The democratic progress of the 2004 Orange Revolution is under attack five years later. Ironically, one of the Orange heroes – Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko – recently took part in failed talks with ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych Courtesy Diana Dutsyk writes that freedoms are easy to lose, but hard to regain.

The recent talks about the “broad coalition” and the new draft Constitution, details of which were published in “Dzerkalo Tyzhnya” (“Mirror of the Week”) newspaper on June 6-12, have revived the issue of freedom of speech – and the many unfolding threats to it in Ukraine.

The tensions will likely remain acute long after the June 7 collapse of the coalition talks between Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and ex-Prime Minister Victor Yanukovych. And the debate will inevitably heat up as the 2010 presidential election approaches.

This is not only because elections in Ukraine involve media manipulations, politically planted articles and other information troubles. And this is not only because of the scandalous Article 34-1, an amendment to the Constitution which sought to punish news media outlets for spreading misinformation.

Rather, freedom will remain a burning issue in the nation because it is being destroyed as a value.

For example, on the June 1 “Svoboda Slova,” (“Freedom of Speech”) program broadcast by ICTV channel, Ukraine’s first president, Leonid Kravchuk, essentially restated the false “sausage or freedom” argument – that people must choose between material needs or esoteric principles such as freedom. Kravchuk’s troubling answer came in response to a question about the restriction of constitutional rights of citizens if the president is elected by parliament.

Essentially, Kravchuk said that freedom can wait. “There are such periods in the history of peoples, when formal records (meaning the Constitution) cannot be decisive to remove a crisis. I ask myself and all others. Say, there is the economic crisis today. It hit everyone. And we argue whether we will deprive people of the right to elect, whether we will deprive them of the right to eat and to dress. Please, tell me, what is more important for human beings? ... [Freedom] can be returned with the lapse of time.”

However, in the history of peoples, including Ukrainians, there were long periods when freedom was lost, then recovered only years later and at the cost of many lives. Freedom is simultaneously symbolic and real, since it is a basic value that enables a person and a state to develop. It is dangerous and incorrect to ask a question like “sausage or freedom.” In the absence of freedom, sausage may also be in deficit, as happened during the U.S.S.R.

It is hardly possible to overcome the economic crisis by restricting political freedoms (either freedom of speech or freedom of choice). In the modern world, political freedoms are the institutional means of ensuring other fundamental freedoms, including economic ones.

For Ukraine, the retention and expansion of limits of freedom as a value is especially important nowadays. Basic freedoms, including freedom of speech, shape the “market for ideas.” If freedoms are broad and protected, the system of government – either presidential or parliamentary – will not matter. Both function successfully in developed democracies. Politicians must understand the retention of freedom as a basic principle of democracy will serve as a guarantee of their own security if they lose elections.

For this reason, the response of the journalistic community to Article 34-1 was disappointing, but not surprising.

Under the proposed Article 34-1 change to the Constitution, “the use of the mass media for misinformation of society and for anti-constitutional purposes” would be forbidden. Such misinformation, the draft amendment said, “is prohibited and shall be punishable; licenses (permissions, certificates) of the mass media disseminating such information shall be revoked by a court decision without the right to reinstate.”

Today, it is apparently difficult to find an original author of this Article 34-1. Tymoshenko stated that her eponymous bloc’s version provides for no such restrictions on media, while Yanukovych’s Party of Regions also denied the amendment.

Both the notorious Article 34-1 and Kravchuk’s justification of restrictions on freedoms exemplify a form of post-traumatic syndrome. Society, including the political elite, has in recent years sustained a lot of untreated psychological injuries.

Among them is the so-called “Melnychenko tapes” scandal, involving the hundreds of hours of recordings allegedly made by ex-President Leonid Kuchma’s former bodyguard, Mykola Melnychenko. Only one of the related scandals of the “Melnychenko tapes” involves the 2000 murder and decapitation of muckraking journalist Georgiy Gongadze.

In his book “No Right to Repent,” former secretary of the National Security and Defense Council, Volodymyr Horbulin, wrote: “Until we clear out what was going on, how this could be recorded, who needed this and for what, it will be impossible to progress.” Horbulin is convinced that the consequences of this unsolved problem are manifested even today. Freedom without trust is not absolute freedom. That is why all recent negotiations between political forces and in different combinations produce no results and only enhance mutual distrust and confrontation in society.

The Ukrainian media also work in this “ruined atmosphere of trust.” Therefore, words by President Victor Yushchenko that “the media prevented a coup” seem incorrect because the coverage of the “broad coalition” talks and the draft Constitution by some media – especially some TV channels – seemed like a combination of propaganda and entertainment.

The Ukrainian media, whose entertainment function is now dominant, has made politics a form of entertainment, since it enhances ratings and, thus, revenue. Political talk shows played an ambiguous role. On the one hand, their availability is evidence that freedom of speech still exists in Ukraine. On the other hand, these programs partially nullify the value of freedom. Politicians who take part in talk shows do not bear responsibility for what they say on the air and turn discussion into slapstick. True freedom means responsibility for actions and words.

A large number of media restrictions are also being discussed in parliament. Among them, on June 3, the Verkhovna Rada approved a bill regarding compensation for moral damage. The draft law seeks to increase civil responsibility for moral damage caused by disseminating deliberately false information about a person or a legal entity.

Many other changes, including legislative ones, are brewing. The world is rapidly changing as well. And in many cases, Ukraine’s laws fail to keep pace. This happens not only because of the political crisis, but also because the Ukrainian state desperately lags in understanding modern trends. If high-ranking politicians make statements about restricting freedoms today, what development of media can take place? It seemed, after the 2004 Orange Revolution, that no one would dare encroach upon these values. But today, they dare to encroach.

Ukraine needs to fundamentally rethink its place in the world. This must occur in the social consciousness and, first and foremost, in the consciousness of the political elite. The nation’s attitude towards freedom will determine Ukraine’s place on the geopolitical map and the prospects for its future.


Diana Dutsyk is a political observer with the Ukrainian Center for Independent Political Research, found at www.ucipr.kiev.ua.