(Note: There are reports of indiscriminate arrest in Ukraine. For that reason, I won’t be referring to my friends by name.)
If you are unfamiliar with the recent events in Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and now spreading all over the country, I would refer you to these two articles: 10 things the West should know about the situation in Kyiv, and Andrew Wilson's article about laws that were passed by the ruling majority which precipitated the violence.
I try to keep up on events in Ukraine, but as my language teacher has told me a few times, I’m an outsider here in Ukraine. I wanted to know what others think about what is going on. I have two friends that have shared their opinions with me, and those opinions are very different. These guys live in the same city, are similar in age, go to the same church, but their interpretation of recent events are quite opposite. Last week, I read an article in the Kyiv Post about the view the ruling party has about the protests that are happening at the moment. As I read it, I thought, I’ve heard most of this stuff before.
What’s it all about?
A government losing control, the EU, Russia, a financial crisis, a jailed former prime minister, and corruption
Protests have been going on in downtown Kyiv and around the country for almost 3 months now. Its seems that no end is in sight as the president and his administration have been unwilling and unable to find any kind of compromise with the opposition. Roughly half of Ukraine supports the protesters on Maidan(the central square in Kyiv), and half are opposed to what they are doing (though here in Kyiv, 75% support the protests). But this doesn’t mean that half of the country is behind the president, who is the main focus of the protests. The president only has a 13-20% approval rating. But in recent poles, it was reported that 30% of the population would vote for him if elections were held tomorrow, that was the highest of any potential candidate. This is primarily because of strong support in the East and South, and because the opposition doesn’t really have a strong candidate.
Friend #1
When I spoke with one of my friends about his opinion on the protests, he immediately focused on the EU trade agreement that Ukraine backed out of in November, and thinks that Yanukovich made the right choice in backing out of the deal because Ukraine’s production standards aren’t of high enough quality to be accepted in the EU, so a trade agreement would mean that EU products could be sold in Ukraine, but Ukraine would not be able to sell its products in the EU until it raised its production standards. (both sides recognized this point) In the backdrop of all the EU negotiations, Ukraine was facing a major shortage of money. They needed help and the EU wasn’t willing to give Ukraine as much as Yanukovich wanted and wouldn’t give any money without oversight and transparency which is not going to happen under this administration. Shortly after backing out of the deal, Russia announced an assistance plan that would ultimately amount to 15 billion dollars in aid. No one knows the conditions of this loan, and many are worried that President Putin will have many strings attached to the money. But for the moment the economic crisis was averted and no policy changes were needed. To my friend, this means that Yanukovich did what he needed to do, and it was proof that Ukraine should not join the EU.
My friend also brought up imprisoned, former prime minister and opposition leader, Yulia Tymoshenko, who many think has been the victim of political persecution. He was frustrated that a neighbor stole a chicken and was sent to prison for 12 years, while Tymoshenko supposedly stole a million dollars from Ukraine and is only sent to prison for 7 years. I understand his frustration. That is a universal problem. However, this was right after I had read an article which claimed that current leaders of Ukraine were stealing 7-8 billion dollars from the state every year through corruption, cronyism and kickbacks. While trying to point the huge discrepancy in treatment of politicians depending on allegiance, I also asked him about former President Kuchma who supposedly stole 6 million dollars as he left office among other crimes and he never served any time. My friend simply said he didn’t know anything about that. But when it came to Yanukovich, he said that Yanukovich is the president. For now he is above the law. Later, when he isn’t president, then he can go to prison. My mind reeled at that logic, but this is a commonly held concept.
A little over a week ago, my friend and I went to the center to see the protesters. The conflict had cooled and we wanted to see how things had changed. The barricades had grown in the two weeks since I had been in the center. Protesters had gotten thousands of sacks and filled them with snow to bulk up what they already had. Looking at the thousands of sacks that had been brought to the center from various building supply store, my friend couldn’t envision how a normal person could bring all of that. To him, the number of sacks was evidence that someone was supplying the resources and footing the bill (i.e. the US). This is the story purported by the current administration. I pointed out that if a few thousand people helped everyday then it wouldn’t be that difficult to buy and transport the sacks (the protesters have done a great job of self organizing) and if everyone gave a little there would be enough money to pay for everything. He said he could imagine a few thousand people coming down town everyday. Kiev is a city of five million, and the protests have drawn hundreds of thousands of people at a time. People have traveled from all over the country, and Ukrainians abroad have pitched in to support the current movement. But my friend still held on to the idea that foreign governments were footing the bill for the protests and their homemade weapons. In fact as we walked around we approached one of the governmental building that protesters had taken over and he told me that I should tell them that I was an American who had money to help the revolution. The thing that struck me though was how open the protesters were. They let all of us into the government building just so that we could look around. They want Ukraine and the world to see what they are doing and that its Ukrainians who are calling out for change.
The thing that precipitated the violence in Ukraine and brought the protests back in the spotlight were the anti-protest laws that were passed on January 16. Many have questioned their legality because the vote in parliament was taken by a hand count and took all of 5 seconds for the counter to declare 235 votes in favor of passing the laws (how long does it take you to count to 235?). The counter later stated that he simply assumed that all of the ruling party voted in favor, so actually counting was not necessary. These laws made any gathering, including our house church, illegal without official approval. Free speech was severely limited, and all the people who work with our ministry using any funds that come from the US would have to register as a foreign agents. My anti-protest friend said that the process was totally legal because of what the opposition was doing to stop votes, he also said that it was good for people to have to register as foreign agents because there are Americans in Ukraine training Ukrainians how to throw over the government. There are also spies posing as reporters, and the new law will help stop them. (I’m pretty sure the US passed a directive during the Cold War forbidding spies from posing as press because they decided that it was unethical.) But the bottom line was that, in his opinion the new laws were good, the government needs to be able to control the people.
It should be pretty obvious that, while I understood some of the points and frustrations of my friend, I didn’t agree with him. This past summer, he saw me reading The Orange Revolution about the rigged 2004 elections and subsequent protests that led to the defeat of current president, Viktor Yanukovich. If I understood my friend right, when he saw it, he was interested in hearing what it had to say, but mostly to see how close or far it was from the truth. His assumption straight away was that, because it was written by a foreigner, it was inherently wrong. This stuck with me. And in our conversations about the present situation, when we’ve had a difference of opinion, he’s often told me that I don’t understand because I’m an outsider.
Once, when we were at in impasse, I tried to help us step back and asked him what he thought the biggest problem was in Ukraine. He answered, “I know what you think it is … corruption.” But he ended up never answering the question for himself. But it was clear again, the outside opinion wasn’t welcome.
Friend #2
I asked another friend what he thought about the protests and situation in Ukraine, he started by saying, “In Ukraine we understand that we do not have any rights.” If the police want something, they can just take it. They can just detain you if they feel like it. Through the whole conversation, this was the stance he maintained. And looking back over the past year, you can see the people’s growing resentment over their lack of rights and the impunity that the police seem to have. In Ukraine, police and politicians have literally get away with murder, and this past summer there were protests starting all over Ukraine in response to this. According to my second friend, protests started because of Yanukovich’s decision to take a step away from the EU, but it was only when police violently cracked down on peaceful protesters, that the masses showed up and the real protests began. The rights of citizens and the rule of law is what this is all about.
My second friend was easier to talk to. Part of that was because we share many of the same views, but as I spoke with him, he seemed to still be mulling over what the right path for the country was. He didn’t have the answers, so dialogue was an effort to move in a positive direction. My first friend, it seemed to me, bought the line that the government media was spinning, and he had the patent answers to almost every question, even if those answers didn’t make any sense to me at all.
How will it end?
When I asked my friends what happens next? How will this all end? That is when they start to sound similar. Protesters and the opposition have been calling for the resignation of the president for the last two months. My first friend thinks this is ludicrous, and even if it did happen, the president is just one man, not much would end up actually changing. My second friend agrees with that conclusion: Yanukovich is just a symptom of the problems in Ukraine, it will take more than a new president to really change things, although it would hopefully be a step in the right direction.
My second friend told us that, presently, Ukraine has more internal security forces than it has army. His conclusion is that President Yanukovich is not afraid of other countries, he is afraid of his own people, and this is backed up by the fact that these forces have been getting larger since Yanukovich was elected to office. The new laws that have been passed, give those security forces more power, and push Ukraine closer to becoming a police state. To really change things in Ukraine, many people think the entire system needs to be restarted. This mean special forces, riot police and normal police need to be let go and all new people trained and hired. This would be an enormous undertaking. And as he pointed out, what would these corrupt officers, who are used to power, do if they suddenly found themselves without a job? There is a good chance that a large percentage of them would not become productive citizens, and then where would Ukraine be? On top of this, like many in Ukraine, he has come to the conclusion that the leaders of the opposition don’t represent him, don’t represent the people and don’t have a plan forward.
In the meantime, we live in a time of uncertainty. One of our friends was with the protesters not long ago when he was sent a text message saying that he was registered as a participant in a mass disturbance. The past few weeks he has kept his phone off whenever he can. And when he calls people to see if they want to go to Maidan, he speaks in code. Police follow people to the hospital and arrest them based on the types of wounds they have. Some people are more afraid now than ever, but others are fed up with it and as far as I can tell, that is what the protests are about at its core.
What does it mean?
Last fall, Janna and I were in the US. While driving across the country, we could change the radio station and go from hearing about how bad President Obama and the Democrats were doing to hearing about how Republicans and conservatives were trying to shove the US back into the dark ages. We talked to a lot of people with very differing views on the state of affairs. Differences of opinion are a part of who we are.
The difference that I see in my two friends, is present all over Ukraine, and the more tense things grow the more the rift seems to grow. Radicalization happens. Every beating by the police breeds a protester willing to throw a Molotov cocktail and vice versa.
When Janna and I had our first language lesson after coming back to Ukraine, I asked our teacher her perceptions of what was happening in the country. That first day, she didn’t say a thing about politics, she simply said that she was worried because people were becoming more and more angry and the middle ground was shrinking. To her that makes this a very scary time.
I’m just wandering if, fundamentally, this is all because we don’t stop to look each other in the face and talk. And watching things here, I wander how easy it would be for something like this to happen in the US, or any other country. Is it just a matter of time?
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