Grassroots organizations are ready to assume the social functions of the state. Is the state ready for this?

PATRIOTISM: FROM SMALL TO TALL

Let’s formulate the topic of our meeting as “The Future Ukraine” or “Ukraine’s Future.” Organizations like the ones represented by our guests are largely credited with laying the foundations of what Ukraine will be like ten or twenty years from now. How do you picture this future and what are you doing today to shape it?

ZALIPSKA: “Since our organization cultivates idealistic worldviews and realistic approaches to ways of achieving goals, it is only natural that we have an optimistic view of the future.

“Our organization has been functioning for 94 years. It is Ukraine’s biggest scouting organization with a ramified network of 120 centers. Every scouting organization has certain unchanging principles: being true to God and one’s country of residence, and helping others. Moreover, depending on the mentality and traditions of its nation, every scouting organization also has its own, more specific goals. Plast as a scouting organization sees its overriding goal in raising future citizens by emphasizing patriotism. After all, for decades Plast was challenged by the absence of a Ukrainian state, so this ultimate goal of ours formed from day one and still remains relevant. All the programs of the organization are aimed at raising patriots and future citizens of Ukraine. We are doing this by every possible and available means to bring up young people. To build Ukraine, we are developing ourselves: physically, because Ukraine needs strong people; intellectually, because Ukraine needs professionals; spiritually, because Ukraine needs people with moral fiber and healthy minds. So the Plast program is structured in such a way as to facilitate comprehensive development, albeit with special emphasis on patriotism.”

What does patriotism mean to young people of today? What kind of country do they need and what does it mean to them now: is it a parallel reality, an object of pride, or a source of problems and needless headaches? In your view, to what extent do young people identify themselves with the Ukrainian state? For example, it has become fashionable for crowds of soccer fans to spill into the streets of Moscow and chant “Putin is our president, Danila is our brother” [a reference to a popular film character in Russian blockbusters “Brother” and “Brother II,” who is a Russian youth idol —Ed.].

LAVRYNENKO: “I have recently become more conscious of the fact that young people are identifying themselves less with the state but rather with the city they live in, be it Kyiv, Ternopil, or Donetsk, because that little homeland where one was born and raised is always closer to one’s heart. And I’m pleased by the fact that young Ukrainians love the towns they live in, even though they do not always meet their needs and interests, and they are proud of them. I think with time this “small-town” patriotism will grow. But it takes time and a number of factors, particularly economic ones. Moreover, we are still paying too little attention to the question of patriotic upbringing.”

YAREMA: “In fact, there are diverse types of young people. In the not so distant past the state attempted to impose total control on young people’s upbringing and pursued its policies through a certain youth structure. You’ve mentioned Russia, but the contemporary Russian state is hardly different from the Soviet one. The Soviet-era practice of dictating the way the young should be raised lingers in Russia. They are simply trying to imprint certain specific things on the subconscious. The situation has changed in Ukraine, where the state and society are two parallel worlds.”

Is this good or bad?

“Hard to tell: on the one hand there are many positive things. Young people have learned self-reliance. They are learning to be independent and beginning to understand that they in fact have no reason to expect anything from the state. It is clear, however, that the state should take reciprocal steps. There are basic problems that a young person can’t solve without state assistance, such as affordable education, housing, and employment. Specifically, we need mechanisms whereby a young person would be granted certain preferences in employment.”

ZALIPSKA: “In my view, those government officials who are in fact responsible for instilling a sense of patriotism and national dignity in young hearts understood their mission much too late. Thirteen years into independence, Ukraine has no national program for bringing up young people. Grassroots organizations encompass only a fraction of Ukraine’s youth, but this will obviously be a very small percentage, because, unfortunately, society’s involvement in public activity is very limited.

“I consider economic problems to be of secondary importance. If society is patriotically minded, economic problems can be solved faster and more effectively. Take postwar Germany, which succeeded in coping with the consequences of World War II in a very short time. Patriotism came first there, and to get factories to work, citizens would even fetch parts from home and set up manufacturing lines. I think the Ministry of Education should pay attention to this because we have already wasted much time, and in this case, time is our future.”

What do you mean by active patriotism? As far as we know, there are special school curricula for junior pupils who are taught a subject known as “Ukraine and I”; they stage performances, study the life and works of Taras Shevchenko, etc. Every teacher is doing everything possible, of course, to the extent that s/he understands this problem. Moreover, the Ministry of Education is a government agency, essentially made up of these same officials. Can we demand that they address the question of raising children in a patriotic spirit?

LAVRYNENKO: “You have put it correctly: ‘to the extent that s/he understands this problem.’ Usually things happen like this: the teacher comes to class, works his or her hours, and then leaves. But children can sense hypocrisy very well. When they hear one story in class, but in real life, outside of class, witness completely different behavior, including on the part of those who have just expounded to them on patriotism, customs and traditions, this is worse than not being told anything at all. It’s one thing when the teacher gives the child some rather dry information in class. It’s a completely different thing when this child lives in a society where this information is a norm of living. Had the teachers’ efforts been supplemented with shops overflowing with Ukrainian-language press and books, as well as television broadcasts in Ukrainian and grassroots organizations, then our children would no doubt grow up to become patriots.”

UPBRINGING WITHOUT SIDE EFFECTS

Again, this is a multifaceted problem with an economic component. Are we now ready to ensure its solution, or will this be possible only in a few years? How do you lay these foundations of future patriotism, given limited funding and the fact that teachers are paid a pittance?

YAREMA: “Perhaps this is where the experience of our organization could come in handy. One of our priorities is developing student self-government. We are searching for mechanisms whereby students can address certain problems independently. We have already seen results in some regions, where students who began by organizing mock elections can now better understand the essence of government institutions, processes, and mechanisms of electoral law. At the same time, they are rising to the level of local self-governing bodies, and there are towns in which authorities recognize school self-governing formations as deliberative bodies in matters relating to local youth policies. In time, town fathers allow them to make certain decisions affecting the life of their town, beginning with the organization of youth and environmental protection drives and ending with more serious matters. In this way a patriot is being formed: a person who understands that it makes no sense to wait until someone does something for you, but instead begins to act.”

ZALIPSKA: “That’s the kind of active patriotism we are cultivating among young people and children. Our organization implemented fifty social projects last year. Last year’s slogan was “Shake hands with the one next to you.” We have been active in helping orphanages and nursery homes and launching various environmental protection drives. Next year’s motto will be “Know and love Ukraine,” and will include national, environmental, and folk studies. We will involve both Plast members and other schoolchildren in this program. And in doing so, we are hoping to receive assistance from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Family, Children, and Youth.”

LAVRYNENKO: “Today we are working to get our children to believe in their own strength and ability to do something, at least in their own town. Our organizational structure enables every child to develop along those lines for which they have a penchant: arts, sports, tourism, international relations, and the technical sphere (computers and gadgets). We teach them to live in a society and always try to improve it in some respects.”

Of course, it is wonderful when a young person is able and wishes to change something for him or herself, in his or her environment, or aspires to achieve something. But doesn’t it carry the danger of so-called small- town patriotism? After all, this phenomenon is already appearing in adult politics. Don’t you think there is a danger that the child will grow up to know only his or her street, district, or town, while the state as a whole will not matter all that much?

LAVRYNENKO: “I think there is no such danger. All organizations represented here are national ones. Children from all across Ukraine are in our target group.”

YAREMA: “Let me cite a nice example. We launch joint drives together with the Ukrainian Youth Association. One of them is called “St. Nicholas’s Journey from West to East.” Prior to St. Nicholas Day, theater groups consisting of our members from Ukraine’s western regions rehearse and travel to Ukraine’s eastern and central regions to put on performances in children’s homes and orphanages; they meet with young people, and tell them about the traditional ways to celebrate this holiday. At Christmas time we try to bring western Ukrainian traditions of Christmas celebrations to Ukrainians in the east. However, our first experience was rather negative: Ukrainians in the country’s center, particularly in Zhytomyr oblast, refused to travel to Ivano-Frankivsk oblast, because they were afraid of the “terrible” Banderivtsi who allegedly live there. This was in 1995-1996. Now everything has changed.

“Another direction pursued by our organization is Ukraine’s integration with European structures, beginning at the level of youth organizations. We are represented in two organizations: the Youth of European People’s Party and the Union of Young Christian Democrats and Conservatives of Europe. Young Ukrainians are permanent participants of various European events and seminars. Every year we host between five and ten international events in Ukraine, which are attended by young Europeans. And when young people from across Ukraine come together, the question of where they hail from — Donetsk or Kharkiv — is no longer raised because all of them represent Ukraine. Neither do they specify which part of Ukraine they come from — the east or west — when they travel abroad. In a foreign environment they represent Ukraine and are proud to be Ukrainian. Last year we managed to host a seminar in Ukraine, which gathered eighty leaders of Europe’s youth organizations. This was an eye- opening experience for them, and their idea of Ukraine changed dramatically. They expected to see a country without heating, with frequent power outages and countless other problems. That’s why they were stunned by what they saw. Now they are the foremost promoters of Ukraine’s interests in Europe. They understand that Ukraine is just as European as Spain, Poland, and Germany. And they are willing to deal with us on an equal footing.”

After their regular visits abroad, don’t your members become critical of what is happening in Ukraine and wish to leave it for good?

ZALIPSKA: “International contacts are crucial to shaping a new generation. They are patriots of their country, who will direct all their efforts, knowledge, and skills toward making Ukraine an increasingly European country that will successfully integrate with European structures. And each one of our organizations is integrating with its respective European and international structure. Plast is also trying to join the World Organization of the Scout Movement, but this is a very painful process. Unfortunately, certain political factors are at work here: when the possibility of Plast’s joining the World Scout Bureau was being considered, they told us we were ‘too’ patriotic an organization. Of course, we took this as a compliment, even though we didn’t quite understand how one could possibly be too patriotic. We also felt that American scouts would never be reproached for something like this. But we don’t despair and are continuing to establish contacts. Plast is an international organization encompassing nine countries, and constant contacts with Plast members in other countries help young Ukrainians to broaden their outlook and, through the lens of studying the cultures of other countries, to implement other nations’ finest accomplishments on Ukrainian soil as part of various programs and events.

“We’ve kept a close watch on this particular aspect. We have worked in Ukraine for thirteen years and have countless contacts and exchange programs. To my knowledge, during these thirteen years there were only three or four cases where, after graduating, our members pursued an education abroad and remained there.”

LAVRYNENKO: “When our Ukrainian Youth Association members stayed at summer camps in Great Britain, a deputy of the Naddvirniansk Town Hall was also there and expressed his admiration of all the beauty and cleanliness. The children, who stayed in England for a week and socialized with their English peers, responded to this, ‘How difficult would it be to pick up a broom and sweep everything clean at home? Everything will be as clean.’ When sharing their impressions, our children said they didn’t see anything all that extraordinary abroad: the same fields and trees, except that you won’t see women sweating with hoes in their fields. What’s also important is that after several years of such exchange programs, both our instructors and young people have come to the conclusion that Ukrainians from our diaspora who come to Ukraine gain more in the way of experience than we do.”

ZALIPSKA: “Young representatives of the diaspora are keenly interested in Ukraine, and many young Plast members associate themselves with contemporary Ukraine. Young people from the diaspora come and work here, and start families because Ukraine is so mentally close to them that they want to discover it for themselves. This year, for example, we are hosting a summer camp called “Paths of Culture,” which gathers the Ukrainians from the US, Canada, Russia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. This is the moment when they discover Ukraine, when this kernel of love becomes ingrained in the soul, and it doesn’t matter anymore whether one lives in Ukraine or returns to his home country — he will forever remain a Ukrainian and after rising to prominence, will always promote Ukraine’s interests.”

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

You’ve mentioned that Plast has been functioning for 94 years. But under the Soviets it was impossible for it to develop. What helped you to revive your organization when Ukraine won its independence?

ZALIPSKA: “The organization never ceased to exist, but was developing and perfecting its methods. And when Ukrainian statehood began its revival in 1989, we joined this process as active participants. We had an opportunity to welcome to Ukraine Plast representatives of the Supreme Plast Bulava [Council], who actually began to pass on their methods piecemeal to Ukraine, and we began to study and master them. The Supreme Plast Bulava is now based in New York and is the center of international Plast. Perhaps eventually this center will relocate to Ukraine. But in the meantime we still have to acquire some more experience. There are still things we have to learn from our Plast in the diaspora.

“We are now beginning to implement a program to launch a Plast outreach program in eastern regions that are also inhabited by millions of Ukrainians, and it doesn’t matter to us whether they associate themselves with Ukraine and whether they identify themselves as Ukrainians.”

By the way, how many members do your organizations have?

ZALIPSKA: “Over 10,000.”

LAVRYNENKO: “Over 2,000.”

YAREMA: “Over 3,000.”

That’s a total of 15,000. But there are many more children in Ukraine. How do you disseminate information about yourselves?

LETENKO: “Plast is now beginning to actively cooperate with the Ukrainian Academy of Pedagogical Sciences, and not so long ago we introduced our organization and our methods at the academy’s international conference. Our stand drew a crowd of scholars from various countries. Moreover, Plast has fielded keen interest from so-called palaces of schoolchildren and other local structures that formerly worked on some ideological basis, but with the collapse of the Union this foundation simply vanished. They are receiving progressively less funding and can’t afford to keep their extensive staffs. At the same time, they must involve a large number of children in their educational process. At this point we are facing the question of educational process. After all, those fundamentals on which children used to be raised in the past are long outdated, whereas new ones have yet to be created. Plast can offer such principles. Plast is an organization that relies exclusively on volunteers, and our instructors are not paid for their work. We face many questions as to how we can involve young and middle- aged people in some sort of socially useful, particularly educational, work. Plast has answers to these questions.”

POLITICAL CONTEXT

Young people account for nearly eight million voters in Ukraine. With the elections right around the corner, this is an impressive reserve. There are recent examples where conflicting parties in the Crimea used young people to achieve their ends. So now we are facing the question of the relationship between political forces and youth organizations in particular and young people in general.

YAREMA: “Having the closest contacts with political forces of all those present here, I must say that grassroots organizations are also attempting to use political forces. And indeed this is a normal process. In this case we must differentiate between instances of interference and cooperation. If political forces support initiatives of grassroots organizations and take into account their informed proposals — this is best seen in parliament, where such proposals are voted into law — then this is no doubt a positive example. Of course, the opposite is possible, when political forces try to manipulate youth organizations and impose their own conditions on them or create some new youth formations, etc.”

But is it possible to stand up to such abuse?

YAREMA: “It is possible to stand up to it by means of active work and by actively involving the young in normal activities. Obviously, today one can find seeds of conflict in any sphere of sociopolitical life. And there are always those who are eager to fan the flames of conflict. For example, one of the most serious directions in our activity is working with young people of different confessions, in the course of which we seek to promote interfaith dialog, since this is one of the most painful issues today. At one time we initiated the creation of an interfaith council of Christian youth. We host events attended by Orthodox and Greek-Catholic Christians, Protestants, and others. Young representatives of different confessions traveled to Rome for the Fifteenth World Youth Day. And now we are organizing an interfaith camp called “Youth for Interfaith Understanding.” My colleagues from other organizations have also chosen their own priorities. In my view, it is such purposeful efforts by our organizations that can prevent the emergence of the destructive elements we have mentioned, even though this is not at all easy.”

ZALIPSKA: “The main thing is to cultivate tolerance of religious and political issues. Plast is an non-aligned organization, but this did not prevent the Verkhovna Rada from creating a group of Plast patrons, which is composed of nearly thirty lawmakers from various factions: Leonid Kravchuk, Ihor Yukhnovsky, Stepan Havrysh, and others. This group has existed for a year and a half and helps us resolve some pressing issues.”

LETENKO: “Recently, the Donetsk-based newspaper Zhyttia [Life] dedicated a whole page to Plast, which featured among other things a photo of Stepan Havrysh and his quote, ‘We will do everything for Plast, our national version of the world scouting movement, to successfully develop in Ukraine.’ Unfortunately, few Ukrainian educational organizations can enlist the support of such influential politicians.”

But isn’t there a danger that some politicians — we are not thinking of anyone in particular — will use similar statements as elements of their own promotion campaigns?

ZALIPSKA: “Not a single member of our group of patrons in parliament uses the name of Plast to this end. We in turn don’t publicize our relations too much. Getting back to the question of inter-party tolerance, so to speak, I would like to note that adult Plast members take part in various political parties and groups, and this doesn’t prevent us from working toward our main goal.”

Let’s consider another stereotype. It is commonly held that, on the one hand, our society is too politicized — in established democracies election turnouts are not as outrageously high — and, on the other hand, that our young people are absolutely indifferent to politics.

LAVRYNENKO: “This is not true. I’ll give you an example: our fifteen-year-old members recently submitted a proposal to organize a discussion of the Single Economic Space because they saw many televised reports on the SES but didn’t fully understand what it was all about; and they wanted to understand. So they selected materials and took an active part in the discussion.”

LETENKO: “Perhaps this is also due to the fact that society must be prepared for public activity. For example, why does Europe have such a powerful volunteer movement? Firstly, it receives maximum government support. Secondly, volunteering there is a matter of prestige. Go ahead and ask our people whether it’s a mark of prestige to be a volunteer in Ukraine.”

YAREMA: “Many won’t even be able to answer this question.”

LETENKO: “Which makes it a rhetorical question. Indeed, a person who works for the good of society for free does not receive those moral dividends that he or she is entitled to. Worse still, the public mostly doesn’t understand such people.”

YAREMA: “It seems the key aspect here is that in Western democracies the state and society coexist according to completely different rules. The state entrusts grassroots organizations with satisfying certain social needs, i.e., it attempts to involve the public in implementing various projects, from educational projects to professional training projects. Meanwhile, our state tries to do everything single-handedly. It would be a definite sign that our state has embarked on a democratic path of development if it showed trust in grassroots organizations and understood that there is nothing bad about them, that it’s a positive thing, and then our relationship would reach a point where we would jointly work out various programs to meet social needs.”

In other words, this is your idea of an ideal relationship between the state and the third sector?

ZALIPSKA: “For the second year running the Ministry for Family, Children, and Youth has held a competition of grassroots youth projects, and we have taken an active part in it. I consider this quite a normal approach. One of our few criticisms is that we would like the competition to be more transparent.”

YAREMA: “It would be ideal if this practice were embraced by other ministries and departments. Currently, the huge experience of grassroots organizations in youth employment, rehabilitation of certain categories of people, etc. remain unremarked and untapped.”

LAVRYNENKO: “In general, this could be phrased as follows: we are already interested in the state; now the main thing is to receive feedback, i.e., for the state to take an interest in us and our achievements, formulate its priorities, and support us in bringing to life ideas that are worthy.”

YAREMA: “Aside from many other benefits, this would help to save a considerable amount of state resources, since much of what the so-called ‘state people’ are now doing for money, grassroots organizations — volunteers whom my colleague just mentioned — could do on a voluntary basis. Not to mention the fact that young people and children are more eager to deal with grassroots organizations, whom they consider their equals, rather than with government representatives. The barrier between government agencies and young people will exist no matter what — even if Ukraine wakes up one day to find it has become a completely democratic state. A similar barrier also exists in the West. So there should always be some structure, perhaps a go-between is not the best word to use, that is on an equal footing with the young and can at the same time deal with government agencies. Such a system is much more effective than the mushrooming of government structures and agencies.”

LAVRYNENKO: “We mentioned patriotism. You know, after Ruslana won at the Eurovision Contest, my cell phone kept ringing until two in the morning. Everybody was calling me: Ukrainian Youth Association members and nonmembers, those who are well off, and others who have problems, including financial ones; but everyone was overjoyed and proud because a Ukrainian had won. A similar unifying factor for Ukrainians, although it was a different issue, was the Tuzla Island affair.”

All that remains then is to wish for more positive unifying factors than negative ones.