Ukrainians may be surprised, even exasperated by the fact that the European Neighborhood Policy elaborated by the EU places them in one bag with North African and Middle Eastern countries, but this decision reflects the profound mode of Western thought: all these countries, including Ukraine, are perceived as not really ‘European’, and the name ‘European Neighborhood Policy’ (instead of ‘EU Neighborhood Policy’) is not just a minor political incorrectness but an essential view, a part of the Weltanschauung. In a sense, the Europeans are right: all the profound differences between East Slavonic and Middle Eastern or North African countries notwithstanding, all of them “are involved in a more or less open civil war which seems to be fed by a disagreement on the adoption of Western values” [Langer 2004]. What is common between Morocco and Belarus, Lebanon and Ukraine is that in all of them “the EU is challenged by another spiritual power”—Muslim orthodoxy in one case, Russian ‘Eurasian’/neo-Soviet imperialism in the other.
For many Ukrainians, this is a difficult truth to accept. From their point of view, the ENP rather excludes them from Europe proper than facilitates their inclusion. This not only contradicts Ukraine’s stated strategic goal of full EU membership, but also poses a challenge to Ukraine’s identity, which historically evolved under permanent threat of Russification and therefore made the nation’s alleged ‘Europeanness’ a sort of life belt, a means to legitimize and secure its cultural and political emancipation. The Europeans, who tend to ignore this sensitive issue, simply do not understand its symbolic importance. For many Ukrainians, the denial of Ukraine’s European prospects means a denial, or undermining, of their identity, an implicit attempt to throw them back into the Russian ‘Eurasian’ bag and, worse, to cynically settle relations with Russia at Ukraine’s expense.
From the very beginning, ‘return to Europe’ has been seen by Ukrainian nation-builders as a return to the norm, a fixing of historical injustice and perversion, a healing of a developmental pathology. Such a romantic approach emerged naturally from modern Ukrainian nationalism which, from its very inception in the first half of the 19th century, had to emphasize Ukraine’s ‘otherness’ vis-a-vis Russia [Riabchuk 1996]. This meant, in particular, that Ukrainian activists not just praised the alleged Ukrainian ‘Europeanness’ as opposed to the demonized Russian ‘Asiaticness’; they had volens-nolens to accept the whole set of Western liberal-democratic values as presumably ‘natural’ and ‘organic’ for Ukrainians (yet allegedly ‘unnatural’ for Russians).
In a recent examination of the correlation between a strong Ukrainian national identity, and adherence to democracy, market reforms, and westernization, Stephen Shulman concluded that the crucial factor was Ukrainians’ self-image. That is, Ukrainian nationalism claims that Ukrainians historically and culturally were particularly individualistic and freedom-loving.
Elite proponents of this identity typically contrast ethnic Ukrainians and Ukraine historically and culturally with Russians in Russia, a people and a country that are perceived to have strong collectivistic and authoritarian roots. At the same time, elite proponents of this identity argue that Ukrainians have much in common culturally and historically with Europe (…) [Therefore] democracy and capitalism symbolically raise the status of ethnic Ukrainians, spread the values alleged to be associated with ethnic Ukrainian culture throughout the country, and are more likely to function effectively in a country based on perceived ethnic Ukrainian values. Further, since the main ‘Other’ of this identity, Russia, is seen as having a history and culture estranged from individualistic and freedom-based development models, rejection of non-democratic and non-capitalistic models symbolically and actually maintains the perceived cultural distance between Ukraine and Russia and thereby reinforces the Ethnic Ukrainian national identity. Finally, precisely because European and ethnic Ukrainian culture are seen as close, and Europeans are associated with democracy and capitalism, these models are likely to be favored because they symbolically and actually reinforce the cultural similarity between these two peoples and elevate the status of ethnic Ukrainians in Ukraine as a core group [Shulman, 2005: 67].
The problem with this analysis, however, is that this type of identity has never dominated Ukraine—at least until recently. In a sense, it was a “minority faith,” as Andrew Wilson [1997] defined it, because it was repressed for decades by the Russian-tsarist and then Russian-Soviet state, which promoted imperial Russian/Soviet/East Slavonic identity.
Even though the correlation between language, identity and social/political attitudes disclosed by Shulman is not direct, it is statistically significant and useful for political prognosis as well as (alas) manipulation. Apparently, the highest level of national self-awareness and the strongest commitment to European integration and Western liberal-democratic values is to be found in the least Russified, western part of the country, while the lowest level of national consciousness and strongest Sovietophile, anti-Western attitudes can be found in the most Russified/Sovietized south-eastern regions.3 This creates a very strong temptation to conceptualize Ukraine simplistically in Manichean terms as a place with a ‘nationalist’ West and a ‘Sovietophile’ East.
A long way ahead
During the Orange Revolution in Ukraine, the West—in both national and international terms—scored a victory. In geopolitical terms, Ukraine’s further European advance might be as important as Turkey’s. In one case, the whole Muslim world would see that “Islam is compatible with secular democracy” (The Wall Street Journal, 8 February 2005). In the other case, the entire post-Soviet world, including Russia, will see that the Soviet legacy can be overcome, the post-Soviet “void of values” filled, and “disintegration of all levels of society” recovered from [Langer 2004].
The regime change that occurred in Ukraine at the end of 2004, and the EU enlargement that made Ukraine an immediate neighbor of the EU since May 2004, urged both sides to reconsider their relations in both practical and conceptual terms. The revision would not be a simple task since the ‘big-bang’ had been planned long ago, with all the adjacent policies and documents, while the Orange revolution occurred unexpectedly, at least for the Europeans, brining many more difficult questions than easy answers to the agenda.
Ukrainians may once again become the ‘unwanted step-children’ of some grand continental events, this time—of the Great East European Revolution that swept away authoritarian regimes west of Ukraine in 1989 but reached Kyiv only with a regretful 15-year delay. The new Ukrainian authorities are supposed to take a pragmatic stance vis-à-vis the EU. On the one hand, they could and probably should remain critical of the EU policy towards Ukraine, pointing out, exactly as their predecessors, its short-sightedness and duplicity. Yet on the other hand, they should accept the proposed programs and mechanisms of cooperation, however feeble and superficial, and—unlike their predecessors—make proper use of these programs, putting an end to a weird ambiguity, at least on the Ukrainian side.
In other words, they should put the ball in the EU’s court by completing all the required reforms and programs and exposing thereby the EU’s inadequate, biased and double-standard approach to Ukraine—as long as the EU denies Ukraine’s membership aspirations but accepts Turkish, Albanian, and Macedonian bids. At the moment, it seems to be the only option available for Ukrainians—to work hard, to improve the country’s image, and to press the West diplomatically with a hope that even the most reluctant Europeans will sooner or later run out of excuses for keeping a reformed and dynamic country outside.
It would take much time and even more effort from both Ukrainians and Europeans to come to terms with some simple truths and complicated reality. So far, the Ukrainian stance articulated by the President’s first aide looks quite measured and reasonable: “We agreed not to say ‘tomorrow’ while they [EU leaders] agreed not to say ‘never’.” It looks promising that the person assigned to coordinate Ukraine’s European integration began with sober self-criticism rather than anti-Brussels complaints and self-indulgence. “We have just entered the elementary school,” he reprimanded his fellow-countrymen half-jokingly, “and