Bridging the gulf: how shall we bring Ukraine back to the de-occupied territories?
Yevhen Golovakha on the indirect Ukrainisation of the liberated territories
Ukrinform is launching an important discussion with the country's authoritative figures on a difficult subject: «Bridging the gulf: how shall we bring Ukraine back to the de-occupied territories?». It begins with an interview given to the outlet by the Director of the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine, Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, Professor, Corresponding Member of the NAS of Ukraine Yevhen Ivanovych Golovakha, who to begin with called for stepping out of the image of armchair analysts and looking soberly and realistically at what the occupied parts of Ukraine have become and how this has affected their residents: «There are territories that have been occupied for ten years, and there are newly occupied ones, about a year or eighteen months ago. And this requires two fundamentally different approaches, different strategies. The residents of the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, say, received a fresh psychological trauma as a result of the destruction of their region and of occupation, however brief. And restoring their psyche means restoring their way of life. If we return to them at least the standard of living they had – schools, hospitals, houses, utilities – then they will receive with gratitude what comes from Ukraine. Along with language and culture. It is important that both language and culture return there to the same extent (not earlier) as water, gas and electricity return».
Professor Golovakha stressed that the reclamation of land and the demining of the territories damaged by the occupiers must proceed in parallel with the restoration of Ukrainian spiritual culture. The scholar's formula is clear: the fastest possible rebuilding of housing and infrastructure + the restoration of the Ukrainian language and culture + the arrival of the Ukrainian church. That will be indirect Ukrainisation. The pace, moreover, must differ: rebuilding the material conditions of life – as fast as possible; cultural and spiritual revival – sensibly and carefully, without excessive pressure.
With the residents of the territories occupied since 2014 everything is far more complicated: «Patriots who come from that region, those who are themselves bearers of the Ukrainian idea, should return to the Donbas. There is no need for Galicians to go there with their own traumas, saying: we liberated them, we laid down our boys, and they still speak Russian. What is needed is for the hundreds of thousands who left there in 2014–2015 to come. And they will become natural conductors of Ukrainian culture and of the ideology of independence and derussification. Only these people, and I know many of them, are capable of restoring Ukraine there. They are the indigenous population, and they will bring Ukraine there».
As for the responsibility of those who lived there during the occupation, the scholar stressed, the legislation must be updated and applied sensibly. Ukrainians under occupation had to survive and to earn a living somehow, and they cannot be judged from the position of those who lived and worked in peaceful Ukraine and commented on events over coffee. The sociologist pointed to the need to restore in the liberated territories not only the infrastructure but a free Ukrainian society in its full extent. Those to be tried should be the local bosses who knowingly committed crimes against Ukraine and imposed the “Russian world” in the occupied territories — the organisers, not the scapegoats.
Observance of the law, democracy and justice, respect for the person and a sensible language and culture policy – these are the conditions under which it will be possible to show the residents of the liberated territories the advantages of the Ukrainian world over the “Russian world” founded on violence and contempt for people, the head of the Institute concluded.
People must be convinced that the Ukrainian authorities create for them more just conditions for a life of dignity than the occupation authorities, who trampled on freedom and law.
Ukrinform observes: the discussion begun by the Director of the Institute, Professor Golovakha, should be continued.
Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. The country's leading sociology research institution, founded in 1990.