Stuck in the Past
By Volodymyr Kish
I have had a particularly busy couple of
weeks, starting with the Ukrainian National Federation Convention in
For the most part, there was
plenty of good discussion and proposals on this theme, yet in both cases, what
I like to call the “Old Battles” syndrome made its inevitable appearance. By this I mean the tendency within our
Ukrainian organizations to raise issues and fight ideological battles that were
either resolved a long time ago or which should be relegated to historians to
analyze and pronounce judgments on.
At the UNF Convention for
instance, a constitutional amendment was proposed that would insert a new
“credo” of beliefs into the UNF’s Constitution and By-laws that would include
amongst other things “Belief in Christianity”.
Being a Christian myself, I have no ideological problems with the
concept itself, except that such a proposal runs counter to one of the UNF’s
founding principles. At that time in the
1930’s, the Ukrainian community was riven with antagonistic religious divisions
and the founding fathers of the UNF made the wise choice to include in the
constitution a statement of objectives that included the phrases “To unite
Ukrainian Canadians regardless of their political, religious and other beliefs”
and “to promote the spirit of unity among Canadian Ukrainians.”
Incorporating “Belief in
Christianity” into the wording of the constitution effectively shuts the door
to a whole slew of Ukrainians that fall outside the normal definition of who is
a “Christian”. Aside from the various
faiths and sects such as Jehovah’s Witnesses or Mormons that fall outside of
the traditional definition of “Christian” belief, within
When I objected at the
convention to having this amendment included in the constitution, one indignant
delegate accused me of wanting to remove God and Christianity from the
UNF. Of course I wanted no such thing; I
was not lobbying for the removal of anything from the UNF. It has existed and flourished for close to 80
years without this restrictive language in its constitution and there is no
need to create a needless and divisive issue now. We should be looking at ways
to broaden our base and not make it more restrictive.
This past weekend was
devoted to celebrating the 80th anniversary of Noviy Shliakh,
and Keynote Speaker Dr. Myron Kuropas made a timely speech focusing on the
future of the Ukrainian press in the face of many challenges. On the Sunday, the Association of Ukrainian
Journalists of North America had a follow-on round table to explore the theme
further and hopefully develop some strategies and initiatives to address the
issue. Unfortunately, most of the
discussion soon turned to a re-hash of some of the historical concerns that
have dominated so much of the Ukrainian diaspora’s time and energy over the
past few decades – the Demjaniuk problem, the historical animosity between
Ukrainians and Jews, the oppression of Ukrainians by the Soviets and currently
by the Russians, the rewriting of history by the current Yanukovych regime,
etc. etc.
All of these are serious
issues without a doubt, and readers of this column know that I have written
frequently and forcefully on all these topics.
However, I am of the opinion that we seem to devote an inordinate amount
of time trying to rectify historical wrongs and virtually no time on building
what one astute audience member called a “vision of the future” for Ukrainians
both in
Let us be clear – over the
past two or three decades our organizational strength has eroded significantly
and our number one priority must overwhelmingly be focused on those initiatives
that will make us strong once more. To
have an impact on national and international politics, we must first have a
strong and united Ukrainian community.
To achieve that, we must demonstrate to the million or so currently
unengaged Ukrainian Canadians that we are looking towards the future and are
not perpetually stuck in the past.