Europe has finally shed its “rose lenses” through which it has long viewed Ukraine. Now it will monitor our country in which it until recently had placed high hopes from a different angle
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| Photo UNIAN |
2004-2005 were the years of “Ukrainomania” and a “celebration of democracy”. All that “went to the birds” and last year Ukraine’s presence in Davos was marked only by Yushchenko’s attendance.
Ukrainians were not invited to most of the events organized in Davos. Had Viktor Pinchuk not held discussions on philanthropy and educational systems in the world to which Bill Clinton (who cut short his speech during the official part in order to meet participants from Ukraine), Shimon Peres (who told how his helicopter could not take off) and Belinda Gates and had an informational “Day of Ukraine” not been organized, then this year nobody would have remembered who we are.
Western experts demonstrated that they do not have a very good grasp of what’s happening in Ukraine. Despite this, the West is prepared to accept whoever becomes Ukraine’s next president, be it Tymoshenko or Yanukovych. Furthermore, the West understands that nothing is likely to radically change in Ukraine any time soon. The West is interested in how Ukraine will build its dialog with Russia without losing its European aspirations. The European Union showed once again that it is not ready to accept us as a member. From the western vantage point we remain unwelcome in Europe, which has gotten used to the fact that chaos is the norm of life in Ukraine and is now deciding what is better for it – some kind of dictatorship or freezing the pandemonium we currently have in Ukraine.
The West has already learned how to live with such chaos, which is why the following thought is often heard: Tymoshenko is good, but can she adhere to democratic norms? Yanukovych is also good, but will he maintain the course charted during the presidency of Yushchenko? The West needs to see visible reforms and a semblance of stability, know with whom in our country it can and should hold talks and rest assured that Ukraine will fulfill the obligations it assumes.
Global issues were high on the agenda on the first day of the Davos forum. That’s when Ukraine turned out to be an outsider to many processes happening in the world today.
While a representative of a global IT company tells about the programs his company is implementing in Nigeria, Uruguay and Afghanistan, the fact that everyone participating in those programs can receive a notebook, children in Uruguay can take the notebooks home and there are practically no incidents of theft of equipment, in Ukraine such a program is still on the drawing board.
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| Photo UNIAN |
The situation in Russia is slightly different. During the forum Russian television aired a subject about a girl from some remote village in Siberia who wrote a text message to Vladimir Putin informing him that her school does not have a computer. Within a few days a transport truck arrived in the girl’s village with the needed equipment. Now the local village residents are hoping that somebody will write another text message requesting the installation of a gas pipeline grid.
So, Pinchuk received his philanthropic dividends from the talks he held, while Tymoshenko and Yanukovych managed to give their presentations to an international audience. However, both politicians forgot that they are not speaking to their voters, but to the western world. And though Tymoshenko spoke confidently and eloquently and had intelligent things to say, she made too many generalizations.
Though Yanukovych spoke clumsily, he did present some important premises. And when he said he has been waiting the moment of victory for five years, he was received in the hall with uproarious applauds. Whatever the case, the speeches of both speakers were perceived through translations, something the teams of both candidates should seriously ponder.
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