This article was already underway when I got to know, in different circumstances, students from several Ukrainian universities. My first impression was that of a breath of fresh air. What I saw was inspiring and inspired young people, brimming over with energy, curiosity, and plans for today and the future. In their presence the squelching of the post-Soviet political swamp is no longer heard. In their presence the apparitions of pseudo-postmodern schizophrenia turn into crumpled carbon paper. After a century of genocides youth is reviving, and music, smiles, and energy are alive in them. Europe is alive in them.
However, a closer acquaintance modified this impression. A chance phrase and a suddenly darkened glance followed by sincere talk were enough for me to understand the depths of the concealed despair that these young people feel.
This is the kind of despair that will sooner or later explode. This is the despair of young people who do not see prospects for their fulfillment in Ukraine after decades of evil Soviet policy and years of cynical post-Soviet practice.
I would like to make the next two articles-one by a student from a Kyiv-based university and the other one of my own authorship-an invitation to the most wide-ranging discussion. In my opinion, The Day, with its fundamental care for the problems of youngsters, can be the best forum for young people from the east and west of Ukraine, as well as Europe, Russia, and the US. Let them talk frankly about their most burning problems. The stories of how they study, work, fit into their milieu, and what they think about the future may together become a sociocultural portrait of this generation, an indicator of changes and issues, and precious advice for the pro-European Ukrainian politicians who are carrying the duty and responsibility of building democratic Ukraine and its European integration. Consequently, it is their responsibility to offer the next generations attractive prospects for life and professional fulfillment.
The Old Greek agora or the Old Russian viche both designated a place for reflection and decision-making for wise elders. May The Day’s agora be a meeting place for reflection and advice for the generation of Ukrainians which happened to embark on life’s journey at the beginning of the 21st century.
The young years of your grandparents were burned in the inferno of Soviet history: the revolutions, World War I, civil war, Stalin’s repressions, shooting, exiles, the Holodomor, World War II, etc.
The young years of our fathers were lost in the abyss gaping open between Stalin’s black and bloody and Khrushchev’s colored schizophrenia. They survived World War II, post-war famine and repressions, arrests under Khrushchev in 1965, arrests under Brezhnev in 1972, aggressive stupidity of the censorship, unblinking eye of the KGB watching them through the ideological cataract.
The quinquagenarians of today lost their young years to the last zombies of the Regime-though not entirely because the blood stopped in the latter’s atrophic veins and they entered the hearse race. But as long as they could, these zombies clutched the living things with their dentures and claw-like hands.
The system which we have not yet left behind was able to persist only through terror. In 1956 Ukraine reacted with the rebellion of the Sixtiers to the slightest loosening up of the terror. A few free and creative people caused the culture to revive and society to breathe. The reaction to the system’s agony in 1990 was a hunger strike on granite by a few dozens of students. This was a step toward independence. In 2004 Ukraine responded to the return of terror with the Maidan. Here were millions. But in all these events the avant-garde force was our young people who went out against the iron-visored monster with an open face. This was not only the rebellious spirit of youth at work but also the self-preservation instinct which was triggered by the fine-tuned Death Machine. Nothing worked properly in the land of Hammer and Sickle but the Death Machine worked without a hitch. Not to rebel against it meant death.
It seemed that Maidan turned this Death Machine into scrap iron. The Culture of Life revived in the autumn of 2004. It resurrected freely, spontaneously, through music, laughter, color, and life-asserting irony. The need for freedom is a sign that this country has future and its culture is forward-looking.
However, after only a short while the streets of Kyiv were filled with crowds carrying Stalin and Yanukovych portraits and slogans “We Want to Live As under Stalin!” The elderly creatures from the moldy Soviet political catacombs again bristled at us from TV screens. Prehistoric lizards crept out from under the ruins of the Berlin wall and were basking in the sun. Stuffed with half-rotten cotton, these rag dolls are laying down the rules for the future of society and all future generations in particular.
That is to say, they leading them nowhere.
Of course, we have made great progress. You will not be put into prison for a political joke. Unlike in Russia, nonconformists are not being shot in the streets. So far, anyway. Whereas in Russia they seek out and nail dissenters for one phrase posted on an Internet forum, it is impossible to track down millions of our dreamers who freely foretell the cruelest possible end for the local political beau monde. For example, they say: let us gather all the politicians in one place where a meteorite can hit them. This joke earned a melancholy comment: we have a shortage of meteorites and too much of this scum. As an alternative, these politicians are scheduled for relocation to a desert island so that they could eat up each other there and we would watch the show on television. After all, this would be more interesting than movies about Soviet Cheka officers or bandits in St. Petersburg.
BUT WOULD IT REALLY BE MORE INTERESTING?! Tomorrow this post-Soviet bestiary will be no more, but it has taken our time and continues to devour our life.
When Gogol wrote: “Life is boring in this world, gentlemen!” he knew precisely that “in this world” life is indeed utterly boring. In this Great Russian — Little Russian world, it is indeed VERY BORING and has been for ages.
In the first half of 2007, how many times did we hear the word “treason” used against the background of vote negotiations in the parliament, its dissolution, and discussions about the elections? But really, what treason?! When a tarantula bites, is it treason? We simply need to know that a snake is a snake and a tarantula a tarantula, that’s it. Treason exists in a realm where people have a concept of honor, responsibility, and promise. Evidently, this is not the realm of post-Soviet politics. Instead of giving way to our righteous anger, we need to classify insects and reptiles according to the strength of their venom. Then it is desirable to drive pins into the insects and preserve reptiles in chloroform for generations to come.
However, reptiles in good form-rather than chloroform-wound themselves around the seats of power from the top to the bottom of the power hierarchy. However, real human beings are born even today. And then the same cycle begins.
An ironic saying was current in Soviet times: “What were we fighting for?” A good question, if you stop and think. Indeed, what for?
The world experienced many a catastrophe in the 20th century. Europe survived two world wars and totalitarian regimes and emerged as a complete ruin, both physical and moral. But today Europe is the most prosperous and stable reality on the planet, with its most developed social policy system. Of course, there are plenty of paradoxes, flaws, and incongruities. The modest European GDP is far lower than our (as well as Russian and Chinese) impressing figures, isn’t it? Only one thing is not clear: although the light comes from the East (as we know and Orthodox ideologists affirm), people for some reason migrate to the West, and these are not only blue-collar workers, but also-and primarily-intellectuals.
These are young people and young people again. Honest, talented, and witty young people. They are studying and having fun. They have baby faces of yesterday’s teenagers. But sometimes you catch a glance revealing deep-rooted despair.
“We are studying the languages to emigrate,” a students of Kyiv University told me.
That is why it is crucial to answer not only the question “What were we fighting for?” but also “What are we fighting for now?”
Here is a specific problem. How much time does a young person need (not an heir of an MP, but a normal person) to buy an apartment in Ukraine? And again, not the kind of apartments owned by our MPs, but simply a normal modern apartment?
In Berlin it takes five years worth of savings.
In Kyiv you will need to save for 169 years. The problem is real but the solution is unreal.
We can entertain ourselves with some other calculations. How many average salaries of a Ukrainian citizen would be equal to the cost of the clothes and watch worn by one MP on one of his labor-intensive workdays-when in a half-empty session room his button is pressed by his fellow MP, drowsy and not always aware of what he is voting for. Sociologists say that 20 salaries would pay for a Brioni suite while some watches may require 40 years of work. This is not to mention the “modest charm” of the villas owned by noveau riches bought at the expense of the infinitely rich Communist Party: an eternity will not be enough for a normal person to acquire something like this.
German emerged from World War II as a moral cripple, a country in smoldering ruins. Out of the Gestapo’s claws and into the Stasi’s clutches. It was split into two hostile parts by the Berlin wall — the 166-kilometer wall near which, out of the 5,000 West-bound fugitives, they shot a hundred. Now Berlin is one of the most dynamic capitals in Europe. Glass is used ubiquitously in construction in an attempt to add polish and freshness to the country’s life. Only the Memorial to the Jews killed in Europe which is located near Gitler’s former chancellery remains a dark lump of the past. Just one step from there is the Reichstag building, the seat of the German parliament. Its gigantic glass structure conveys the idea of transparency and responsibility of the elected politicians. They are sitting in a glass ball so that others could see what they are doing. And what you see is that Germany is the locomotive of Europe. When after the last elections in 2005 the MPs were unable to form a majority, they created the Gro?e Koalition in which the left-wingers and the right-wingers have been working in harmony, not against each other but for the good of the country.
In our country the left- and right-wingers who came to power are the same as before. The only change in the left camp is a change in the dress code: they no longer stick out like a sore thumb in their tragicomic astrakhan hats-rather, they now wear glossy Armani and Brioni suites. The right-wingers belonged to the left wing only recently, but they had a great penchant for privatization, or to call a spade a spade, plundering the country. Paradoxically, in capitalistic Europe the state sector comprises 34 percent of the economy. In Russia, with its recent communist past, this sector makes up only 10 percent. You don’t need to strain your brain to guess where there are more opportunities for free education, medical treatment, and other forms of social policy bearing this distinctly non-Soviet name “welfare.”
In Russia 70 percent of resources are owned by seven percent of the population. Approximately 70 percent of Russians support President Putin’s policy. These are magic numbers; they must like this.
In this respect Ukraine is indeed no different. In 2007 the government has increased the $200 salaries of doctors and teachers by some 20 hryvnias (while a school teacher in Germany receives 4,000 euros a month) and claimed that Ukrainians “earn too much.” The state owes 300 billion hryvnias to bank depositors? Let me ask you: who stole this money? Whom do we ask? Do we need to inquire of the ones in whose pockets the money ended up?
It is not the government that we should be surprised at. We should be surprised at these citizens who do not even notice that the more they let others laugh at them, the more they are being laughed at. Perhaps the main thing that the totalitarian system destroyed in them was the self-preservation instinct.
It is a bit too much to work 169 years to get an ordinary apartment, especially in a country with life expectancy of 69 years. This is a country in which the mortality rate among men at their most productive age, i.e., between 20 and 60, is three to five times higher than the average European figure. This is a country where the biological age of 20-year-olds is 10 to 15 years higher than their passport age.
Understandably, palliative measures will not alter the downward curve of this catastrophe. A psychological change is necessary or, in other words, we need a system of new values and a new state strategy.
Vitali Klischko, the young politician and the intellectual face of Ukrainian sport, wrote an article with an intentionally provocative title: “Do you Have a Plan for Ukraine, Mr. Marshall?” (Ukrainska Pravda, http://www.pravda.com.ua, Nov. 6, 2007). We need a strong government hierarchy and a clear reform plan, the author maintains. This requires strategic, global thinking which is something Ukrainian politicians do not possess. So, where are you, Ukrainian Mr. Marshall?
One can agree with everything Klitschko states in his article, except one wrong thesis: “In 16 years Ukrainian politicians failed to understand that the east and the west can be united only by a general economic idea.” What is this economic idea which is effectively and potentially a uniting factor not only for Ukraine, but also the entire world? It is the idea of prosperity, i.e., the conditions in which individuals can realize their potential to the maximum and enjoy guaranteed respect of their rights. However, we see that the world is divided, rather than united, precisely by this idea. This is because the world is in fact split into two systems: in one the prosperous class consists of people whereas in the other it is the ruling elite (which, hence, has the repressive apparatus at its disposal). The first system is called democracy while the second one includes a whole gamut of autocracies and tyrannies, from Russia to China and from Arab to Latin American mini- and macrodictatorships. An “economic idea” (i.e., the market, competition, etc.) is insufficient for democracy. Democracy starts from the kind of culture which puts the individual in the center of the world. Therefore, authentic democracy so far exists exclusively in the West, which is a civilization rooted in the ancient culture and the Renaissance — these cultural epochs turned the human being into the yardstick with which to measure the universe.
The East European countries with cultural self-respect choose only Europe. Countries lacking such self-respect are fatally attracted to Russia: there they can effortlessly become dissolved and cease to exist. There are no post-communist countries from the ingloriously disintegrated Warsaw Pact which would be irresistibly attracted to Russia. They made sail for the West without a word of gratitude to the older brother. Only Poland remembers that Ukraine existed and still exists today — Poland keeps patient and continues to cherish the hope of dragging Ukraine into the EU some day. But Ukraine says no and is proudly resisting Poland’s efforts with all the weight of the Soviet part of its body which is still alive.
In this or that form this thought peaks through the readers’ reactions — as always, I am citing, above all, Russian-speaking forum participants: their opinion is an indicator of how democratic our society is, and they are the social reserve which will determine, to a large extent, the future of democracy in Ukraine. They write: “One can save, build, improve, etc. only something he believes in. In our case half the country (or maybe even more) believes that Ukraine does not have a right to exist without Russia, the Soviet Union, etc. Gentlemen, we need a formula, a national idea! Personally, I believe that it is not important which way to go but it is important how we do it — we need to care for each individual: justice in everything, freedom, and so on.” Another comment: “Before you begin to desire civilized life (or at least a well-to-do life), kill the slave inside of you.” Our country is being “plundered by worthless, uncreative scoundrels.” “Thieves rule the country and people keep voting for them being aware all the while that they are thieves. This means that they will not let decent people come to power and even if they do, they will later cause a gas-and-oil or some other crisis to discredit them. That’s why we won’t be either in the NATO or the EU-you can’t steal there.”
A brief version is this: in response to Klitschko’s thesis “I am sure that on June 10, 2057 we will realize our plan. The countdown is on!” forum contributors quip: “Like many Ukrainians, I am tired of this hopeless situation.”
OK, suppose the countdown has really started-who can think about the year 2057 with relief in 2007? So, does that mean that a baby born today needs to come into this world with a hope that in the middle age-in the middle of the 21st century-the Marshall plan will be fulfilled in Ukraine, the same kind of plan that saved post-war Europe in 1947, i.e., in the middle of the 20th century? It is worthwhile to remember that this aid was offered to entire Europe. But Stalin, who ruled a country devastated after the war and starving to death, did not let the USSR and the countries of the Communist bloc accept it. Therefore, 16 West European countries and Turkey made use of the aid. In 1953, when George Marshall, who was one of the strategy-builders for the anti-Nazi alliance in World War II, received the Nobel peace prize, Stalin was dying, but the system of terror which he had built was not perishing with him. The four-year Marshall plan cost the US $12.5 billion and caused the European industry to grow by 50 percent and agriculture by 30 percent.
In terms of economy, where are Western European countries now and where are the states of Eastern Europe?
Where should we expect Mr. Marshall to come from, on ships with the symbolic name Liberty? Hardly from the Kremlin or from the sea coast near Sevastopil, especially after Russia modernizes its Black Sea fleet to make it more threatening to the U.S. So shall we again expect them to arrive from Washington to the accompaniment of elderly dyed-in-the-wool communists drumming on pots in a protest action against Yankee warships at the Black Sea coast near Feodosiia? Or are we to anticipate them from Brussels-as age-worn descendants of Cheka officers are waving the slogan “Go Back to your grungy Brussels” in front of European politicians?
What’s next then? Wriggling post-Soviet reptiles will put spikes into the wheels of such Ukrainian George Marshalls as Klitschko and many other young pro-European politicians in Ukraine. Meanwhile, Brussels and Washington will continue to invest in financial, institutional, and expert aid to Ukraine on the hope that by doing so they are investing in the democratic future of our country. In reality, chances are that these investments will flow to the bank accounts of post-Soviet vertebrates while new generations of Ukrainians will come into the world indebted from the cradle because these loans will eventually have to be repaid. Loan repayment coupled with welfare is possible only in a democratic country, but in the conditions of post-communist kleptocracy Ukrainian mothers will give birth to children who will become either the service personnel of this regime or migrants, as has been the case in Ukraine since 1991.
No one has so far been held accountable for driving seven million Ukrainians abroad. Who caused this fourth wave of migration within just one century? Why does the government fix enhanced pensions and appoint cooks and guards, rather than prosecutors and judges, to take care of those who were guilty of the demographic, societal, and cultural catastrophe?
A crisis of the national elite? Of course, but not only this because post-Soviet political circles have nothing to do with either the elite or nation. Hence the crisis. So the citizens again feel that politicians have delegated responsibility precisely to them. Once again we are all becoming hostages of the same formula: if we don’t do it, who will? But why do we have to know what this or that politician said or did (or failed to do)? Do we have to suffer and waste our time analyzing the situation, discussing, and forecasting-and wait until they finish plundering the country and give away the portions which happen to be left over to our terribly brotherly neighbor country. We do not need to know politicians by sight, really. If someone is interested in this, let them fill high-society news pages and inform grateful citizens about who seduced whose wife, or sniff out who bought what. We are doing our share and they must do theirs. We do not demand that politicians be architects, doctors, professors, miners, or programmers. We do not force them to grow crops, write books, cast iron, or sweep the streets. We have elected them and are maintaining them. Let them do us a favor and get down to work.
But no, they are bargaining, negotiating, signing pacts, agreements, and memorandums only to renegotiate, sign new and altogether different memorandums, agreements, and pacts. They promise us that there will be no more agreements, pacts, and memorandums. They appoint elections, carry out reelections, and threaten with more reelections.
The elections and reelections are over and the next day it is the same old story.
After 1991 we believed that the country finally moved from a standstill and headed for the future. But no, it sank in the quicksand of the past. After 2004 we again believed that the country is taxing out to the runway and will soon take off. But in 2006 we still cannot see through the windshield covered with the political bats of the past. We got off the ground but do we have zero visibility again? In 2007, where is the pilot who has the courage to say: we are entering a turbulent area; please fasten up the belts? But we will land-in Europe.
After all, we do not even know whether there is a pilot in the cockpit of our national plane.
In January 1969 at the central square in Prague a 20-year-old philosophy student Jan Palach committed self-immolation in protest against Soviet occupation of his country. He belonged to the group of 20-year-old volunteers. “Because I was privileged to draw the first number, I have the right to be the first human torch,” he wrote in his farewell letter. Under the communist regime the young people fought for their right to be a human torch, not to mention their right to live and learn. Palach stays with us as a dazzling memory. That is why 20-year-old Czechs, citizens of free Europe, will never again need to burn themselves. They can afford to simply live.
Our Palachs continue to sink into oblivion.
But someone is returning, and these are post-communist rag dolls. They are coming back as they pluck their goatees and shaking the sparse stands of hair hanging down from their bald skulls. For the umpteenth time they are aiming to model the current situation following their miserable concepts and insatiable cravings. Once again they are aiming to rewrite Ukraine’s history and, along with it, our future.
They want to rewrite the future bequeathing it to themselves.
They are coming back because no one made them pay a price for the crimes they committed.
They are coming back because, being accustomed to servitude, our society has no self-respect.
They are coming back because entire generations were taught that human lives are worthless, both those which are already in the past and those which are still in the future.
They are coming back because we let them come back-some because of the illusions they entertained, some through indifference, and some spurred by vested interests. But this is not important. Future will tell. What is important today is that they managed to come back.
In view of this, what shall nascent youth do in Ukraine today?
There is no war, famine, or devastation, but young people enter their adult life with the following imperative in the minds: save the language, culture, and memory for the future. Fight and resist.
Young people in the West grow on the imperative commanding them to learn, care for their health and all-round development, respect the culture of social relationships, and pass these precepts to their children.
As far as the preservation of language, culture, and memory, their states have taken care of that. Moreover, there are EU institutions charged with defending these national and universal world values.
Brussels is now working to create the common space, which is the common educational environment for civilized countries. In the context of the Socrates-Erasmus exchange program the EU is working on a bill to introduce a mandatory requirement for students in all European universities to complete one year of their studies in a different country. Socrates-Erasmus is an intellectual paradigm of the European culture which goes back to the words of Socrates: “I only know that I know nothing.” In the 16th century the main intellectual achievement of our northern neighbor was to proclaim Moscow the “Third Rome” (The first Rome left somewhat greater cultural heritage to the human race while the second one turned from Constantinople into Stambul.) It was at the beginning of this same century that Desiderius Erasmus was already defending an individual’s right to independent thinking, freedom of conscience, and cognition.
It is a known fact that Soviet students were sent to dig up frozen potatoes in frosty fields or sort cabbage in vegetable depot (accidentally, this is where some of our politicians fare from). Europe simply makes its young people go from London to Athens, from Rome to Stockholm, and from Madrid to Berlin. Knowledge of two European languages is mandatory (Polish, Czech, Slovenian, and Bulgarian are also among them now). The EU makes it obligatory to absorb other cultures because the future of humankind is not in vacuum bombs but in knowledge, qualifications, and professionalism.
Ukrainian students, even if they find their way to European universities, have to cover other distances: not from the Sorbonne to Oxford but from cash registers in supermarkets and floors in bars which they have to mop to lecture halls (provided they have enough time and strength).
In their home country they are forced to continue to fight for their right to speak the language of their forefathers and wear “Speak Ukrainian” headbands. Involuntarily, they have to listen to muddy streams of consciousness from the defenders of the Russian language who themselves make five mistakes in three Russian words, no matter whether they are Eurasian vandals of the Hoverla mountain or prime-ministers occupying purple velvet chairs.
The ghost of Noah’s arc is here again saying: save that which can still be saved and rescue it from the world flood of lies which is inundating Ukraine.
We have to save it for the future, for those who will come tomorrow.
But don’t we need to live today?
For decades, and even centuries, this is the only heritage our young people have received-the heritage of duty. They were offered no heritage of rights.
Children, teenagers, and young people are ship’s boys in Noah’s arc.
How much longer?
Then again the politicians who are now tormenting Ukrainian society will be carried out from their palaces with their bums glued to their seats and, as an award for their faithful service, will peacefully live to the end of their days somewhere in Russia, and not even in villages in the Moscow area. They will not be permitted to come to power again. No, they will be walking their dogs at cozy dachas near Kyiv or in the Crimea-or in the Alps if they have to flee from the Ukrainian law-enforcement agencies which are roused from their slumber from time to time only to go back to sleep again. And history will again start a full circle.
Besides Noah’s sons, Noah himself was in his arc.
In 2004 our society put patriarchs-democratic politicians-in Noah’s arc and said: sail and steer Ukraine out of this flood of lies.
According to the Bible, God made a covenant with Noah that humankind would be saved if he did God’s will. In other words, if he honestly fulfilled the obligation he took upon himself, humankind which stands condemned for its sins would be raised to life.
But no, not so fast. In Soviet schools neither history, nor the Bible were taught. The Bible says: in Noah’s arc even the serpent did not bite Noah’s sons because both the serpent and his sons needed to survive the great flood and get to the shore. Noah had to plant a vine, which symbolizes the revival of humankind, and his sons had to start the renewed human race.
Today Noah’s arc contains, so far, only children. Will a patriarch come who will be willing to step aboard the arc to steer it through the Great Flood?
Over the last several years Ukraine has experienced quite a few vertical and horizontal divisions. One of these dramatic partitions is between young people brainwashed by the same reutilized demagoguery about the mythical friendship with Russia, which is an equally mythical country, and youngsters who, irrespective of their native language, have found the strength to develop an independent point of view and their own response to the challenges of modern world. Just think of the orange Maidan in 2004 and the white-and-blue Maidan in 2007: young people who participated in the former fought for freedom and Europe, rather than individuals, whereas participants of the latter wrapped the bands with the word Yanukovych around their heads like bandages that cover the absence of faces. In short, the dividing line went between the young people who are again destined to become cannon fodder for the system and youngsters who will again resist. They will resist not only for the sake of defending the entire nation’s right to self-determination, but also in the name of defending their own personal right to self-determination. Europe has come sufficiently close to Ukraine (rather than Ukraine to Europe!) for us to learn from European experience that a nation’s self-determination begins with individual self-determination. In other words, it all begins with how they see their role in the world-whether it is the role of expendable material or that of the protagonist.
Only post-Soviet oligarchs think that the world is divided into haves and have-nots. In real fact, modern world is split into those who possess knowledge and those who lack it. Whether any country succeeds or fails depends on the ratio between people in these two categories.
The world is aware of each country through its achievements or excellence in something. The U.S. and Britain are known above all for their universities. For many years now Harvard University has ranked first, followed by Oxford and Cambridge. Switzerland is famous for its watches and chocolate, Italy for its arts, fashion, and cuisine, Germany for its science and technology, and the Czech Republic for its Bohemian glass.
What are our brotherly Slavic nations famous for? For mafia. The Russian mafia became the world leader. Russians are also known for natural gas, of course. What a great scientific, cultural, and technical achievement.
Perhaps there are unique achievements. For example, in 2006 one Belarusian drank five bottles of vodka and did not die despite the fact that a comatose condition and death ensue from even half the amount. There was an attempt to enter it into the Guinness Book of Records, but the doctor who examined the man said that the record was of doubtable value because cases like this are not unique.
The world is aware of Ukraine because of its cheap labor. One European politician made an indiscreet comment that Europe has quotas for Ukrainians as labor force. For what other force can they set quotas when it comes to Ukrainians?
Is Ukrainian education competitive? Does it give our young generation the requisite tools for mastering up-to-date work methods and studying the world? Can the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, Lviv and Ostroh Universities, and a few others replace the failed system?
The United States attracted all the brainpower, especially in computer science, because from the very beginning it followed a strategy of importing intellectual forces. After it sucked up young people from Eastern Europe, it switched its attention to young professionals from India. Therefore, the question whether the problem is with rapacious America which lured these young people and is now paying them $5.000-6,000 per month plus all extras and financial support? Or is the problem with the stupid and evil political and economic system which failed to offer them opportunities for professional growth and normal modern welfare in their home country?
Personally, I do not care for the paranoia typical of post-totalitarian societies when they see ghosts behind any fact. But in general a question arises:
Isn’t there a quota for the number of young people that can be driven to emigrate from Ukraine?
This suspicion will arise if you watch closely the actions of the government which is now building “Europe inside Ukraine” with so much gusto. Because the more talented young people emigrate, the easier it will be to destroy the country. Look, what remains? After the post-Soviet khan, there is not much left to be stolen. The tariff policy will tire the elderly in the west and east of Ukraine. How much more new area will be freed due to the concentrated effort of this post-communist and neocapitalist oligarchy wearing Georgian bands from tsarist Russia.
The black masses that will be left over will divide into two parts. One part will be assigned to do the stupefying work which undermines physical and psychic health — for example, in Donbass mines. The other part will be cheap labor in the mafia-governed household (still) called Ukraine. The common space will emerge on its own, woven together from the infinite boredom and vulgarity both of which Gogol observed in the life of Russia. After work, miners in Donetsk and Lviv will lie around equally soaked to the accompaniment of the new lullaby of the post-Soviet lethargic common space: “Russia, Moscow, and Arbat are behind us.” Then this social residue will vote and even kiss any hand that beats it.
Europe will soon introduce its blue card system modeled on the American green card. This scheme will work for the benefit of professionals from outside the EU and simplify visa procedures for them. Young professionals will try to leave Ukraine-some universities in Donetsk already switched to English as the language of instruction. We will be left with criminal elements whom Russia will unleash from time to time to vandalize the Hoverla or some other place — fortunately, God gave us a large territory.
The young people who will fail to emigrate will experience the same lot as befell the ensemble “Children of Ukraine.” The ensemble was eager to participate in a 10-day summer international dance competition in Normandy, France. They practiced six hours a day for six months. In early July 2007 the French consulate denied them visas without any explanation.
The explanation was evident in the country’s status: through an explosion of protest, the pro-European part of our society did its utmost to earn respect for Ukraine in the world, while our politicians did everything they could to make our country lose respect worldwide.
Therefore, the children began dancing in front of the French consulate to get their visas. When the diplomats’ nerves gave way, they were finally issued French visas.
This is not the first case like this, and evidently not the last one. A Kharkiv-based children’s choir sang songs in front of the German consulate. What’s next? Is it possible that students will soon have to write their diploma papers and hold conferences in front of European consulates? Young biologists will set up their microscopes, young astronomers their telescopes, and young painters their works?
Dancing children in front of a Western country’s diplomatic mission epitomizes the problem. It is not natural for children to have to fight — on their own and unaided — for their right when this is the duty of the state to ensure that they have this right. It is not about the right to a 10-day trip. Rather, we are talking about the right to be free people in Europe and the entire world. The young people of this country have the historical right to be present in Europe. EU’s attitude to Ukraine today is what our political class earned for many years of its work against its own state. If post-Soviet politicians perceive the direction toward Russia as a way home, let them follow this uncertain track. As they say: “a suitcase — train station — Russia.” In Russia all these individuals will be persona grata because they successfully completed their task to destroy Ukraine. Young people were not born to find themselves in a cage again. Meanwhile, the elderly supervisors of the cage go for vacation to Monte Carlo, Nice, and Sardinia, rather than to Belarus, Transdniestria, Abkhazia, or Turkmenistan.
As of today, this question does not have an answer. Is there reason to believe that despite the aroused reptiles of the past, a new generation is forming which consists of politicians and professionals who have a real, rather than merely declared, European mindset. Do we have grounds to hope that they are aware of these problems and hence will draw a new map for the course to be followed by Noah’s arc?
Or will years pass again and their children will ask the same question: how much longer? Will the limit of their wishes be, again, a green card or a blue card? A passport of flight, rather than citizenship?
Will Ukraine be once again-and probably forever-stolen from Europe? And Europe from Ukraine?
In 2001 the film Der Tunnel by the German director Roland Suzo Richter was screened. It is about the so-called Tunnel of 29, one of the numerous tunnels people dug out under the Berlin wall to escape to western Berlin. In 1962, 29 people escaped through this tunnel. The protagonists of the protest were, of course, young people and students. Some were escaping because they wanted to study, while others were going to their loved ones on the other side of the Wall. But all of them were fleeing from captivity and to freedom. One of the last scenes is very interesting: the tunnel was discovered and at the exit on the eastern side armed Stasi officers and old party functionaries with chalk-white faces are waiting for the young people to appear. The viewers are already expecting that they will be shot.
But someone says: “Don’t be afraid!”
And the young people go their way. Kalashnikovs are powerless. Only the faces of party functionaries become even whiter.
Do not be afraid. This is the only way to step over the threshold of freedom.
This is why there are many concrete recipes. But at the end of the day, the trick is not in this or that university reform or the degree of adaptation to the Bologna process. It all boils down to the will to be. We need to be protagonists in the intellectual progress, rather than one-time electorate. Only then will our young people have no need to beg for Western visas. Only then will this humiliating wall between us and them disappear because democracy is not euro or dollar.
It is the freedom of culture.
It is also the culture of freedom.
One would like to believe that a generation is coming for which and about which Sviatoslav Vakarchuk sang at the orange Maidan:
“I will not give up without a fight.”
New generations do not want to sink into oblivion.
And we will not let them be sent there.
