Who gives a fuck about Ukraine

There are two major riots going on at the moment in the world, one in Bangkok, the other in Kiev. Both are vicious and violent. But one is omitted by the left, the other is given 1000% sympathy all over the Cathedral. All of sudden Ukraine, a name you would only associate with quasi idea of prostitute and Russia, becomes the headline. Riot erupted, shooting and Molotov spree, and all western government claims is to put sanctions on the government officials who endorsed the repression of the obviously-violent protest. Needless to say who’s the purported boogeyman in the picture, but what is really happening in Ukraine at the moment?

Ukraine, like all its neighbors, has been a poor kid in the block ever since the downfall of the iron curtain. The high culture was long gone along with the arrival of Bolsheviks, just like Russia, or any of the former Eastern Block states. People in general only gives a shit about one thing there: money.  This country in 2014 is impoverished in general, massive amount of poor working class selling their own meat for penny and a handful of oligarchs hijacking the country’s economy. Ukraine in 2014 still exports shit loads of hookers and attracts shit loads of sex tourists if not in Kiev at the moment, and it is as firm as the Law of Gravity that every young Ukrainian who managed to get out of the country, either girls turning to be a whore in Amsterdam or boys turning to be a plumber in London, would die to stay the fuck out of their miserable homeland as much as possible. It is almost like their basic survival instinct. Being a Chinese I very much understand that and in some way could feel the way they feel. Given such gloomy societal climate, Ukraine is also heavily divided by the Russian speaking east and Crimea and Ukrainian speaking west. Miners in Donetsk and hipsters in Kiev are both Ukrainian by blood, but speaking two not-much different languages. I once met a Ukrainian girl from the East who speaks Russian and a guy from Kiev who speaks Ukrainian, and a couple of Russians at the same time. The girl only hangs out with the Russians and the guy seldom talks to them. The west hates Russia so much that they would rather keep sending their best blondes to the West so as to get their help to repel the pesky Russians, whereas the east would see Russia as the ultimate protector and ally. After all, it was the Russians who freed them from the evil Muslim nomads and the corrupted Polish Catholic terror. But sadly Ukraine’s too big and too centered to be neutral.

Of course everybody sides with the hipsters in the west except for the usual suspects like Russia and China. Enemy of Enemy makes an even better relationship than friendship. Unless Ukraine disintegrate into West Ukraine, Crimea and East Ukraine, the tension would keep going on and on over and over again, just like the tribal federation of Libya and Syrian turmoil. Even if the hipsters did take over the government, it is not gonna pull Ukraine as a whole out of its Pontic Steppe and put the middle finger into the rectum of Mr. Vladmir Putin. Their trade is deadlocked, and Russians would in no way be inspired by the freedom and democratic spirit of Kievan idle hipsters. Ukraine’s pathetic economy will not get better, no one does actually since the side-switch happened over 20 years ago. There’s only one thing to be sure, that is there would be more desperate young Ukrainians desperately wanting to flee the country in despair. So in case Putin sets up a ban on young blonde exports, there will always be ample supply from Ukraine.

So who gives a fuck about Ukraine? Nationalist would ask: Is there a chance those young people could get what they want in the end – a better tomorrow for their own country? Nah, not with the big brother. There’s no better tomorrow for every one of us.