Miscommunicating Social Change by Baysha Olga

Author:Baysha, Olga
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781498558945
Publisher: Lexington Books, a division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.

Chapter 10

The Antagonisms of the Euromaidan

The Nodal Points of the Euromaidan’s Antagonistic Discourse

In the uniprogressive discourse of UP columnists and bloggers, as presented in the previous chapter, it is possible to discern all the nodal points of antagonistic discourse that I discussed earlier with respect to social movements in Russia. In the articulations of UP contributors, their anti-Maidan opponents appeared as fundamentally different—as the constitutive outside of the Euromaidan movement. Similar to other cases discussed in this book, the “masses” of Ukrainian citizens holding “non-progressive” anti-Maidan views were imagined to be dependent on the “criminals in power,” scared of them, and fundamentally unable to overcome their fear, imagine a better life, and struggle for it. They were seen not as adversaries striving to organize the common symbolic space in a different way but as enemies existing outside the symbolic space shared by Euromaidan activists. The latter did not see the difference between themselves and their opponents positively, as a condition that opened up the possibilities for the democratization of Ukrainian society; rather, they treated it in exclusively negative terms—as if the other side were nothing but a remnant of the past, clinging to an amoral/profane condition in need of eradication. In contrast to the masses of scared “servants of the regime,” Euromaidan activists portrayed themselves as fearless, creative, free, and, thus, modern.

As in other cases discussed earlier, the radical difference between the two parts of Ukrainian society (progressive Euromaidan supporters versus the retrograde anti-Maidan population) was constructed in hierarchical terms. The anti-Maidan population of Ukraine was positioned at the lowest point of the uniprogressive scale of development: they were imagined to be decades behind those supporting the Euromaidan. Anti-Maidan “others” were presented as fearful slaves and sovki—the forces of the past—deprived of the sensibility of the “modern agent” who is “free, independent, lonely, powerful, rational, responsible, and brave” (Murdoch 1971, 80). In contrast, those advocating for uniprogressive reforms positioned themselves as agents of the future—the “new elite” of Ukraine, which is free, brave, smart, honest, and simply “fantastic.”

As in other cases considered in this book, the dominant trend among UP columnists and bloggers was to imagine their opponents in homogeneous terms, as a uniform group of “slaves,” “sovki,” and “non-citizens” lacking internal complexity or contradictions. Although some of the UP writers did acknowledge that there were “thinking people” in the anti-Maidan camp (I discuss this in greater detail later in the chapter), such opinions were far from typical. Of all 430 opinion pieces I analyzed, only eleven (3 percent) employed this positive frame of reference for anti-Maidan “others.” The same is true about the self-presentation of the activists of the Euromaidan, as represented by UP bloggers and columnists. Although some of them acknowledged that “something is rotten in the state of Denmark”—that is, that the inclusion of radical nationalists in the Euromaidan’s equivalential chain was incommensurable with its democratic aspirations—their voices were isolated and did not form a full-fledged alternative discourse. Only nineteen opinion pieces (4 percent) problematized the coalition of Euromaidan liberals and nationalists.

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