We are not outsiders, or Old skills won’t do

Pinning hopes on the authorities is a feature that the Ukrainians have inherited from the previous regimes. In the Soviet era, such ideas as Ukraineness, freedom, personality, and free elections were suppressed, whereas the state ruled the roost. Many are thinking, by force of inertia, that things should be the same today. People are having a hard time in, above all, psychological terms. Far from all have managed to change their attitudes in the past 20 years. Most of the people look on politicians as divine beings and elect them, only to be disappointed after some time. This occurs over and over again. We lack self-criticism, self-organization, communication, and awareness of our responsibility – beginning from tidiness in our own doorway and ending with our duties to the state. This is the conclusion we can draw from our experts’ questions to ordinary people. Some of them were answered by the experts themselves, while some other received no answer at all.

Ayder EMIROV, director, Bekir Coban-zade Charitable Foundation:

“My question is: people, when are we going to learn to vote properly and elect the authorities that will serve the interests of the country and the people instead of humiliating the populace?”

Mykola LAZAROVYCH, Candidate of Sciences (History); higher-doctorate seeker, Chernivtsi Yurii Fedkovych National University; Associate Professor, Department of Documentation Studies, Informational Activity, and Ukrainian Studies, Ternopil National Economic University; Meritorious Figure of Education, Ukraine:

“I would ask the Ukrainian people: how long shall we, Ukrainians, suffer from injustice? Besides, I would ask those who vote against all: are you not ashamed of your choice? It seems to me our patience, which befits a calf or perhaps a sheep, is exceeding all the limits. If we go on doing so, we will cease to associate ourselves with humans. We will just be the populace. And it is terrible. I can hear again: those who favor voting against all are rearing their heads. Even though there is no ‘against all’ checkmark on the ballot, this means that this kind of people will be dissuading others from going to the polls at all. I think that if my family, you, the Ukrainian nation as a whole, are to live better at least by an iota as a result of the elections, we must go and vote. To stay away from voting is a still greater evil in the current conditions. And to be indifferent in this situation is a crime because we will thus make it possible for the evil, which can still be eliminated today one way or another, to assume such a proportion that we will be unable to do anything with it. I may be wrong, but the impression is that the current boycott of Euro-2012 is a scenario devised by the current leadership. In other words, they want to use Europe’s rejection of Ukraine as a pretext for a rapprochement with Russia. This would be a European-scale disaster of sorts because, in my view, a considerable part of the population is prepared to do everything not to be again part of an empire, where the Ukrainians will be humiliated and where there will be every precondition for the Ukrainian nation to cease to exist.”

Tetiana IVANYTSKA, member, Zhytomyr Oblast Council; manager, KROK Radio:

“I want to ask the Ukrainians: as you keep on complaining about low living standards in your state, why are you doing nothing and, whenever you see somebody else do something, you offer resistance and give them no support? We still believe that somebody else must do something for us. If there is garbage in the yard, the authorities are to blame; if the flowerbed has not been dug up, the authorities are to blame; if there are no entertainments in the city, everyone else, but not we, is to blame. A Zhytomyr civic organization decided to hold a sightseeing campaign for the city’s residents and visitors. They made a calendar with photos of the old city for this purpose. It was planned to sell calendar for 30 hryvnias each and use the earned funds for renovating the arch in the Yury Gagarin Recreation Park. Either the price seemed fantastic to Zhytomyr residents or they considered this initiative as somebody’s unnecessary ambition, but the project was not carried out to the full extent.

“Nobody must be blamed. A good life can be born only in our minds.”

Yosyp LOS, professor; head, Foreign Press and Information Department, Lviv National Ivan Franko University:

“People, believe in yourselves! You have never been outsiders! You have not lost your history. Although 50 million Ukrainians were wiped out (through our fault, too) in the 20th century, we do have great prospects. So I have three requests to you. Firstly, the countryside. You must not allow land to be sold. Land belongs to the people, be they living, dead, or still to be born; it should not be sold into private hands. Secondly, education. You must not allow education to be destroyed. Ideology apart, I must say that education was far more effective in the Soviet era: when I was leaving school, I knew almost the whole Kobzar by heart, but now professors do not even know Shevchenko’s main poems! And, thirdly, the mass media. You must not give them to dilettantes. We should leave the ‘premier league’ intact in journalism.”

Illia KONONOV, associate professor; Candidate of Sciences (Philosophy); head, Philosophy and Sociology Department, Luhansk State Pedagogical University:

“My question to the people is: why are you doing what you are dissatisfied with? Littered roadsides and cities turned ‘cesspools’ is not the handiwork of extraterrestrials or Yanukovych.”

Yurko PROKOPCHUK, actor, Taras Shevchenko Music and Drama Theater, Cherkasy:

“The question is: People, how long are you going to allow outrage upon you? And I would like to hear just one phrase in answer: We will rise up!”

Mykola KRAVCHENKO, member, chief of the Science, Culture, Education, Youth, and Sport Commission, Mykolaiv Oblast Council; artistic director, Mykolaiv Russian Drama Art Theater:

“Is cutting down a cherry tree – to make it easier to pluck the fruits – a crime or a manifestation of democracy and freedom?”

Hlib HOLOVCHENKO, secretary, National Union of Ukrainian Journalists; member, Mykolaiv City Executive Committee; director, Press and Television College:

“What do the Ukrainian people wish? It is important that Ukrainian citizens should be aware of being the main source of power under the Constitution. But this also presumes responsibility. So whenever you are not satisfied with the quality of the services provided by a state that we have all created, you are putting the blame on yourselves. We are all responsible for our state. But what kind of a state should it be? Society should know the answer to this. Today, unfortunately, the vast majority of us does not know what we want and, hence, are dissatisfied with our fatherland. Respect for Ukraine should be a personal sensation of every citizen. We must actively advance our own Ukraine today. The old skills won’t do. We must learn to be proud of Ukraine – very loudly and openly at that. But, to do so, one must make sure it is the country he or she would like to build. There is no escaping the debate ‘What kind of Ukraine do we need?’ We must correct our mistakes, choose standards for the future, and draw up a plan of actions. But, first and foremost, we must clearly identify what the people of Ukraine need.”

Oleksandra FILONENKO, art expert; curator, At 45 Spaska Street Gallery, Mykolaiv:

“The question is essentially simple: when will the people stop complaining, begin to work, and stop laying the blame at the government’s door? For every nation receives the government it deserves.”