Ukraine’s ugly system of language discrimination is doomed to collapse

By Andriy Manchuk

January 16: “The Verkhovna Rada [Ukraine’s parliament] adopted in the second reading and in general bill No. 0901 on secondary education. In essence, this document permanently eliminates Russian-language schools.”

At one time, I visited the South African city of Soweto. During the apartheid regime there was an uprising of schoolchildren protesting against the forced imposition of the Afrikaans language. With its suppression, hundreds of people died — mostly teenagers.

Then apartheid collapsed — and no one regrets it, with the exception of post-Soviet racists. Now in South Africa there are 11 (eleven) equal state languages, and local residents themselves determine what language their children will learn.

The ugly system of discrimination of the Russian language, native to half of the inhabitants of Ukraine, is also doomed to collapse. The only question is how much blood the fanatics promoting it will have time to shed.

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Translated by Greg Butterfield