Andrew Sorokowski's column

Sirens, Monsters And Whirlpools

16.05.2011, 08:24
Sirens, Monsters And Whirlpools - фото 1
Buffeted by unabating winds from the north, the Ark of the Church is navigating perilous straits. On the one hand, she hears the siren song of militant nationalism.

Andrew SOROKOWSKIBuffeted by unabating winds from the north, the Ark of the Church is navigating perilous straits. On the one hand, she hears the siren song of militant nationalism. It is a sweet song, for it is the natural response to the threats of neo-colonialism and de-Ukrainization emanating from Moscow and Kyiv. How can one fail to sympathize with those patriotic youths who attack Stalinist monuments and celebrate the heroism of Bandera, Shukhevych, and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army? How can one not honor the self-sacrificing nationalists of the 1940s, defending them from the calumnies of Red Army veterans, Communists, and neo-Soviet politicians who brand them as fascists and Nazi collaborators? Can the Church ignore the fact that these young people support the traditional values of family, religion, and morality? In the words of the Braty Hadiukiny song "We're the Boys from Banderstadt" from the 1990s, "We go to church; we respect our parents."

Alas, heeding the nationalist siren could land the Church on a rocky shoal. It is not only because of the widespread rumors that the most militant nationalists are being manipulated by the Russian security service. Nor is it only because every right-wing demonstration in Ukraine is immediately picked up by the media – as if they had been alerted in advance – and broadcast around the world as further proof of the neo-Nazi threat in western Ukraine. Nor is it solely because every hint of anti-semitism – and there have been enough – discredits Ukrainian nationalism in the eyes of every civilized person and every civilized country in the world.

It is, first of all, because by supporting right-wing nationalists, the Church would be compromising her support of Christian democracy. The distinction between a healthy nationalism that supports the rights of other nations and ethnic groups, and a pathological chauvinism that thrives on the hatred of other peoples, is essential. The first is consistent with Christianity and follows from it; the second is incompatible with it. 

Second, by supporting militant nationalism, the Church would lend credence to public accusations from the Moscow Patriarchate and its allies that Ukrainian "Uniatism" has a history of Nazi sympathies, and indeed, outright collaboration. The finger-pointing about Metropolitan Sheptytsky welcoming the Wehrmacht and blessing the SS Waffen "Galizien" Division would resume, purportedly confirmed by new reports of sympathy for the right-wing nationalist movement. Moscow's insistence on dissolution of the Union would gain another argument.

But worst of all, the Church's association with extreme nationalism would make it very difficult for her to support Ukrainian independence at a time when it is being threatened by Russia's political and religious institutions. For her every defense of Ukraine would be portrayed as advocacy of right-wing extremism.

What, then, is the alternative? What political tack can the Church safely follow? Most Ukrainian intellectuals, whether in the homeland or the diaspora, would probably point to liberalism and free-market capitalism. This, it would seem, is the correct answer to Moscow's "managed democracy" and Kyiv's regional oligarchy.

But what does liberal capitalism mean? Is it like American democracy? Surely the American system, for all its virtues, is not an appropriate model for Ukraine. For one thing, it is a federal system. For another, it presupposes several hundred years' development of common law and political liberty. And for a third, due to their particular culture and psychology, Americans find the possibility of upward mobility to be sufficient justification for levels of poverty that few Ukrainians would find acceptable.

The European model of democratic liberalism and free-market capitalism tempered by limited socialism is more appropriate for Ukraine. Most likely, Ukrainians want to live like the wealthy Scandinavians, the affluent British, or the prosperous Dutch. But that would most likely mean living without religion. For these countries have become practically de-Christianized. The Church could hardly support such a model of development.

True, the link between liberal capitalism and the decline of religion is difficult to establish. Some have shown, in fact, that capitalism goes hand in hand with Protestantism, as in early modern Europe and, more recently, North America. But this is small comfort for Catholics and Orthodox. Others  would argue that free-market capitalism tends to undermine traditional Christianity by encouraging materialism and consumerism. Indeed, Christianity seems strongest in relatively poor countries like Poland or Portugal, and weakest in the rich countries of northern Europe. The Bible tells us how difficult it is for the rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven – not because of his wealth, but because of his attachment to wealth -- and how it is the poor who will inherit that kingdom. Yet consumerism appears to have replaced Christianity as the dominant belief system of the West. Moreover, liberal democracies' pursuit of equality, pluralism, and tolerance seems to have contributed to widespread indifference to religion. If the Ukrainian intelligentsia heeds the siren song of European liberalism, it will not be joining the old Europe of Christendom, but the new Europe of secular materialism. Can the Church follow? Or must she plug her ears?

It would seem, then, that the ark of the Church has entered the strait between Scylla and Charybdis – on the one hand, the monster of right-wing nationalism (with its six heads of chauvinism, xenophobia, anti-semitism, racism, intolerance, and misogyny); on the other hand, the whirlpool of liberal capitalism, which may drown her in a sea of materialism.

Is there no way, then, to steer a straight course between these perils? And must we really foreswear forever the old dream – for which countless nationalists gave their lives between the 1920s and the 1950s – of a Ukraine where God and country are paramount, where the Ukrainian language is universally spoken, where Ukrainian art and music and literature flourish, and where marriage and family give society a firm foundation?

The Church cannot give up the dream of a healthy Ukrainian society, or fatalistically accept a morally corrupt socio-economic and political order. Nor should she heed the blandishments of right-wing nationalism or liberal capitalist materialism, however patriotic the former may sound, however democratic the latter may seem. The Church has a new helmsman. Armed with the charts and logbooks of traditional teaching and experience, he can steer her out of her current straits on a new and independent course.

Andrew SOROKOWSKI
Джерело публікації: risu.org.ua

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