We are intently watching the changes happening in the Russian society. What influences their dynamics and how might it tell on Ukraine?
The teachers of the Moscow school No. 1567 called upon their graduates to go to the meeting on December 24. The experts emphasize that the Russian society has changed a lot over the last weeks: the people have become more socially active. It should be noted that Ukraine has gone through it some time ago. The question is what we need to set a healthy atmosphere in the society when the teachers openly address their students and the moral authorities’ voices are easily heard? Why do the post-Soviet societies quickly lose this potential after having activated the horizontal links with the help of some catalysts? Can the changes in Russia stir up the Ukrainian society and do the Ukrainians have enough inner resources for changes? These are the questions we addressed to our experts.
COMMENTARIES
“YOU WILL LOSE IF YOU RESPECT THE RULES”
Mykhailo MINAKOV, Doctor of Philosophy, associate professor of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, president of the Foundation for Good Politics:
“In the society where the system of moral values is turned upside down people who invest a lot of money and time in their education will get back less then they invest. If you respect the rules you will lose the social, economic, and political competition. It does not concern the country, rather the social organization. Universities and schools are unlikely to be the centers of social relations. The corruption in the education destroys educators’ self-respect and other people’s respect towards them. If we analyze public opinion polls we will see two institutes enjoying the respect of most Ukrainians: the army and the church. People do not have to think in both institutes. They enjoyed their authority back in the pre-modern time. The fact that Ukraine has come back to them is a tragedy and this situation is difficult to be improved. Now in Ukraine symbolic diplomas, doctors, candidates and masters degrees are popular rather than high-quality education. We do not produce anything that is why we do not need any hi-tech specialists; we do not provide any educational services so we do not expect the professors to deliver high-quality lectures and not to be plagiarists. The society does not need the high-quality education. I think it is partially the result of the injury we sustained in the Soviet Union because of the ideologized higher education. There was a period in the early 1990s when the politics even dreamt about closing down the departments of philosophy since they could resume the thinking based on the Soviet ideology, for example, against the private property.
“As for Russia, there, just like in the Asian and African countries, the alternative media such as blogs and social networks worked. There just like in Ukraine the traditional media hardly perform their functions and people created a powerful mechanism of the information transmission through the social networks. However, it is important that in Russia there are those who have something to say and those who will listen. In Ukraine we hardly have any influential bloggers (in Russia they first wrote about social and cultural issues, gained the large social capital, and now speak about politics). In Russia the electoral situation, absence of the promised and expected changes, imitation of the reforms and preservation of the regime in the interest of the large capital had to result in the uprising. The question is whether the regime will change. It is difficult to say. It is clear that the elected parliament will be illegal and non-authoritative. It means that the one who will win in the presidential elections will have yet more possibilities to be a dictator. The Russian revolutionary situation has the electoral character. There is a hope for changes only during the elections. That is why it is so important to honestly calculate the votes. Practically, Russia is in the situation Ukraine was in back in 2004.
“The Ukrainians are very isolated, they are not integrated either in Russia or in Europe, so the changes around Ukraine have hardly any influence on the situation within the country. This influence might concern ten politicians maximum. So, as for changes, we can only speak about the ones going from inside. I am not sure if we have a resource for these inner changes. Equally, I cannot see any reasons to expect the creation of powerful universities or scientific centers that could initiate these changes. We need either the market that would require the high-quality education to start working or something unexpected to happen in the society.”
LOCAL ACTIONS ARE THE WAY TO “LET OFF STEAM” OF THE PUBLIC PROTESTS
Andrii ZOTKIN, candidate of Sociology, senior scientist of the Institute of Sociology at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine:
“Horizontal links have been destroyed in Ukraine. They are not efficient enough to consolidate the society. Our society is atomized, broken into certain groups and localized. It is related to the fact that the transformation processes in the country have created new conditions in which people have lost the possibility to live their lives to the full not only working but having time for the family, leisure, sports, and hobbies. By the way, we are losing the professional groups membership. For example, the miners of the Lviv region do not associate themselves with the miners’ professional community of the Luhansk region. Our trade unions formally exist but they do not perform their functions as for the protection of the rights and interests of certain social and professional groups. Since they do not perform their functions, the workers are focused on the individual strategies needed to stay at their working places. It concerns not only the people who work physically but the office proletariat as well. That is why the professional horizontal links are uncertain.
“The social links are more or less strong on the family level and in the closest environment. People unite in the situations they need it to protect their interests on the level of housing communities to resist the illegal buildings, etc. However, these unions appear when something is needed and quickly disappear. We do not have the practice of long-term unions.
“The local actions that have been lately held in different places and for different reasons are nothing but ‘letting off steam’ of the public protests. These groups are not united. They do not have any common interests, strategy, tactics, and clearly formulated requirements from the state. That is why all those processes are local: in front of a courthouse or a city hall.
“I guess the Ukrainians do not lack inner resources to resolve their own problems without any outer stimulants. We have a lot of educated people despite the fact that we are losing the quality of education. Certainly, the society has to crystallize the force that will organize and direct this potential. It is the question of time. Sooner or later this force will appear in the form of trade unions, public unions or political parties that will cooperate with the unions of journalists, analysts, scientists, and the general public. It will create the conditions for making the civic society. We should reject the idea that the civic society will appear owing to the state or some outer influence. The public society has to grow from inside.”
