Social capital with a Ukrainian accent
It is time to discuss the moral aspects of European and Euro-Atlantic integration. Apparently some bureaucrats, members of government, and parliamentarians are professing certain moral norms in their offices while voicing different ones during international meetings. During these gatherings some of these individuals resort to discharging functions they do not lawfully possess, namely attempts to make corrections in Ukraine’s foreign policy course. Of course, in their deeds and statements they abide by the interests of their own capital or oligarchy that helped them come to power. They also promise altogether different things when addressing campaign meetings.
The Ukrainian masses are not very aware of the foreign policy steps being taken by the political leadership, although it is generally believed that foreign policy is a reflection of an occasionally ineffective domestic one. Olha Balakirieva, head of the social transformations monitoring research department at the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Economics and Prognostication, says that the highest level of the population’s confidence in NATO (39 percent) was recorded in June 2002. In early 2006 public opinion showed the highest level of distrust: 62 percent.
Scientists and politicians explain the lack of consensus in Ukrainian society on perception of the alliance by various reasons. These include the consequences of anti-NATO Soviet propaganda, which remain in the older generation’s memory and spin doctor techniques used by several leftwing, regional, and social democratic parties during the last election campaign, based on opposing peoples’ perception in eastern and western Ukraine of the significance of the Euro-Atlantic political course for our country’s national security. In addition, attempts are being made to hold a referendum on Ukraine’s NATO membership at a time when a considerable part of this society lacks adequate information about the alliance.
Many citizens felt that after the last parliamentary elections society would have a more relaxed attitude to the idea of returning the country to Europe. But this did not happen. For various reasons, the Verkhovna Rada still has not become the kind of legislative body that harmoniously forms an effective democracy. It is very difficult for state institutions to feel the partnership support of the political system. Meanwhile, government officials, parliamentarians, and other ranking bureaucrats are sometimes so remote from national and state values that they are incapable of supporting and protecting them.
Our prime minister’s statements in Brussels that Kyiv will not be rushing to join the NATO Membership Action Plan (MAP) also left various impressions both inside and outside Ukraine. The Orange part of the government will have to forget about the possibility of NATO inviting Ukraine to join the MAP this year. It is hard to imagine today what will happen to all the projects that were prepared in numerous ministries and departments for the first future annual program within the framework of NATO’s Membership Plan.
Like any other pro-Ukrainian politician who understands the logic of the historical process, I would like Ukraine’s cooperation to intensify with the leading security entities on the European continent: NATO, the EU, and the Russian Federation. Where Russia is concerned, we know that it has been cooperating with NATO on a considerably broader scale than Ukraine, particularly in the military-technological domain, as defense technologies have been effectively pushed through. After all, for NATO countries there are no harsh restrictions on choosing suppliers of military technology.
Recently, a Russian warship took part in the Active Endeavor military exercise. She had a NATO flag flying from her mast. The exercise took place in the Mediterranean under NATO’s aegis. None of Russia’s civic organizations responded with protest rallies nor did the Russian politicians who took part in the anti-NATO rallies in the Crimea in the summer of 2006.
Some politicians believe that the situation with Ukraine not being invited to join the MAP is not entirely hopeless in view of our country’s long experience of cooperation with the alliance and the prime minister’s promise to build a positive image of NATO in Ukraine.
The task of patriotic-minded parliamentarians and politicians is still to prevent the Ukrainian government from folding up the Euro-Atlantic cooperation program. To do so, public diplomacy needs to be enhanced. Thus, the moral aspect of the public’s attitude to Ukraine-NATO cooperation emerges as a priority. Equally important for our society is how ministries and agencies are carrying out plans of cooperation with this international organization and the degree of understanding being shown toward the alliance by leading political parties and civic associations.
The meeting with Francis Fukuyama, the world-famous philosopher and political economist, proved to be a good training session for the Ukrainian political elite. Fortunately, there were people in Ukraine who believed it was crucial to organize his public lecture and participation in discussions. But why have no people been found in the Ukrainian body politic and oligarchic milieus to sponsor translations of this learned author’s works? True, one of his books was translated in Ukraine, after his ideas had passed their peak of popularity. In Russia, they have translations of his new works: State Building: Governance and World Order in the Twenty-First Century; Our Posthuman Future; and Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity.
In Kyiv, Fukuyama focused on his own definition of social capital. “I believe that social capital is a set of norms, informal norms or values that make collective ideas within groups of people possible.” Using the humble experience of Ukrainian civic organizations, including those promulgating truthful knowledge about NATO, which is transforming, and about the challenges facing this international security body, it is possible to arrive at the conclusion about how voluntary associations unite people and promote democratic norms of coexistence within a given society. Fukuyama reminded Ukrainian politicians of this fact, citing his celebrated predecessor Alexis de Tocqueville.
For me personally, the moral aspects of European and Euro-Atlantic integration are based on two postulates to which every Ukrainian political must firmly adhere: do not steal and do not lie. However, this kind of politician must be firmly integrated into the Ukrainian state and be profoundly dedicated to Ukrainian patriotism. Such a politician must not lose his dignity when faced with accusations like, “Who discovered this formula of Ukraine’s NATO membership and maintaining friendly relations with the RF?” Worthy deeds can be accomplished only by those who are powerful carriers of basic values, to paraphrase the American philosopher.
On a recent popular TV program Ukrainian MP Hryhorii Nemyria unequivocally stated that in determining Ukraine’s place in the world, domestic problems should not be supplanted by opposing Ukraine’s further movement toward NATO or to Russia. He correctly noted, “Is Ukraine being threatened by NATO? No. Is Ukraine being threatened by Russia? No, it is not-not in the sense in which this has always been habitually perceived. So where does the threat to Ukraine come from?-from Ukraine itself. If one tries to determine the essence of this threat, it originates from association and merger; in an alliance of big politics, big business, organized crime, and corruption.”
The last elections are long over, and it seemed that all those smart operators had discarded their spin-doctor projects about the “NATO boot stomping on Ukrainian soil,” and the “the Slavic brothers” whom such NATO generals will send into a world battle. But they have been replaced by dozens of exclusively Russian-speaking information projects and roundtables that are being generously organized and founded by “institutes” hastily set up under a single director, of a single Eurasian idea. For some reason everyone has the “luck of ramming home” to the Ukrainian leadership that the “Slavs are a great imperial nation that was and will be” and similar statements on the level of Soviet demagoguery.
How then can the ordinary Ukrainian not be afraid that he has been swept into power by the initial accumulation of capital? How is he to protect his own state from imperialistic aggression? After all, first he must protect his own business and his relatives and friends. But here we have an electorate that mostly opposes entry into NATO. At the same time international events are exerting pressure: Moscow is deporting Georgians and threatening Saakashvili’s country. Unrecognized Transdnistria is struggling to get European parliaments to recognize the results of its referendum, because they have already been recognized by Russia’s State Duma.
In Kyiv, the first president of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, and the leadership of the SDPU(U) are ready to challenge the Central Election Commission in court for the failure to hold a referendum on Ukraine’s NATO membership. However, in an interview with one of Russia’s many periodicals that have joint projects in Ukraine, the prime minister promised that a referendum would be held not only among the residents of Ukraine but also in parliament.
The Party of Regions feels sure that it will remain in power long enough, so it is bargaining for gas prices in return for political concessions. Who needs NATO?
Today, it is a convincing element of European security. Eighty percent of the components of the Ukraine-NATO Membership Action Plan are a reminder of how to organize an effective struggle against corruption and how to implement judicial reform and make the Ukrainian media free and more responsible.
In their public statements against the joint Ukrainian and NATO military exercise, the leftwing proponents of a “free Crimea” and their supporters from neighboring state issued a number of phantasmagorical statements about “tanks and cannons of a military organization.” For nearly two weeks Ukrainian radio and television programs were filled with reports showing angry middle-aged women whose actions and statements condemned the state’s policy.
It took some time to issue explanatory commentaries that ended up being timid and indifferent. Perhaps the summer season prevented the government from being active where the prestige of the country is concerned. Perhaps the morality with a false bottom prevented many parliamentarians, who only talk like national patriots in the workplace, in the Verkhovna Rada, while posing for the cameras.
The moment passed. But one very significant document entitled “The State Program for Informing the Public about Ukraine’s Euro-Atlantic Integration Program for 2004-2007” should be recalled. This “state program” consists of eight chapters with an emphasis on organizational and informational measures, and the study and monitoring of public opinion, media projects and monitoring of the mass media, preparing and issuing printed matter, and measures aimed at lecturers, students of higher educational establishments, young people, and servicemen.
This “state program” has a very nice and wise objective: to enhance peoples’ level of informedness about Ukraine’s integration into NATO, the state and prospects of Ukraine-NATO cooperation, and to deepen perceptions and knowledge about NATO as an organization that ensures the architecture of European security. The dignity of the implementation of this document is also enhanced by the prospects of increasing young peoples’ familiarity with the advantages of integration. The text of the program is aimed at spurring citizens and public figures into discussing the forms and directions of Ukraine’s cooperation with NATO.
The fact is that the 2007 budget bill envisages nearly two million hryvnias less for these goals than the 2006 one. Budget expenditures for informing the population were also insignificant in the Central European countries that recently became NATO members. However, in these countries these expenditures were boosted by national capital. Business people wanted to throw their doors open for large investments as quickly as possible.
“By the will of the people, our course aimed at joining the European Union and NATO will be realized.” The president of Ukraine said this convincingly and confidently in his speech on the 15 th anniversary of Ukraine’s independence.
However, we still have to apply all measures to help form this will of the people, or we will continue to watch it being dismantled by our active neighbors, who are calling to us to move in the other direction.
