Traveler, Writer, Aquarius, Peace Corps Volunteer
The evidence
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It�s 6:45 pm here in Donetsk on Wednesday, November 3rd, and I�m suffering from an acute case of election fever. Actually, it�s closer to anticlimactic election withdrawal. I spent last night at my friend and fellow American Luke�s house watching BBC�s election coverage from about 4 � 7 am, and then had to leave for work at 8. The stubble is heavy on my cheeks and chin, shadowing the three weeks of thin goat-tee framing my lips. Expecting and accepting Bush�s immanent victory, I don�t feel ecstatic, relieved, or hopeful; nor do I feel angry, disappointed, or disgusted. I just feel tired.
I�ve spent the bulk of my classes this past week explaining how the electoral college process works here, the difference between being democratic and being representative, and how so many Americans can care more about making sure abortions and gay marriages are illegal than the fact that their government lied to them in order to engage in a devastatingly misguided act of aggression (which I refuse to call a war � all the speechwriters in the world can write War on Terror and Axis of Evil and Spreading Democracy all they want. It doesn�t change what it is), handed out no-bid contracts to their own companies and friends, installed a piece of legislation that grossly retards citizen�s civil liberties, and generally mishandled almost every action they took without accepting any responsibility for the snafus.
Before you go skewering me as a flaming unpatriotic liberal, let me just say that the above indictment of the current administration was taken almost verbatim from The American Conservative�s online edition, most notably restating the points made by none other than Pat Buchanan (it�s a good read if you get a chance. Basically, every editor severely criticizes the administration for Iraq, but supports the administration on social and economic issues). Believe me, I�m no great fan of a campaign who�s main slogan is �I�m not Bush.� There�s nothing I hated more than sitting in the Peace Corps office in Kyiv checking email and working on the new edition of our magazine (of which I was just selected the new co-editor) than hearing all of the raving anti-Bushites simply lambasting Bush and lauding Kerry without any real sense of what a Kerry administration would mean. People were loudly cheering as they read off which papers announced their endorsement of Kerry simply out of hatred for W.
And yet as polarized as America is, y�all back home have no idea what polarized really means until you understand what is going on here politically in Ukraine. For those of you who didn�t know, there was an election here as well this past Sunday, an election with as much drama, impact, and consequences as the one you just took part in. In the red corner sits Viktor Yanukovich, the current Prime Minister, who is from a region not far from Donetsk in far eastern Ukraine; in the blue corner, another Viktor, Yushenko, who once was Prime Minister and who, while also from eastern Ukraine, represents the western half of the country.
Now, why is this East-West distinction important? Because Ukraine is literally split right down the center of the country with those in the west predominantly poor, Ukrainian-speaking and pushing for increased nationalism and closer ties to Europe and America, and those in the east having more money and industry, speaking Russian � in some cases not even knowing Ukrainian � and pushing for a strengthened Russo-Ukrainian alliance.
This is still only a very general description of the politics. The reality is that there is a hatred and distrust between East and West of which politics is just the physical manifestation. The people where I live, in Donetsk, consider themselves Russian, not Ukrainian. Eastern Ukraine is dominated by heavy industry: mining and metallurgy. In the Soviet days, blue-collar workers from all over the Union, from Belarus to Uzbekistan, came to live and work here. The language, of course, was Russian. Nobody here speaks Russian. Nobody wants to speak Ukrainian. Nobody wants to have to speak Ukrainian. And many people, believe it or not, don�t want help from the U.S.A. Can you imagine?
In the West, agriculture dominates and therefore people tend to be much poorer. Western Ukraine, Lviv in particular (Lvov if you speak Russian), is the cradle of the independence movement from the Soviet Union and from Russia. They are not Russians. They are Ukrainians. Okay, the reality is that they are a mix of Ukrainian, Polish, Slovakian, Romanian, Hungarian, Belarusian, Bulgarian, and yes, Russian too. The language they speak is rarely pure Ukrainian. It�s what they call surgic, a mix of Ukrainian and Russian, and occasionally other languages mixed in. And, generally speaking, they are anti-Russia. The saying goes, don�t speak Russian in Lviv if you expect to get anybody to talk to you.
So what then are the key issues? To understand this, you have to go back at least ten years and understand what Ukraine was like after independence in 1991. When Ukraine departed from the Soviet Union, there was a pretty big vacuum in which it was basically every man for himself. People who were either in power or savvy enough to get it made fortunes by, well, taking advantage of pretty unclear regulations in banking and industry. Oligarchs were created. And said oligarchs tended to either end up holding office or befriending those who were in office.
Fast-forward a few years. The current administration, almost all Eastern, is accused of involvement in the beheading of a muckraking journalist (lots of allegations, no apparent evidence). They�re also accused of trying to force through the Rada (parliament here) a change to the constitution that could allow the current leadership to continue serving, even though their term is supposed to be up. This didn�t happen. And from all of this comes the current situation.
In very broad terms, Yushenko�s platform is based on industry and political reform, closer ties to Europe and America, and he wants Ukrainian to remain the only official language in the country. Yanukovich, on the other hand, wants Ukraine to recognize Russian as an official language as well, and wants Ukrainians to have dual citizenship with Russia. He is the chosen successor to current president Leonid Kuchma and is endorsed by Russian president Vladimir Putin. He is not endorsed by the American administration, who have made it no secret that they want Ukraine to moved toward democracy: i.e., America.
This past Sunday morning I watched BBC�s coverage � okay, it wasn�t coverage, it was just a small piece on the election � and knew right away that the next idiomatic phrase I would teach my students is �painting with broad strokes.� To watch, read, and listen to the western press describe the election in Ukraine is an exercise in good old fashioned political propaganda. See, here�s how it works:
Don�t give any background or explain any subtleties. It�s real easy, people. According to the western press, Yushenko = reform (read: the good guy), and Yanukovich = regression (read: the bad guy). Not to mention that Yushenko was allegedly poisoned last month and his face is still hideously disfigured. He claimed that the secret police tried to assassinate him. No proof has of yet been found. In the spirit of balance, Yanukovich had a rock thrown at his head at a rally and severely injured. Or at least that is what people in the east will tell you. Apparently, the truth is that someone through an egg at him and hit him in the chest.
But want to know the real issues Ukrainians care about. If you are a Yushenko supporter, you point out that Yanukovich was in jail in his youth, allegedly a convicted rapist (I�ve yet to hear this 100% confirmed), and is on the take. If you favor Yanukovich, you�re incensed that Yushenko has already been Prime Minister and run for president twice (this is his third time). But worst of all� his wife is American. Well, Ukrainian diaspora, but American none-the-less. Think that�s not a big deal? Imagine how far Kerry would have gotten this election with an Islamic wife.
The bottom line here, however, is that this is more than a good guy-bad guy story, the reformer versus the old guard. The people of Donetsk really want to have the Russian language recognized and really want to have dual citizenship with Russia. Many of their families are Russian. To them, there is no good guy-bad guy. There are only not-so-good guys and one of them will help them and the other not. This is what doesn�t get on the news.
In the end, it�s likely that Yanukovich will win, much to the chagrin of Western Ukraine, and yes, the United States. The US is pouring lots of money into Ukraine to promote democracy and get Ukraine to move away from Russia and towards the west. Oh, by the way. There�s also a giant oil pipeline that runs from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, straight through Ukraine, and a very healthy amount of coal and precious metals. That seems to be as good a reason as any to promote democracy these days, don�t you think?
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