A Decade for Ending Illusions

Ten years ago, many people - not only in Ukraine - believed that independent Ukraine would very soon become a prosperous, democratic, and influential country in the world, not to speak of Europe.

The past ten years have, no doubt, changed the world, and now the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland are less and less often referred to as postsocialist. They have been granted full rights to become an organic component of Europe which still seems to end at the eastern border of Poland. Conversely, Ukraine has not yet done anything to made the West look at it at least not through the prism of Russia. We have learned the magic word, CIS; we try to convince ourselves that only in the CIS can we find markets for what even a Third World pauper would not buy; and we horrify the world with our system based on total corruption...

Over the ten years, the West, together with our nearest neighbors, has learned to tell us that Ukraine is a key state for European stability and security. The extent to which this is true may be judged by the fact that none of our strategic or "special" partners were interested in Ukraine's position on Yugoslavia, the moment of truth for the whole system of international relations in Europe. Another fact is that Ukraine's nearest neighbors, Poland and Hungary, now quite openly keep Ukraine clear of the list of their top priorities. Add to this the fact virtually the only country that will require no visas from Ukrainians in the next few years is Russia.

All this shows that over the ten years, which our neighbors managed to turn to best use for themselves, we have not constructed anything that would justify our rulers' claims to Ukraine's participation in overall European integration. The average Ukrainian is not aware of the processes or what causes them in the countries next door and do not understand why even fraternal Bulgaria is striving for NATO membership. It is difficult for an impoverished Ukrainian to understand why neighboring countries have higher personal incomes and lower prices without even a nod to the disorienting Russian crisis. These ten years have changed nothing in the mentality of those who wield power in Ukraine: they may only have become even more cynical. But their counterparts in neighboring countries are confidently assuming the features of a normal human face. It is probably for this reason that today's Ukraine has not become a pivotal regional state (that it is pivotal is only empty verbiage for official meetings). And we do not wish at all that in the next decade all hopes for Ukraine's involvement in normal European life would only become lost illusions, that Ukraine would remain hopelessly cut off the normal world by the new Great Wall of Schengen, and that we would further be regarded as something in between the Belarusian dictatorship, Asian semi-feudalism, Russian disorder, and Albanian helplessness.