Until recent days my attitude to our Independence Day can be best described by one dialog from the times when I was young. This happened on August 24 1991. It was clear that “an unbreakable union” got totally rotten from the inside. And it was very much “breakable”. What’s going to be after it was best described by Pelevin as “frightening uncertainty”…
By the way, the dialogue from 1991 sounded like this one:
- The Independence Day of Ukraine today…
- Independence from whom? Was somebody threatening that independence?
At that time all our history regarding “independence” looked like some kind of farce or aping if you allow me to say so. America has Independence Day, France has Bastille Day…We didn’t have Bastille, so that was possible to declare Independence Day. Any decent country must have its Independence Day. I remember that later Russian declared Independence Day, that looked totally absurd. In the conditions of “frightening uncertainty” we both looked very similar for a long time. And this continued for a long time. And at some point it looked like this similarity will be forever. No the similarity is definitely coming to an end. And this holiday turns into the Holiday and not just some kind of poorly understood reason to have a drink, even if we don’t have something to celebrate yet. The Independence declared one day is turning into something solid, because right now it’s really being threatened. And to be completely honest, we didn’t get it yet.
They like to ask us, what have you got after all? It’s hard to explain something to a person who asks a question like that, more likely it’s impossible to do. As for me, I stopped trying to explain them something long time ago. It’s not like there is no logic in the judgments of those who look with a smug at the modern Ukrainian State, there is no logic at all. Let me get distracted from out hard reality for a moment and look at those who had similar experience several centuries before us. If follow a kind of “and what did you get after all” logic then British also didn’t get anything after bourgeois revolution in the middle of the 17th century when they beheaded one king and restored another king by the end of the century. But we know what Great Britain is and what it was and what it became and what it always is going to be. In the 17th century British people sent to the scaffold their high-handed king with only one purpose, so he is not high-handed any more. For the same reason they created such kind of lifestyle in the United Kingdom that nobody could use the power only in their interests any more. As a result of such manipulations with authorities and kings, few years ago the United Kingdom was shaken by scandal when people found out that several members of the Parliament bought property using money of the state. And when that scandal became public those cunning gentlemen resigned, later they were under investigation and after that… to be honest, I didn’t follow that story till the end. But you can be sure there was a trial and a lot of trouble for those cunning gentlemen who crossed the line. So this is what British people got many years ago beheading their king Karl I and taking away the right to interfere in politics and even talk about it from his descendants. That is the ability to be sure that the punishment is inevitable for those who misuse the power.
And on their way to that point many different things happened, sometimes even much worse than what we have now. One day they woke up and realized that the leader of their revolution Oliver Cromwell made himself democratic dictator instead of absolute monarch who was sent to scaffold. He even invented a nice title for himself, lord protector. British people didn’t allow anyone before or after him to behave in such way with democratic institutions. And in the times of Cromwell I am sure there were many those who wanted to ask with sarcasm: “so what have we got after” that revolutionary mess and treating the king with disrespect? Mr. Cromwell got scared that nobody would protect young and inexperienced democracy and had to make that desperate move and became its protector. Grateful descendants, by the way, strongly condemned him a little later and didn’t accept his protection. Gradually they learnt through trial and error a way to protect their achievements.
I want to hope that 21st century will make so that we don’t have to wait for real results of our “mess” on Maidan for several centuries. Unfortunately, our authorities didn’t realized yet that they can’t misuse the power. There are many those who want to prove using different arguments that there is no “Ukraine as a State and never was”. Maybe there wasn’t, but there is now for sure. Congratulations with the first anniversary of the Independence Day, fellow countrymen!