 In Search of a National Idea By Volodymyr SENCHENKO |
Germany and Japan developed intensively after World War II, not only catching up with but in many ways surpassing their competitors.
What lessons can Ukraine learn from their experience?
Granted, the Marshall Plan and generous U.S. assistance to Japan were crucial to the reconstruction effort, but cash alone wouldn't have produced the amazing results achieved by these vanquished countries. What made the difference was the ability of the German and Japanese people to focus their energies on rebuilding their countries. They committed to years of hard, goal-oriented work.
While it is impossible to calculate the influence of moral and psychological factors, without them those countries wouldn't have been able to reach their current level of development.
The people of these two nations, defeated in a terrible war, could have given in to an inferiority complex borne of military defeat. Instead, they reinvented themselves, revised their national identities and focused on the future. They may have lost the war, but were committed to winning the post-war, developing their economies and improving their lives.
They wanted a place in the world, and understood that they needed to feel like winners to achieve it.
It would have infuriated the post-war world had the Germans and Japanese strutted around declaring, "We're number one!" The new national mindset was achieved quietly, on a personal level and without fanfare. Nevertheless, it united the people on a spiritual level, a type of self-help psychology applied at the grassroots. And it worked - it helped the people to overcome the complexities of rebuilding.
The national reinvention effort made it possible for the public to avoid adopting the inferiority complex of defeat, and to bear the inevitable poverty and misery of the first post-war years. More importantly, though, the positive national psyche allowed the countries to take advantage of the best that winning countries had to offer: know-how, technology and social progress. In the process, they became winners themselves. They applied what they learned to their own conditions, often adding their own innovations.
From the ashes of defeat and humiliation arose an inner energy, a will to survive and develop. No political leader or philosopher promoted the adoption of a new national idea and no spin-doctor conjured it from polling data and focus groups. The artificial national idea was nor created and debated in the media.
By contrast, some Ukrainian scientists, writers and politicians are actively working to develop a new national image, believing that if they can sell their concept to the public, they will save Ukraine, becoming rich and famous - or merely rich - in the process.
The Soviet Union was also victorious in World War II, and its leaders also adopted the winner mentality. But while they talked like winners and instilled great national pride in a people who had paid a terrible price for victory, the feeling of superiority didn't inspire action and innovation so much as it inspired a false sense of security and smug superiority. This led to significant errors in the USSR's political, social and economic development, and as a result the Soviet Union lagged behind when it could have leapt ahead. Ultimately, this lead to the Soviet Union's collapse. Confronted with criticism of shortcomings in the country's scientific and technical development, Soviet leaders denied that serious problems existed.
"Things were much worse near Stalingrad during the Great Patriotic War, but we won and took Berlin," they said. "The same will happen now and always."
When Japan and Germany strove to claim victory from defeat, innovation and progress resulted. The victorious USSR let complacency overcome it, leading to the demise of a once-powerful state.
Ukraine, a relative newborn among nations, is desperately seeking the path toward development. It doggedly pursues the European Union, the World Trade Organization and NATO in its quest for admission into the world's most exclusive clubs.
Upon its independence, Ukrainians imagined a broad, brightly-lit path that would lead the nation to become one of the world's ten most influential countries. And why not imagine the best possible outcome? Wasn't Ukraine, after all, a leading producer of the world's grain and metal?
Ten years after independence, many suspect that the brightly-lit path was an illusion leading only to false hope. Ukraine's citizens have experienced the gamut of suffering, individually and as a nation. Production volumes were halved, as military production became less important in a post-Cold War world. Once mighty enterprises closed their doors. Life expectancy decreased, as did GDP and respect for authority. At times it seemed that the only statistics rising were those measuring corruption, crime and unemployment.
By the time Viktor Yushchenko became prime minister, Ukraine was sliding into an abyss and on the brink of collapse.
Ukraine's troubles over the past decade are not more serious than what Japan and Germany faced in the aftermath of WWII. The nation has encountered setbacks in its quest to join the ranks of developed nations. Though the setbacks need be only temporary, they can have a lasting impact on the people. There is a general malaise and a subdued spirit. The sense is that the country has lost its way on that once brightly-lit path. Worse yet, the public's pessimism is not tied to any single situation or event: It is pervasive and all encompassing.
Even so, as much as Ukrainians feel vanquished, fooled and aggrieved, they don't differ much in their expectations from the citizens of Germany and Japan after 1945.
A dispassionate observer might draw the conclusion that Ukraine is doomed to forever remain an underdeveloped country, with the characteristics inherent to undeveloped countries. There is, in fact, a lot of evidence to support such a conclusion. Between five and seven million Ukrainian citizens work abroad - a factor that has helped to keep domestic unemployment figures low. About 500,000 Ukrainian women are part of the pink-collar workforce in Europe and Turkey. Ukraine's giant industrial factories stand idle, victim to neglect, lack of funds and inflexibility. In the cities and villages, the infrastructure is deteriorating too. Many of the nation's knowledge workers - among them academics and scientists - went abroad long ago, and the funding for work at Ukraine's scientific institutions has diminished to the point that the nation's remaining experts are largely jobless. Social values are in a death spiral as drug addiction and AIDS reaches epidemic proportions. Poverty is pervasive, and homelessness is becoming a serious problem, especially among children.
Given the situation, it is easy to understand why 20% of the electorate supports Communist candidates and the elderly yearn for the return of the once-strong Soviet state.
But the pessimists' view obscures the positive developments taking place in the country. The overall pace of development is quickening. According to the National Bank of Ukraine, there are more U.S. dollars in circulation domestically than Ukrainian hryvnas. Most people are more or less accustomed to market conditions. The likelihood of social unrest is low, unless the provocation is due to external forces.
Ukraine needs its own Marshall plan, but cannot expect to obtain help from Russia, which has needs of its own.
A united Europe doesn't see massive aid to Ukraine as in its best interests. Who, after all, wants to support a possible competitor? As Ukraine's economy was struggling to its feet, the EU slapped tariffs and restrictions on the country's exports. Moreover, EU member countries appear to be doing what they can to make NATO's eastern borders a dividing line between Europe and Ukraine. As a result, the likelihood of Ukraine becoming an EU member anytime soon is slim.
Despite the problems, Ukrainians want to believe that they will be able to lead their own recovery, beating back the inferiority complex that accompanies defeat. They are starting to feel what the citizens of Germany and Japan felt after WWII.
Ukraine should not have to sit on the EU's doorstep and plead to be adopted into the European family. We can achieve a level of development and prosperity that Europe will court us.
Ukraine is finding new export markets for its products in the CIS, Asia, Africa and Latin America. More of its young people are opting to work in Ukraine, rather than seeking opportunities abroad. And Ukrainian businessmen are learning that external markets will pay hard cash for new, innovative products.
Businesses are exhibiting a greater interest in and understanding of innovation and how to adapt them to the marketplace. There is public support for the implementation of Ukrainian know-how, and more projects are being financed by enterprises themselves, rather than through foreign donors.
It took Germany and Japan 20 years to assume leading positions in the world. If Ukraine is able to overcome the kleptocracy inspired by the oligarch clans, it can become a developed country within the same timeframe. It can't but happen, because social development laws state that a national idea, as a psychological factor, plays one of the most important roles in the collective consciousness. Americans were encouraged to smile in order to overcome the problems of the Great Depression, and that is what they still do when they face a serious situation.
The Ukrainian people are creating their own new national idea. They can imagine a Ukraine that is recognized by the world as a great and self-sufficient European nation. Like Japan and Germany, if Ukrainians can see the future, it will be theirs to grasp.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
The Herodotus of Ukrainian History
Ukrainians Want A Country That Respects Them
Ukraine's Brain Drain
Chauvinistic Smoke A Few Words on Russia
A walk on the underside
Re-inventing Production: Military Giants Discover Consumer Goods
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