By Viktor ZAMYATIN, The Day
It is very easy to pout when the Council of Europe, one of the few European
organizations Ukraine has managed to get admitted to, chides us in public,
as if we were an underachieving schoolboy. And, instead of soberly considering
the real reasons for this reaction (not an unfair one, at that), it is
easier to pout and start thinking of going our own way as many in Russia
propose. This is the path consistently pursued by Belarusian President
Aleksandr Lukashenka. So is it by Ukraine's loyal followers of immortal
Leninist ideas. Among the latter are two former collective farm heads,
which may well be symptomatic. In fact, the role of collective farmers
in foreign policy is yet to be studied, but it seems to be significant.
You still cannot shout from the rooftops that Belarus (whose President
recently went on record saying, "No sooner had I dealt with eggs than butter
disappeared") has preserved the best of what used to be and that this experiences
should be studied in depth, even if it comes to fully joining the Russo-Belarus
union, which Verkhovna Rada is sure to hurry to vote for. What does it
matter if Belarus cannot sell its tractors because it is cheaper to buy
better, albeit more expensive, ones elsewhere, and, for the same reason,
Belarus does not buy Ukrainian sugar and butter? Does it matter that Lukashenka's
gains in self-isolation from the outside world are common knowledge and
that, finally, ordinary people in Belarus live no better than their Ukrainian
counterparts, despite their President personally flying over the collective
farm fields? We have to do it, all there is to it!
You will never learn to deny in public words you yourself said on television,
"Everything was not so, etc.," unless you have gone through the school
of the Soviet collective farm.
Does it matter that a run-of-the-mill Russian politician, say a State
Duma or Council of the Federation Deputy, can be used to frighten children
at night because of his high political and other culture and his inability
to understand that the world has changed to a certain extent over the past
decade. What Europe requires today is not only a necktie but also a human
face. Those eternally stuck in the past will have no chance there.
Slavic integration, Orthodox integration, economic integration of the
former Soviet Union: the sky's the limit. Nobody forbids us providing a
Russian, Nigerian, or Panamanian investor with decent conditions where
he can pay taxes and put out products to be purchased by Lukashenka, the
Turkmen, a Bushmen chief, a pedantic German, or Swede alike. No one forbids
us to follow the example of Poland which has re-oriented its trade toward
the West, much to its benefit, without weeping over lost ties.
So shall we integrate with economic, political and spiritual inefficiency,
technological backwardness, and dreams of the eternal yesterday, "when
we were respected and feared," with rationed butter and plans to rule the
world?
For this we seem worthy.






