| The critical pages (mostly in Dutch): index | Dutch: Nederlandstalige pagina met kritiek op dit boek] |
This book is an example of psychopathic behaviour in society, which you can see esp. in politicians and journalists/reporters/article writers in newspapers and magazines. They want to shape the world their way, and force their opinions on you!
This book is not representative of the people in Ukraine, and it's definitely not a book that intends to delve out the truth, but what irritates me most of all is the superior attitude, "I-know-it-better", while not actually knowing it better at all, and while pointing the acccusing little finger at all sorts of things, coupled with the absence of a description of daily life, living costs, and what problems the people in Ukraine face, in particular economic, which can give the readers an understanding of their life and of some of their views. Regarding the economic difficulties (such as not being able to save money), it actually explains a lot of the behaviour of the people. The teaching tone towards Ukrainians is as if the writer has no idea about reality, which shows itself in the absurd notion that in western Europa we have a really good democracy and a lot of freedom and that this is valued highly here. Real freedom in NL, forget about it, this is one of the reasons emigrants mention to leave NL, the enormous, nonsensical, mania of having rules for everything in NL... But those rules are almost always used against you (to limit you), and not to protect you (e.g. someone is often making a lot noise, forget about the police and the law, they do nothing)... Apparently the writer has not ever witnessed any of this.
This book is not a "really cute book that gives a nice impression of Ukraine in all its facets", as it says on the back of the book. I find it instead nauseating. The title of the book is absurd, but this choice is understandeable as it corresponds with the negative and criticising attitude of the writer. This book is a description of someone who constantly points the accusing finger and thinks she knows it all much better than everyone else, and who doesn't have respect for people. This is shown in the remark "most of all I hope that there will be more understanding of the Ukrainians. Because they deserve that, no matter how crazy they are." Crazy? This choice of words seems to indicate the writer is rather immature, which jumped out even more after I read a (very brief) review on some buying site where the reviewer noticed the use of the word 'waardeloos' which was used rather in a way that is done by people who can't express themselves properly. Possibly this explains that the writer says Khrestyatik is 'wel 100 m breed' which is Dutch and it can have the meaning of 'definitely 100m or more' or it is used by children in the sense that "I don't know how big, but it's really big!", so indicates something 'really impressive', because this street in Kiev is not nearly 100m wide (I estimate ca. half) and the street is also this wide only for a short length. However, this it not what the writer does in the case of the big square in Kharkov where the large statue of Lenin used to stand, of that the size given is quite accurate... Then something else: Calling Ukrainians crazy, while at the same time whining that Ukrainians are not acting 'politically correct', is of course a contradiction, but it is typical for psychopathic behaviour, which generally shows itself in particular in: "Accusing others of what you do yourself". This can typically be seen in politicians, who are often psychopaths and if not then still they act as psychopaths (more on this topic to come elsewhere).
For people who have been to Ukraine, travelled there a lot and know people living there and know about the problems of jobs and just making enough money to survive, this book is a depressing collection of stories about non-typical people, who in the whole do not matter and are not representative. You can find all of that in other countries too... In the Netherlands just have a look at travellers/gypsies/roma: Those groups are largely criminal and often anti-social (esp. noticeable in school). I know of some 'strange' beliefs in Ukraine, but is this any different than believing in people prognosticating by 'supernatural means' as on TV in NL? Then have a look in NL at the fringe groups of nutters, such as climate change deniers (who consider any change no problem and likely not man-caused) who spout their nonsense in magazines such as Elsevier (with articles by esp. S.Rozendaal, I call this magazine: "By morons for morons'), and websites of liar clubs such as 'groene rekenkamer' (also climate change deniers), and of course in TV programmes you see these people appear uncriticised as well, such as in the TV programme by Pauw & Witteman. Then have a look at people in various countries, NL too, who are talking about things like 'chemtrails/contrails'. Another example of craziness in NL, is student clubs with their inane initiation rituals (similar to what happens in armies of the US, Russia etc., students even die sometimes!). And that's not enough, you even have to work several months 'for the club' to get in. If I work then for myself, not to make money for a bunch of dicks! You already need to pay a monthly fee, so why? I asked whether this happens in Ukraine, and apparently this insanity is unknown there. An acquaintance told me: "If you become a member of a student club, you get a hug ;-)". If you would write a book about the Netherlands about individuals and groups who have strange ideas, groups that have conspiracy notions, groups that are actually conspirators in trying to influence public opinion (e.g. climate change deniers), gypsies, student clubs, and drugs users, then the result would be a comparable book about the Netherlands, as this book about Ukraine. But it would not be a book that makes you know and understand about the people in the Netherlands. This book by De Weert is no different than that, just a voyeuristic book that displays the people with whom the writer had contact.
As an example of the "I know it better" attitude: this is clear in the remarks on who liberated NL and western Europe. The part that the Soviet Union played was essential, otherwise the Americans/Canadians/English/Poles would not have been able to do it. This is mentioned, and yet "we were liberated by the Americans/Canadians", according to the writer. Nobody does anything truly by himself, everyone has for everything he does some form of help, and is influenced by others. What the Soviet Union did was essential for the liberation in 1945, essential for the success of the Americans and Canadians! Even Newton said about himself: "If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants." And so the comments by Ukrainians that NL was liberated with the help of the Sovjet Union, is correct. [ Addition: Considering the meaning of 'liberation' too strictly (so as being done by the people only who were in that army marching in, but note that this often eliminates e.g. the generals...) is typical for not understanding language and wrongly interpreting what was said instead of the actual deeper meaning. This is typically autistic, and it might interest you that I consider autistic behaviour as no different than behaviour from people who are psychopaths, such people don't understand others, are inept, are 'rule followers' and in effect only care about themselves. More on this topic also will appear in another place soon ].
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According to the author, in Europe people value freedom and democracy highly, instead of in Ukraine where people don't believe in it. The author has apparently never experienced any problems caused by the government, and has not noticed that politicians never do what they promise and that any confidence in politicians gets lower and lower. Democracy as in Europa, and even worse in the USA, is of course not a real democracy as in ancient Greece... It is more like a puppet show, in which puppets who are sent off because of incompetence (such as Donner) after a while merrily return in another position and never get punished.
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Corruption, the word so prominently used in the discussion before the (useless) referendum last year in NL about the association agreement with Ukraine, in which of course the distinction is not made, between small amounts that e.g. policemen ask for which they do more out of necessity because their wages are too low to live on, and the real corruption (large scale/large amounts), by 'large' criminals which affects the whole economy in a negative way. And of course that distinction was not made because almost nobody is a seeker of the truth...
In this book it is mentioned that policemen earn too low wages, but this is not enough to make the situation clear to the readers. And thus there is again no distinction made between this survival-'corruption' and real corruption. On the whole this book does not offer a view of the true circumstances in which people in Ukraine live. I will tell you a little: In general people cannot live alone in an appartment, let alone a detached house, wages are far too low for that. The cost of groceries is about half the price in NL, but wages are far lower, and thus many people share with the family crops made in gardens in a village where e.g. grandparents have a house. For me travelling in Ukraine is cheap, but this is especially looking at the distances. But for people in Ukraine this is different, they have to go somewhere, for work or to meet family, and and they won't say "It's cheap for 800km", the distance is just irrelevant but large distances in Ukraine here work against them. Of course there are people who want to leave Ukraine, it's logical when looking at the economical situation, but in NL many people want to leave because of other reasons. There are also people who just try to make the best of it in Ukraine.
Making a e.g. buddhist view of life that some people she encountered have, look like escapism, is just obnoxious (everything is looked at from a negative perspective!). In NL this happens too, and it's not about money...
In NL you also have corruption, though to a lesser degree. An example: Both local and national politicians are mostly working for themselves, and execute (or rather agree to the spending of money, actual work they don't do, of course) projects, paid for by the taxpayers, that they use as advertisment for themselves. Such nincompoops for some reason always fall upwards, and later can be seen in boards of companies or well paid advice giving jobs, which means manipulation with other people that they got to know during their political 'career', to make sure the company gets what it wants. This is part of 'networking', the current form of cronyism and making sure you get as much money from society as possible. So as a group in which they fit, these people act together but for themselves (now or later they will expect/want something in return): "Together for our own" (purposely wrong grammar, because they are antisocial people).
Example: There are dicks in city councils who send information to friends of theirs who are say project developers, about ground that the city wants to buy. Such a person then first buys it from the farmer who owns it, for a very low price, and then let themselves get richly paid for this same ground, as now that the city wants it it is far more valuable land. I remember such a case where what had happened was made public and the criminal in the city council used the law against the other city council member who described all that happened. It took years, after first some lost cases (those judges were clearly morons), before this was set straight, but there was no punishment for the person who helped the project developer, of course not. Justice in NL? Give me a break. (my own experiences agree, that the law is not used in NL for actual justice)
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The writer talks about being 'politically correct', ah yes, the mental desease that flew across from the USA ca. early 1990s. Imagine that, you could say something and hurt someone's feelings, that is absolutely unacceptable! Yeah, right, what nonsense! Pointing the little finger on issues or statements that are not 'politically correct' as is done in this book a lot, is quite annoying. A young american who had been travelling in large parts of eastern Europe, whom I met in Kharkov, felt that the absence of this concept was a plus punt for Ukraine. I feel the same way. You can say what you want without seeing the 'accusing little finger of a know-it-better'.
And it's not over yet by a long shot, the whining in this book continues about the fact that there are no jewish monuments, which is truly absurd. Religion was not accepted in the Soviet Union at all so counting everyone as who died in the 2nd world war as 'Soviet citizens' is absolutely correct. Yet another sign of a person who is in a teaching mode telling others everything they do wrong, as politicians and journalists usually do. They point people to their duties and even that they are not allowed to express their opinion... They don't do this because it's right, but because it is 'the right thing' in the group of people that they belong to and want to get respect from, which means usually politicians on a higher level. In doing so they behave as psychopaths, for whom the rules are more important than the people in the country that they rule in or write for.
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And of course there is more: According to the writer there is not enough self-criticism in Ukraine. Again that criticising little finger from someone who thinks that in western Europe everything just goes splendidly, and much better than in Ukraine. But there is a lot wrong in the Netherlands, and who in NL has self criticism? Who in other countries?
Then we come to 'following the rules', which at the end of the book is mentioned as a plus point of western Europe, and yes especially people in NL are good at that. Too good, the rules are more important than the people! The whole of western society is, partly because of this, psychopathic. Think back to Salomon's judgement, who suggested to divide a child in half to find the real mother. It was on purpose, following the rules to see who is the real mother. And consequently NOT following the rules. But in NL and the whole of western Europe this old insight is still not clear.
An example from 2016: We can't deal with misleading websites that are composed solely or almost solely of fake dating profiles, because it's not illegal. Well, hello puppets of the constitutional state: The rules should be guidelines, from multiple cases in the past, so that you don't need to reinvent the wheel and do the reasoning (incl. punishment) time after time! Nothing more than that! If common sense says "This is a scam", then the persons responsible must be prosecuted! Even if not explicitly mentioned in the law.
I experienced a lot in NL, where government and local government don't care anything about people, the rules are more important. I even experienced the following with the fire brigade: I was told "These are the rules and we abide by them", so as not to have to come to saw a tree that after a summer storm was lying on my roof. They didn't want to come because "The fire brigade had been used in the past to cut down trees that were not allowed to be cut down". Why hello there puppets of the fire brigade! There is a tree on my roof! It has to be removed!
So I had to find a some business that cuts down trees. On Sunday. Right, and thus no. So this woman then said that it would not be a problem because 'the next day it is not going to be stormy'. The next day (Sunday) it was indeed not stormy, but after that it was! The situation didn't get worse, but it could have been! Most companies cannot come for such a job the next day, it took weeks. The fire brigade in emergencies: You can't count on them.
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The style of the writer to ask questions in a confronting way, is not the right one to get to the facts and thus the truth. This does not give a "clear and nuanced view" as is claimed on the rear of the book, but it gives responses that are not answers to questions but changes in topic or simply not further answering of questions. And so you get no information. This is a quite stupid way of asking questions that gives no useful information.
So what is the truth? You can't get to that with just some questions, obviously. What the writer did, asking the local oligarch what the truth is, and ditto with the other people in that area, is obviously not the way to find the facts and then the truth. Ask a criminal if he has committed a crime, and he will say "No"...
You only know what the truth is by properly investigating which means analysis, looking at the money flow (and hidden possessions), and/or psychological estimation during the answering of questions. Crimea is an example of this: I was there before and after the Russian invasion, and saw that nothing had improved, on the contrary, I saw what had become worse, such as: Many shops were half empty, prices for groceries (not sure about other stuff) had doubled. People in Crimea who were critical told me that for them nothing had improved, instead it got economically worse for them. An American in Kharkov told me that he had asked various people whether life had become better, he was surprised about my experiences and of what people told me, because when he asked people there in 2015, whether the situation was better, everyone said yes. At least 1 person said: "Yes, for example the roads have improved". And now the truth: All roads that I have seen in 2013 (before the invasion) and 2014 (September, after the invasion) between cities (Simferopol - Sevastopol, Sevastopol-Alupka and many more) were in near perfect condition, so didn't need improvement... (note that those roads were a lot better than the roads in the rest of Ukraine).
The essence is this: If you just ask someone on the street, in this case whether life in Crimea is now better than before the Russian invasion, you have to take account of the fact that what they say is not necessarily the truth, but something that they are comfortable with telling you. Most people voted to be with Russia, and so admitting now that they made a mistake or that things have not gone as expected and not as what was promised, is unlikely. To get to know their true views you need to know people longer and even then they will not always tell the truth.
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The writer does not rise above the level of descriptions, such as what one Ukrainian says or writes about another, and in her own usually not very deep observations. I will give 2 examples, on the economic situation and how people deal with it, but also the presumed negative attitude towards the Russian language in western Ukraine.
- As to the economy and that people are not able to stand up for themselves: Do you expect from a country where suddenly instead of everything being quite well organised, it goes to a free market economy (which is a sort of chaos), after 25 years, that this transition goes quickly and smoothly? Especially seeing how it all went at the start, and the economic interests that there were and that the psychopaths (oligarchs) took in, was what happened and how it currently is, to be expected... Standing up for yourself, self awareness, self criticism, are necessary, but here in NL just as much! The example of not being able to fix up an appartment as not being able to stand up for yourself: Note that DIY is something that only happened from ca. the late 1970s, and you had to get an electrician approve of the electrical wiring or let him do it! I know someone in Ukraine who is working on the apartment of a grandmother with other family members, so it can be done by people in Ukraine and it is done by people in Ukraine. The example of the writer is again not representative.
- The language issue in Ukraine, on this point the writer has also not risen above accepting as fact the claims that some people told her, even if some experiences make it look like these claims are true:
In all travel guides the same is written about Ukrainian vs. Russian, as in this book, namely that in western Ukraine, in particular Lvov, people do not want to speak Russian and they do not want to hear Russian, and if you speak Russian, they will let you know that it's not appreciated. My experiences seemed to confirm this, but it was because I had read this 'fact' in the travel guides. After discussing my experiences where people in e.g. Lvov, Pochaev, who didn't understand me (didn't seem to 'want to understand' me), with a few acquaintances from various parts of Ukraine, and then after a few more experiences in e.g. Kiev, and then comparing experiences in western Ukraine (esp. Lvov), with a friend from eastern Ukraine, it became clear what is really going on. Esp. in western Ukraine there is a clear preference for Ukrainian (and there are definitely fanatics who don't want to hear Russian), but they are in general not unwilling if you speak Russian.
It is possible, if you only speak Russian, that it seems as if they take offence! (Especially if you first read in a travel guide that people in Lvov do not want to hear Russian!). The reality is this: In particular since Ukrainisation and making only Ukrainian as the official language since 1991, since ca. 2011 already a whole generation, and now even more, speaks poorly Russian in many areas of Ukraine. It can seem that someone does not want to understand you, and there are such people, but probably they just have difficulty understanding you! The impression can become stronger if you deal with someone who is surly or doesn't have time, that he or she doesn't 'want to understand' you. That people really don't understand Russian was made clear even more on my last trip when I was in Kiev, and a woman had to ask someone else what a certain word meant... There are plenty of Ukrainans in eastern Ukraine who believe this 'fact' about western Ukraine that "they do not want to talk to us because we speak Russian", and because most people do not analyse what is really going on, their experiences seem to confirm this 'fact', although in reality it's not a confirmation, as I explained earlier. If you do not analyse, then myths keep getting told as facts, as happens in eastern Ukraine about speaking Russian in western Ukraine, which then gets told to writers of travel guides etc., and the writer of this book too just perpetuates this myth.
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My experiences in Ukraine are mostly positive. People are not 'almost always surly'. Especially not on the train. Many people are interested in talking with me about lots of topics in life, about life in the EU, life in Ukraine, Russia, philosophical matters, and much more. It is in fact the reverse, in the Netherlands on the train you see everyone looking surly ahead, disinterested in anyone else... Many people whom I met in Ukraine were helpful, interested, philosophical. I find the people there much more interesting than in NL.
This book does not give a real understanding of the life and people in Ukraine.
The writer thinks and acts as if in the Netherlands everything is a lot better, and that is not the case. Here too you can find corruption, making money of off others, city councils starting money wasting projects that the tax payer has to pay, and which those local politicians use for status: 'I did that'. Yes, by abusing the taxpayer and letting him pay for it all!
A similar book can be written about the Netherlands by writing about 'strange people', groups that have strange ideas, groups that have conspiracy ideas about others, or those who are themselves conspiracy actors who try to manipulate public opinion, such as: People in student clubs with their inane rituals, climate change deniers, gypsies/travellers/roma, drugs users, etc.
2017-9-11: There are a few more points that I think need to be addressed
1. The writer mentions that Ukrainian women marry at a very young age and are all very thin. This is not so. I discussed age to marry with a friend in Ukraine who gave examples that it varies very much. That women marry earlier than in western Europe is undoubtedly true, but that is because of the unhealthy obsession in western Europe with work, which means that work has become the most important part of the meaning of life... But you work to live, you don't live to work! Again this aspect of life in western europe is psychopathic (Think of the German phrase 'arbeit macht frei'...), a return to the past (and back to the USSR, where women were just as equal as men! So much so that many children felt more affinity with their grandparents than their parents who were always away or working, a situation that still occurs due to the economic situation in Ukraine) and a loss of understanding what life is actually about...
On my first trip in Ukraine I noted already that people in Ukraine are not in better shape than in NL and this view has not changed in later trips. There is also a strange view that women in Ukraine are really beautiful, far more so than in other countries. Interestingly the topic of the beauty of women in Ukraine came up at the start of my 1st trip to Ukraine, on the airplane, talking with a Russian businessman who lives in Odessa. He disagreed and felt that women in the Netherlands are more attractive. I would agree but there is one difference: women in Ukraine do more effort to look more attractive, with clothes and make up. And this is what many people seem to be influenced by in their view of beauty. I'm not influenced by these things, possibly partly because I prefer no make up on women... The writer mentions looking into the picture book of a photographer too, and of course he will select the nicest photos (and of a certain style that he likes best or likes best to show off) for a portfolio! The pictures in there are thus thus likely not representative of all the weddings he photographes...
I discussed parts of this book with someone from Ukraine via Viber, and I will take some comments from there: So this reporter who later wrote her experiences in this book goes couchsurfing with a family in Makeyevka and when he tells of his photography he shows what makes the money: wedding pictures. She then talks in the book about the fact that the women have a lot of make up, huge dresses with lots of decorations/glitter, have very thin waste and pose with the husbands stiffly besides e.g. fountains. At that point no comment about the men [ I will get to this further on ]... Her description is in my experience not reality. I've seen a lot of weddings being photographed in Ukraine just walking around. Dresses are normal, I saw no glitter, not too much make up, and in general women in ukraine are not thinner than in NL... What I noticed about weddings and a few other occasions (in a business area of Kiev) is that many men on the occasion of marriage and in business like to wear shiny suits which to me look incredibly ugly/tacky. Why no comment about that?
2. I mentioned the fake dating sites in NL earlier on this page, but even serious sites have fake profiles created by those sites to make men/women sign up.... How is this any different from the antics in Ukrainian dating agencies?
3. Communists and people who want the past to return. Here is another part of a conversation from viber:
Something typical about this book, which makes me think more of a bad novel, is a description of the workplace of a young guy in the communist party, whose office space the writer (a woman, perhaps this is of influence in the writer's description) describes as 'a small room that he shares with a woman in her fifties with white-blond perm'. Why is that of interest? Why doesn't this writer just tell of who he shares the room with, i.e. what work does she do, and do they interact or are they just 'sharing a room'? Well she then tells that they both do the same job. So why talk at all about appearance? But such stuff continues with remarks of the old building they work in which to her seems 'as if nothing has changed since the 1960s, possibly on purpose to hide from modern times'. This is an absolute insanity of a description. This is so because it's irrelevant and pushes a view of what people want that is actually just her view of the situation, so by describing it a certain way, she doesn't describe the real situation but instead she manipulates, she gives her opinion but makes it look as if "that's the way it is". [ as I will explain further on ]
Response from my friend:
Response: You know, I used to share the office room with such lady a few years ago. I understand what she means. We were doing the same work. But I wanted to modernize it. To make it more effective and efficient. The 21th century suggests many possible novelties. Like the internet for example. But she -born and raised without all these things- couldn't accept them. She was older, wiser and more experienced than I. So I was wrong by default. Old things don't let the new things appear and develop. We should let go of the USSR's past and build a new future.
I then replied: The way it is written is not correct but now I understand that you interpret the description of the building, as 'they want the past to return'. But the building is the building, it's just there, it's not any indication of what the people working there (most in that building are not communists!) want...
Response: They cherish the memories about Soviet Union. The buildings are like something valuable.
I then replied: Yes, but the writer is Dutch, those were her words, her impression of 'the building and why it wasn't changed or torn down'... (and why would anyone tear down such a building if it's sound? That is destruction of capital!). It is not a description of people who cherish the past. But you interpret it that way. So actually there is a mix, of her own descriptions, that conform in this case as you said, to how these communists think, but, suppose she wrote about other people, would she then describe the building the same way? So the point for me is that the writer puts meaning into objects where this makes no sense. The only way to do this is by laying a connection, e.g. I could and perhaps would write: "The communists work in a building that fits their mentality, being of a style that inside and out makes you feel as if you're in the 1960s.". This is a proper and meaningful description...
[ But clearly this sentence that I wrote, is way beyond the abilities of the author ]
To conclude, one more comment: This book on Ukraine is one of the worst books I've ever read and probably the worst in the past 5 years. In awfulness I think the only one that comes close in books that I read in the last 5 years is a book by Alice Munro that I thought back to when starting to write this review, because of its similar voyeuristic nature. Addendum 2017-12-29: And second to that is Dan Brown's "Angels and demons". I was not impressed by the silly film "Davinci code" and from this book it is clear that that inanity is caused directly by Brown.
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Last modified: 2017-12-29