By Mykola Riabchuk, The Day
The public organization called the Congress of the Ukrainian Intelligentsia, founded
in 1995 and known for its appeals
and public declarations, held a meeting
on Saturday in the National Opera House. They called the event the first All-Ukrainian gathering of the intelligentsia.
President Kuchma was invited to take part along with such well-known cultural leaders as Ivan Drach, Pavlo Movchan,
and Patriarch Philaret.
Actually it was President Kuchma who attracted the main attention of the journalists, who left the meeting at lunch after the President gave his speech. They decided not to waste the rest of the day listening to the monotonous and predictable speeches by the meeting’s participants.
In general, all the speakers had one thing on their minds; that Ukrainian culture is in decline and dying, total Russification is continuing, science and scholarship is pushed aside and according to Ivan Drach should be immediately “taken down from the cross” on which it has been crucified. It has already become a tradition to announce at such meetings that the Ukrainian people are the most sincere, wise, talented, and hard-working nation. Of course, the blame for all misfortunes and troubles Ukraine ever suffered was attributed to Russian and international imperialism. Some of speakers did mention the sins of Cossack warlords and the fatal split in the national democratic forces, which only Moscow could unify in the concentration camps. However, not a single speaker said he would give up his election campaign in favor of his democratic colleague in the same district.
Of course, the usual pathos was heard on the disproportionate concentration of anti-Ukrainian forces in the President’s team, intrigues by a fifth column and, of course, the necessity to base efforts to put an end to the crisis on the “national idea” and “truly national cadres.” As a matter of fact, nobody wasted time explaining what the “national idea” is (suggestion of the director of the Institute for Strategic Research Beliaev to ground the “national idea” on “a happy and promising future for our children and grandchildren” did not call forth enthusiasm in the participants: they hardly listened to the end of his apolitical, deeply analytical speech) and of course no one said where these “truly national cadres” could be found.
Unfortunately, the President did not take time to explain that either, though as guarantor of the Constitution he had to remind his colleagues, that there is no other way to select people capable of governing the country but to vote. It is at least naive to hope that a not terribly patriotic people will elect a patriotic Parliament and even more patriotic President. If Ukrainian intelligentsia was born and raised with that belief in a “good and kind king,” President Kuchma seems likely to play along, helping them believe in his ability and desire to carry out a “patriotic cadres policy” upon the simple-hearted intelligentsia’s wish.
Kuchma hinted that had it not been for Parliament, the mass media, and all of the wisenheimer critics, Ukraine would have put the end to the economic crisis long ago and there would have been no problem with selecting “truly national cadres” either. Trapped by its own paternalism and naive faith in the “kind” authoritative leader, able to select proper people for official posts without any democratic procedure, the intelligentsia was forced to swallow the President’s harsh criticism of the independent media.
Those present at the meeting learned from his speech about “rivers of dirt dished out to people from newspaper pages and television screens,” they learned that instead of freedom of speech we have come to “simulation of work on order” and that imperfections in existing laws “make it possible to use the mass media” as instruments of terror. The conclusions are obvious. First, the President said, “we need to limit the irresponsibility and permissiveness of the unbridled mass media”. Second, it is essential to create an “all-national and moderately priced newspaper” (a couple of dozens of already existing newspapers do not seem moderate in price and all-national enough to him; so why not to close all of them and substitute one, launched by the Presidential Administration?). Third, journalists should take the hint that “they may have no limits in speech, but they are not immune to responsibility” (perhaps, this is the “assistance” from the authorities the independent mass media and journalists so need).
I think there is no need to say that all these Presidential suggestions have been pretty successfully carried out in neighbor ing Belarus and in many developing African and Asian countries. With the President’s help Ukraine is becoming more and more like them. In order to hold back the impression from the “mass media development program”, Kuchma spoke against “impudent discrediting of the leading persons in Ukrainian culture.” The meeting applauded him for that one. The President’s message was clear and simple: I am fighting against impudent the discrediting of me and my authority and also against the impudent discrediting of you and your leaders. The intelligentsia took the hint and appealed to the mass media to stop “spitting on the President” for he is the symbol of the state.
The only thing left to do now is to reveal who will define the measure of “spitting”, “discrediting”, and “irresponsibility”, who will compile lists of immune cultural leaders and “truly national cadres”. Will the patriotic intelligentsia submit the right to do that to the Presidential Administration, or will the President authorize the Congress of Ukrainian Intelligentsia to do it? Or will they together launch a special social organization for the purpose?
Unfortunately, constructive debates on politics and culture did not take place at the meeting, although there were topics a plenty. The systemic crisis in Ukraine is obvious, just as the fact that the ruling circles have no program whatever of how to end it. The patriotic intelligentsia would have to learn how to think, analyze and speak out not only among the small number of like-minded patriotic people, but also in front of less patient audiences in the mass media and political opponents.
The national idea, much debated at the meeting, or to cut it short, nationalism, may actually become a powerful factor for solving the nation’s problems. This is supported by Japanese, Korean, and Polish experience. But the idea should be based upon intellect, which is in great demand both among the ruling authorities and Ukrainian intelligentsia, at least in that part of it, which refers to itself as the most Ukrainian and patriotic.
Photo by Viktor Marushchenko, The Day
Was the President blessed in his struggle against heresy?







