NEWS AND VIEWS: Love and Ukraine's 10th birthday party (12/17/00)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Love and Ukraine's 10th birthday party

by Oksana Bashuk Hepburn

When Mykola Zhulynskyi, vice prime minister of Ukraine, traveled to Canada this past July, he shared his government's vision of how Ukraine might celebrate its first decade of independence.

The anniversary on August 24, 2001, will be a great event: it has been centuries since Ukraine sustained 10 years of independent rule. The vice prime minister mentioned several birthday projects: a pantheon to Ukraine's freedom fighters spanning the centuries, a monument to victims of the Great Famine, and a celebration of diaspora talent. All are wonderful initiatives.

Shortly after Ukraine gained independence I asked a political scientist friend what he would do to secure Ukraine's new place in the world were he in charge. Three things, he said: ensure independence; make international friends, instill love for Ukraine among the people.

Ukraine has done well on the first point. And it counts many Western powers, including Canada among its friends. But that matter of love at the man-on-the-street level in the bleak times Ukraine is experiencing just now may need a little work.

Fortunately Ukraine has Dr. Zhulynskyi in the position of vice prime minister for humanitarian affairs. Soft-spoken, sensitive, a writer and pre-independence defender of Ukraine's freedom, he is the right man to generate love for the country. This is not an easy task when taxes are stifling, jobs are scarce, salaries inadequate, economic stagnation unrelieved, exports insignificant and the population is in decline.

And, as if all that were not enough, there is the domination of the Russian language and messages in the predominantly foreign-owned broadcast and print media blocking national content and the growth of national identity - all the while adding insult to injury by threatening Ukraine with human rights violations on the grounds of restrictions on the use of the Russian language.

What a load! Despite this, Ukraine is a diamond that's having it rough. There is some light on the horizon, thanks to Prime Minister Viktor Yuschenko's reforms, but more won't hurt, will it? So for the 10th birthday party there is a need for more sparkle to the lives of the citizens to generate more love all around.

Here's one Canadian's birthday present list: a present for every year of independence:

1. 10 percent reduction of personal and business tax;
2. 10 percent increase in pensions;
3. 10 percent increase in job creation;
4. 10 percent increase in salaries;
5. 10 percent growth in GDP;
6. 10 percent growth in production and consumption of indigenous goods;
7. 10 percent growth in exports;
8. 10 percent increase in Ukrainian content in the media;
9. 10 percent drop of immigration; and;
10. 10 percent subsidy to mothers to stimulate the birth rate

How will all this fine love stuff get funded? That might be the birthday present from First Vice Prime Minister of Economic Affairs and the present from Prime Minister Yuschenko and, above all, President Leonid Kuchma. Moreover, all the good international Yurii Yekhanurov friends that Ukraine has - Canada among them - might give fine presents from the heart, too.

After all, Canada is the No. 1 country in the world because it provides most of us with many of the items on the list. And we love it. But at one point, some 110 years ago when things were as bleak here as they are in Ukraine today, and Canada was the backwater of the world, the Ukrainians came with their human capital and grain to help transform it into what it is today. Indeed, about 1 million are still contributing to its success.

One generous gift deserves another, and when better to give than on a birthday? What do you say to that, Canada? What do you say, Dr. Zhulynskyi?

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn is the president of U-CAN, a consulting firm specializing in Canada-Ukraine relations, and national president of the Ukrainian Canadian Professional and Business Federation.

| Home Page |