Opinion: Independence and freedom

In those feverish days of August 1991, when communist hardliners tried to overthrow Mikhail Gorbachev and restore Soviet order, Ukraine was shaking. Many of its most vocal freedom-loving politicians, scientists and artists had already revealed their cards.

When they noticed the first cracks in the socialist edifice, they stepped into the light, and now there was every chance that this brief glimmer of sunshine would be extinguished with devastating personal consequences.

But that did not happen. The conservative coup failed on August 22nd and before another coup attempt could take place, Ukraine seized its opportunity and declared its independence on August 24th. In December of the same year, the declaration was ratified by an overwhelming majority of the Ukrainian population.

Western leaders at the time still feared that a collapse of the Soviet Union could lead to chaos and even nuclear weapons. Above all, they did not want to give the impression that they were supporting and encouraging the end of the Soviet empire, for they feared that this blatant interference in their own ranks could be interpreted as a direct attack on the Soviet Union itself.

It was precisely because of this reticence – a timidity which Ukraine unfortunately has to endure to this day – that Western leaders did their utmost to distance themselves from independence.

On August 1, 1991, US President George Bush addressed the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR in Kyiv, and it is worth revisiting some of his words.

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“For those who love freedom,” he said, “every experiment in building an open society offers new lessons and insights. They face a particularly daunting task. For years, the people of this country have felt powerless, overshadowed by a vast government apparatus, constrained by forces that sought to control every aspect of their lives.”

Bush then examined the meaning of the word “liberty,” and said of this complex question when Americans think of freedom: “…we mean the ability of people to live without fear of government interference, without fear of harassment by their fellow citizens, without infringement of the freedom of others. We do not view freedom as a privilege reserved for those who hold appropriate political views or for members of certain groups. We view it as an inalienable individual right belonging to all men and women.”

But after this appeal, which still resonates today, Bush took a different turn that may have seemed disappointing, even contradictory, to listeners:

“But freedom is not the same as independence. Americans will not support those who seek independence to replace a distant tyranny with a local despotism. They will not support those who promote a suicidal nationalism based on ethnic hatred.”

His claim that replacing the chains of a distant power with a local tyranny was a bad deal was undoubtedly correct. His fear that the response to decades of Soviet rule and brutality might lead to a particularly rampant revanchist nationalism is perhaps not entirely unfounded, at least from the perspective of a Western leader wary of what he might unleash in the corridors of Moscow with a more chauvinistic message of support.

Freedom is not the same as independence. That is undoubtedly true. One might even say that it is trivially the case. Many nations that have degenerated into autocracy were independent. Dictatorships often develop most effectively in nations that isolate themselves from the rest of the world, as North Korea does today. Authoritarianism can sometimes be the result of too much independence, too much isolation from the rest of humanity.

Through the mechanisms of international trade, political discourse, and all the interdependencies that arise from these processes, we maximize our choices and freedoms. Giving up a little of our independence often yields enormous benefits in terms of political and economic freedom.

So independence does not automatically lead to freedom, but it is clear that without independence there can be no freedom. And this second truth hardly needs to be explained to Ukrainians.

Even in the most benevolent kingdom, anyone who is forever bound to the goodwill of his master is as good as a slave, no matter how generous he is with his history and culture. For he can withdraw his goodwill at any time and impose draconian rules. It is the mere possibility, the implicit threat of this coercion, that captivates the mind.

In January 1989, I happened to be in Poland as a 21-year-old student when General Wojciech Jaruzelski, the leader of the Communist Party, announced that evening that he would begin talks to end the communist monopoly on power.

The next morning, the atmosphere had changed noticeably. People spoke with a lightness and cheerfulness I had never experienced before. The cautious glances and sideways glances had disappeared overnight. Of course, this was not national independence, Poland already had that, but it was a kind of independence, an independence from monopolistic state power reinforced by a distant overlord.

I noticed something milder when I visited the Soviet Union with a high school in Moscow in 1984, a month after the death of Soviet leader Yuri Andropov. Even before Gorbachev, one could sense that something was stirring beneath the rigid, monolithic facade of the communist state.

I experienced the same phenomenon again when I arrived in Ulaanbaatar at the end of July 1990 to lead a zoological expedition through the steppes and deserts of the Mongolian People's Republic. This happened, by chance, two days after the first free elections that liberated the country from 69 years of communism. All these experiences were the most interesting of my student years and they undoubtedly influenced my political views.

Liberation is as much about psychology as it is about political choices, which is why independence can turn into freedom surprisingly quickly.

No amount of Gorbachev's reforms and no amount of reference to respect for Ukraine's historical development could have dampened the enthusiasm for freedom that blossomed on August 24. Because freedom cannot fully develop if it is shielded by political and economic dependence.

In August of another year, 1947, India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru delivered a famous speech when India was on the verge of independence. He declared: “At the stroke of midnight, when the world sleeps, India will awaken to life and freedom. There comes a moment such as rarely comes in history, when we pass from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the long-suppressed soul of a nation finds expression.”

There is no exaggeration in his speech about the “statement of destiny”. He too recognized how quickly a free spirit can emerge from a state of independence.

It seems to me that this is also what Ukraine is celebrating today. Not only the political fact of independence, but also that flight of spirit, the freedom that cannot be expressed and is suppressed even when political independence is achieved, if the watchful eye of a foreign power remains. This is what Ukraine is fighting for now.

To be fair to Bush, on that momentous afternoon in 1991 he paraphrased Taras Shevchenko's words about independence, which were prophetic in light of what was to happen just three weeks later. Shevchenko's poem remains powerful and particularly relevant today:

Do not try to search

Don't ask in foreign countries

For what can never be

Even in heaven, let alone

In a foreign region.

In your own house: your own truth

Your own power and freedom.

The views expressed in this opinion piece are those of the author and not necessarily those of Kyiv Post.