Modern Ukraine will only affirm its independent sovereignty as a European state when it retains control over the creation of its historic narrative and becomes its authoritative articulator. Ukraine can longer tolerate “others” to either tell or determine its national story or shape its narrative.
The story of Ukraine and its people is a long story of a nation’s quest for freedom; the Maidan being the most recent example.
The behavior of the Ukrainian people is a stubborn reminder in a cynical world that human beings are still motivated by the ideals of freedom, respect for human dignity, the pursuit of the development of a society based on the rule of law and the demand for essential moral behavior in governance.
Recent Ukrainian history has illustrated that corrupt and immoral leaders can be effectively deposed and that people are entitled to experience dignified treatment by their governing institutions. That the pursuit of democracy, and the order that it represents and not authoritarianism, is the best form of government for the ordering of a free and just society.
Even more important, that respect and the valuing of basic human dignity, with commensurate human rights such as freedom of religion, the freedom of speech, freedom of thought and the freedom of self-determination, is the inspiration for the development of a civil society.
But what recent Ukrainian experience did most clearly affirm is that the dogged pursuit of national sovereignty, within the framework of international law and a commitment towards institution building is not only the foundation for a future civil society, but can also act as inspiration for the establishment of peaceful relations between sovereign nations.
For what Ukraine has shown is that peace is possible when there is respect for international law. Ukraine seeks peace, while being forced to fight a defensive war against a Russian aggressor. In so doing, it has exposed the fact that a lack of respect for international law and the lack of respect of a nation’s sovereignty and the status of its unique language and culture is responsible for present and future military conflict.
That said, post-Communist and post-Maidan Ukraine still has not learned two essential lessons.
The first being how to effectively and convincingly articulate its independent nationhood on the world’s stage, that being, that Ukraine is a people of a distinct culture and language and, according to all definitions of nationhood, a nation and that has the right to national self-determination, political, economic, cultural, linguistic and within the partnerships and participation in the transnational institutions of its choosing.
The second lesson being: that a sovereign nation that does not conceive of, and does not articulate its history, will not and cannot determine its present and future course in pursuit of its national interests.
Who is to blame? Ukraine, of course, but it is not solely responsible.
Ukraine has long been oppressed and dominated by a powerful, imperially minded and historic enemy, that is neither willing nor able to both understand and accept, that Ukraine is a sovereign people and nation. Putin’s essay, “n the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”, in its 5,000 words, fails, not only in not recognizing Ukraine’s national sovereignty but fails to even mention it.
At the same time, the private rhetoric of Ukraine’s Western partners, especially Germany and France, reveal a Moscow-centric view of the region, which denies Ukraine’s independent nation status or better yet, the right to an uncompromised position to full-scale self- determination.
Nonetheless, all this said, Ukraine, in its quest towards European national maturity and in pursuit of defining its path towards full national self-determination, must recognize that it must become the sole arbiter of its national history and the main determinant of its national destiny. It cannot allow itself to be dictated to by anyone or to agree to that which is not in its immediate self-interest.
Thus, rather than accept a position where it is seemingly forced to react to the geo-political desires and demands of either its enemy neighbor, Russia, or its partners in the West, it must stubbornly and continuously assert its clearly defined national interests.
What Ukraine must still learn is that it must confidently express its national interests and that of its people regardless of the pressures put upon its national government. Ukraine must first develop, and then exude, a national confidence that rejects any notion that it is, or that its sovereign lands, are solely a theater where others participate in a geo-political game and where the precise national interests of Ukraine remain secondary, if not ignored, in the determination of its long-term national fate.
Ukraine is not some “borderland” where the Russians are to be placated with talks of peace.
In learning this lesson and applying it, Ukraine will not only frame its historic national narrative, but challenge its partners and even its historic enemy to respect its national quest for full self-determination. Ukraine must not diplomatically compromise, in any way, nor abdicate its long-suffering national quest and voice towards freedom based on individual human dignity.
For its quest, whether or not it is accepted by Russia, or even fully comprehended by its European partners, is to take its rightful place at the table of Western-oriented nations dedicated to rules-based and democratic order.
It is a quest that rejects, once and for all, the imposition of any oppressive political constraints or measures that limit and contain Ukraine’s national aspiration to be and act as a free and independent democratic state.
Ukrainians know their history, having their quest for freedom interrupted by imposed serfdom, then by decades-long rule of totalitarian Communism and then the ravages of Russian inspired oligarchism.
Ukraine itself must determine its own national course. Its present and future leaders must ascend to this understanding. They must translate this mentality into a new ‘freedom’ narrative, a national quest for freedom in modern terms and times, that rejects imposed narratives from “others”.
Russia’s actions, military, political, economic, linguistic all lead to a weakening and destabilization of a sovereign and independent Ukraine. Suggestions as to the Minsk Agreements, the Steinmeyer Formula or greater “autonomy” in the Donbass, also do not fully respect Ukraine’s independent internal sovereignty.
The threat of war in the region will only be diminished when all recognize that an independent and sovereign Ukraine must be fully respected.
