3 Mar 2014 – <\/i>A week after the president was deposed and with Russian invasion looming,\u00a0protesters hope for an end to Ukraine’s cronyism, reports Charles McPhedran, who visited Kiev last week.<\/p>\n
It is two days after Ukraine\u2019s second revolution in a decade and dozens of the country\u2019s artistic community are deciding what Ukraine\u2019s new democratic culture should look like. They have taken over the basement of the Ministry of Culture to do so.<\/p>\n
There is no elation tonight. Many are exhausted from months on the barricades. The people here have survived so much. Unlike Ukraine\u2019s Orange Revolution a decade ago, this revolt has had its baptism in protesters\u2019 blood.<\/p>\n
Over the past week, many here have escaped the fire government forces lit inside the trade union headquarters on Maidan, which, demonstrators say, burned people alive.<\/p>\n
This meeting has been called to decide what is to be done about cultural funding in the country. Under Viktor Yanukovych\u2019s government, artists estimate, one in two dollars used to go missing. Widespread corruption in the Ukrainian arts industry made it difficult for the country\u2019s film industry, for example, to secure European financing, artists tell NM.<\/p>\n
Back at the Ministry of Culture a woman tries to maintain order with a megaphone. People offer ideas for what ought to be done to stop graft. One man wants the ministry\u2019s budget to be published online, like it is in Estonia. That will ensure no more money can be stolen, he says. There\u2019s disagreement over whom artists should propose as the new minister for culture \u2014 the new government is due to nominate ministers tomorrow and these folks would like to be consulted.<\/p>\n
At the end of the meeting, the artists decide to set up an industry watchdog to monitor the ministry.<\/p>\n
These sorts of scenes \u2014 attempts to establish a popular, open democracy \u2014 were everywhere in Kiev in the first days after the Winter Revolution. They reflected the \u201ccome as you are\u201d spirit of the Maidan protests, where everyone from pop stars to religious leaders to average Joes had spoken on stage in the centre of the cavernous square over the past three months.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk and his new cabinet were even presented to the crowd on the city\u2019s Independence Square for approval late last week.<\/p>\n
Many of the people appointed to office came from among the ranks of protesters. They include Tetyana Chornovil, whose investigations of government officials\u2019 private fortunes earned her a savage beating in December and activist Dmyto Bulatov, whose scarred face was broadcast across Europe after his torture by unidentified kidnappers. A woman who ran a clinic on the Square was also appointed health minister.<\/p>\n
Not everyone in the crowd approves of the new ministry. Yatsenyuk, an ally of former prime minister Yulia Tymoschenko, is viewed as a representative of the ancien regime<\/i>, where oligarchs pulled the strings and politicians gouged the country\u2019s citizens. Enthusiasm for Yatsenyuk on the square was reportedly very tepid indeed.<\/p>\n
Days earlier a popular Youtube video had shown a confrontation between Yatsenyuk, Tymoshenko and protester militia groups. In a translation<\/a> provided by the protesters, militia members condemn the leaders\u2019 decision to travel in motorcades. They inform Tymoshenko that the revolution has meant the end to cronyism. She promises to do her best to represent the people.<\/p>\n The video symbolises the way that, in the days after 21 February, when Yanukovich fled, protesters flipped the script on officials: they issued commands while officials obeyed.<\/p>\n And, for a while, their actions seemed poised to transform the nature of government in the country. There, doctors earn 100 euros per month. But Ukraine\u2019s former government, its successors say, transferred 70 billion dollars into offshore accounts.<\/p>\n Anger at inequality, autocracy and corruption was the factor common to both of Ukraine\u2019s revolutions this decade. And that emotion continues to bring protestors onto the streets in Russian-speaking Eastern Ukraine, even amidst yet more official violence.<\/p>\n Unlike last time around when, after 2004\u2019s Orange Revolution, people went home and official theft continued, protesters this time say they are determined to stay until the job is done \u2014 and they see that their country is functioning again.<\/p>\n And in the early days after the revolution, people in Kiev literally made their city work. In the government quarter above Maidan, protesters cleaned up the mess left over after the clashes. Opposition militias took over responsibility for security after police disappeared from the city: many of the Berkut, whose name still inspires fear in the capital, are now reportedly in Crimea<\/a> and will be issued Russian passports.<\/p>\n Last week it was near impossible to find a supporter of the ousted president in Kiev \u2014 which, like Western Ukraine, supports European integration. Even mentioning Yanukovych\u2019s name prompted some to burst into tears. Many are still traumatised after the government assault on protestors on 18-19 February.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, in the Russophone regions far from Kiev, there was confusion but little overt support for Russian action in the early days of last week. Locals report both pro- and anti-Russian demonstrations on the weekend. One source in Kiev told NM in the early hours of Monday morning that many in the region are separatists \u2014 but fiercely oppose Russian intervention all the same.<\/p>\n Still, it is highly difficult to gauge real levels of public support in the South and the East for Moscow\u2019s military incursion in Crimea. And this is equally the case when it comes to both Russian and Ukrainian soldiers. Ukraine\u2019s navy chief defected on Sunday, though protesters say that was because his family was taken hostage.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, they add that Russian forces in Crimea have been behaving \u201cvery professionally\u201d so far and are unwilling to open fire on Ukrainians holding out at military bases, most of whom speak the same language.<\/p>\n It is now one week since the former Ukrainian president fled his capital after three months of protests against his rule. Since then, calm has returned to the battered centre of the city.<\/p>\n Most of the 84 protesters who died in Ukraine\u2019s February Massacre perished hoping for a Ukraine where you could protest without facing torture or death.<\/p>\n Europe must now decide how to help those who have survived the killings, as their country faces invasion from an expansionist northern neighbour. The true nature of today\u2019s European Union will reveal itself in how it responds to February\u2019s Kiev Spring.<\/p>\n __________________________<\/p>\n Charles McPhedran is a freelance journalist, translator and editor based in Berlin, from where he covers continental European politics. He speaks fluent German, French and Spanish, stilted Italian and is learning Swedish. Charles puts together The Best of the Rest, a regular New Matilda column that looks at what the foreign language media are saying about the week’s hot topic.<\/i><\/i><\/p>\n