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Where there is no law, but every man does what is right in his own eyes, there is the least of real liberty
Henry M. Robert

"REVOLUTION ON ASPHALT": THROTTLED BY A HANDOUT?

6 October, 1998 - 00:00

Meeting with representatives of Kyiv's youth volunteer organizations
last Wednesday, President Kuchma made a special point of instructing the
Cabinet to closely follow the payment of stipends at Ukrainian institutions
of higher learning. Participants in the forum of student unions' leaders
"Students for Ukraine's Future," representing all progressive students
(who can statistically afford a lunch once a month using their stipends)
in attendance responded in a predictable manner, declaring they were opposed
to young people being used by certain political forces for their selfish
ends, but had nothing against renewing the stipend's adjustment to a minimum
wage.

Since the time of the "hunger revolution" on Khreshchatyk St., this
has been perhaps the only protest from Ukrainian students, delivered in
a weak voice, as the students have of late been discretely "tamed" and
used by the government. Back in 1990, starving students had their way in
toppling Vitaly Mosol's Communist Cabinet and forcing reforms, calling
for democracy and respect for human rights. Today, their leaders, raised
on the same wave-crest, are playing power games, fighting among themselves
for seats in the government-sired "Young Parliament." Now they look like
coal miners banging their helmets on the asphalt, striking schoolteachers
and nuclear industry workers who seem to have been forced to forget Maxim
Gorky's words in his play Down and Out: "Ma-an! That has a proud sound!"
and reduce their needs to only one: "Give Us Pay!"

On such cold autumnal days eight years ago young people marched down
the streets leading to Khreshchatyk to feel the heady spirit of freedom,
even if by the cordoned off tent town. Now they are silent and put up with
humiliating acts of those in high places. It looks as though the students
of the late 1990s have chosen another freedom. The freedom of silence...

 

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