"REVOLUTION ON ASPHALT": THROTTLED BY A HANDOUT?

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...