Eurasian Syndrome

In 1994 I wrote that Ukraine faces two options: to either try to become like a normal European country, what I called the Polish option, or gradually fall into the Russian gravitational field and become a satellite of Russia, which I then called the Belarusian option. The latest talks between Ukrainian and Russian top officials on this country joining the Eurasian Economic Community would seem to be a step from what some time ago I called the shadow integration of Ukraine’s economy (with politics of necessity to follow) to open integration. After all, privatization in Ukraine has led to its heavy industry passing largely into Russian hands, if only because they have more or less the same system and know who has to be bribed and how much. The investment climate for the West remains dismal, because there is always somebody to keep them out or rob them blind. This means that when various Ukrainian figures say that nobody is waiting on us in the West, they are quite right. Why should they?

Russia is a wonderful country with fine people and all sorts of other good things that can be said about it. However, Ukraine’s integration with Russia, including the integration of Kyiv, seen as the mother of Rus’ (which they hear as Russian) cities, can only mean the relegation of this country to a second rate status, always obedient to its Big Brother, its language and culture in Gogolian fashion enriching the Russian without being able to develop much on its own. Now that a decision to integrate is awaiting the new parliament, evidently supported by not only the Communists who have the votes to pass it and most probably lubricated by the necessary financial incentives, one can only paraphrase Marx: “Nomenklatura alumni of the world unite: you have nothing to lose but your offshore accounts and obscenely opulent dachas.” This group would seem to have no fatherland, no country, and no nation. How can one betray something to which one has no loyalty in the first place? One can always visit one’s money in Nauru or some such place. Perhaps I was wrong eight years ago to call this the Belarus option. Perhaps it is more like one of the more docile states of Central Asia.