Hennadii Druzenko, lawyer, civic activist
“Ukraine Desperately Lacks a Dream of the Future”
To prevail in the war and win the future, it is not enough to love one’s homeland. It is not enough to dislike Russians. It is not enough to speak Ukrainian, cultivate the cult of Stepan Bandera, or even be prepared to kill and die for Ukraine. We need to have in our imagination a vision of Ukraine – a dream of a Ukrainian “city upon a hill.”
Long ago, almost 400 years ago, the Pilgrims set out for America with such a vision – for their promised land, where they dreamed of building a society that would correspond to their ideals. This dream was so powerful that it compelled these daring people to leave the settled lands of the Old World, abandon an established and orderly life – and sail toward challenges and the unknown, solely in order to build their own “city upon a hill.”
Ukraine desperately lacks such a dream of the future. Such a vision. Such a social consensus on the conceptual foundations of post-war Ukraine. It lacks an answer to the question of what kind of Ukraine we are currently paying such a tragic price for at the front and in the rear.
A vision, even a deceptive vision of communism or Nazism, unleashes the extraordinary energy of human communities, organizes it, and multiplies it. It is impossible to break through from the present into the future without first imagining it, without dreaming it into being. Knowing that we are not Muscovites and that “in one’s own house there is one’s own truth, and power, and freedom” is not enough. We need our own radiant dream of a Ukrainian city upon a hill.
The United States won the Cold War against the Soviet Union not only – and not so much – because it exhausted the Soviet economy through the arms race – if I am not mistaken, the late Soviet Union spent 11 percent of its gross domestic product on the security and defense sector – but because the American dream of America as a city upon a hill, as a land of freedom and opportunity, blossomed again under Ronald Reagan, while the Soviet ideal had run out of steam and had become unattractive and bland. Schwarzenegger defeated Pavka Korchagin…
The great presidents of the United States in the twentieth century – both John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan – repeatedly returned in their speeches to allusions to the famous sermon of one of the leaders of the Pilgrims and the first governor of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, John Winthrop, who, while setting out from England for the New World, declared:
“We must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. Therefore, if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, He will cease to help us, and we shall become a horror, a byword, and a laughingstock among all peoples.”
We must dream into being a Ukraine that the world will look upon not only with admiration for our courage and sympathy for our losses, but also with hope and inspiration. We must become a laboratory of the future for the world. Just as the New World once became such a laboratory, a place to which people sailed – leaving behind an established life, despite all the risks, hardships, and uncertainty – because the Old World had become too constraining for them. They sailed in search of freedom and the opportunity to build their own “city upon a hill.”
It was precisely this vision and this belief in the possibility of a more just and open society that inspired the American colonists to dare to rebel and proclaim independence, defeat the most powerful empire of the time that sought to subdue the rebellious colonies, conquer the Wild West, build the world’s most powerful economy, and win the Second World War.
Many, very many countries gained and defended their independence during the twentieth century. The result of most national liberation wars was that “Texas is now being robbed by Texans” – together with international corporations. Only a handful of newly established states formulated an ambitious but realistic vision, created an effective state apparatus to achieve it, unleashed and organized the tremendous energy of entrepreneurship and invention in their people, compelled personal ego to work for the common good – and broke through from the Third World into the First.
If we do not dream into being a Ukrainian city upon a hill, if we do not become inspired by the idea of transforming Ukraine into a global laboratory of the future, if we do not reach an agreement about how and why we should live together, everything will be reduced to “army, language, faith.” We will most likely win back the right to our own identity – but we will most likely lose the chance to become one of the centers of gravity in the future world…
Source: Glavkom
