Good Neighbours

Walter Kish

Last week I took part in a truly rare and inspiring event.  Four different foreign aid projects came together to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that reflects a willingness to combine our respective initiatives into a joint integrated effort aimed at making the credit union movement in Ukraine into a consolidated, stable and effective system.  Representatives from a European union and German and a Polish project, joined a Canadian one in this signing.

Aside from the fact that such multilateral agreements are rather uncommon, what struck me personally as remarkable about this event was the inclusion of the Poles.  First of all, the history of relations between Ukraine and Poland has been a largely troubled and not particularly friendly one.  Secondly, it seems like only yesterday that Poland itself was on the receiving end of many foreign aid projects, particularly from the US and Europe.  As a matter of fact, the last such US-AID project only ended in the year 2000.

With a relatively stable, growing economy and recent membership in the European Union, Poland has now transformed itself into a donor nation.  In 2003, Poland allocated some $27 million to a fledgling foreign aid program.  By 2006, it is planned that this will grow to some $230 million.  This will be allocated towards helping both third-world countries and some of its less developed Eastern European neighbours.  Among these, Poland considers Ukraine particularly important.

The reasons for this should not be hard to fathom.  Poland is acutely conscious that, for most of its history, its greatest potential danger politically, militarily and economically has been Russia.  More than once, Poland has been swallowed up in whole or in part by the Russian bear.  Recent developments in that country have only served to create new unease.  Rather than developing into a democratic, free-market country, Russia, once more, is regressing into a strongly centralized, authoritarian state at odds with its neighbours and the rest of the world.  Putin appears to be just the latest in a long line of tsars and tyrants.  In recent years, he has brought Russia’s powerful business oligarchs to heel, placed most of Russia’s strategic resource industries under state control, eliminated his political opponents, muzzled the media and consolidated state power into his own hands.

 Poland, to insure its future, is doing all it can to secure itself with as strong a ring of alliances as it can.  Joining NATO in 1999 was one such step and becoming part of the European Union in 2004 is another.  However, Poland realizes that having a strong Ukraine that is firmly within the European orbit and outside of Russian control will also be crucial to keeping Russia in check.

This was one of the prime reasons why the Poles were absolutely thrilled to witness the Orange Revolution last year and have become one of Ukraine’s closest friends and staunchest supporters since then.  I can recall the visit of Lech Walesa to the Maidan during the crucial early stage of the popular uprising and the personal involvement of President Kwasniewski in mediating a peaceful and just solution to the crisis.  Since then, the Polish government has done all it can to lobby the European Union to consider an early, fast-tracking of Ukraine’s application to join it.

Ukraine, of course, needs all the help it can get at this vulnerable stage of its political evolution.  Having a friendly, helpful good neighbour like Poland would certainly be a tremendous advantage.

Nonetheless, there are forces within Ukraine that are somewhat uneasy and suspicious of this new Poland.  There are those still alive in Ukraine that remember Poland as an occupier and oppressor and wonder if there may not still be some lingering desires by the Poles to recapture some of their former empire.  Correspondingly, there are also nationalistic, reactionary forces in Poland that bear old resentments against Ukrainians as well.

I believe that such people on both sides are in the minority, and everything I have seen and read leads me to believe that the newer generation of people in power or coming into power understand quite well that the days of empire and colonialism are quite dead and that the future can only be built on the basis of cooperation between nation states, particularly neighbouring ones.  History of course, cannot be forgotten, but a successful future is built not on the mistakes and grudges of the past, but on the enlightened understanding of the present.