COMMENTARY: The irrational exuberance of Orange (10/02/05)

COMMENTARY

The irrational exuberance of Orange

by Roman Solchanyk

All of those bandits who were in power will wind up in prison.
- Viktor Yushchenko, Gazeta Wyborcza, April 11.

I give my word that no one from among the members of the government will take advantage of his position in order to further his own business [interests].
- Viktor Yushchenko, Gazeta Wyborcza, April 11.

The renewal of cadres will be continued.
- Viktor Yushchenko, speech on Independence Square marking the anniversary of Ukraine's independence, August 24.

Thus far, of the three above-mentioned promises made by President Viktor Yushchenko, the only one that he has followed up on is the last. The cadres are indeed being "renewed," but not the ones that either he or we had in mind. Instead, the president has dismissed the entire Cabinet of Ministers, and the chief of his administration, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, and the head of the Security Service of Ukraine are now all in the category of "former."

The spark that touched off what is now being routinely described as a crisis is directly related to the second promise noted above - namely, charges and counter-charges of widespread corruption among the heroes of the Orange Revolution that have been made public by the heroes themselves, including the Ukrainian President.

It is impossible, of course, to determine who is lying and who is not; these are, after all, politicians. But what is strikingly obvious is that at the core of most of the accusations and counter-accusations is the question of money: how to get as much of it as possible and in any way possible. For those who may have forgotten, the Orange revolutionaries came to power via the maidan (Independence Square) by focusing, among other things, on the illicit wedding of political power to shady money, which was the hallmark of the previous regime.

In light of what can only be described as a kind of a Ukrainian cum Soviet "bardak" that is presently unfolding in Kyiv, I decided to go back and reread some of the reports and commentaries that appeared in The Weekly and in other publications last fall and winter, when the word "orange" took on a new meaning (and Orange-related paraphernalia apparently brought in handsome profits for Mr. Yushchenko's immediate family). What I found there is perhaps best described by a phrase made famous by the chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve - namely, "irrational exuberance."

The overall thrust of much of this happy talk, including that of individuals in the U.S. and Canada whose names are preceded by the word "professor," was that a new Ukraine and a new nation had arisen in the aftermath of a successful and peaceful national uprising against the bad guys - those whose primary purpose for seeking and maintaining political power was grand larceny.

I place emphasis on the word "national," because, among other things, we were cheerily told that the notion of a Ukraine divided along an east-west axis was absolutely wrong, a stereotype, and the like. Yes, there are regional differences in Ukraine, went the story, but these are unimportant. The errant ways of former President Leonid Kuchma and his gang of thieves were being reversed, the people had spoken and they were victorious, and the good guys (?) were now in power. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, as the new president assured his listeners in his August 24 speech.

Ukraine was finally going to resemble what these people in places like Philadelphia and Toronto always imagined it to be.

The euphoria was not limited to Ukrainian Americans or Ukrainian Canadians. A well-known professor in Ukraine, jousting with an equally well-known essayist in Ukraine, wrote in the December 2004 issue of a well-known Ukrainian-language monthly that "the time has come to stage a symbolic public funeral" for the notion of two Ukraines - that is, one kind of Ukraine in the east and a rather different kind in the west.

But if only it were all so simple.

The irrational exuberance brought about by the maidan seemed not to notice that nearly half of the votes in the final round of the presidential election last December were cast against the maidan. Further, the bulk of these votes were in the eastern and southern regions of Ukraine. No one in the Yushchenko camp was seriously disputing the validity of these votes. Moreover, we have seen a similar pattern of voting behavior in previous Ukrainian elections. As Yogi Berra would say, it was déja vu all over again.

Public opinion studies serve only to confirm what the election made plain and what should be painfully obvious: Ukraine is politically divided and the division has a very clear geographic component. A survey conducted by the Razumkov Center in Kyiv and the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology in May revealed that 78 percent of respondents in the western part of the country sympathized with those political forces that supported the Yushchenko camp; the corresponding figure for the east was only 15 percent.

The glaring differences between east and west are obvious.

Nearly 72 percent of respondents in the western part of the country support membership in the European Union; the corresponding figure for the east is slightly over 30 percent. As for joining the Single Economic Space with Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan, more than 86 percent in the east are for it while the corresponding number in the west is just above 32 percent. In the east, 79 percent want dual citizenship with Russia; in the west it is just over 20 percent. And so it goes down the line.

One does not need to be a mathematical genius to arrive at the conclusion that there is a disparity here insofar as the political culture of the eastern and western parts of Ukraine.

More disconcerting perhaps is the tenacity of certain long-term trends in the country as a whole.

The results of a recently concluded study covering the period 1994-2005 by the Institute of Sociology in Kyiv and the Democratic Initiatives Foundation found that more than 50 percent of the population would like Ukraine to join in a union with Russia and Belarus. More than 50 percent means a majority. Over the course of the last year, the proportion of opponents of integration into Europe has nearly doubled. Problems of culture and language are the last thing that people in Ukraine are concerned about; half of the population supports official status for the Russian language. (I wonder how that would go over in Poland - or even Slovakia.)

The report ends by saying that "Ukrainian society is developing in a non-European direction." What? All those fine new buildings going up in Kyiv, the expensive restaurants, and the president's 19-year-old son brandishing a cellphone that sells for a minimum of $6,000 (he has a part-time job) do not amount to Europe?

Clearly, there will be those who do not place much trust in public opinion polls. Fine. But discounting opinion surveys as a matter of course brings to mind certain people who are uncomfortable with what they disdainfully characterize as "reality-based" news. The consequences of that approach have not been altogether happy. In any case, results from the ballot box in Ukraine tell the same story.

There will also be those who may argue that, well, after all, we do have so-called blue and red states here in the U.S., so what's the big deal? The big deal is that differences of opinion about abortion, guns, stem cell research and something called "intelligent design" have nothing remotely to do with fundamental issues of nationhood. And fundamental issues of nationhood are precisely what are in question in contemporary Ukraine. Anyone with doubts on this score needs only to read what thoughtful people in Ukraine are increasingly writing about.

The point of this exercise is not to suggest that Ukrainians are somehow incapable of becoming a nation or that Ukraine is falling apart because most people in Donetsk prefer to speak Russian while most people in Lviv are inclined to speak Ukrainian. That bit of early 1990s "intelligence" from Langley was wrong then and it is wrong now. What I am suggesting, however, is that the fat lady is not finished singing.

Oh, and as far as that first presidential promise about bandits winding up in prison. Which bandits are we talking about? The "good" ones or the "bad" ones?

Dr. Roman Solchanyk is an international affairs analyst in Santa Monica, Calif.

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