The last few entries have been very Odessa
centric – so it is time to zoom out slightly and take a look at the recent YES
2015 gathering.
The usual political, cultural and academic star
studded affair for sure.
No end of opinion, words of encouragement,
cajoling and forewarning from the enlightened spewed forth as happens has every
year – except that unlike many of the previous years, for reasons external and
internal, western carrots and sticks, as well as domestic societal pressures,
now provide the opportunity for actual tangible progress toward something
approaching the rule of law, an opportunity to introduce something approaching
a free market, something approaching accountable and responsive governance
etc. – certainly for as long as The Kremlin continues to provide an
overtly aggressive “external other” to rally against.
These “something approachings” above, may be a
few years in the future before they manifest into something that must then be
consolidated, yet they are possible – although by no means certain despite all
rhetoric to the contrary.
Delayed reform and unimpressive implementation
were blamed upon corrupt institutions by some Cabinet Ministers (who at times
spoke with an objectionable sense of entitlement to external assistance
considering their own historic failures when in power that are contributory to
where Ukraine finds itself today).
Delayed reform was blamed upon 60% of MPs being
“owned” by oligarchs or protection their own vested interests by the
representatives of the newly elected reformist 40% of the Verkhovna Rada.
Delayed reform was blamed on all the above by
civil society, who also blamed the oligarchy and vested interests within
government itself.
Delayed reform was blamed on slow and unwieldy
bureaucratic systems within the Verkhovna Rada.
Blame was, in short, placed upon individual
parts of the whole – yet there was a lack of recognition that the whole is
almost entirely absent the concept of public service. It was everybody
else to blame – not simply a collective everybody.
YES 2015 made it blatantly obvious that the
Ukrainian political class and the institutions of state remain light years
behind Ukrainian civil society, academia and the middle class when it comes to
a genuine desire to leave post-Soviet Ukraine behind whatever it takes, the
willingness to endure the pain involved to achieve it, and the very idea that
planting trees today and tending them tomorrow for future generations sit under
if inferred at all, was clearly hollow rhetoric from far too many Ukrainian
political speakers that refuse to give up, or even loosen their grip upon their
vested interests in the name of national progress/development.
Beneath all the fine oratory of YES 2015, one
wonders whether The Kremlin may yet be able to undermine Ukraine and suck it
back into its orbit by simply stopping its aggression and allowing what would
become self-destructive forces within the Ukrainian elite to do just that –
self-destruct in the absence of aggression from a hostile “external other”.
If YES 2015 has underlined anything, it has
underlined two things – firstly there is no concept of the mentality required
for public service amongst those within public service, and secondly the
greatest threat to Ukrainian development remains the Ukrainian elite/political
class – not The Kremlin.
YES 2015 ably displayed not how far Ukraine has
come (and it has progressed), but it displayed how far the vast majority of the
Ukrainian political class has not come in comparison to large sections within
its domestic constituency.
Perhaps the recent appointments of Carl Bildt
and Radoslaw Sikorski as advisors to President Poroshenko, two very clear-eyed,
straight talking men who know what public service is, notwithstanding unrivaled
ability to navigate the machinations of the European Union, may manage to keep
the Ukrainian political class with one eye firmly on the prize, and one eye
firmly on the threats – at least to the point of avoiding internal
self-destruction and a Kremlin win by default.
That said, just how much influence will even the
best of presidential advisors have over a still feckless and ill-disciplined
Verkhovna Rada that they do not council?
However much external western diplomatic energy
has been expended by various embassies within Ukraine to get its domestic
players to move the nation to where it is today (or perhaps now to stop it
rolling back to where it was), YES 2015 clearly displayed a requirement to up
that diplomatic energy,, engage in yet more clever thinking, insure all help
remains entirely conditional upon progress, and display an unbending will to
stay the course for years to come as long as progress continues.
How much of that external will is supporting
Ukraine in recognition of it being the European front line against The
Kremlin’s attempt to challenge the global order and international rule of law,
and how much of that will would be there otherwise, we will perhaps never know.
Perhaps it no longer matters.
Regardless, YES 2015 showed the enemy within remains far more dangerous than the enemy without.
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