In William Golding's famous novel The Lord of the Flies, which is included in the list of the most controversial books in English, children after a plane crash fall on an uninhabited island and begin to build their own world with the relationships they understand. It turns out that the logic of their understanding of reality is still so primitive that they cannot offer each other anything other than cruelty, violence and savagery. The overwhelming majority of children quickly go into the tribe, whose members are losing their human appearance with each passing day until ultimately terrible moral degradation pushes them to kill first the tribesmen, and then the non-aligned boys trying to preserve the memory of civilization and its norms.
The Soviet poster "Matches for children is not a toy" meant, of course, something else. A child by negligence can, while playing with open fire, harm itself. But this ingenuous maxim can be placed in the context of the “Lord of the Flies,” and then it turns out that it’s about the fact that children should not be given such a dangerous object as autonomy, responsibility for others and their own lives. I remembered all this when I stumbled upon the news that the so-called Crimean Prosecutor’s Office (a law enforcement structure created by the Ukrainian authorities) opened criminal cases against 107 former employees of Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and government agencies. This was told by the so-called prosecutor of the Crimea Gunduz Mamedov. “We identified 16 thousand people. For 107 of them, we began criminal proceedings. 71 indictments were sent to the court. 300 persons were informed about the suspicion (of treason - A. B. ). We are waiting for results ", - said the" prosecutor ".
The evil and feral children from Golding’s book, who had gone from killing wild pigs to hunting people, if someone had brought such an idea to them, could also create a prosecutor’s office and rivet criminal cases on all those who had the misfortune not to please them. And then put the guilty in some pits or stoning. Fortunately, in our case, the border guards and the police are guarding the Russian border and employees of Russian state institutions. All inclinations to bring to justice the persons against whom the so-called Crimean Prosecutor’s Office has filed charges under criminal articles, these departments will be able to nip. And without the slightest effort. However, we are not able to prevent neighboring children from messing with matches. And they burn one box after another, obviously enjoying impunity and a sense of their realness, they say, but we are all grown-up: both criminal cases and treason.
Why did I use this analogy? The fact is that state thinking implies some proportionality of ideas in domestic politics. That is, it should not be blatant and idiotic contradictions. And these guys they come across literally at every turn. Judge for yourself: Kiev constantly chimes about the care with which he intends to surround the inhabitants of the Crimea and the Donbass, when they finally return to their native harbor. He assures that he not only did not forget about these people, but also continues to consider them full citizens of Ukraine who have fallen into difficult circumstances. But the “occupation” will someday end, and then beloved and respected compatriots will once again be able to become part of the Ukrainian society, confidently striding towards Europe.
Moreover, Ukrainian politicians constantly say that a considerable number of residents of two territories that are dissociating themselves from Ukraine dream of the soonest release of their land from the “Russian aggressors”. It seems to be the official position.
At the same time (as if ignoring this line), some deputies of the Verkhovna Rada, ATO veterans, members of Nazi groups do not get tired of repeating that residents of the separatist regions should be affected in their rights: one part of them was sent to the camps, and the other was lyustrirovan. These two mutually exclusive approaches, the first of which looks albeit hypocritical, but relatively reasonable, peacefully coexist in the same political reality, without making any claims to each other. And now, the power structure begins the criminal prosecution of those people who, according to Petro Poroshenko’s assurances, remain the subject of tireless concern of the authorities.
It only seems to me that the mismatch is the result of either neglected schizophrenia, or a child’s inability to connect ideology with logic in such a way that it does not contain things that fall out of the general system. I think that both explanations are applicable to the Ukrainian legal and political phenomenon. These amazing people seriously think that they have an adult state that someone has changed.
They refuse to understand that when the steps taken by the authorities fundamentally contradict the philanthropic declarations of statesmen, we are not talking about the state system, but about its inept, ill-cooked imitation. And everything would be okay (no matter how childish it is!), But under the rule of this imitation structure there are millions of people who are forced to live in a reality where nothing comes together, in which everything is turned upside down, and evil children are Laughing, initiate criminal cases or rush headlong through the streets with Nazi chants and emblems.
At the end of the novel by William Golding on an island in flames (as the children set fire to the forest), adults noticed the fire. The saved ones, realizing that the normal world had returned to them, begin to cry, in despair, realizing that they had lost their childhood and some very important human properties forever. Whether adults will come in this case to save the children, I do not know. But they can start crying right now.
The point of view of the author may not coincide with the position of the editorial board.