On phenomenon of “consumers’ pro-Europeanness”

In the background of preparations for Vilnius Summit, the results of recent survey conducted by the Rating Group (http://ratinggroup. com.ua) about “ideology markers” make one ponder on current peculiarities of Ukrainians’ political thinking, above all, the question of “pro-European pro-Ukrainianness” and “pro-Russian oppositionism.” Why most of Ukrainians want to see their country in the EU, but are against recognition of OUN-UPA as fighters for Ukraine’s independence? Why pro-Russian moods are close to a considerable group of opposition’s electorate?

STICK TO THE ROOT

Fifty-three percent support Ukraine’s entry into the EU to a certain extent (35 percents are against it to a certain extent). Forty-seven percent consider signing of EU Association Agreement more advantageous for our country than joining the Customs Union (34 percent are for joining the Customs Union). Forty-five percent consider that signing of this agreement will be a victory for Ukraine (16 percent view it as a defeat). Fifty-one percent on the whole are against of creation of a single East Slavic state (Ukraine + Russia + Belarus) and giving of official status to Russian language (38 percent are for a united state to a certain degree; 43 percent are for Russian language). At the same time a total of 52 percent of Ukrainian respondents don’t want to recognize the participants OUN-UPA the fighters for Ukraine’s independence (27 percent want this in one or another expression).

As we can see, average Ukrainian elector (if to imagine him as a certain majority of respondents who showed unanimity on the abovementioned questions), generally speaking, is logical and consistent in his “pro-Ukrainian pro-Europeanness.” But there is one exception. It is the OUN-UPA question. Why less than one-third of the citizens are against recognizing the Ukrainian insurgents as the participants of the struggle for independence, whereas over half of Ukrainians support accession to the EU, and almost a half of Ukrainians are for association with the EU? Clearly, the supporters of EU integration include residents of the country’s east, whose pro-Ukrainian moods are not strong enough to develop a positive, or at least neutral to OUN-UPA. And there apparently is a considerable group of people in central and western Ukraine, who in spite of their support of national democracy and pro-Western vector, still do not accept the role of Ukrainian insurgents in the World War II.

But this problem has the other side of the coin. It won’t be a great discovery to mention that the phenomenon of “consumers’ pro-Europeanness” exists in Ukraine; such people attach no importance to independence and the way and owing to whom we achieved it. Increased wages is the most important factor which makes them feel like Europeans. (In May this year the Razumkov Center held a survey, as a result of which it turned out that 58.8 percent Ukrainians need a certain level of wellbeing to feel European.)

In this case they may even have a negative attitude to all things Ukrainian, but on the surface this attitude is loyal or demonstratively complacent, because under current political circumstances in the country it is traditional to associate Ukrainian things with Europe. Whereas the former is a means, the latter is the goal. And this gives way to an absolutely usual approach: put up and pretend to like the means to reach the cherished goal. We can consider the attitude to historic role of OUN-UPA, based on similar political-psychological state of affairs, as a separate question and probably untypical demonstration of the “transit” type of Ukrainian patriotism, described above. But the main thing is that today this topic indirectly leads us to a simple, but serious “marginal note”: in our aspiration to become Europeans we must not forget that we are Ukrainians.

START FROM OURSELVES

“Logical experience is an experiment you undergo to reveal contradictions,” said psychologist and philosopher Jean Piaget. There is also an opinion that it is illogical to be guided merely by logic in life. Probably, both things are to some extent expressed in pro-Russian political views of a separate category of Ukrainians who are going to vote for opposition candidates. Below are several points, each of them has a special symbolism:

♦ 18 percent of Yulia Tymoshenko’s supporters do not support Ukraine’s accession to the EU; 14 percent of Arsenii Yatseniuk’s, 14 percent of Klitschko’s, and 9 percent of Oleh Tiahnybok’s supporters share this view;

♦ 13 percent of Tymoshenko’s supporters consider accession to the Customs Union advantageous for Ukraine, a view shared by 11 percent of Yatseniuk’s, 15 percent of Klitschko’s, and 7 percent of Tiahnybok’s supporters;

♦ 19 percent of Klitschko’s, 14 percent of Tymoshenko’s, 10 percent of Yatseniuk’s, and 10 percent of Tiahnybok’s supporters are for creation of a single state composed of Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus;

♦ 26, 17, 10, and 9 percent of supporters of Klitschko, Tymoshenko, Yatseniuk, and Tiahnybok, respectively, are for giving an official status to Russian language.

At Donetsk meeting “Rise, Ukraine!” which took place in the end of May this year Arsenii Yatseniuk stated ambitiously that the opposition will fight in every way to win the Donbas’s support. But in spite of sociological data, the leaders of Ukrainian “resistance forces” first and foremost need to think how not to lose the pro-Russian part of their electorate. This is not a big share, but it is substantial and significant. How could citizens vote for public fighters for national-democratic and European Ukraine and still keep to the Kremlin ideological positions?

“It is hard to tell,” says the leader of Donetsk organization of Svoboda Ihor Slavhorodsky, “Maybe this part of our party’s electorate supports us not from the point of ideology, but because we are the largest protest political force. Such citizens may share some pro-Russian sentiments, but the social protest within the state is at the moment more important for them than ideology and geopolitics. But they see namely Svoboda as the most appropriate political expression of this protest. Maybe it is true.”

Of course, not everything can be explained from the point of reason. But one important conclusion must be underlined, which is addressed to those who like, directly or by means of implication, to accuse the Donbas, in particular, the local electorate of the Party of Regions and KPU of political tardiness, Soviet-mindedness, pro-Russian way of thinking, and other things. (This is not to defend the PoR and Communist Party, but for justice’s sake.) First and foremost, let’s start with the opposition camp. If this camp has voters who want to share a united state with Russia and Belarus, what can be surprising about the analogical views of most of Viktor Yanukovych and Petro Symonenko’s supporters in the Donbas?

Spin doctor Oleksandr Kliuzhev assesses positively the pro-Russian share of the opposition forces. “There is indeed a split of electorate on a number of questions,” the expert notes, “But the fact that this split is clear-cut is a great achievement of our society. It is absolutely normal that there are voters who consider Russia a priority direction of Ukraine’s foreign political course, but at the same time support the parties which support the opposite geopolitical vector. It is simply that these electors, when they vote at the elections, may be guided not by the foreign policy, but, for example, individual features of a party leader, or the factor of political force’s consistency. Anyway, I will repeat that the pro-Russian part of opposition’s voters is a positive political-cultural phenomenon, which hinders institutionalizing the split between the Ukrainian voters.”