Mental Callisthenics with Uncle Il’ko (1)

By Oksana Bashuk Hepburn

I look forward to visits with Uncle Il’ko.   As soon as I’m in the door he offers his unhappiness with the situation of our Ukrainian community in Canada.

“It’s dying,’ he says from his armchair where he seems to sit permanently in front of the turned off TV.  “It’s dead.”  The TV? He doesn’t want it fixed despite many offers.  He’s seen it all before, he claims.

“Why are you pessimistic today, Uncle Il’ko?”

“Because the youth is gone.”

“Cheer up. We’re all getting older.”

“Not mine, you silly thing.  Community’s youth.”  

Uncle Il’ko is over eighty and likes nothing more than to engage in prolonged political discussions, “mental callisthenics”, he calls them.  But there’s not much argument on the sad reality he raises today.

In Canada, there are only a handful of active Ukrainian youth organizations.   Currently, the two strongest youth groups are Plast and SUM with programs aimed primarily at the development of children and youth - six to eighteen.  Each has a national membership of a few thousand: great, but not great enough for a Canadian ethnic group of 1.2 million.  Regrettably, organized Catholic and Orthodox youth are not what they used to be.  MUNO, an organization that was a big part of Uncle Il’ko’s life in the earlier part of the last century, nearly expired but is showing signs of revival.  There are fewer signs of life from the once energetic ODUM.  

As I nod in agreement, Uncle Il’ko moves on to another subject.

 “Fear of change,” he offers and dozes off.

I consider this.  Our long-established organizations reward longevity.  There are special awards for years of service - pins, medals, citations - there was one woman who received a gold medal for decades of “sitting on executives”.  Sitting, rather than achieving, does not amount to much!

One-time project contributors, regardless of the impact, are considered less worthy than dovholitni chleny, long serving members.  “Fire in a pan”, zablestila, is the unkind moniker for new, well-delivered contributions.  Yet, in our busy society, few overextended people can afford to give years of uninterrupted time to organizations.  Most will undertake projects with specific timeframes; finish them, and move on.  Perhaps come back again later, if their work is properly acknowledged.

Does he mean we fear breaking the pattern doing the same things over and over again - commemorative concerts, traditional suppers?  Or, is he concerned with organizational structures with years of little leadership and, hence, programming changes? 

“And you think that a good discussion, an airing out of issues, is arguing.”

“So you’re not asleep Uncle Il’ko?  I’m glad, because I want to ask you some questions on your last point - change.”

He’s into his new subject.

“The culprit is fear of airing different views.  Discussion is seen as quarrelling – svarka - to be avoided for the sake of unity.  This is nuts. Serious issues need to be resolved by “duking” them out.  Just like Canada does it in legislatures and the media.  This does not happen in our community.  We don’t determine policy positions; so we can’t offer them up to politicians.   It’s a soft ineffective game we play and let others decide the bigger game for us.  It is safer to be underlings than stand up and lead.

Isn’t it the view of some illustrious community members to drop the ball and not to push that man, what’s his name, for an apology?”

“You mean Michael Ignatieff, the Leader of the Opposition?”

“That’s him.  Don’t push him further on his mistreatment of Ukrainians in his book ‘Blood and Patriotic Love’…”

“It’s Blood and Belonging or True Patriot Love.”

“… where he says that he cannot treat Ukrainian demands for sovereignty seriously.  Whose patriotic love does he have in mind?  His talk is undemocratic. Yet some say steer away from antagonizing power!  The logic fails me.  How does it follow that an insulted group - that’s us - will find favour with the very person that insults us?  That in itself requires a solid debate and a thoughtful strategy.  And I betcha, he’s not putting back that young Borys MP into the shadow cabinet.  So much for apology.”

“Wow!  That’s impressive Uncle Il’ko.   How do you know all this when you don’t watch TV?”

“Nu scho?  So there’s no wisdom outside of the TV box?  I listen to CBC.  That Anna Maria Tremonti knows a thing or two.  But this wasn’t on radio.  None of our stuff is.  Our neighbour told me about the meeting in Toronto with that Ignatieff fella.   Not very Canadian of him to insult us like that - can’t take Ukrainian sovereignty seriously!  Bah!  Sounds like old “Soviet think”.  They could not stand any form of national self-determination.  Still can’t, those Kremlin’s neo-colonialists.  Look how Russia obliterated Chechnya.  And just rolled into Georgia and took Osetia and Abkhazia. Is Crimea next?”

“What needs to be done, Uncle Il’ko?”

I wait, but this time he’s sound asleep. 

 Welcome To The New Pathway!

Oksana Bashuk Hepburn will be a regular contributor to The New Pathway, writing about Ukraine and the community in her commentary column Minding Our Business.

A graduate of the University of Manitoba, Oksana Bashuk Hepburn has spent some 30 years in the consulting business as an executive trouble-shooter in the Canadian government and as president of her own consulting firm U*CAN Ukraine Canada Relations Inc..