Many people are trying to compare Maidan and Triumphal Square and find out why we were not able to do this, and if they will be able to.
I have got several observations on this matter.
Ukraine had a lot of freedom, but not enough journalism. Conversely, Russia lacked freedom, but there is journalism in Russia. And this difference has become quite evident today.
First of all, the path from rebellion to a modern transformation runs via the quality of social discussion. It has to happen within the press (I mean mass media), which has to be unflagging in keeping high standards, and able to do its thing honestly: not let the politics rot to the core, and the society, degrade. It takes the kind of press which knows what quality is. And this means having views, principles, and moral values.
It is directly connected with the newspaper’s politics. And by the way, we have been here for 15 years already. As our readers say, we are a newspaper that is not afraid of its archives, and is not afraid to grant free access to them (www.day.kiev.ua).
Of course, this is a big question, who will get the upper hand in the post-Putin Russia (in case it really does happen). Certainly, we would like these people to be the ones that are willing to gather at the “roundtable.” But those smart and active people, who over the recent years have been “bred” in the streets and squares of Moscow and dozens of other cities, are to a considerable extent the result of the efforts by Novaya Gazeta, Kommersant publishing house, Ekho Moskvy, gazeta.ru, grani.ru, and ej.ru. And by people like Leonid Parfenov, who have a distinct standpoint and taste. Taste is quite significant. As one great dissident used to say, “The government and I have a divergence in tastes.”
After all, the credit for the current civil mobility in Russia can be given to desperate fights for NTV, even though they were lost. Everything builds up. That is how the energy of the lost presidential election in Ukraine in 1999 filled the “Ukraine without Kuchma” action, which later spilled over into Maidan in 2004. Another question is, how this energy was disposed of. But everything is still in the future.
So much has broken up over the recent decade in Russia. There are some things that our high-principled colleagues failed to defend, but they did not stop talking about the values. They worked for different media, but they united on common platforms for effective talks. That is why they managed to draw worldwide response after the assassination of lawyer Magnitsky. That is why they did not forget Anna Politkovskaya and caused great progress in the investigation of her assassination. There are a lot of things we can learn from Russia from this perspective.
Before our very eyes, first the Gongadze case and then the Kuchma case turn into a peculiar “demarcation line” between the Ukrainian journalism of the Past and the Ukrainian journalism of the Future. Even not so long ago politicians, intellectuals, journalists of principle were nowhere to be found. They were enough to survive, but not enough to live.
This areal of adherence to principles will increase only when the press learns to perform its catalyst role. As Serhii Hrabovsky, this year’s laureate of the James Mace Civic Stand Prize, says, “Civic stand means calling a spade a spade.” Does it sound simple? Go ahead and try it!
We had a poll on our website about a week ago: what can help carry out positive transformations in Ukraine? Is it the pressure from the West? Or our inner sources? Another rehaul or revolutionary changes in Russia? Our readers’ votes spread in a symptomatic way. Of course, all the factors are important, but there should be a driving force. And what else could it be but journalism?
It must be admitted that though the voice of Ukrainian journalism is still weak, when it comes to critical issues, it is breaking through. It is happening due to UNIAN, Telekrytyka, Ukrainska Pravda, Maidan, and TVi. There is motion in the regions, new names are appearing on TV and in civic organizations. This is the way from uniting on an informal party level to a community on the level of shared philosophy and ideological platforms.
However, being a person of principle has until recently been considered bad manners in certain circles in Ukraine. Don’t discuss serious matters, don’t preoccupy yourself with problems, don’t worry, be happy, “hakuna matata,” just take it easy.
But the fashion is changing. New trends are appearing. At least in Russia, where Ksenia Sobchak (the daughter of that very Sobchak who was Putin’s boss) and high-society news reporter Bozhena Rynska went out into the Triumphal Square. By the way, her story about Russia’s minister of internal affairs throwing money down the drain at parties in Monaco, which she told at the police department when she was detained, probably sounded way too convincing. “Decembrism” is in the air.
We are often urged to unite, but as one theorist once said, we need to divide before we unite. We need a “demarcation line.” We need something like the Biological and Toxin Weapon Convention. In other words, we need to stop producing and distributing the “infection.” We need to gain each other’s trust, or, as Oxana Pachliowska puts it, we need to create a space of “ethical security.”
Life gives us enough tests on our way. And if a couple of reasons for self-respect emerge in the journalist environment, they will give a new chance for the reputation of our profession, and for our country in Europe in general.
In a word, there is plenty of work to do.
