Ukraine is a country that long suffered under the boot of oppression. Under the Soviet regime, millions were killed in Stalin’s Famine Genocide and those who survived were threatened with death for as little as speaking their own language. But throughout their long history Ukrainians have always been resilient  and no matter what they had to endure, their thirst for freedom never wavered. In 1991, Ukraine at last became an independent nation with a stready stream of growing pains ever since. Even today, old scars remain and bad blood will still bubble up when one least expects it - even in the the back of a taxi.  Special guest Veronica Khokhlova comes to us from the beautiful city of Kiev, taking RELATVITY OnLine behind the former Iron Curtain to reveal a fresh slice of new millenium Eastern European pie.

I know a person here in Moscow who, while having a casual conversation, always pauses before saying the word ‘Ukrainians’ – and never says it. He says the word ‘khokhly” instead, always. He once asked me why ‘khokhly’ are getting so emotional about being called ‘khokhly.’ I had a question of my own instead of an answer: what is it that makes an otherwise normal, educated person, who’s wasted half his life voting for Yavlinsky’s Yabloko and cursing Putin, substitute a totally legit word for the one that, as he himself admits, is making somebody nervous? How does his mind work? I can’t imagine myself substituting the word ‘Russians’ for ‘katsapy’ every time I talk to a Russian, I told this guy. Let me try, though, I added.

And then I spent five minutes or so pausing and saying ‘katsapy’ instead of ‘Russians’ whenever that word came up. It wasn’t a fun exercise. I felt like shit. And the guy grew visibly uncomfortable in those five minutes or so, too, which was kind of funny. He didn’t admit feeling uncomfortable, though, and moved on to another subject instead: the origin of the word ‘Ukraine’ – okraina, outskirts, borderland and all that, the usual crap. I told him I had better things to do than having a discussion on this subject and left. I haven’t spoken to him ever since. He admitted being a senile ass to another person right away, apologized through that other person, which was somewhat poignant, but I really do have better things to occupy myself with than having those silly conversations with him ever again.

Writing about Putin’s sense of humor isn’t one of those ‘better’ things, and I thought one tweet about it would be enough: “Putin trying to impress Tymoshenko with his cab driver sense of humor (RUS) http://bit.ly/53JbUe.”

But then a former colleague posted a response on my Facebook page today, which made me realize that my description of Putin’s sense of humor was a bit misleading – and offensive towards cab drivers. Basically, there are too many cab drivers who are way cooler than Putin, even though he once considered becoming one, and it’s unfair and rude to generalize like this; my sincere apologies to cab drivers.

I was again forced to dodge the guy obsessed with the ‘khokhly’ word – our paths do cross every now and then – and it got me thinking in analogies again. What if Yulia had followed up on Putin’s jokes about Yushchenko and Saakashvili with a bunch of her own – say, about Moscow mayor Yuri Luzhkov, his ridiculous leather caps and his inane attempts to do geopolitics stuff in Crimea instead of just keeping Moscow clean and happy. Like Putin’s jokes, that wouldn’t have sounded funny, and Yulia is a good girl, too, so she just giggled along with everyone else and played the femininity card, making one awkward joke of her own, about not wearing a tie – unlike Saakashvili. Would have been counterproductive of her, of course, to ruin that lovely endorsement that she’d just received from her Russian colleague.

Speaking of Yulia, Putin and Luzhkov, I’ve recently stumbled on an item(RUS) about Konstantin Korolevsky, the brother of one of Yulia’s most prominent teammates, Natalya Korolevskaya (I wrote briefly about the two of them at the end of this lengthy post).This guy used to be the first deputy head of the department of urban construction policy, development and reconstruction of the city of Moscow, but this past summer he was transferred to Putin’s “government apparatus,” following rumors of Luzhkov’s displeasure at the results of Korolevsky’s work and some allegations of major corruption. So who knows, maybe Yulia and Putin are cracking jokes about Luzhkov during their private meetings. Because, all things considered, it’s hard to imagine the two of them discussing Anton Pavlovich Chekhov: Putin must have been joking when he said they would.

Our foreign affairs ministry, via the deputy foreign minister, announced that the joking episode had been taken out of context by some media and politicians, and that the Tymoshenko-Putin meeting had been quite productive at many levels. Among other things, what really hurts here is the fact that Yulia and the current foreign affairs minister Petro Poroshenko appear to have finally made it up, just in time for the 2010 election. Had they not been fighting ever since Yushchenko’s 2004 victory, causing the mess of Sept. 2005,who knows, maybe Ukraine wouldn’t have ranked #146 (out of 180) on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index now. This, of course, isn’t exclusively their fault, and Russia, too, is #146, while Georgia, led by the butt of Putin’s jokes, Saakashvili, since 2003, is currently at #66, but still.

Another reason why I decided to apologize to cab drivers is because of a guy who drove me home today. An ethnic Georgian, born and raised in Moscow, with family in Batumi, he was telling me of how much things have changed in Georgia in the past few years. It used to take months to get through bureaucracy while getting registered as the owner of real estate, and now you can have it all done in a single day, without running around from one office to another, bribing everyone along the way – now you just submit all the paperwork at one office, and they don’t even want to take a box of candies from the grateful you. Traffic cops are not taking bribes, either – they are not stopping cars indiscriminately in order to demand a bribe. In the Soviet times, he said, Georgia was considered to be the most corrupt republic, and people used to think that it was impossible to change anything, took corruption for granted, but it turns out that if the authorities start doing something to stop corruption, things do change for the better eventually. Funny, but we didn’t really mention Saakashvili in the course of this conversation – but, obviously, much if not all of the credit went to him.

We didn’t mention the Putin-Tymoshenko joking episode, either, and we didn’t have the time to discuss the Aug. 2008 war. And, at one point, the guy said he was a “pro-Russian person” – because he grew up here and cared about things – and, at another point, he said that he liked Yushchenko, but thought that, unfortunately, he was a weak leader. He also told me of how he had lost his driver’s license once and then drove some 400 km across Georgia, and the police didn’t stop him once – because he didn’t violate any traffic rules, he said. To all this, part of me wants to say, Go figure, and another part of me thinks that it all makes perfect sense. Life, after all, is a crazy mess, full of contradictions and halftones.

Veronica Khokhlova is a Kiev native and has been a blogger since 2005 and can be found on her blog, Global Voices, Flickr and Twitter.  

Mong Palatino is a youth activist and Member of Philippine Parliament representing Kabataan Partylist. His work can be found at his blog or via email at mongpalatino@gmail.com.

From Sinisa Boljanovic…

On March 24, 1999, NATO forces began attack on Serbia and Montenegro. The bombing went for 78 days. A few thousand people were killed, many buildings, bridges, railroads, roads and factories were destroyed. Also, many people still experience mental and psychic effects of the fear they had been through.

Ten years later, Serbian bloggers are reminded of those terrible days. Below is a selection of some of their journal notes and recollections from the beginning of the war, translated from Serbian.

Dejan Jovic posted this entry:

Today NATO’s forces have attacked Yugoslavia from air, from submarines and warships. The attack began at 7pm. The first wave lasted 2 hours. About 20 targets are hit: the Police Academy in Novi Sad, airports in Batajnica and Danilovgrad (Montenegro), several barracks around Pristina and around Nis as well as factory shops of Crvena Zastava in Kragujevac. The second wave began about midnight and it is still going (now it is 00.45. (Yugoslavia declared the state of war. The last night Veran Matic was arrested and B92 was closed. Now only national stations and agencies can broadcast. Journalists from countries which are members of NATO, including BBC, can report only by phone. Twenty-five journalists have been arrested temporarily so far and one is beaten. Because of all that, there are very little video reports but it is absolutely clear that the attack was very very strong. […]

[…] Milosevic says that he is for peace and agreement. It is not possible to appraise why he says that – whether because he wants to inform NATO that he is ready to withdraw himself or because he wants to justify a lengthy war. In this moment it seems that he can’t withdraw himself very easily. I don’t know how he could be more cooperative with the West after this bombing, if he couldn’t do that before it. Also, people are much more anti- West than they were several days ago. [The West] forgets that Milosevic is a legally chosen president and that he is not without support of voters like Saddam Hussein.

News at 1 am. Russia and China condemned aggression. Russia asks session of the Security Council. For this attack, Clinton and Blair condemn Milosevic directly. Clinton compares Kosovo with Bosnia and mentions hesitation in the first and second world war. India condemned action of members of NATO because they ignored the United Nations. India also says that NATO became an instrument for realization of goals of ethnic separatists and that could be the case in the Kashmir […]

Angie01, in her blog titled ”Notes of Madness”, wrote:

[…] In the evening I come out on my spacious balcony and smoke. I notice some unusual and big star which is very near by me. I don’t know from where it is here. I’ve never seen it before. I call my family. Everyone feels uneasy. No one know what’s happened.

A little later, I talk on the phone with my sister from the bathroom. In the middle of a sentence there’s a strange sound.

She asked me what that was. I don’t know. “What can we do now?” she asked. I don’t know. I go to see. I open the door. And then I hear zvvviiiiijuuuu. The red-yellow light filled the room. Then there was an explosion. It was strong, destructive and full of dark forebodings.

Everyone is frozen at the moment. And then one more bomb explodes.

You can hear screaming all over the hallways, people are running, children are crying. You can hear people calling over the floors.

Neighbors ring our doorbell. They said that we should go to the bomb shelter. […]

[…] Girls are throwing up inside. Some old women faint. My neighbor squats with a baby in her arms… there is no air, there is only stench and fear. Everything has changed in 20 minutes. […]

[…] A neighbor, a refugee from Bosnia, arrives. He said that he came for us. And he added that the bomb shelters were not suitable for those bombs. If they were hit, they might turn into tombstones over us. And we leave and never come back there.

This is how it began. […]

Readers commented on Angie01’s post. Here are some of the comments:

Vidomir Pavlovic:

I was sitting 100 meters away from the barracks in Sremska Mitrovica when a rocket whistled over my head. It was ghastly…

Then one young woman was killed. She came out right after the detonation to see what happened, to see where the rocket hit. She was about 1 kilometer away from the barracks and was hit by shrapnel. It pounded into her head or breast. I forgot. But she was dead on the spot, on the balcony on the first floor. She had just moved into that flat…

She had two little children…

Bili Piton:

One doesn’t know whether one hates more those who bombed or those who caused it.

Sybil:

[…] The maniac [Slobodan Milosevic, then president of Serbia and Montenegro] has burdened us with the bombing by 19 most civilized countries. The biggest disappointment after the bombing was that he kept his seat and Kosovo was lost. It would have been better the other way around. […]

Pix3lchick:

[…] Sadness, hopelessness and depression because of fact that, after 10 years, he [Milosevic] is still alive through the current ministers’ statements, in which they says that the bombing happened because of false accusations of ethnic cleansing. (From where did the refrigerator trucks come to us?)

Jasmina Tesanovic wrote in her blog titled “La vita e’ bella” (’Life is beautiful’):

March 26, 1999 – 5 PM:,

I hope that we all will survive this war: Serbs, Albanians, good and bad boys, those who took weapons, those who deserted, Kosovo’s refugees who are roaming through the forests and Belgrade’s refugees who are roaming the streets with children in arms and running to find the nonexistent bomb shelters when they hear the sirens. I hope that NATO’s pilots will not leave their wives and children forever. I saw them on CNN, how they cried while their husbands were preparing to attack targets in Serbia. I hope that we all will survive, but the world will not stay the same. […]

Sinisa Boljanovic is a blogger for Global Voices. Born in the Socialist Republic of Serbia in 1975, Sinisa spent his teens amidst the horrors or civil war and adulthood brought with it the NATO bombings and a struggle for survival.  A blog reporter and humanist, RELATIVITY Online is thankful for his contribution.

As the first week of Ramadan unfolds, more than a billion Muslims around the world are reminded of the greatness of God and a higher power than humankind. Like Easter for Christians and Hanukkah for Jews, Ramadan is the holiest time of the year within the borders of Islam; a time for worship, respect and family. An individual known only as “Harbortenor” chose this time to submit an article arguing that there is no such thing as God.

Sin is different for different people and different gods at different times. In some countries people love their neighbours, in other countries people eat them. In Mexico, one man may marry one wife. In Yemen, one man may marry many women. In Tibet, one woman may marry many men. In Holland, a man may marry another man and a woman may marry another woman. We learn, therefore, that sin is geographical and that morality changes from time to time and from place to place.

But what is morality? Put very simply, it is about how we treat others. In order to live with a semblance of harmony in a social setting, we need to show consideration for others. We know humans do this. But we also know that various animals do it as well: dolphins, chimps, wolves…the list is endless. Many species of mammals have rules governing how to fight and how to reconcile. Even gestures of dominance and subordinance can be seen in a moral light.

How then do humans know what is right and wrong. To paraphrase Euthyphro’s dilemma: Is something good because some God commands it? Or does this God command something because it is good? If it is the former, then right and wrong are the product of God’s arbitrary and capricious will, and to heed his will and surrender to his morality would simply be blind obedience to authority—beyond the scope of discussion or appeal. However, if it is the latter, then good and bad, right and wrong are independent of God’s will, and knowledge of God’s will is redundant and unnecessary. We can discover morality for ourselves.

Where then do we get our morality if not from God? Morality has nothing to do with theology or philosophy. Morality is a product of biology. Scientists now talk of a moral grammar that is programmed into our brains and hardwired into our genes. There are certain schemas of behaviour that we are born with. We have an instinct for morality in the same way we have an instinct for language.

To say that people had no way to distinguish right from wrong until that precise moment Moses came down from the mountain with his ten commandments is to do a great disservice to humanity.

Some people may be prompted to ask why then, if we all have a moral compass, are there so many criminals?

There is a difference between deciding what is right and wrong and associating such an evaluation with the relevant emotion. Most criminals know instinctively that murder is wrong or cheating is wrong. But they do it anyway. So what is hampered in their case is not their moral compass, but their ability to make the appropriate emotional response. Knowing what is right and doing the right thing are two separate functions of the brain.

A crucial role in morality may also be played by memes: those non-genetic, cultural units—represented by an idea, value, or pattern of behaviour—that are passed from one person to another by imitation or instruction. To put it simply, memes are the cultural counterpart of genes.

Assisting a wounded member of the tribe, caring for an elderly relative, or showing reverence for one’s parents are examples of memes. Memes are just as useful in promoting this or that morality. The finer details may vary between communities, but in general, it has been found that the communities that survive are the ones that promote cooperation, negotiation, respect for authority, and so on. It is not in the tribe or community’s interest to waste valuable time, resources, and energy in in-fighting.

Our opinions on issues of morality are based on emotions, rational thought, or instinct. Consider the following newspaper headline: Mother kills her own four-year-old child.

Such an act would evoke disgust in most people regardless of time, place, or milieu. There would be calls for her to be severely punished.

But if we were to read the article further, we would discover that the mother was Akeda, a woman from Congo, where mercenaries from a rival faction had raped her repeatedly and killed three of her children. She was told that the only way she could protect her two-year-old infant was to pull the noose around her four-year-old child. It is a grotesque and unimaginably difficult thing to do. If she hadn’t done it, both her children would die. If she killed one, the other would survive. Akeda made the choice and did the deed. In doing so, she ensured the survival of her infant.

Most people, on being confronted with these facts, would feel an instinctive sense of pity for the mother’s plight. Even those who feel she acted wrongly would not call for a harsh punishment against her. Again, this reaction will be true regardless of time, place, or milieu. This is a classic moral case of emotion being overruled by instinct.

Another often-quoted example is of a train hurtling down, with a young man asleep on the tracks. The only way the driver can prevent a tragedy is to change tracks. But he notices there is a group of five children standing on the other track, and they will undoubtedly be killed if he changes tracks. What is the driver to do?

Most people from diverse cultures agree almost immediately that, in such a scenario, the driver will have no choice but to sacrifice the one man and save the five children.

However, consider the following scenario often quoted as a companion story to the previous one:

There is a doctor in a hospital. On one particular day he receives a patient who has had heart failure and needs a new heart. A short while later another patient is admitted who has had kidney failure and needs new kidneys. Shortly later, another patient is wheeled in who has liver cancer and needs a new liver. As the doctor contemplates how to go about treating these diverse patients, he notices a young man in the waiting room reading a newspaper and minding his own business. He looks in good enough condition. The doctor then wonders if he should sedate the young man, wheel him into the operation room, and harvest his kidneys, heart, and liver. In doing so he would save three people at the expense of one.

Most people from diverse cultures agree that to do so would be unethical. When pressed to explain how it is different from the previous case where one man is sacrificed for five, they were unable to justify their response. This is a classic moral case in which logic is overruled by instinct.

Things become more complicated in the example of the train if we assume the single person lying on the track happens to be the driver’s wife or mother or brother. What then should the driver do? What if there was a bridge above the tracks with a huge, heavy man sitting on the side of the bridge? If this heavy man were pushed upon the tracks he would die but the weight of his body would stop the train in its tracks. Should we push the fat man and save the five people?

Most people—in fact, almost all people—agree that it would be morally wrong to push the fat man off the bridge in order to save the five people. However, many are unable to articulate why they think so.

Marc Hauser, the Harvard biologist who came up with these thought experiments, backed up with statistical surveys, tells us that the responses to these case studies did not change if the person was religious or atheist. This is clinching evidence that one doesn’t need either God or religion to be moral. Morality is built into our minds and our genes. And because the moral faculty depends upon specialised brain systems, the failure of which can lead to moral deficiency, we would be compelled to treat criminals more humanely.

If we are moral, we are fortunate enough to have a brain that functions more or less “normally.” In many ways, this might be obvious, for it takes a seriously disturbed brain to direct a person to repeatedly kill, have sex with the dead victims, dismember the bodies, and eat them—as some serial killers have been known to do. It’s obvious that their brains are functioning very differently.

Seen in this light, it would seem that some of the religious strictures handed down to us are simply not powerful enough to stop us from disobeying if it goes against our instincts. A simple example is fornication. Centuries of flaccid priests and frustrated prophets have told us that sex before marriage is abominable in the eyes of the Lord—whether he be Allah, Jehovah, or Yahweh. They have been woefully inadequate in stopping people from fornicating. Fornicators instinctively see no harm in two unmarried consenting adults sleeping together. The only use religion has in such a situation is to make people feel guilty about what they’ve done, but it’s nowhere nearly persuasive enough to stop them.

For centuries we’ve had prophets, mullahs, and priests functioning as our morality bank, minting tokens of scruples and righteousness for us, crediting and debiting our piety account and keeping tabs on our collective conscience. It is my opinion that we don’t need religion to help us distinguish good from bad. We are born with this capacity. Morality is not divine, it is biological.

From Harbortenor…

I’m sure those of you who aren’t in the cattle business don’t understand the issues here. But to those of us whose living depends on the cattle market, selling cattle, raising the best beef possible… This is frustrating. This will keep us from ever stopping there again, even for a drink.

The original message is from the Alberta Cattle Feeders Association. Canadian cattle producers are very passionate about this.  McDonald’s claims that there is not enough beef in Canada to support their restaurants. Well, we know that is not so. Our opinion is they are looking to save money at our expense. The sad thing of it is that the people of Canada are the ones who made McDonald’s successful in the first place, but we are not good enough to provide beef.

We personally are no longer eating at McDonald’s, which I am sure does
not make an impact, but if we pass this around maybe there will be an impact felt. Please pass it on. Just to add a note:

All Canadians that sell cattle at a livestock auction barn have to sign a paper stating that we do NOT EVER feed our cattle any part of another animal. South Americans are not required to do this as of yet. McDonald’s has announced that they are going to start importing much of their beef from South America. The problem is that South Americans aren’t under the same regulations as Canadian beef producers, and the regulations they have are loosely controlled. They can spray numerous pesticides on their pastures that have been banned here at home because of residues found in the beef. They can also use various hormones and growth regulators that we can’t. The Canadian public needs to be aware of this problem and that they may be putting themselves at risk from now on by eating at good old McDonald’s.

Canadian ranchers raise the highest quality beef in the world and this is what Canadians deserve to eat. Not beef from countries where quality is loosely controlled. Therefore, I am proposing a boycott of McDonald’s until they see the light.

I’m sorry but everything is not always about the bottom line, and when it comes to jeopardizing my family’s health, that is where I draw the line.

Acting together we can make a difference. If this makes sense to you, please pass this message on, send a link, copy and paste it into an email, or simply tell anyone who will listen.

When people work together, we can make a difference.

From Larry Latam. . .

The lottery of birth delivers us to our destinies, long before we can even know what life has in store for us. Born on December, 15^th, 1989 in Uganda’s capital city of Kampala, Kenneth Mwanja is a young man who wakes up each day and does his best with what he’s been given. An aspiring journalist and university student, he is the eldest of four children who, at nineteen, has already been charged with the responsibilities of an adult. Doing his best to care for his family, while striving for more in a society where finding more can often be difficult, Kenneth sat down with RELATIVITY OnLine to talk about life Kampala.   

What is a typical day for you? 

The first things I usually do when I wake up are grumble and complain, because I hate leaving my bed. Its extra comfort makes me lazy and I’ve also always loved dream-land. I wake up at 7 am, take a shower, have breakfast and then leave for work at 8:45. I work all day and leave around 4 pm to attend lectures at university. Classes run from 5 to 9 pm and I leave campus for home around 9:30. I usually arrive before 11pm. Once I’m home, I take a cup of coffee, have supper, shower and go to bed

On weekends, I spend most of my time visiting friends and watching football and movies. I like Manchester United and Nigerian films.

What are some of the difficulties you face on a regular basis?

I find a lot of difficulties in doing my work as both an aspiring writer and a student, because of a lack of essential goods such as a digital camera, access to the Internet and personal computers, along with other educational material.

Paying my tuition fees at university is also a constant battle. The cost is expensive ($388 per semester). We’re going to begin our end of 2^nd semester examinations, but I’ve so far paid only a quarter of the tuition fees. The school policy is that I cannot take my examinations without completing all the university dues. I’m not sure what I will do. I know I can only keep trying the get things paid

I also struggle to take care of my family as best I can. I pay the house rent ($56 per month) as well as help with food and bills. Our mother divorced and left our dad with three children; my sister is twelve and I also have two teenage brothers. Our dad’s income is not enough and on top of that, he is too old…old people are the ones that should be taken care of and I do my best. 

 What kind of problems does the average citizen of Kampala face?

First and foremost, they face the problem of pests and sickness. Kampala citizens are very much prone to various diseases such as tuberculosis, malaria, sleeping sickness, typhoid, and AIDS. To make matters worse, the government, most especially the health ministers, have mismanaged the funds meant for the control of the above diseases.

People in Kampala are also facing a lack of accommodation. Many, young and old, spend their nights on the streets of Kampala. Poverty levels are extremely high and rising. High prices and scarcity of essential goods is also hurting people. Items as simple as sugar, salt and soap are sometimes hard to come by.

Lastly, citizens of Kampala face the problem of minimal amount of land to build on. To worsen matters, people in Kampala are commonly evicted from their land by government and army officials, when the land is wanted by those in power.

What is the state of education?

Up to around 1990, education at university level was free to all. Nowadays, due to the extortion-like influence of international bodies such as the IMF, the EU and the World Bank that push the Ugandan government to foster cost-sharing, university education is provided at a charge that is very expensive to most Ugandans. This has, to a lesser extent, increased illiteracy, unemployment and homelessness. One can study from primary through secondary and then fail to progress to university, due to lack of fees.

Has the lack of education and essential goods affected hope and faith?

I’m not sure how connected it is, but false pastors have emerged as a late. In 2008, a Ghanaian born pastor used an electronic gadget to make followers tremble and fall on the ground. He did this to show he had special power. Afterwards he said that he had bought the gadget as a birth day present for his daughter. A year later, he was arrested for using the same gadget, this time in South Africa.

It has become a habit of some pastors to struggle for recognition from their followers, by any means necessary. For instance, one pastor paid a lady some money, bought for her a wheel chair, and told her to pretend she was lame. She did so and the pastor told her to come to his church for prayers. She came and then worked a miracle making her walk again. However, after two weeks, the lady confessed that she had been bribed to fake her lameness!

Pastors are also engaging in immoral acts such as child sacrifice, theft and raping young girls. Not all pastors are bad of course; it’s just that these acts have become a growing trend.

What is the biggest misconception about your country?

The outside world thinks that Ugandans and Africans in general are thieves. We are not.

Do you ever think of leaving Uganda?

Some young Ugandans always think of how they can go abroad for greener pastures, others think of how we can make our country a better place to live in, whereas a few even think of how they can do away with the current government. Government officials play a large role in escalating poverty, and the alarming rates of illiteracy and unemployment, yet they earn huge sums of money. Even worse, they embezzle tax payers’ money, which is meant for addressing the problems I’ve mentioned.

I want to stay. It’s my duty to help make Uganda a better place…