Orange revolution

More commentary from a Ukrainian friend here.

"I was at a New Year party in Kyiv hosted by a woman-entrepreneur, who co-owns an Italian furniture store in central Kyiv. She told us about her partners from Donetsk (Eastern Ukraine, camp of Yanukovich) who were very surprised that she operates without any "cover" from racketeering gangs. They literally asked her: "So you are living like in Europe?" One should understand -- this is a great shift in views on the world, in perception of the reality and social order. Democracy vs Autocracy. Rule of Law vs Rule of Will."

"Traditional special thanks to CERN physicists Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau who invented World Wide Web in 1990. Besides commercial and academic benefits for the mankind, WWW elevated freedom of speech to the highest level, unreachable for any government to muzzle the flow of information.

It happened so that Internet editions became the source of information about Yushcneko and Orange revolution for readers in Ukraine and the world as Kuchma's government controlled all but one TV channels. For example, one of them, maidan.org.ua, served like a newswire from various volunteers all over Kyiv to warm about government moves.

Moreoever, at the peak of tensions, Yanukovich put pressure on Ukrainian Internet providers to block the traffic to opposition websites. One could only regret that the US Congress never found time to consider special proposition of developing the Triangle Boy Web developed at SafeWeb. This would allow democracy idea to beat censorship even further..."