It is debatable whether the twentieth century really began in 1897 (when Sir Joseph John Thomson discovered the electron, ushering in the era of a new science and technology) or in 1914 (when Gavrilo Princip touched off World War I by shooting Archduke Ferdinand). But the twenty-first century began on September 11, 2001, when the most advanced technological achievements and unsolved economic and political problems became tied in a Gordian knot. Since then, the world stage has been dominated by such actors as the US and Russia, with the NATO countries, Israel, and the Asian states bordering on Afghanistan playing the most important supporting roles. Ukraine is not on this list, which in itself causes no concern, for neither does this list include, say, Switzerland or Australia. The difference is that, while they have political savings to live off, we do not. Yet, the defeat of the Taliban signals transition from the attack to a game of position, bringing the original geopolitical factors back to the fore.
RUSSIA: “BACK FROM THE DEAD”
What prompted me to recall the word back with special emphasis is the pop tune, “Putin and Stalingrad are Behind Us” now frequently played in Kyiv’s coffeehouses and eateries. As a matter of fact, this ditty is not so primitive as it may seem but is even very talented, for the kitsch immediately feels and records plebeian sentiments no worse than does the new/old anthem of our northern neighbor. A plant in the Ural Mountains is already casting iron busts of Vladimir Putin... A Civic Forum held in Russia shows that the state leadership supposedly pines for democracy, while the formalistic and fruitless idea of this function only confirms its Soviet-style propagandistic nature.
What matters for Ukraine is the position of not only the Kremlin power elite but also the Russian intelligentsia which, unfortunately, is still trying to bring a corpse back to life. Pardon this writer for a lengthy quotation, but it is a condensed version of ideological necrophilia, “There is some secret in why Russia, only yesterday the world’s second power, is irreversible slipping toward the fourth world. Any resistance to the hegemonic plans of the US, as well as plans to de-industrialize and disarm our country, can only emerge on the basis of a powerful nationalist reaction. But post-Soviet Russia has managed to beget neither a nationalist ideology nor a notable national movement. The point is in the great Russian cultural tradition, which has never been narrowly nationalistic. Both Russian literature and Russian politics have worked, in their own way, on global and common human projects, for the Russian type of intellect could never opt for anything less. Russia, the epicenter of destructive globalism, cannot survive without opening up new prospects. As the second world which tried to challenge the first in terms of force and success, it suffered a defeat. Russia can only revive as a world that rejects the false criteria and values of the first one” (A. Panarin, Literaturnaya gazeta, November 28, 2001).
Thus we see yet another soliloquy about the unique qualities of the “Russian cultural tradition,” its related “global and common human projects,” call for a “new morality,” and rejection of “the false criteria and values” of today’s world. Russian intellectuals, no matter whether they wore traditional bast boots or preferred patent-leather shoes, were always suspicious of things liberal and bourgeois. Mr. Panarin need not have written his article: suffice it to quote at random Dostoyevsky, Struve, or Solzhenitsyn. But the truth is that there is no political or intellectual freedom without economic freedom (i.e., property). Building a civil society derives from building a capitalist economy, and the “Russian type of intellect” alters this axiom no more than it does universal gravitation.
It looks like Mr. Putin is today the greatest advocate of the West, the best friend of the US, and the best enemy of the terrorists. But the state he is building resembles Juan Peron’s Argentina — with its powerful bureaucracy, controlled media, one real and a few decorative parties, puppet trade unions and semi-governmental foundations, whose managers are making money hand over fist. The US has always turned a blind eye to the antidemocratic antics of “its sons of bitches.” Mr. Putin can count on overseas support if he successfully teaches his generals (or kicks them out in the wake of the admirals) not to whip out a pistol on hearing the word, NATO, while the intelligentsia will, as always, forgo freedom for the myths of spirituality and historical mission. Predicting that Ukraine will enjoy a semi-colonial status with respect to Russia, as does Mexico with respect to the US, Volodymyr Marchenko (Den, November 30, 2001, not translated in The Day) idealizes the situation, for in reality we stand a chance to be “Mexico with respect to Argentina.”
THE US: GLOBALISM AS NON-PROLETARIAN INTERNATIONALISM
Setting themselves against the West, the “Byzantines” are slipping to a logical postulate the essence of which was wittily described by sociologist Yevhen Holovakha, “Westernization is transition from a civilization of clean hearts to a civilization of clean toilets.” If the Americans, despite their material wealth, are “obtuse and soulless,” then we would rather do our business “behind a bush.” This is a classic example of the one-dimensional interpretation of a complex problem! One month of staying in America was not enough for me to fall in love with the country, but I began to understand those who love it. Here are the two observations that struck me the most. In Los Angeles, I saw a person with no arms or legs, just a head and torso, riding a special motorcycle on his own without any assistance down Sunset Boulevard. I don’t know how exactly he steers this bike (something electronic), but I do know that he got it for free. In Philadelphia there was a flea market. Going to take a snapshot, I ran the camera lens down the face of a person who appeared homeless. He immediately rushed up to me, “My face is my face, so either give me the film or I’ll call the cops!” That’s that: he’s not a senator, a champion, or a screen heartthrob, but an American! I finally broke away from him, for I really did not want to encroach upon his privacy.
The Americans have established a state in which one can live very long and comfortably. But one always lacks the time to live, for he/she has to work hard in order to live comfortably. This is the highest stage of capitalism. In 1917 the wise Lenin called this stage imperialism and prophesied its early demise under the impact of socialist revolutions. A few years later, the wise Hitler came to the same conclusions, with the exception that imperialism is “Jewish capitalism,” while socialism should be national (Nazi), not international. The Bolsheviks and Nazis put an ugly masque on the face of the twentieth century, but the last quarter of the latter nurtured a new phenomenon, globalism, which will perhaps make it possible to atone for the crimes of the previous hundred years. Does the world need globalization? It does, for such worldwide problems as ecology, demography, shortage of fresh water, depleted energy reserves, AIDS, and tuberculosis cannot be solved under conditions of isolationism. Does the real strategy of globalization (i.e., free exchange of goods, capital, and labor) serve the noble purpose so much talked about by its ideologists? This is indeed an interesting question. If you, dear reader, smoke cigarettes you have bought in Ukraine, you can see some packs reading “For use outside the USA only.” Therefore, to paraphrase a Ukrainian saying, globalization for all, tobacco for the select. As we all know, what’s good for General Motors is good for America. Should the prosperity of this corporation also be the sign of global progress? Although the US establishment thinks so, it still has opponents even in its own ranks. One of the adepts of a new world order (NWO), Henry Kissinger, has put it bluntly that the NWO has never been based on the many historical systems that would fit in with global democratic thinking and rapid development of modern technologies.
The NWO, he writes, is being built by officials who represent different cultures; they run such complex bureaucratic systems that “more often than not, these statesmen consume their energy to set in motion the administrative machine rather than to achieve specific objectives;” they have risen to the top thanks to qualities that are not always needed for administration and “are still less applicable for the creation of a world order” (Diplomacy, New York, 1994). Joel Skousen, editor of World Affairs Brief, a specialized publication on geopolitics, goes even further, saying that recent US governments have been the puppets of major monopolies and companies that look on the NWO as an instrument for establishing a worldwide government in which the US will reign supreme. Moreover, Skousen thinks, both Bill Clinton and George Bush regard domestic problems as secondary. While other participants in the global project are afraid that the NWO will harm them, the US has already fallen victim to it. Ample proof of this is the deep-rooted economic recession which the September 11 events merely hastened.
George Bush’s announcement of US unilateral withdrawal from the ABM Treaty runs counter, in a way, to Skousen’s conclusions. As has often happened before, new military hardware designs can lay the groundwork for a new technological breakthrough and growth of economic activity. Incurring huge losses in the wake of terrorist attacks, conducting military operations in Afghanistan, and planning tremendous expenditures for an ABM system, the US is simultaneously reducing, not increasing, taxes. This shows the wide safety margin making it possible for Americans to calmly face the future.
UKRAINE: ARIA BEHIND THE SCENES
Ukraine rang in last year and the new millennium in the atmosphere of tapegate. The visit of John Paul II to a certain degree bolstered our image in the eyes of the world community. But then a missile hit the wrong target, the generals muttered what they could, and the world turned its back on us again. The nine-hour visit of Chancellor Schroeder remained unnoticed at all. (Bohdan Osadchuk, The Day, December 18, 2001). In sum, what we have got this year to our credit is a good grain harvest, the new Land Code, a summer parade in Kyiv, and a winter concert in Moscow (pregnant with such nostalgia for the Days of Culture of Ukrainian SSR). “Twelve presidents on the deadman’s jubilee,” was how Moscow’s Isvestiya called the ceremonial summit of CIS leaders preceding the concert. However, Ukrainian-Russian bilateral relations unexpectedly flourished in December: the two countries proclaimed 2002 as the Year of Ukraine in Russia and 2003 as the Year of Russia in Ukraine, while Russia held the All-Russian Congress of Ethnic Ukrainians. We will know a year later what this outburst of emotions will lead to. The main thing is that December 30, 2002, should not be celebrated as the eightieth anniversary of the USSR, and “ethnic Ukrainians” should not become a national minority in their own state some time later. The problem of Kyiv between East and West has existed so long that our politicians have managed to fashion a political compass over a weather vane that now points to Moscow. This can only be a welcome prospect if it is the question of economic cooperation (oil and gas, finishing the constructing the Rivne and Khmelnytsky nuclear power plants, export of Ukrainian pipes and or farming produce). However, political friendship with Russia is a very risky thing. First, turn to history: all the agreements (from once upon a time) signed between Kyiv and Moscow have always been broken by the latter. Secondly, the absence of political savings of its own forces Ukraine to be the hostage of expediency. The situation that has arisen in the wake of the formation of the anti-terrorist coalition allows Russia to present us something from the banquet table and thus obtain additional trumps in its game with the West. This will be followed by an unavoidable “reversion,” when the things given will be declared to have been stolen, and we will have (not for the first time) to dry our tears with our yellow and blue flag. The third reason why a political alliance with Russia is dangerous is the contempt which the Russian intelligentsia feels for all things Ukrainian that have not yet become pseudo-Ukrainian. There are oceans of examples: consider but a few. Do you recall, ladies and gentlemen, the only last name ending in “-enko” in Dostoyevsky’s works? It is “Ferdyshchenko” (Pferd means horse in German). Incidentally, Dostoyevsky himself was an “ethnic Ukrainian,” since his grandfather had been a priest in Volyn. And do you know the names of the characters of a new fairy tale by Eduard Uspensky (the one who created Cheburashka)? Here they are: Kolobok (a positive character) and Debilenko (obviously something else, since in Russian debil means imbecile). To my mind, Debilin would sound just as good in Russian, but it is up to the author, after all. If you conduct an opinion poll, you will see that many people in Ukraine will consider Debilenko quite a witty invention, and the worst thing is that the authorities have made a successful attempt to make every Ukrainian an imbecile, depriving him/her of the Ukrainian language, books, films, and culture in general. Although globalization in its current, “American,” version does have its drawbacks, such colonial vulgarianization can only be seen as giving up voluntarily. Even the affluent European countries and Japan are aware that the preservation of their linguistic and cultural identity along with the inviolability of their landscape and environment are the only things that can guarantee their not becoming a province of the American financial empire in our globalized world. Yet, we are facing a greater threat of becoming an appendage to Russia for agriculture and raw materials, which aggravates rather than mollifies the problems of national identification. I do not share Panarin’s hysterical nationalism, if not chauvinism, based on the idea that we are better than everyone else. A normal slogan of a normal nationalist, which I also consider myself to be, would sound more like, “We are no worse than we are.” We must be no worse than the best representatives of our state, culture, and science. Rising to their level means joining Europe (or, if you like, joining Europe to us).
Russian political journalist A.Kolesnikov has thus characterized his country’s authorities, “Entangled in Byzantine intrigues, awkward, corrupted, devoid of an ideology and any clear-cut political orientation of their own, grossly opportunistic, and sunken in lies” (Izvestiya, December 11, 2001). It should be finally added that we could also do with a fair share of self-criticism.
