Thread: Members of Ukrainian parliament fight over Russian language

Originally Posted by gRomoZeka

When Russian-speaking schools are turned into Ukrainian forcefully in purely Russian-speaking regions against wishes of teachers, parents and kids - usually without any way to oppose this decision since Russian officially has no more rights in situations like this than any other foreign language (and it concerns me personally because it affects my family, particularly two different schools attended by my niece and cousin).

If you lived in the European Union and this happened, you could complain all the way to the European Court in Brussels. Media would be writing stories about it, everybody would be on the side of your family. This kind of thing is absolutely unthinkable in Western Europe at least. A minority population could never be discriminated against in this way. Imagine if they did that in a school in the Catalunya, in Wales, in the Swedish speaking parts of Finland..... It would simply never happen.

I know they do it in the Baltic states, but it is a matter of time before public opinion catches on to it and they have to quit it. The situation with Russians in the Baltics is covered quite a bit in the Scandinavian press and nobody defends the behaviour of the Balts. I know the "big" world does not care what Scandinavia thinks, but as soon as it gets picked up in the German press (which is feasible) or a Baltic Russian sues the state in Brussels, they will get forced to change...

I don't know what would make things change in Ukraine, but I thought Yanukovich was supposedly more oriented towards Russia - doesn't this have a bearing on the language question too?

Originally Posted by LXNDR

Originally Posted by Hanna

But the Balts are practically being fascist about it - that is what I oppose.

they restore historical justice, they have every right to since they have been violated

You can't be serious about this! This is very primitive justice!

All countries in Europe have done terrible things to their neighbours at one time or another. If this sort of "an-eye-for-an-eye" retribution onto the next generation (sounds like something from the Old Testament..) was acceptable, then we might as well nuke each other right away, or start a civil war across the continent!

Recent history has shown that forgiving, forgetting and working together with your neighbouring countries is the way to retain peace and prosper.

Gosh, even in South Africa they can manage to leave the past behind for goodness sake!

It seems to me that people here are blackpainting Russians and the USSR far more than what can be justified, and that you are saying there is some kind of "special dispensation" to discriminate against Russians and the Russian language because of these highly debatable accusations against the USSR, from many, many decades ago.

Most people who have any memory of the Stalin era when all this *might* have taken place, depending on your viewpoint... are very old or dead! This attitude to me is really creepy - it makes me draw parallels with historical events.

Originally Posted by Anixx

On Russians in the Baltics:
They not only cannot participate in elections, but also cannot occupy various positions such as lawers, firefighters or pharmacists.

It should be noted that the only way to get the citizenship for them is to pass the exams which not only include the language test, but also require them to explain the official interpretation of history, that is to call their parents "occupiers" and to count the Latvian Waffen SS as heroes. Not all people are ready to do so.

All this sounds practically like fascism to me. It sounds really primitive. Brussels needs to look at this and punish Estonia and Latvia if they don't quit this. It's outrageous. Citizenship should have nothing to do with what opinions you hold about certain historical events, or whether you speak the minority or majority languge. And at 40% the Russians are hardly a small minority in Latvia. Without them, the country would no doubt stop functioning.

Originally Posted by Hanna

I thought Yanukovich was supposedly more oriented towards Russia - doesn't this have a bearing on the language question too?

Well, I can see where LXNR is coming from on that matter. AFAIR, Yanukovich addressed Crimean audience in Russian before him being elected the President several years ago. The language issue is still there. Implying, Yanukovich cares about the people and the state as little as the previous President. So, every time he wants to appeal to the Russian-speaking part of the country, he would employ the 'language issue', but otherwise he's just as ignorant. Based on that, LXNR thinks the 'language issue' is not real. Something like that.

Originally Posted by Hanna

If you lived in the European Union and this happened, you could complain all the way to the European Court in Brussels. Media would be writing stories about it, everybody would be on the side of your family. This kind of thing is absolutely unthinkable in Western Europe at least.

To appeal to the European court of human rights in Brussels there is no need for a country to be member of EU. Even Russian citizens can do so. I am quite sure that there were already numerous appeals to that court about language situation in the Baltics and Ukraine. All these appeals possibly were turned down or not accepted for consideration. Anyway what one can expect from a court that endorsed the Estonian sentence for a 80-years old partisan Vasiliy Kononov for participation in anti-Nazi fight? He was found guilty for killing pro-Nazi Schutzmannschaft members (local Nazi sympathizers who were given weapons by German authorities) during WWII.

Originally Posted by Hanna

All this sounds practically like fascism to me. It sounds really primitive. Brussels needs to look at this and punish Estonia and Latvia if they don't quit this. It's outrageous. Citizenship should have nothing to do with what opinions you hold about certain historical events, or whether you speak the minority or majority languge. And at 40% the Russians are hardly a small minority in Latvia. Without them, the country would no doubt stop functioning.

It should be noted that even getting the citizenship does not always give you all rights. For example, to get elected to the parliament, at least until 2002 in Latvia a person had to know the language at the highest, 3rd grade, i.e. native level. One striking story happened with ethnic Russian candidate Podkolzina: despite she had a valid language certificate about knowledge of the language at 3rd grade, a language inspector visited her at work and examined her at the workplace. After that he concluded that she does not satisfy the 3rd level and she was banned from the elections.