Left-wing Ukrainians read Europe as social democracy and direct democracy, not mere EU accession

Evidence

Artem and his friends brought their own symbols to the Maidan. They took a red flag and sewed the stars of the European Union onto the corner. The idea was that they supported “Europe” in the sense of a social democracy and human progress, a vision of a continental future of prosperity and economic rights. Their priorities were direct democracy and “de-oligarchization”: they wanted to put decisions, as well as economic power, into the hands of the Ukrainian people. And, they figured, if you were looking west to Europe, you could not defend any position that was misogynist or anti-LGBT. Their chant was: “Freedom, Equality, and Sisterhood.” — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 488

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the ‘Complaints About Immodesty’ essay’s theme of how political symbols get read differently by different factions — and to the broader thread across this book of how the same uprising meant radically different things to different participants. — connects to: Western media framed Ukraine as civilized partly because it is European — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1792; Austerity-driven left challengers displaced collapsing social democratic parties across Europe — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 96; Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular:…, 26 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: the divergent meanings squeezed into the same EU flag — sewn onto a red flag as socialist Europa vs. Brussels’ actual liberalization package — as a case study in how mass movements are coalitions of mutually incompatible utopias.

Broader Connections

• Ukraine’s anti-Maidan movement was more working-class than the pro-EU protests #complicates (0.80) — Vincent Bevins, If We Burn, 519
• Liberal democracies are not direct-access societies but elite-mediated ones #complicates (0.78) — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 26
• Austerity-driven left challengers displaced collapsing social democratic parties across Europe #complicates (0.75) — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment, 96
• Western media framed Ukraine as civilized partly because it is European #qualifies (0.72) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 1792
• Ethnocentric and anti-democratic attitudes sometimes coexisted with left-leaning political views #exemplifies (0.71) — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 495