September 30, 2016

The next huge challenge

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Challenges are something Ukrainians settling in Canada, and around the world, know well.

Some 125 years ago it was the challenge of being among the first non-traditional (Anglo Celtic or French) groups to settle in Canada. Landing here was as foreign then as landing on the moon would be today; then, it was without the NASA support.

The settlers were assigned plots at the end of the railway track and dumped to fend for themselves. There was no housing, no schools or hospitals, not even roads. The settlers had only what they brought: precious seeds for cultivating the new land, their language and ways, plus a determination to succeed.

They endured. By the time World War II came along, they had grown into the fifth largest Canadian ethnic group and transformed the virgin prairies into Canada’s economic powerhouse. With the war came another huge challenge.

Mad Hitler had invaded Poland, which at that time incorporated Ukraine’s Halychyna. Nearly 1.2 million enlisted in the Canadian Armed Forces; over one-third were of Ukrainian descent. The war was won but the other mad man – Stalin – dropped the Iron Curtin. Behind it lay Ukraine and his terror: persecution, execution, exile to the Gulag and the widespread loss of human rights. The entire Soviet Union become a gigantic concentration camp, its evils hidden by official state silence.

The post-war refugees had first-hand knowledge of the dangers of dictatorships. In Canada, they combined it with the knowledge of good democratic governance gained by their Canadian brethren. Together, they turned their attention to politics.

Domestically, they pushed for social justice legislation, establishing unemployment insurance, health reforms, the multicultural policy, repatriating Canada’s Constitution and carving human rights into the Canadian Charter of Rights, copied widely around the world. Michael Starr, Yaroslav Rudnyckyj, Paul Yuzyk, Ray Hnatyshyn, Roy Romanow, Ed Stelmach were trailblazers in politics. John Sopinka became the first Ukrainian Canadian Supreme Court justice, Joseph Romanow – the first Ukrainian Canadian general and Walter (Lubomyr) Zyla – the first diplomat.

The women were impressive as well. Dr. Sylvia Fedoruk was instrumental in developing the cobalt treatment for cancer and became the lieutenant governor of Saskatchewan. Astronaut Dr. Roberta Bondar, entertainers like Juliette, Luba Goy and Kathryn Wynnick, Sen. Raynelle Andreychuk, Deputy Ministers Oryssia Lennie and Mary Komarynsky became models to follow and surpass.

In international politics, the challenge was more complex. The Soviet Union was, for many, a friendly ally. To boot, the Kremlin made sure that little information about the evils of its Russo-Communist empire escaped from behind the Iron Curtin. It hid the oppression by cultivating an image of success based on sports and cultural excellence. The regime smeared anyone and anything exposing its oppressive reality as “fascist and “bourgeoise propaganda.” It was so effective that even today Russia’s president uses the fascist label to discredit opponents.

The name-calling did not deter Canadians of Ukrainian heritage. They knew first-hand and from the coded letters trickling across the Atlantic about the dastardly reality of living under Russia’s dictatorship. They compared it with the good democratic governance offered in Canada and supported the dissidents in Ukraine who wanted the same.

As a result, over 90 percent of Ukrainians voted for independence in 1991. The Soviet Union collapsed; some 300 million people were liberated. But the enemy was not sleeping. Former apparatchiks enriched themselves by grabbing state assets to become the world’s new billionaires with multiple passports. “Let them have human rights,” they snickered at attempts to establish better lives for Ukrainians via assistance programs from democracies like Canada, “we’ll take everything else.”

For President Vladimir Putin, perhaps the richest oligarch of all, building democracy at home and peace abroad is not enough. He considers democracy weak, a messy way of governing compared to the order and obedience of a dictatorship. He views neighboring democracies as a threat to Soviet-like colonialism, which is very profitable to Moscow when proxies like Viktor Yanukovych, Ukraine’s former president, do as they’re told and pay for the privilege.

By invading sovereign Georgia and Ukraine, Mr. Putin trampled international law and committed murder. His deceit under the guise of peace and ceasefires – in Ukraine and in Syria – has turned millions into refugees and corpses. Now, Russia is a threat to the entire free world as it aims beyond controlling Ukraine. Mr. Putin is determined to rule what is referred to in Russia as “normal” people: white Christian nations of the world. Primarily, this means dominating the European Union and displacing the United States as a global leader.

There’s a mad wolf in sheepskin at our door.

Yet some in the West appease him. Those who know Russia better, however, must make it clear: law and lawlessness cannot co-exist. A world run by his standards means ours must be destroyed.

This is today’s challenge for Ukrainian Canadians: to ensure that the democratic rather than despotic worldview sets the path for the next 125 years.

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn may be contacted at [email protected].

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