David Bellamy asks how I see Ukraine’s economic future. Unfortunately, to me it looks quite grim. Today’s massive protests in Ukraine are very similar to what we saw during the Orange Revolution of 8 years ago.
In 2005, Ukrainians managed to overturn the results of the rigged elections and place a democratically elected president in office. Sadly, that victory did not lead to any change in how everybody lived. This is why I see no reason to hope that this time protests will lead to any real transformation.
As much as it pains me to recognize this, today’s protests – as well as those of the past – share a single goal. Ukrainians are looking for a magician (or a group of them) to make everything better. Today’s conflict in Ukraine is over who those magicians will be: Russia or the EU.
However, even if either of these entities had only Ukraine’s best interests in mind (which they don’t), their actions will never be enough to repair a country where people are not reading to abandon stealing, bribery and corruption in favor of working, producing, and paying taxes.
I can’t blame Ukrainians for this state of affairs. For centuries, every effort was made to quash the spirit of self-sufficiency and entrepreneurship in our people. It is ridiculous to expect the results of colonial domination to evaporate after formal political independence is achieved. If for hundreds of years people are told they can’t survive without an external agency that manages their lives, they will interiorize that belief.
I don’t know how long it will take to shed the colonial legacy. But 22 years are obviously not enough.
Clarissa's Blog 
Thank you for the reply. I wish it were not so grim.
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I wish so, too. Oh, how much do I wish it.
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With very few exceptions, revolutions are terrible ways to try to improve societies.
Unless the population is well educated and/or financially stable and/or culturally composed* enough they’ll for sure end badly (see Egypt, Libya and to a lesser extent Tunisia).
Czechs and Slovaks were educated and stable enough to weather two major traumas within five years (and then the Slovaks were politically mature enough to remove a would be dictator through the ballot box). But there, the destructive miasma of Soviet influence was indirect and not the soul crushing direct cultural obliteration that Ukraine suffered (and continues to suffer) from.
By far not the worst thing I’ve read about the current situation
http://theredbanker.blogspot.com/2013/11/ukraine-why-oh-why.html
money quote: “Ukrainian elites, starting with the President, do not care one iota whether the Association Agreement is the better option in the long term for ordinary Ukrainians or whether the Custom Union represents much-needed short term economic relief … They care only about preserving their own power and their own wealth, without even nationalistic ambitions like China or Russia … to nudge them towards the provision of ‘common goods’ and mobilisation of national resources for something more than personal enrichment”
*a term I’ll leave mostly undefined, but it basically means ‘being sure of your place in the universe’, Ukraine seems anything but…
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Im curious, how long do you think people can be victims before they own some of their victimization?
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That’s precisely the question here. I’m not seeing any signs of reaching a new stage in Ukraine. It’s currently all about “Who will save us from ourselves?”
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Like abuse victims, when they have had enough, they fight back. Revolution when its enough numbers. 🙂
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What is your take on this article?
http://www.ottawasun.com/2013/12/02/moving-out-moving-in-as-the-us-leaves-europe-middle-east-and-asia-guess-whos-taking-its-place
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Very interesting article, thank you for the link. I will definitely blog about this later today.
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If Ukrainians are lookinbg to the EU for salvation, they should take a look at Greece and Spain to see how well it works.
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Oh yes, I agree completely. For closer examples, Bulgaria and the Baltic States have seen a destruction of their economies as a result of falling within the EU’s zone of influence.
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Of course Greece and Spain also have their own corrupt and incompetent politicians who helped to get them into the mess as well.
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