During the first days of Euromaidan, when we all were afraid of violent use of force, I felt an impulse to write a naive (as now I’ve come to understand) article for the mothers and wives of the policemen and fighters of special police units. I was about to persuade them to influence their sons or husbands no to be that cruel.
But my brain turned out to be not able to produce anything more decent than the primitive phrase “I know it’s not easy for you”. Come on, let’s be frank: I don’t know a damn thing about their lives. Of course, I just can imagine, how hard it is to get by with the salary of 4000 hryvnias per month. In a dormitory. Facing regular disdain of society. The words “cops” and “bastards” thrown into your face. But to imagine and to know – are different things.
Back then I didn’t fully realize that our country is a sheer Vradiivka. I didn’t know that the feeling of impunity – is the most desirable feeling of people with impact munition. That 1937 is not a complete history yet. It is coming back, in case someone in power really needs it. Or even like this: Ukraine is Vradiivka and 1937 that has never ceased to exist. The thing is that now we have more Internet, more cameras in cell phones and people ready to film something and share it in social networks.
Thanks to cameras and Internet we’ve come to know that, Berkut (Ukraine’s special force unit) and sadists – are synonyms, and not a purely journalistic exaggeration. That a judge and a whore are paronymous. And that each of us can be clubbed half to death any moment and accused of organizing mass riots.
Now we know that a person with a smashed head and broken legs and ribs can be brought from the hospital to the court and kept there all day long. That a person, with a skin black from blows can fall down in the presence of TV cameras while a passionless judge keeps reading out unjustified arrest order. That the children of one of the detained can sleep on a bench in a court, because their mother has no place for them to sleep, and the judge will pass the sleeping kids and will condemn 2 month arrest to their father with no legal basis for that. That a person is blind for one eye for 4 days after being beaten, and he received medical examination only after journalists, deputies, ombudsman and foreign ambassadors interfered.
The story of protest action on Independence Square, that took place on the 30 of November and on Bankova street of the 1 December and the following arrest of 9 people is more dreadful than any horror movie seen by us in our entire life. The sound of rubber truncheons, with which Berkut fighters beat people lying on the ground, a girl, dragged by scarf all along the square, faces drenched in blood and journalists’ broken equipment and finally the violent scenes with the detained with followed by the Berkut’s talk: “Are you fuc*** alive? Down to your knees, son of a b**” – all this doesn’t remain only beyond the screen. Everyone understands – it could be me in his place.
And you know what’s most frightful in this story? The worst is that it was not Yanukovych who was swinging a truncheon. It was not Yanukovych who stepped with his feet on the heads of the detained and took photos in such a “victorious” pose. It was done by people we meet every day in subways and supermarkets. All the psychologists with whom I talked or who expressed their point of view every day in social networks, agree upon the following – all this is a great psychological trauma for those who saw it with their own eyes or even on TV screens. Everyone has his own limit of psychological endurance and even those who say they are not surprised, are also traumatized, indeed.
Iryna Koval, doctor and psychotherapist, professor at Bogomolets National Medical University, wrote to me:
“Unfortunately, there are situations, in which all that happened to a person is either stronger than his or her ability to abstract away from it, or is due to its nature beyond the limits of psychological capabilities to realize, analyze and thus – to forget or forgive. Most frequently it happens when a person becomes a witness of a murder, rape, torture, someone’s death caused by natural or anthropogenic disaster or act of terrorism, I mean situations in which one is helpless. What we have seen during the crackdown of protest actions on 30 November and 1 December – is the same kind of stress for every person. Someone will pray and forget. Someone will forget later under impression of other more important emotional events. But most of us will form a posttraumatic stress reaction. It’s sad and terrifying. You can try psychotherapy. It will take time and may turn effective not for everyone. We have to understand that they have beaten not only all those people, they have crippled us all”.
Svetlana Royz, famous psychologist, wrote on her wall in Facebook: “What has happened – is trauma for all of us. Those who saw it, heard of it, read or saw the photos of it. Our security center has been affected. The reaction of this center is to stay still, hide away, run or struggle. The actions performed in such a condition do not bring stable results. Every person has an in-build mechanism – barrier against killing and violence.
What computer games are dangerous for is that with every shooting they weaken this barrier and create the illusion of impunity and of having “many lives”. The adrenalin hormone is accumulated during every game (or training). If there is no outlet for it – it is stored as a bomb inside and blows out in a situation like this. This accumulated pressure breaks off a safety lock. The brain is switched off during all that. Only the tried and tested physical trainings and commands obedience remain. Even the memories of what has happened often fade away. It is no use appealing to feelings and logic. To act like this, to choose the kind of profession related to violence and remain in it can only those who are gravely traumatized or narcotized with adrenalin. That’s why using force against them we will only evoke the same adrenalized reaction. We need to change the system. We have to take care of those who have suffered and of our resources. It is important to bring oneself from emotions to systematic actions”.
That’s why I have decided not to address wives-mothers-relatives of Berkut fighters. I just want to remind you the fact from recent history. There was a commander of Berkut in Kiev – Dmytro Syliakov. In 2004 he caught it bad from the oppositionists after the provocation near Central Election Committee before Presidential elections – it’s child’s play compared to the nightmares of today, but blood and broken heads were present there as well. And he was beaten not by the people in uniform, like now, but by the people in masks!
Realizing what blood on the streets means, that Berkut’s commander gave an order not to interfere, when oppositionists were beating him right in front of the eyes of armed fighters. After Orange revolution he was fired. Victor Yanukovych and members of his government, who visited Syliakov in hospital and promised him not to forget him, didn’t remember of him since then. One year later Syliakov’s parachute didn’t open during his jump at “Chaika” airdrome…
This is exactly the fate of your own dream, and here I address the gentlemen who gave the command to “clean up Maydan right up to Liadsky gate” and also “maybe we should clean Instytutska street as well”?
It is important to draw oneself from emotions to systematic actions, Svetlana Royz, psychologist, said. We have managed to bring to trial those who had beaten Olga Snizarchuk and Vlad Sodel. Titushko & Co admitted their guilt. We have to do EVERYTHING, for such a trial to take place over those Berkut fighters who took part in the events of 30 November and 1 December in Kyiv. That’s why we have to hand
le our emotions, but not to forget what they’ve done to our bodies and our souls.
Voices of Ukraine 