European Choice: Catchword or Way to Civil Society?
The notion of Ukraine’s European choice appeared hand in hand with the declaration of independence on the wave of tumultuous political changes issuing from the downfall of the totalitarian regime. Naturally, it enjoyed wide support, being an alternative to totalitarianism and a kind of messianic watchword of openness of society and its readiness to embrace European values, that is, everything seen as the achievements of European civilization. Everyone understood that socioeconomic conditions in Europe were much better than in the former USSR. Thus everyone thought how nice it would be to live as they live in Europe.
This was a kind of emotional orientation: “Away with totalitarianism! Forward to an open European society!” Clearly, this was not a well-considered and weighed plan of Europeanization of Ukraine, merely a generalized symbol, a lodestar, if you please. Then we faced the question, how can we make Ukraine a European state? And what is the European standard of living?
In my view, the answer stems from two interconnected factors distinguishing Europe from non- Europe (meaning a closed society of a totalitarian state). The first factor is political culture of the society. I do not mean the style and manners of political behavior, but the interplay between the state and its citizens. Despite all the turmoil in political life in European states, there still remains the mainstay of such relationship, that is, the priority status of rights and interests of citizens. And our eternal dilemma of whether the state is for the people or the people for the state is out of the question there. This time-honored tradition formed long ago (Europe moved toward it along a winding and often dark path of wars and revolutions), but it has always been a distinguishing feature of Europe, establishing democratic principles of the relationship between the state and citizens.
The second factor is the high socioeconomic level of European states, which have joined the European Union precisely because they are at roughly the same rung of the socioeconomic ladder, and not because they pledged to meet certain conditions in order to be admitted into this community. If it is really determined to embark on a path to Europe, Ukraine must seek to become their equal, that is, to achieve the European level of political culture and secure an equally high level of welfare for its citizens.
Thus I strongly believe that the transformation of Ukraine into a European state is a matter of domestic, and not foreign policy. Essentially, this is not all about us participating in European political structures, which our politicians and diplomats are busying themselves with; this is about Europe coming to Ukraine. This is the cornerstone of the solution to the problem.
In the early days of independence, we at least nursed a hope that we were heading toward European democracy. But, unfortunately, that did not happen as Ukraine headed in a diametrically opposed direction. The louder the rallying cries for the European choice, the farther away Ukraine is drifting from the real Europe. What do we have in practice? Poverty, corruption, arbitrariness, disregard by the state of its own citizens. The whole country has become an arena for manipulations by a caste of politicians.
We have inherited all this not even from the Soviet Union, but rather from the Russian Empire. This has been cultivated for centuries. And this curse has been on us ever since the times of Peter I, who created two Russias, one of intelligent, cultivated people who built castles, opened art galleries, universities, and science academies, and the other — hideous, “bast-shoe” Russia, which could be flogged to death. All this lasted until Nicholas II came to power. And then there was the revolution. Tsarist functionaries had been exterminated, their place taken by functionaries from among workers and peasants. And what changed? Nothing much! Under the Soviets, queues in administrative establishments had grown longer many times over. If under the tsar the numbers of those deported and executed by shooting were estimated at hundreds and thousands, in the Soviet times their numbers ran into millions. It does not matter, however, who sired Voroshilov or Stalin. What matters is that there were two countries. One country of those who used it for self-enrichment and realization of their political ambitions in the name of ideological doctrines, and the other — of those for whom poverty and wretchedness were a norm of living because they had neither seen nor known a different life.
In my view, graphic evidence of Ukraine taking the anti- European path to neo-totalitarianism is, before all, the public servants’ conviction that people are scum. Take, for instance, the farfetched problem of the state language. Much written and talked about, this issue is the subject of never-ending debate. I will not repeat that one must be insane or savage to attempt to oust the Russian language from the sphere of education or label Russian literature as foreign. It will be recalled that at the dawn of our independence half the population spoke Russian. In a state headed in the European direction there can be no talk whatsoever of establishing a single state language. Legislation permitting free use of both languages should have been introduced in the first place, for the state should speak the language of its citizens. But our state resorted to coercive measures, imposing a single official language and skewing statistics on the ratio between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians. When ideologists of power start making calculations in percentage terms, I see it as the first indication of a totalitarian, undemocratic, and non-European state. And unless we part with the phenomenon of forcible Ukrainization, Ukraine will not be able to move in the direction of Europe.
Why has Ukrainization become a sacred cow? Because without it the whole bedrock carrying the system of state power would be removed from under it. This compares only to Article 6 of the Brezhnev Constitution (the party is always right because it is for communism), and it is nobody’s concern whether the people want communism or not. Likewise, in our case there must be a single state language, Ukrainian, because we are building a national state, and it is nobody’s concern whether the people want this kind of state or not.
Politics and the economy cannot be considered separately. Currently, our per capita income is lower than even in neighboring Russia. While per capita annual income in the Soviet Union was $2,500, in modern Ukraine it is roughly $600, that is to say now we are farther away from Europe than a decade ago.
The movement toward Europe is used merely as an attribute of foreign policy. On the other hand, such an approach is also provoked by European political structures. That the EU has a code of conduct for those vying to join it is quite understandable, as it has always been a byword for freedom and democracy our jurists have been dreaming about for the past decade. But it also must be understood that the European Community should welcome not those who blindly agree to certain requirements but those who are ready to meet them. After all, if a person is admitted into a cultured company, he or she should understand that spitting under the table is bad manners. But if that person does not understand it and stops spitting under the table only because it is a condition of being admitted into the company, then what is there to talk about? In my view, this is not a question of conditions, but of whether or not Ukraine is mature enough to measure up to European states, whether it recognizes the necessity to embrace democratic principles. In this connection, I dare say that the EU and NATO betrayed their principles by expanding farther eastward. Having established essentially formal requirements, they forgot about the essence of democracy. Take the Baltic states, for instance. Estonia and Latvia were among the first to receive an invitation to join the EU. My personal belief is that administrative bodies of these countries do not behave like Europeans, but rather like savages and barbarians that donned European suits. And if such states declare many of their citizens, who lived there for decades, aliens and do not declare the language they speak a second official language, then they have not matured enough to join the European Community.
As for the EU requirement that the death penalty be abolished, for one thing, it does not determine the level of democratization of a state. Capital punishment is administered in the USA, but it never occurred to anyone to brand it an undemocratic state because of this.
Anti-Kuchma rallies staged by the so-called pro-Western opposition (however, it’s not clear what the Communists were doing there) seem equally paradoxical. After all, the question is not whether the opposition is strong enough to rock the presidential boat or even capsize it. Put simply, the people do not need this opposition at all, as both the opposition and power are, in fact, two of a kind. At this point we return to where we started, namely to the bond between the state and its people.
There are two Ukraines. One is a thin stratum in which one and all are fighting for power and sinecures, for their capitals and immunity (as does Yuliya Tymoshenko); another is the common unsuspecting people. Yet Viktor Yushchenko projects himself as the leader of the European Choice. What kind of choice? Can it be the one that undermined the stability of the economy with its monetary policy? Granted, he tried to stabilize the situation during his premiership but only because he was forced to abandon his policy, which was hurting the economy.
In which direction should our country head? The answer is obvious: toward its own citizens! There is ongoing debate as to what kind of republic we need, presidential or parliamentary one? I can offer many arguments in favor of or against either of them. However, what counts is not the political system but the idea of the bond between the state and its people. And we will not have a civil society until citizens’ rights are granted priority status.
That is why I keep asking myself: what is the European choice all about? Is it a ritualistic incantation or a long and hard way to a civil society?
