TRIBUNE — On Saturday August 6, 2022, I published a text on my Facebook account (see the end of the article) to recall Ukraine’s Nazi collaborationist past, observing that this State had never expressed any official regret for this active collaboration, and that several streets still bear the name of pro-Nazi Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera.
Facebook moderators immediately deleted my post, shared by many readers, and placed my account on a total posting restriction for seven days, on the grounds that my remarks were a manifestation of hatred and were therefore deemed contrary to the famous standards of the network, the latter being in reality more political and more ideological than moral.
Where is the hate in my little post?
No serious historian will dispute that what I recall here belongs to verifiable historical facts: Stepan Bandera is one of the leaders of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) and the leader of the extremist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, known as “OUN-B”.. In his fight for the independence of Ukraine against Poland and the Soviet Union, he collaborated with Nazi Germany by creating the Ukrainian Legion, under the command of the Wehrmacht. On June 30, 1941 in Lviv, he wrote with Yaroslav Stetsko a declaration of independence for Ukraine. This being rejected by the Nazi occupiers, he was arrested and sent after January 1942 to the Sachsenhausen camp. Released in September 1944, he collaborated again with Nazi Germany from Berlin.
Similarly, it is easily verifiable on Wikipedia that several streets in Ukraine are still currently named “Stepan Bandera Street” in tribute to this individual.
Just recently, we could see an extract from Ukrainian television, taken up on Twitter, where the speakers openly and uninhibitedly praised Stepan Bandera. This tweet is still visible:
TV ???????? praises Stepan Bandera.
In the EU these people?
Hero ???????? Notorious Nazi Stepan Bandera was Hitler’s professional spy, known as Consul II, responsible for the deaths of thousands of Russians, Jews, Ukrainians and Poles. pic.twitter.com/rX9oFHlxeF
— Aliénor d’Aubigne ???????????????????????? (@AlienorAubigne) August 24, 2022
On August 24, I re-shared this tweet in order to support my point on the ultra-nationalist neo-Nazism of the current of Stepan Bandera, still current and very much alive. The Facebook moderators again immediately spotted me here by withdrawing my publication on the grounds of non-compliance with the standards, and by inflicting on me a total restriction of publication for 30 days, accompanied by a threat of suspension / permanent deletion of my account. A few minutes later, after challenging the sanction, Facebook nevertheless and curiously apologized by reinstating the publication. Mystery of the impenetrable ways of the social network of Mr. Zuckerberg, who like myself, should in principle be sensitive to this subject…
There is of course, absolutely nothing in the remarks that I simply keep repeating, which is of an erroneous or hateful nature.
Read also: “Amnesty International and Ukraine: an unprecedented internal controversy”
What bothers Facebook moderators is something else entirely and no one will be fooled by the official reasons invoked by the social network to censor and block an account for 7 or 30 days by threatening it with closure.
In reality, as for the Covid, it is now forbidden to express real verifiable facts about Ukrainethis in order to respect the guideline of the Western position which consists in blindly supporting Ukraine while encouraging and officially allowing the expression of hatred towards Russia and the Russians, even going so far as to encourage the murder of Russian soldiers.
Worse still, many hateful comments towards Russians and calls for murder are posted daily on Facebook, without the moderators being the least bit moved by them, which is in total contradiction with the standards that the social network brandishes without stops to censor what does not please him.
Thereby, in the name of supporting Ukraine in its war of resistance against the Russian army, Facebook practices censorship that is historical revisionism and negationismand this with the consent of the governments of the European Union and the United States.
It is piquant (and at the same time grotesque) that the official media and Facebook practice ideological and political censorship in the name of democratic values and freedom of expression, which perfectly demonstrates their internal contradiction and the hypocrisy that consists to violate the universal values to which they constantly adhere.
However, a lie repeated a thousand times will never make it a truth.
Similarly, the historical truth of the facts recalled in my little publication will stick to the skin of all those who try to erase it like the plaster that stuck to Captain Haddock’s finger in ” Vol 747 pour Sidney ».
So yes, whatever the moderators of Facebook and all the commentators on TV and radio shows, it will not change the truth of the facts: the descendants of those who actively contributed to the extermination of Ukrainian Jews do not arouse neither my empathy nor my sympathy, and the Ukrainian state continues to maintain silence on its Nazi past without emitting the slightest MEA culpa official. This, by persisting in maintaining this ultra-nationalist current at several levels (media, army, civil society), consciously and opportunistically, while demanding membership of the European Union in the name of values that they do not respect. and with the complicity of the authorities of the said Union.
Text published on Facebook and removed by moderators:
Big booster shot.
Let me be very clear: I have no empathy for the descendants of those who actively collaborated in the extermination of at least 1,500,000 Ukrainian Jews and who have so far expressed no official regret, thus displaying a silence at the limits Holocaust denial that the kyiv regime has never firmly disavowed, and which continue to pay homage to the Ukronazi Bandera nationalist heroes and their leader Stephan Bandera whose name still adorns squares, streets and avenues, especially in kyiv .
A people who fight in the name of their self-determination and who claim as a nation that they belong to the European civilization of human rights by wanting to join the EU should first have the moral obligation to clean their house instead of putting his head in the sand in a posture of denial unworthy of the values in the name of which he claims to defend himself.
Examples of streets named after Stepan-Bandera:
Stepan-Bandera Street, in Chepetivka, a town in Khmelnitsky Oblast.
Rue Stepan-Bandera, à Ivano-Frankivsk, capital administrative de l’oblast d’Ivano-Frankivsk.
Stepan-Bandera Street, in Iziaslav, a city in Khmelnitsky Oblast.
Rue Stepan-Bandera, à Khmelnitski, capital administrative de l’oblast de Khmelnitski.
Rue Stepan-Bandera, à Kolomyia, ville de l’oblast d’Ivano-Frankivsk.
Stepan-Bandera Street in Lutsk, the administrative capital of Volhynia Oblast.
Stepan-Bandera Street, in Lviv, administrative capital of Lviv Oblast.
Stepan-Bandera Street, in Rivne, the administrative capital of Rivne Oblast.
Prospect Stepan-Bandera, in kyiv, capital of Ukraine.
Prospect Stepan-Bandera, in Ternopil, administrative capital of Ternopil Oblast.
Michel Rosenzweig is a philosopher and essayist.
See also: “Mocks and simulations”