Does Ukraine stand a chance?

On November 9, Berlin officially marked the 20th anniversary of tearing down the notorious Berlin Wall. Built in August 1961, this wall did worse than divide Germany into the Western and Eastern sectors; it became a symbol of the Western and Soviet spheres of influence and worldviews. Whereas the Western sector kept building capitalism, implementing such basic rights and liberties as the freedom of expression, consciousness, meetings and rallies, free and fair elections, the Eastern sector was busy building communism, with some of these rights and liberties being guaranteed on paper only, while singing glory to the Soviet Fatherland: “I know no other land/ Where a man breathes so freely…” [Vasili Lebedev-Kumach. My Native Land].

In the end, the West got the better of the East by scoring the first peaceful victory, tearing down the Berlin Wall, followed two years later by the Soviet Union’s collapse. The reunited Germany and Central and Eastern European countries had their chance and put it to the best use. They started building their future relying on Western Europe’s experience and values. As a result, most of the countries of the so-called socialist camp, including the Baltic States, became members of the European Union and NATO.

Ukraine, regrettably, failed to use its chance. One can come up with a long list of reasons, including historical and political traps concealed in latter-day history; questions like whether the Europeans knew Ukraine for what it was all about; an analysis of our mistakes and ways to correct them.

Den/The Day offers a series of articles by German and Ukrainian diplomats, experts, and journalists about the meaning of the fall of the Berlin Wall for our current realities, as well as about the kind of inferences Ukrainian politicians should make.

The above material was prepared by Den/The Day in collaboration with the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany in Kyiv. The authors’ points of view are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Editors.