Die Welt: Ukraine is partially to blame for its troubles
23 February 2015 – 2:52pm
Die Welt
“The Maidan a year later: the EU supports Ukraine on the path to reforms and peace,” the EU envoy for Foreign Affairs Federica Mogherini posted on her Twitter account. According to the UNN, on February 22nd Kyiv commemorated the victims of the Maidan in February 2014. The presidents of Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, Germany, Georgia, Moldova, the European Council, and the premiers of Latvia and Estonia, as well as delegations from Spain, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Hungary, Romania and Ireland took part in the arrangements.
The editor-in-chief of Die Welt, Tomas Schmidt, expressed his view on the EU support for Kyiv in his article “Ukraine is partially to blame for its troubles.”
Ukraine missed its historic 1989. Existing states like Poland, Hungary and Czechoslovakia and the countries which hadn’t regained their independence yet, like the Baltic states, passed through an arc of freedom in 1989, even though the process was not painless.
They survived years and decades of difficulties, losses, and challenges. However, they followed the course of changes. Finally, they formed relatively stable societies; and their citizens are living in democratic states with market economies. Today even Hungary can see a path of its success, looking back.
The situation in Ukraine was different. In 1989, when the country was a part of the Soviet Empire, it couldn’t use that historic moment. Even though national movements for independence acted in the west of the country, the revolution of 1991 was organized by the old elite. The country fell into the post-Communist epoch.
Almost all other states of the Warsaw Pact were more powerful or had weaker communist movements, on the one hand. On the other hand, there were movements which strived for reforms in the old administrations. A new political model appeared under a conflict of two camps. However, neither the eager democratic activists nor the old elite could win completely. This ambiguity guaranteed both changes and a succession in societies.
In Ukraine the succession won. Despite the rhetoric, many things from Soviet times remained in this big country, neighboring Russia. All attempts to turn the justice system into a pillar of the rule of law failed, due to the resistance of the people who controlled the justice apparatus.
The system of bribery and corruption couldn’t be defeated either. Things which existed under the Soviet Union remained after its dissolution: a person who wanted to get a job, a license or land couldn’t rely on the official process, he preferred to give a bribe. It was impossible to rely on state institutions. The governmental power is a power of certain persons for citizens. Finally, political parties which could be at least slightly compared with Western models were not formed in Ukraine.
Parties are formed over individuals, primarily oligarchs. It is notable that the party of the current President of the country is called The Bloc of Petro Poroshenko. Political and private economic interests are interconnected in party structures. Parties have no political ideas, goals, or concepts. Thus, they don’t contribute to the formation of a truly political sphere.
It is no accident that all official agencies in Ukraine – the government, ministries, justice bodies, security services – are defined by one notion of “power.” That is why Ukraine became the only country of the former Eastern Bloc where a people’s revolution took place. The orange revolution was a powerful splash which expressed people’s desire to achieve real changes.
However, they failed to shift the idealistic impulse to the sphere of institutional political reforms. And this was a great disappointment. While other countries were developing, nothing was changing in Ukraine. People realized that they had lost 15 years after the crucial 1989. After the protests, old troubles and blurs came back.
The Maidan movement was such a dark and threatening phenomenum in winter 2013-2014 because despair had defeated hope long ago. It was the first (and probably the last) revolution to take place under flags of the European Union. The Maidan led to the overthrow of the authorities.
The new government and President turned toward the West, promising that they would renew Ukraine completely. Many activists of the Maidan were skeptical about the promises. However, their criticism is directed in the wrong direction: they complain that the government doesn’t follow the Maidan’s spirit. However, the spirit is very idealistically sonorous. As a result, there are such statements which puzzled ordinary people: “The totality of the Maidan and its stepping outside the 3D space didn’t leave an opportunity to give a full-scale name to i,t” (Katerina Mishenko). It is a language of an existential revolution. The will to change, despair, and returning to an internal life where politics is neglected are reflected in it.
However, the skeptical activists of the Maidan are right that the new political authorities of Ukraine, which are supported by the West for political reasons, haven’t fulfilled their promises and justified people’s hopes. It is concentrated on the struggle against Russia and seeking Western aid, forgetting about internal reforms.
Even though many former activists of the Maidan became MPs or took positions in the government, many people note that they have no real power in such spheres as the struggle against corruption. President Poroshenko’s behavior is interesting. Probably the fact that he doesn’t promise broad democracy is smart of him. However, it is a warning that he presents himself primarily as a patriot, rather than as a reformer. He mentions necessary internal reforms only at the ends of his numerous articles and interviews to the Western press. Poroshenko fulfils his formal duty, but he is not sincerely enthusiastic about the reforms.
While the idealistic part of the Maidan activists is not interested in turning the revolution into a policy of real reforms, Poroshenko and his team don’t understand what a great pressure for holding reforms came from the Maidan. 25 years have passed since the crucial 1989. Those who were at the peak of their life are now paling into insignificance, and they have to come to a sad conclusion – they didn’t gain freedom. Another urgent problem for young Ukrainians is that after the two revolutions, they realize that the first one was lost, and the second can choose the way of the first one. Revolutions don’t appear from nothing, and two revolutions in one life are too much.
Many things confirm that the revolutionary enthusiasm of the Ukrainians has been exhausted. In the end we can see mass apathy and rejection of political involvement. An active civil position of people, without which Ukraine won’t be able to find a way out, will disappear. Ukraine needs a long-term course of recovery. And Poroshenko will be a bad president who deceives his people if he doesn’t say that.
In fact, he prefers to speak about Western aid. He speaks about it, as if the West is able to transplant a functional market economy into Ukraine at once. Poroshenko knows well that this is impossible. However, he is doing nothing to explain this to the Ukrainians. He is a true oligarch, a person who knows how to adapt to any balance of forces.
It is easy to say and difficult to do, but it must be done. Ukraine urgently needs its own Marshall Plan. It should be generous, but doesn’t demand colossal efforts from Ukraine and the Ukrainians. And one thing should be clear: Ukraine should do its best as soon as possible to turn to the rule of the law with separate powers and deserve the right to be called a state of law.