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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

Forsaken Field Overgrows With Weeds

23 November, 1999 - 00:00

Karl Popper wrote in The Open Society and its Enemies (1945) that the eternal question of who will be the next in power should have long been replaced by how can we hold him in check. The presidential elections brought forth a panoply of reflections, ideas, and analyses, enunciated and kept to oneself, noteworthy and not, interesting and trite, but still relevant. Allow me to make my own modest contribution.

ON SOCIETY

“Damn! Despair and shame! I’ve been all over Ukraine and I don’t know where I can rest and not stumble on a slave.” These angry lines belong not to Taras Shevchenko but to another champion of freedom and patriot, Oleksandr Oles, who wrote them ninety years ago. Despair on the losing side is understandable. Indeed, our society is disunited, atomized, and unprepared to make a serious choice. It has other substantial shortcomings: it remains Soviet in outlook, and most of it, being accustomed to a miserable living, is content with its role of an onlooker rather than a participant in modern Ukrainian civilization, is unable to appreciate the values of freedom and democracy, and easily succumbs to the political and economic supremacy of the regime embodied by various clans.

Ukrainian society and its citizens lack self-respect and dignity, something found in abundance on the Faroe Islands, a small patch of rocky land in the North Atlantic and certainly no heaven on earth. There it is formulated simply: “The center of the world is where we are.” See? What about us with our proud Cossack ancestry? There must be something left in our genes, and yet I hear voices saying we don’t have a nation, just a faceless populace, an obedient herd of sheep. This is a slap not at the people but at their spineless aimlessly reflective elite, all those politicians, gurus, college and university instructors, and self- absorbed businessmen.

What inspires hope is the fact that in the first round (described by a friend as “most interesting”) that very “innovative” populace showed its national instinct, mostly voting against the Communists. Another thing is who and what they actually voted for; who got the laurels.

ON POWER

As in all the other postcommunist CIS states, power in Ukraine, especially the executive, is over and above society, trampling it down. Its chief method is authoritarianism. Heads of local state administrations being appointed by the President, rather than elected and accountable to the local electorate, turn the executive branch into a heavy bludgeon, while constant attacks to discredit the legislature, currently having every hallmark of war against Parliament — all this heightens the danger of bleeding our anemic democracy to death, weakening whatever chance of democratic control over those in power and their backstage doings. Despite recognition of the importance of state intervention in the economy by the affluent countries with socially oriented market economies, there is no reason to assume that the President of Ukraine and his government should be vested with additional powers to overcome the “all-encompassing” crisis and profound stagnation. The President had such special authority for all of five years and we all know the result. We all can feel it.

The important thing is what the current regime actually intends to do, apart from mouthing sweet nothings about how everything will be all right. That same Karl Popper (forget about Karl Marx!) said that state intervention in the political and economic spheres must be restricted proceeding from the need to protect freedom. He said this not to back certain political theses but relying on the experience of Western democratic civilization. We should regard this as a warning. Politicians are generally fond of personal power. By intervening into politics and the economy at best the regime can solve only current situational issues. Bureaucrats’ personal decisions and actions are irrational, they cannot even be publicly discussed for want of information and because the principles they adhere to in making such decisions remain vague. Unless actively spurred on by society, officeholders have no reason whatsoever to act in society’s interests.

What kind of President will Kuchma-2 make? In his campaign speeches he said that after five sad years of “learning,” [sic] a process torturous for the people, this people will see a different man. Will he really set to untangling all those bureaucratic knots tied by the vertical of power, bringing things back to democratic norms? Will he sever all contact with Mafioso clans? Will he stamp his foot and show the oligarchs their place?

There is another, altogether different possibility. The crisis gripping Ukraine will turn into a catastrophe and those above will resort to naked force to preserve “stability” and graveyard quiet (as some with a grim sense of humor describe what lies ahead).

Society must not let this happen; using its constitutional rights, this society must hold in check the arrogant officials at the top, for they will stop at nothing for their own self-preservation.

ONCE MORE ON SOCIETY

I mean the way it should be. I have heard that we Ukrainians, with our civilization, our moral, ethical, and economic standards, will never live like the Poles, Hungarians, or Baltic peoples already are. This is most likely some kind of alien propaganda geared to foster our inferiority complex. Here in Halychyna, meeting the Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks (as thousands come for work), we can shrug off such allegations. The only difference between us and them is that they have long realized that the Communist-socialist system is immune to reform; it must be replaced along with its nomenklatura nurtured and brainwashed by that system beyond repair. This realization is very long in coming our way.

Our political landscape after the campaign struggle requires the appearance of a new “army,” powerful and vigorous, aimed at fundamental reforms to revive this country as well as to bring forth a national democratic party worthy of its citizens and having a developed network of local organizations, a party that will take a resolute stand in defending the principles of a democratic society, and the nationwide supremacy of law. By their very mentality Ukrainians are private owners and individualists; they want to have law and order in their country. And there is enough material for such a party, even though scattered, but it must be kept from being squandered by all those puffed up political Lilliputians. Prestigious personalities should join efforts in this direction.

We all must finally understand that democracy is not just power wielded by the majority (history shows examples of tyranny resting on the will of the majority). Above all, it means the existence of social institutions to oversee those in power. Just as we must understand that the task and obligation of those in high office is provide conditions for an opposition “minority” to exert some influence over them, according to the principle that the minority also has a point; that any changes and amendments to the Constitution are permissible only insofar as they pose no threat to democracy and civil liberties; that an officeholder is not over and above the rest of the citizenry but a paid public servant, and that the state is not his property.

Forming this kind of society and a better state is no pipe dream. There is no ideal state, but what we have now can and must be improved. We were bequeathed this by our sage people. The institutions of a civil society abiding by common sense evolve from modest entities, among them self-governing credit unions, cooperatives, and interest groups. There is the Adam Smith Club in Poland, uniting prominent businessmen and university intellectuals. Its prestige and influence are amazing. Here in Ukraine we have a giant forsaken field awaiting capable tillers.

In conclusion, take another Polish example. About ten years ago, after the historic Round Table, the late well-known Krakow intellectual and Solidarity exponent Stefan Kiselewski, told some of his close associates, “The Poles have to be grabbed by the nose and pulled to democracy.” The phrase was quickly picked by television. He was a wise and kind man, and the Polish public forgave his “rudeness,” for they needed it; it spurred them to change themselves. Hopefully, we will hear something like that from our esteemed Ihor Yukhnovsky.

It is good to have a wise newspaper like The Day. Your best publications are an intelligent way to spur us on, to make us change ourselves.

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