EDITORIAL: What happened? (09/22/96)

EDITORIAL

What happened?

A short while ago, we at The Ukrainian Weekly received a particularly interesting - and disturbing - phone call. The caller identified himself as a Ukrainian American from Connecticut who had traveled in July to the Verkhovyna Youth Festival in Glen Spey, N.Y., the resort of the Ukrainian Fraternal Association. The reason for his call: he said he was aghast at how the festival's scope had decreased from the years he recalled. "Why can't SOMEBODY do SOMETHING about this? Somebody needs to promote it, to keep it alive. We can't just let the festival fall apart. It used to be so wonderful, with so many people, so exciting..."

After hearing this gentleman out (and he went on for quite a while), we asked politely: "And just when was the last time you had attended the festival?" The answer was some 10 to 15 years ago (we don't recall the exact number cited).

"And how did you come to call The Weekly?" - "Well, I picked it up at festival," he answered, "and decided to call you."

"And are you a subscriber to our paper?" - "No. I remember it from back in the early days." (Without going into detail about this portion of our conversation, we should note that the "early years" our interlocutor recalled were the 60s and 70s. Of course, The Weekly has been around since 1933.)

"Are you a member of any Ukrainian organizations, like the Ukrainian Fraternal Association, the Ukrainian National Association, or any others?" - "No."

"So, you obviously are not aware of what is happening in our community." - "Well, no..."

To make a long story short - and our conversation went on as we proceeded to fill our caller in on major developments within the community that had a direct bearing on his concerns - we finally got up enough courage to state the obvious: "Well, pardon us for saying so, but if people like you don't care, don't participate, it's a little strange, wouldn't you say, to complain that our community is withering away?"

You see, it's a pet peeve of ours at The Ukrainian Weekly that, in general, we ourselves do not care about our community, that we do not value all it has to offer. To some degree it's also a matter of forgetting about our community here because we're so focused on Ukraine. Sure, we know how to complain about our community life, but ask yourself: What have I done lately for our community, (whether, locally, regionally or nationally)?

We are here to stay in America, and if we want our community to survive, if we dare to hope that it can flourish for the next generation, and perhaps the one after that, then each and every one of us must do SOMETHING. Otherwise, we are guilty of neglect and one day we will wake up and find... it's all gone.

And then, we'll be like our caller at the top of this missive, wondering: "What happened?"