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Looking into the Abyss

20 April, 00:00

Serhiy Holovaty's paper, "Ukraine at the Crossroads," is a major event, not so much for its originality - Western scholars like Anders Бslund (and, with all due modesty, in Ukraine this author) have been writing many of the same things for some time - but for the fact that a prominent political figure, former Cabinet member, and People's Deputy is saying it. This means that the message is beginning to penetrate Ukraine's political elite, or at least its best and brightest representatives. One only worries whether it will penetrate far enough and fast enough to turn this country around before it becomes too late. I find it difficult to share his optimism about the chances for reformers and democrats to take over an already criminalized Parliament three years from now.

Mr. Holovaty's accurate, if dismal, scenario of what would happen should Ukraine select the Belarus option is especially frightening because, unlike back in 1994 when I first wrote that Ukraine had the choice of taking the route of either Poland or Belarus, today this country seems to have firmly stepped on the road away from Europe and toward Eurasia. This has little to do with the silly statements by Speaker Tkachenko and Comrade Symonenko or even the lack of any public consensus on what kind of country Ukraine ought to be. It has everything to do with the way the country works politically, economically, and socially. Any given issue of this newspaper offers a wealth of examples. Mr. Holovaty is not the only prominent person in Ukraine who knows the problem. The trouble is, that except for a few like him (who have been invariably marginalized once in office), those in a position to change things have personal interests which keep them from doing so. And Mr. Holovaty has done a great service both in opening up the issue for public airing (this is still a place where people prefer to keep discreetly silent until somebody shows them that one really can speak up) and in showing us all where the road is leading.

One more thing, Mr. Holovaty is right that choosing between the criminalized administration this country now has and the hard Left is like being given the choice between being shot or hanged. Either way, Ukraine just would not make it. Moreover, the soaring popularity of Progressive Socialist Natalia Vitrenko, whose devotion to the values of democratic discourse was so eloquently demonstrated when she and her party sidekick beat to a pulp Pavlo Movchan on the floor of Parliament and sent him to the hospital, means that more and more people are fed up with the way things are, and they are perfectly willing to exchange them for the way things were. With a few more outspoken figures like Holovaty, perhaps this country could be turned toward yet another alternative: the way things could be.

Newspaper output №:

№15, (1999)

Section

Day After Day