EDITORIAL: Hope and perseverance (03/01/98)

EDITORIAL

Hope and perseverance

As First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke last week in Washington about her trip this past November to several former republics of the Soviet Union, her strong, optimistic, upbeat presentation was a bold reminder - amidst almost never-ending negative reports of crime, corruption, poverty and cynicism - about the positive manner in which many of the people and leaders of this region are striving to meet the dramatic, painful and overwhelming challenges that confront them. Her presentation about Ukraine left many of the Ukrainian Americans in the audience feeling elated. Elated! Now who on Earth has felt elated about Ukraine recently? "I believe," the first lady reminded us, "that there is far more cause for hope than despair, and the credit for that goes to the people of these countries that have endured so much and come so far."

One of the links that makes hope reality is perseverance. When the first lady spoke about her chief of staff, Melanne Verveer, who is of Ukrainian American descent, she mentioned that President Bill Clinton recalled that, even during their days together as students at Georgetown University decades ago, Ms. Verveer had always insisted that someday Ukraine would be free. Ding, ding, ding - one could almost hear the bells going off in the heads of dozens of Ukrainian American guests. Yes! Of course! I know that feeling! Absolutely! She's right! Go girl! No doubt about it! Ukraine would some day be free. We knew that, even if nobody else did.

And what a long, strange trip it had been ... the organizations, demonstrations, commemorations, publications, dedications, resolutions, the big rejections and small humiliations, the endless discussions, the daily private prayers, the public battle against relentless Soviet disinformation, the phone calls, the letters, the meetings, the lobbying.

Now there is no obvious reason to persevere - Ukraine is free.

Well, eopolitically, Ukraine is free. The battle for Ukraine's soul, however, continues.

Democracy, as the first lady said, is a never-ending struggle to build a civil society where democratic values "live in people's hearts and minds, and where the rule of law, not crime and corruption, prevails."

"Democracy," she continued, "depends on individuals truly believing that they have a role to play in the life of their country, depends on people choosing - not being compelled to - but choosing to participate and seeing to it that these habits of the heart are passed on from one generation to another."

Though ideological communism has faded in Ukraine, and along with it the companion rigid and almost impenetrable civic, political and economic infrastructure of the Communist Party, individual "habits of the heart" shaped by years of communism, as well as public habits of cynical leadership, still threaten to keep Ukraine in the grips of despair.

Mrs. Clinton understands the link between hope and reality and that there still is a need for perseverance. "The U.S. wants to be a partner with these new democracies," she told her audience in Washington, "to ensure their peace and prosperity into the 21st century."

"America has a stake in your success," she told her audience in Ukraine, "your hope is our hope, too."

For Ukrainian Americans, it's our hope as well. (Sigh.) It's just that this time we also hope it won't take as long.