NEWS AND VIEWS: Ukraine's young expatriates are the key to its future (12/31/00)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Ukraine's young expatriates are the key to its future

by Maksym Mykhaylenko

More than many nations, Ukrainians are greatly influenced by their diaspora in the West. Here in Ukraine we associate the diaspora with economic emigration at the dawn of the 20th century, with freedom fighters who were lucky enough to escape the hell of economic and political oppression under communism.

They were the guardians of our language and culture. They were distant, fairy-godmother relatives from across the sea.

But the wish that our distant cousins might magically put independent Ukraine back on its feet has yet to come true. Moreover, the diaspora seem less interested in Ukraine with every passing year.

Yet help may still come from abroad - not from the diaspora but from Ukrainian expatriates. Today there are Ukrainian citizens who have studied and worked abroad for years, but who are still young enough to associate themselves primarily with the modern, independent state of Ukraine.

I, for instance, lived abroad for four years and during that time I met many of those who may one day return to the country of their birth to serve it.

I remember partying in the quiet and cozy suburb of Allentown, Pa., with a guy from Kolomyia, who studied artificial intelligence at Penn State. We partied under Taras Shevchenko's portrait while listening to the songs of Ivo Bobul - recorded in San Francisco.

I remember two women from my university who got jobs in the student cafeteria a week after they came to America. I respected them instantly, as I understood that their parents back home were by no means poor.

I remember a computer engineer in Chicago who spent most of his life in my neighborhood in Ukraine and who messaged me once saying that, if there were a use for his talents back home, he would come back.

I remember a person who studied optics in Ukraine, who in America worked more than 50 hours a week in student jobs, and who is now working in the hotel business in Scotland.

I remember a banking analyst in New York who wants to establish a fund to help Ukrainian students study in Canada, so they have an easier time than he did gaining an education.

Like me, these people grew up when Dynamo Kyiv regained its old glory, when Western-style TV came to Ukraine, when it became standard to learn Ukrainian history at school and Ukrainian became the language of higher education.

And they take their culture abroad with them.

I remember once walking out onto the terrace of the Central European University's Kerepesi dormitory in Budapest and hearing three people sitting at a table speaking faultless Ukrainian.

I joined them and found out that one was from Mykolaiv and another was from Kyiv - neither of which leaps to mind as entrenched Ukrainian-speaking areas.

Later I found out that there were more than 50 Ukrainians at the university. Despite the fact that we were not a particularly homogeneous group, many tried to speak Ukrainian whenever they could, almost everyone voted in the elections and almost everyone went to V.V.'s concert in Budapest. And, of course, matches involving the national soccer team and Dynamo drew all Ukrainians (regardless of language or politics) to the TV screen.

However unrealistic it may sound in these years of stagnation and general disappointment, I see the expatriates - not the immigrant diaspora - as the people who will fashion Ukraine's brighter future. And I see the influence of the "old" diaspora vanishing along with its apparent loss of interest in developments in Ukraine.

What makes me think that the modern expatriates will be the ones to help shape the new Ukraine?

Many of those who return (even though they are few) have already occupied many junior and mid-level positions in business, academia or government. Many of those who stayed in the West deal with Ukraine or the region for their companies or research it in their theses.

I believe these people will rise to decision-making positions. And it is obvious that they will have more experience and a broader outlook than those of their peers who never left the country.

Why do I think they will bother with Ukraine, despite all of its horrendous problems?

Well we're from an industrialized and well-educated nation. Some of those who have fled the poorest parts of Africa or Asia have no place to return to - their homes are torn by war, hunger or oppression.

But Ukraine's expatriates do have a place to return to - no matter how miserable conditions here are right now.

Moreover, first generation immigrants rarely become decision-makers in their adopted country, and it seems that my generation will hardly satisfy itself with anything less than decision-making. We have, after all, experienced the short-sightedness of our politicians, been bored with the illusions of our elders, observed the despair of our educated and hard-working parents. Plus, Ukraine will still be forming its new elite for decades to come.

Already these elite are starting to return, including several people I know personally.

One works as an analyst for the Japanese Embassy, another for the environmental authority in Zaporizhia Oblast. One woman is with the East West Institute in Kyiv. A number of my former associates teach at universities around Ukraine.

Most, of course, dream of going West again. But all of them also understand that Ukraine is ripe with opportunity, and will be for some time to come.

So the dream of our diaspora coming to Ukraine's rescue will likely remain that - a dream. In reality, we will help ourselves. To see what I mean, recall the "exile" governments in the Baltics, which pushed their countries through restructuring with less pain than in Ukraine. And where did the Poles get all the help, experience, investment and money? The European Union? Hardly.

Maksym Mykhaylenko is an assistant professor and post-graduate student at Chernivsti National University, Ukraine. He received a bachelor of arts in international studies from Lock Haven University of Pennsylvania (1998), and his master's degree in international relations and European studies from the Central European University in Budapest (2000). He is the author and co-author of 25 publications. This article is reprinted (with minor editing changes) with permission from The Kyiv Post, October 19.

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