December 10 marked the fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, an instrument politically affirming the priority of man
and his rights before the state, one of the greatest attainments of world
civilization.
One ought to remember that perestroika ending in the USSR's collapse
and appearance of the newly independent states, Ukraine included, passed
under the motto of human rights. Now after seven years of independence
former human rights champions say sorrowfully that human rights are implemented
in Ukraine to a considerably lesser degree than in the Soviet Union under
perestroika. They mention different reasons, something we all know and
are tired of hearing repeated: Ukraine's becoming an authoritarian state,
economic crisis, lack of funds...
But perhaps the main reason is elsewhere. Human rights prove an extremely
abstract notion in Ukraine and the attitude is the same on the part of
authorities, who treat these rights with about as much attention as one
standing in a subway car looking at the opposite wall with a faded leaflet
listing the passenger's rights, and the man in the street. To most Ukrainian
citizens human rights are part of empty top-level phraseology coming first
from Gorbachev, then from all those "independent" rulers. People are convinced
that they know the true worth of their rights; they are convinced that
the main right is that of sheer force: might is right. Strange as it may
seem, even now these rights can be protected if one really puts one's mind
to it. Practice shows, however, that no one is interested. Small wonder,
because the human rights laid down in the Constitution were "bestowed from
on high," as part of the stage properties designed to show the West the
"decency" of the Ukrainian powers that be. Some said at the time that this
society does not need an independence given on a silver platter, along
with a theoretical possibility to implement one's rights and other "gains
of democracy," because this society has not achieved all this through suffering.
Maybe they had a point there.
Yevhen ZAKHAROV, a human rights activist from Kharkiv, feels that
he is back to dissident times. You fill find his feature on page Closeup.







