A Benchmark for the New Government
“A privilege to be called Ukrainian” — this is how participants attending the All-Ukrainian Viche (“council”) last Saturday characterized the Development Plan of the Country, which the representatives of diverse groups, strata, and regions had been working on for two years. According to the initiator of this action, Inna Bohoslovska, this is Ukraine’s first sociopolitical project conceived by the country’s citizens, not the government.
The proposed development program, aimed at making Ukraine a state of peace and social harmony, is comprised of ideas about this country’s administrative and territorial division, system of government, priorities in social and economic development, geopolitics, education, and culture. The organizers are sure that, should the plan be fulfilled, in ten years’ time Ukraine will be an independent European state worthy of membership in the European Union.
Addressing the Viche participants, among whom The Day correspondent’s photo lens caught Viktor Pinchuk, a well-known businessman and people’s deputy, and a businesswoman turned politician Iryna Horina, Ms. Bohoslovska analyzed the plan enthusiastically. The plan’s three linchpins are geopolitics, geoeconomics, and the national idea. The latter is very simple, “Ukraine is me!” This means our genetic code and wealth lie in the uniqueness of each one of us in the overall range of characteristics (religious faith, culture, character, etc.). The point is that other individuals should also accept this uniqueness.
According to those who helped draw up the plan, the strategy of geoeconomics must be based on “national economic egoism,” i.e., worldwide promotion of our interests, an open, all- pervading economy, and pragmatic protection of the domestic market from unfair competition, substandard goods, and services.
According to the plan, geopolitics will rest on Ukraine’s active neutrality, which above all calls for non-aligned status based on the European choice. This item was further explained in a speech made by Oleksandr Chaly, former minister of foreign affairs in charge of European integration. In his opinion, renewed non-aligned status will allow Ukraine to reinforce real guarantees of security and help eliminate geopolitical rivalry between western and eastern Ukraine. “The Orange Revolution gave Ukraine a new image and new chances,” Mr. Chaly said, “but it also issued new challenges and tested European countries on their preparedness to support in deed, not in word, the part of Ukrainian society that they are so rapturous about.”
The above-mentioned points are just one of Ukraine’s development strategies. Some may support it, some not. In particular, non-aligned status seems to be the most controversial idea of this project. Yet the Viche organizers’ indisputable achievement is that in offering criticisms, they proposed something that can become the departure point for a crucially necessary debate in society on this country’s future, because the forum participants represent not only absolutely different walks of life but also the psychologically opposite regions of Ukraine. According to Ms. Bohoslovska, the main objective of the All-Ukrainian Viche is to set a standard below which the new government must not fall and to ensure that at least 10% of the project participants will begin implementing the development plan in their respective regions.
