“Sign of hope” for Ukraine

A month ago Ukrai­nian president Viktor Yanu­ko­vych saw a “sign of hope” in the extra­ordi­nary events of the year in the Arab world and declared it during the traditional an­nual meeting with the heads of foreign embassies on De­cem­ber 16: “It is the symbol of faith in liberty, demo­cracy and justi­ce that will always be uni­ver­sal values.” The Sec­re­ta­ry-General of the UN Ban Ki-moon has recent­ly echoed Yanu­kovych and sent the gree­­t­ings to the Tu­nisian people on the occasion of the known Jasmine revo­lu­tion reading that “one year ago, the world was inspired by the determination of the people of Tunisia to demand demo­cracy, freedom, and dignity.”

Certainly, nobody has a kind word to say about the deposed president Ben Ali though, ironically, the Jasmine revolution belongs to him. In 1989 they called so the bloodless coup organized by him when he stripped of power the founder of the republic Habib Bourguiba who became senile and explained his senseless managerial decisions by beating the ministers on their backs with a cane. Ben Ali’s declaration read on the radio then is still topical: he promised plura­lism, free media, development of the public society, transparent and honest rule, fight against corruption and national wealth pilfering and finishing with favo­ritism in the government. The West applauded Ben Ali considering him an “Arab Gorbachev” who had introduced the words “perestroika,” “glasnost,” and “uskorenie” that need no translation.

It is interesting that everything looked absolutely appropriate. However, Ben Ali’s democracy and plura­lism were absolutely controlled: it is quite a typical example of quasi-democracy when the nominative and illustrative democratic institutes serve as a background for the authoritarian regime.

Europe respected and valued Tunisia for the coope­ra­tion in fighting the illegal migration from Africa, political stability and the complete support of the European capital.

All the economic indicators looked perfect. According to the IMF, the GDP growth in 2010 was 3.7 percent. According to the official statistics, two thirds of families lived in private hou­ses and every fifth inhabitant had a car. The same IMF report of 2010 praised Tu­ni­sia for having easily gone through the global economic crisis, wise macroeconomic policy and successful structure reforms. So, the Prime Minister Mykola Aza­rov should not publicly boast of the statistics and interpret the number of satellite dishes and used cars bought by the Ukrainians over the year as the evidence of realization of the slogan “improvement of life today.”

Viktor Yanukovych pro­bably does not know the reasons of the popular uprisings in Tunisia: during his long-term rule Ben Ali has returned to the starting point. His family and friends have grabbed all the national wealth, privatized the eco­no­my and politics, and even started to divide the whole territories between them. Not only the ruling top but the whole society got corrupt: people had to give bribes to become workers in a factory. Nearly half of the young people was just unne­cessary in their country and could not get any job. For the Arabs it is a real catastrophe: if one does not have a job this person cannot start a family since s/he does not have the money to properly maintain it…

Otherwise, our president would not have just seen the “sign of hope” but would have demonstrated in practice, as his predecessor who is taking his time to leave the state residence promis­ed, his own belief that the justice exists: he could have given his private helicopter for the needs of the air me­di­cal service and cut the expenses for his own maintenance and lose his dubious leadership in Europe or even, I fear to think, give his mansion in Mezhyhiria to orphans… I would have been considered not as his perso­nal conversion to Tolstoyism but as that “sign of hope” and encouragement for the shaped Family. And then, probably, the oligarchs would suggest imposing on them the “Robin Good’s tax” formulated by the Nobel Prize laureate Joseph Stiglitz: the tax of 60 or even 80 percent does not look so heavy in the prospect of re-privatization of the grabbed national resources. The first and unquestionable lesson of the Arab Spring is the national revolt against the neoliberal economic model. Now it was only an uprising since the revolution that means the dramatic, deep and quality change of the society has not happened yet. However, all the preconditions for it are still topical for exemplary Tunisia: the abovementioned reasons that made people go out in the streets in 2010 have preserved and even aggravated. The new parliament and the new president are cold comfort.

So, Mykola Azarov should not have assured Larry King with so much self-confidence that “Ukraine has exhausted its revolution limit.” The expectations of the Ukrainians who stood in Maidan in 2004 are the same that the ones of the Tu­ni­sians and Egyptians. Now we are looking how they will use their opportunity.