraine. President Viktor Yanukovych doesn’t have much wiggle room. The Ruski press him on all sides to join the Customs Union. So far, he’s “studying” it like any smart politician should. The phone rings. “Ah Vujku, just got your letter. What do you mean it’s dated? Aha, yes, I see. Yanukovych sold out to Russia by selling off the strategic enterprises for less expensive energy? You’re not the only one. Many were hoping he would withstand Russia’s pressure. Vujku, let me read the whole letter and call you back.” At first, only the bravest settled in Canada
When Canada was merely 24 years old, two settlers arrived from Ukraine. Today, the Canadian census counts 1.2 million claiming Ukrainian heritage. Leaving Ukraine for Canada 120 years ago was akin to settling on the moon; only the bravest dared. Reaching the prairies, they were unceremoniously dumped where the train track stopped. There was nothing to mark human progress; distances were overwhelming and other people far away. When meeting them in towns, "established" Canadians mocked the new arrivals' dress and sneered at their language and religion, heart-wrenchingly described in Pierre Burton's The Promised Land. There was the ultimate slap-down: go back where you came from if you don't like it here. "Here" was Manitoba, where scarlet fever ravaged some 50 children one winter. "Here" was dawn to dusk laying of railway tracks through bogs swarming with mosquitoes and black flies or dying in airless mines. The roster of the perished in shafts, like those in Kirkland Lake, tell the story. "Here" they chiselled through the Rockies to built the magnificent Banff Springs Hotel, but as slave labour; First World War politics made the settlers of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire enemy aliens. This was illegal; Canada's justice failed the "outsiders. " When 'maybe' may be enough Ukraine has the good fortune or the great misfortune of bordering two giants: Russia and the European Union. Historically, it has fused more with Russia than with Europe. Perhaps that is changing. Arab uprisings should avoid Ukraine’s mistakes The uprisings streaking through the Arab world are magnificent in intent--greater freedoms and well being-- and identical to what some 500 million citizens sought by breaking up the Soviet Union 20 years ago. Then as now, poverty, corruption, state incursion into private lives fueled the unrest. Two decades later, however, many expectations driving Ukraine’s independence have not taken root. Sovereignty is threatened, political opposition imprisoned, courts are corrupt. Nearly a quarter of the population lives on $700 per year, some 10 million have left the country, while Forbes, the financial magazine, identifies some of the world’s richest among its population. Mental calisthenics righting the wrong Uncle Ilko is stressed out; more so than normally. No, not angry or annoyed, he said over the phone: broken-hearted. As soon as I arrive for our mental calisthenics - discussions on complex issues - he explains his downer. “Many things in our community upset me”, he says, “but nothing as much as being hood-winked by the Canadian Museum For Human Rights.” Oh sure, he admits, the discussion between the Ukrainian Canadian Congress and the CMHR significantly contributed to Canadians’ understanding of Holodomor; raised it on par with the Holocaust, where it should be. The former USSR hushed it up; the media white washed it or worst: slurring those who spoke up as Nazi collaborators or war-mongers. Of course, it needs full exposure in the Museum. It was smart, says Vujko, to engage the Canadian Ethnocultural Council in the meeting with CMHR CEO Stuart Murray: enlarge the base; get fair-minded folks on side. “Why, then, so despondent? Prime Minister's deserved award could be undermined by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights issue The Ukrainian Canadian Congress is giving an award March 25 to Prime Minister Harper in recognition for contributions to Canada, in particular, for his stance on human rights. It is most unfortunate that a government agency devoted to these quintessential Canadian values is on its way to messing up Canada’s reputation as a champion of rights.
The violations were not lost on Canada. To stress our perspective on such matters, Mr. Harper visited Lonsky Prison, the site of a national archives and museum to Ukraine’s resistance to both Nazi and Soviet occupations during WWII: weeks earlier its director has been persecuted in a back-to-the-USSR manner. Then the Prime Minister met with university students whose right to free assembly had been threatened. Reactions at home and abroad were most favourable; many considered the PM’s performance prize-worthy. The Canadian Museum of Human Rights: avoiding a Canadian symbol of inequality Perhaps the best that can be said about the stand taken by the decision makers of the Canadian Museum of Human Rights-- to accord preferential treatment to some groups in its exhibit space-- is the public debate around this un-Canadian approach. A little history first. During the conceptual stages, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress--the umbrella entity for some 1.2 million Canadians-- was asked by Museum initiators, led by Gail Asper, the daughter of Canada’s media mogul Izzy Asper, to lend support. For good reason: the government wished to avoid controversy. Several years earlier, a Holocaust component was proposed to the yet-to-be-built Canadian War Museum in Ottawa. Veteran organizations and others objected. The UCC Ottawa-- I was then president-- sent letters seeking “equitable’ and “inclusive’ representation arguing that recognition of one people’s tragedy was discriminatory and un-Canadian in value. The War Museum was built without the Holocaust or other human rights components. The Aspers tried again. Their request for government funding for the CMHR was predicated on the condition that other groups be on side; in particular former critics of unilateralism like the Ukrainian Canadians, a group that has been fighting an uphill battle for the recognition of the some 10 million-- according to Joseph Stalin, who should know-- of their own who were starved while the world ignored or chose to white-wash this human calamity. As an aside, it is particularly strange that Shimon Peres, Israel’s President, born in what was then Ukraine, recently tutored Ukrainians to forget their history! Could it be because such a large number of Jews were in the Communist leadership during the Holodomor genocide? Including Stalin’s number two Lazar Kaganovich? Complete articleCanada has it right Despite losing the cold war some twenty years ago, Russia is determined to regain super -power status without concessions to a new world order. The policy issue for Canada and others is this: how far to tolerate Russia’s aggression in the name of good relations? And: will it change, if criminal behavior is accommodated? Russia’s lawlessness is evident. It invades sovereign territory, issues passports to citizens of other states and fails to honour agreements to withdraw troops. It ranks in the top ten percent of the world’s most corrupt states; the only G-20 country with such a distinction. There’s mischief making in Transdnistria, cyber attack on Estonia, interference in Kyrgyz Republic's internal affairs. Relations with neighbours are consistently confrontational. It even uses orthodoxy to spread 19-century pan-Russianism world-wide.
The state, under President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, controls virtually all aspects of domestic affairs. Political opposition in the Duma, parliament is stifled. Much of the media serves its oligarch -- read government --owners. Insubordinate journalists are murdered; the leading independent paper Novaya Gazeta lost five including Anna Politkovskaya; three others have been killed in the last few weeks. Stalin's Jews - ground-breaking article March 29, 2010 Politics tend to unfold slowly. Or they fast forward as is the case in Ukraine where President Viktor Yanukovych is sending mixed signals on a daily basis. On the one hand he appoints questionable 'Regionistas' like Dmytro Tabachnyk as Minister of Education and Sergij Kivalov, the chief fraudster of the Orange Revolution to head up Ukraine's corruption investigation entity!! On the other, the President states that he will revamp the dated gas pipeline carrying energy through Ukraine to compete favourably with Russia's soon to be built North Stream which intends to bypass Ukraine. And -- bravo - he will keep Ukrainian as the country's official language. More on these developments later. What peaked my interest today was a forward from a friend in Ukraine. Although written in late 2006,with a captivating title of "We mustn't forget that some of the greatest murderers of modern times were Jewish" Sever Plocker's piece continues to be relevant. Recent attacks on Ukrainian WWII leaders and freedom fighters calls for a historic context. To some extent, it's provided here: http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3342999,00.html Equally important, the article serves to explain the depth of brute inhumanity that the Kremlin Communists were able to muster. How well they taught the Nazis the art of mass murder! And, as you will see, how ironic that the weapon was then used against some of the perpetrators. I hope the author, a Jewish journalist, won't mind that I quote him extensively: I really could not do his words justice by paraphrasing them. He writes: "We cannot know with certainty the number of deaths Cheka (forerunner of the NKVD and KGB) was responsible for... but the number is surely at least 20 million, including victims of the forced collectivization, the hunger, large purges, expulsions, banishments, executions, and mass death at Gulags. ...In his new, highly praised book "The War of the World, "Historian Niall Ferguson writes that no revolution in the history of mankind devoured its children with the same unrestrained appetite as did the Soviet revolution. Lenin, Stalin, and their successors could not have carried out their deeds without wide-scale cooperation of disciplined "terror officials," cruel interrogators, snitches, executioners, guards, judges, perverts, and many bleeding hearts who were members of the progressive Western Left and were deceived by the Soviet regime of horror and even provided it with a kosher certificate." And then Mr. Plocker, who lives in Israel says: "Within Russia itself, very few people have been brought to justice for their crimes in the NKVD's and KGB's service. (While)... An Israeli student finishes high school without ever hearing the name "Genrikh Yagoda," the greatest Jewish murderer of the 20th Century, the GPU's deputy commander and the founder and commander of the NKVD. Yagoda diligently implemented Stalin's collectivization orders and is responsible for the deaths of at least 10 million people. His Jewish deputies established and managed the Gulag system. After Stalin no longer viewed him favorably, Yagoda was demoted and executed, and was replaced as chief hangman in 1936 by Yezhov, the "bloodthirsty dwarf." "...Yezhov was not Jewish but was blessed with an active Jewish wife. In his Book "Stalin: Court of the Red Star", Jewish historian Sebag Montefiore writes that during the darkest period of terror, when the Communist killing machine worked in full force, Stalin was surrounded by beautiful, young Jewish women. Stalin's close associates and loyalists included member of the Central Committee and Politburo Lazar Kaganovich. Montefiore characterizes him as the "first Stalinist" and adds that those starving to death in Ukraine, an unparalleled tragedy in the history of human kind aside from the Nazi horrors and Mao's terror in China, did not move Kaganovich. Many Jews sold their soul to the devil of the Communist revolution and have blood on their hands for eternity. We'll mention just one more: Leonid Reichman, head of the NKVD's special department and the organization's chief interrogator, who was a particularly cruel sadist. In 1934, according to published statistics, 38.5 percent of those holding the most senior posts in the Soviet security apparatuses were of Jewish origin. ...at a Tel Aviv University ...Dr. Halfin described the waves of Soviet terror as a "carnival of mass murder," "fantasy of purges", and "essianism of evil." Turns out that Jews too, when they become captivated by messianic ideology, can become great murderers, among the greatest known by modern history." His conclusions are relevant in today's climate of political correctness and highly explosive accusations of anti-Semitism and Nazisim: "The Jews active in official communist terror apparatuses (In the Soviet Union and abroad) and who at times led them, did not do this, obviously, as Jews, but rather, as Stalinists, communists, and "Soviet people." Therefore, we find it easy to ignore their origin and "play dumb": What do we have to do with them? But let's not forget them. My own view is different. I find it unacceptable that a person will be considered a member of the Jewish people when he does great things, but not considered part of our people when he does amazingly despicable things. Even if we deny it, we cannot escape the Jewishness of "our hangmen," who served the Red Terror with loyalty and dedication from its establishment. After all, others will always remind us of their origin." I would be interested in hearing your views. Oksana |
The 2011 Ukrainian Best & Worst List (UBaWL) [2012.1.2] A gift for Russia [2011.12.10] Canada taking lead on democracy in Ukraine [2011.11.15] Where have all the women gone...? [2011.10.31] Yanukovych and his road to salvation [2011.10.4] Can the Tymoshenko fiasco bring salvation? [2011.8.11] Vujko Ilko…: A country is not run by questions [2011.7.11] At first, only the bravest settled in Canada [2011.7.11] When ‘maybe’ may be enough [2011.6.10] Arab uprisings should avoid Ukraine’s mistakes [2011.4.6] Mental calisthenics righting the wrong [2011.3.15] Prime Minister's deserved award could be undermined by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights issue [2011.3.4] The Canadian Museum of Human Rights: avoiding a Canadian symbol of inequality [2011.2.7] |
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