NEWS AND VIEWS: Colonial mindset and national identity (10/15/00)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Colonial mindset and national identity

by Ihor Lysyj

Having won political independence in 1991, Ukraine still is fighting for its cultural self-determination nine years later. The conflict is between colonial and indigenous cultures. It is a clash between Russian cultural domination and awakening Ukrainian cultural aspirations. On a personal level it is a clash between the colonial mindset and the mindset of national conciousness.

The weapons of choice in this conflict are language, heritage and religion. The stakes are high, and the outcome of the struggle will determine the nature of Ukrainian national identity. Underpinning the struggle is a fundamental issue. Will Ukraine remain simply an independent legal jurisdiction, as it is today, or will it become a nation-state in the European sense?

The colonial mindset still prevalent in Ukraine can best be defined as a deference to all things Russian. It manifests itself in a deep inferiority complex, a lack of self-respect and ignorance of the indigenous cultural heritage. One can find proponents of the colonial mindset in the Ukrainian Parliament, the government bureaucracy, the Russian Orthodox Church and in commercial oligarchies. The principal weapon of these proponents is an extensive propaganda machine and a know-how in the information sphere inherited from the Soviet Union. Soviet-era bureaucrats that permeate all branches of authority are the main proponents for the language, culture, religion and heritage of their former colonial masters.

Media in all its forms, both print and broadcast, and entertainment are used to propagate the colonial culture in Ukraine. It was a strange feeling for me to walk on Prospekt Svobody in Lviv and listen to Russian rock-and-roll blasting from the beer hall next to the Shevchenko monument and see each corner newsstand overflowing with Russian-language newspapers.

The most striking characteristic of the colonial mentality is a decline in the common use of the Ukrainian language. There is an overpowering domination of the Russian language on radio and TV. On the Internet, 90 percent of the websites originating in Ukraine are in Russian. And so are all business references for Ukraine cited on the popular web site Brama. A feeble attempt by the Ukrainian government to require bureaucrats in its administration to learn to speak and use Ukrainian in performance of their official duties produced a howl of protests in Moscow and ended as a simple excerise in rhetoric.

While the Ukrainian language still prevails in western Ukraine, Jackie Huhin speaks for the rest of the country: "The real situation today is such that only intellectuals, nationalists and those who were born into Ukrainian-speaking families speak Ukrainian. There is no economic (material) incentive for the rest to speak Ukrainian" ("It must be profitable to speak Ukrainian" by Jackie Huhin, in the newspaper in Den, April 19). Speaking for the majority, Ms. Huhin simply equates national identity with economic advantage.

The roots of widespread corruption, endemic poverty and the enrichment of a few at the expense of many that prevails in Ukraine today can be found in the colonial attitudes and mindset of oligarchs who control much of the economy and in the bureaucracy that supports them. The oligarchs have no roots or interest in Ukrainian culture; they represent their own, rather than national interests. And a colonial oligarchy does not have to be foreign, it can be also native.

On the other side of the conflict are proponents of national culture and consciousness in Ukraine. Of those, the popular movement Rukh was probably the most significant. The movement, idealistic and intellectual, represented what could justifiably be called the romantic period of the struggle for independence. Having achieved independence for the nation, the movement was totally unprepared or in capable of assuming responsibility for running the state.

Yurii Kostenko, leader of one faction of Rukh stated recently: "National and democratic forces have won the struggle for independence, but lost the fight for authority, which remains Communist" (Svoboda, May 26). The popular national democratic movement did not coalesce into a coherent political force but fractured into a number of small, ineffectual, competing and self-destructive factions, a condition that in Ukrainian historic tradition is called "otamanshchyna." Unless national and democratic forces manage to overcome this curse of history and consolidate into a united front whose goal is to rebuild the nation, the prospects for a better future are not very bright.

The diaspora is an important force in the struggle for Ukrainian political and cultural self-determination. From the first day of independence, the Ukrainian diaspora in the United States, Canada, and elsewhere provided unqualified political, moral and economic support for the fledging state and its government. The importance of a politically active diaspora in support of its country of origin was emphasized by Mayor Andrzej Pruszkowskiof Lublin, Poland during his visit this past spring to the United States: "It is evident that without the help of Polish and Ukrainian diaspora, the struggle for independence in their home countries would have been more difficult and more protracted. More than that, we should take advantage of their (diaspora) life experience, learning from them, and utilize them in the rebuilding of our countries."

The remarkable success of Ukrainian foreign policy can be directly attributed in part to unceasing lobbying by the politically influential Ukrainian diaspora of the U.S. Congress and the administration on Ukraine's behalf. American diplomacy has traveled a long road between the "Chicken Kiev" and "suicidal nationalism" speech given in 1991 by then-President George Bush and the "Boritesia, poborete!" (Fight and you shall overcome!) and "Slava Ukraini!" (Glory to Ukraine!) speech that the current president, Bill Clinton, delivered this summer to cheering thousands in St. Michael's Square in Kyiv. The change in political climate we see today is in no small measure due to the long and sustained labors by the diaspora on behalf of Ukraine.

However, there is also a negative attitude building up in the the diaspora towards Ukraine. This attitude is spreading to organized institutions of the diaspora. One of the more influential political parties, the Ukrainian Revolutionary Democratic Party (URDP/UDRP) has folded its tents, disbanded itself and closed the newspaper that represented the viewpoint of immigrants from central and eastern Ukraine for more than half a century. The party sees no justification for further existence since its prime objective, independence for Ukraine, has been achieved. While this is indeed true, Ukraine has a long way to go before it will be able to transform itself from an independent legal entity into a full-pledged European nation-state. Along the way it will need all the help it can get.

Of all the neighbors of Ukraine, Poland is the most supportive of the fledging state. Forgetting ancient animosities, Poland was the first country to recognize Ukraine as an independent state. It has provided unwavering political and diplomatic support for Ukraine in the European Union - sometimes even when this was contrary to its own economic interests. Across the border from Lviv, in the Polish city of Lublin 800 Ukrainian students attend schools of higher education - the majority of them supported and financed by Polish government. With the blessing of both the Polish and the Ukrainian presidents a project is under way to establish joint Ukrainian-Polish university in this city to promote Western cultural traditions of Ukraine.

But while good will and assistance from Ukraine's friends abroad is important, the desire and the will to become European nation-state must come from within.

Last year President Leonid Kuchma addressed the issue of national culture in the following manner: "This is also important because in the contemporary world, with its openness, intensive contacts, influences and breadth, only fully formed and consolidated cultures can survive. A cultural defeat would translate into a political defeat today and an economic one tomorrow." In short, if Ukraine losses the cultural war for its national identity, all the other considerations, including economic and political, will be a moot point.

An often repeated objective of the Ukrainian government is for the country to be integrated into European political and economic structures. Being a nation-state in European sense, however, requires some prerequisites, including possession of a unique national culture, history, traditions, language and heritage. Simply being an independent legal jurisdiction is not enough.

The transformation of Ukraine into a European nation-state will require aggressive promotion of Ukrainian culture in all its forms. The process must begin soon and focus on education, including in primary and secondary schools and on support of patriotic youth organizations such as Plast.

Hope for the better future of Ukraine rests very much with the next generation, and so do the prospects for the resurrection of national culture and purpose in Ukraine.

Whatever limited resources the diaspora has should be directed to that end.

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