LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (01/25/98)

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Ukraine must create a positive enviroment

Dear Editor:

It was exceedingly disturbing to read recently in several Ukrainian American newspapers, that publication of Ukrainian newspapers in Ukraine since 1991 has decreased about 10-fold, while publication of Russian-language newspapers has increased by the same proportion during that period. Furthermore, it is incomprehensible to learn that almost 90 percent of radio and television programs are not in Ukrainian but in Russian. As these articles clearly indicate, this disturbing state of affairs is totally unbecoming a nation that for centuries has assiduously fought to retain its identity.

While recent open letters in the press address their pleas to government administrators, I would like to call on every citizen of Ukraine to stand up and be counted, regardless of ethnic background and origin. Despite the governments they had in the past, the land and the community nonetheless sustained them. Now it's pay-back time. I dare say that 99 percent of Ukraine's citizens are literate, and therefore it is their responsibility to reverse the trend. Russian is fine in Russia, just as Polish is fine in Poland, and therefore Ukrainian is right and proper in Ukraine - nothing less, nothing more. The language of the land is one of the important cementing factors of a nation. Now is not the time to experiment; Ukraine has had its share of experimentation!

Ukraine's leadership is not leading the nation and, worse yet, it is not instilling a community spirit. Incidentally, that includes not only responsibility regarding the language of the land, but also employment and payment of just wages. Individual freedom and independence are extremely important and must be protected at all costs, but we'd better remember that it is the community that can speed up correcting such ills as corruption, the shadow economy, class distinctions, the nomenklatura and the like. It is also the community that can assure success in economic reforms, freedom of the press and other needed changes.

There are a few bright spots in the nation, but that may not be enough. President John F. Kennedy was right when he said that we should not ask what our country can do for us but what we can do for our country. With a democratic government, Ukraine has a chance not only to survive but also to prosper.

However, if citizens of Ukraine, regardless of ethnic background and origin, will not take care of their country, their country will not be able to take care of them. They will be hired hands on their own land. In order to be lord in your castle, you have to work and you have to work hard.

In closing I would like to add that my friends advised me not to send this letter. They tell me that people in Ukraine do not need any advice, all they need is money. Besides, who am I to tell the struggling Ukrainians what to do, a well-fed and well-provided-for American?

As a matter of fact, for several years after coming to the New World, I was not well-cared nor well-provided for, but the opportunity was out there. Ukrainians are no less capable than citizens of any other nation, and therefore they must create a positive environment for all, not only for a select class of citizens. Such a task is for an active, caring and committed community. Individual freedom and independence must be channeled to move pressing issues of common concern forward, to prevent derision, discord and stagnation.

Bohdan M. Slabyj
Brewer, Maine

More on the patriarch and the Kyiv Church

Dear Editor:

The indignation articulated in several recent letters at the insolence of the patriarch of Constantinople toward the national (as opposed to the pro-Moscow faction) Orthodox Church in Ukraine is easily understandable.

It is also useful to dispel some of the smoke that vaguely envisions a basis for the patriarch's eventual recognition of the Ukrainian Church by means of some diplomatic gobbledygook - in a distant future.

The principal concern of Patriarch Bartholomew is not the Ukrainian Church, but his own political survival in the precarious balancing act that has been ongoing for his predecessors in the last several centuries. The patriarch is a Turkish citizen, without a significant visible constituency, and is separated by law from the Church of Greece. His position exists by the sufferance of the Turkish government, flavored by the ambivalence and controversy, and by the wits of some persnickety allies abroad. The latter include the Moscow Patriarchate and, to a lesser extent, Western Christendom.

Patriarch Bartholomew agreed to recognize the Estonian Orthodox Church, which differs from the Church in Ukraine in two significant ways. First, many Orthodox faithful in Ukraine seem to be either indifferent or quite content to belong to the Moscow Patriarchate. Secondly, Ukraine's government has kept itself at arm's length from this issue. Patriarch Bartholomew cannot be a pugilist for the Ukrainian Church and risk his own feathers when Ukraine's government remains on the sidelines. Not only the nomenklatura, but also some national democrats think that religious rivalries are a political minefield, not to be touched with a 10-foot pole, right or wrong, and best handled by the separation of state and church, is a copout.

Boris Danik
North Caldwell, N.J.

About the number of Ukraine's generals

Dear Editor:

Inaccuracies sometimes have a way of creeping into news reports, particularly when harried journalists are bombarded with statistical data at conferences and other public forums. I suspect that this is what might have happened in your report on the York University symposium on Ukraine's security dilemmas (December 21, 1997), specifically with regard to the number of generals in Ukraine's armed forces.

Rather than about 100 generals, as reported, the table of organization in Ukraine's Ministry of Defense, until recently, provided for 386. As part of the new military reform effort, that figure has now been reduced to 281, although only 186 of these slots are filled. These numbers, it should be noted, refer only to the Ministry of Defense and do not encompass other military formations such as the National Guard and the border troops.

As for Russia, which has recently adopted a military reform plan of its own, the corresponding figure is 1,925. Overall, Russia's various military and security organizations plan on maintaining 2,300 generals.

Roman Solchanyk
Santa Monica, Calif.

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