Svyatoslav Vakarchuk is the lead vocalist of Okean Elszy, which is cited as the most popular post-Soviet Ukrainian band. The day after a concert in London's Apollo Hammersmith (17 Nov. 2014) Vakarchuk spoke about Ukraine at an event hosted by the London School of Economics (LSE):
I believe that our main problem is not economics or legislative system. We should start from people’s values. That is our fundamental cause, the space in which we live. There are different sets of values worshiped in different parts of the world. In Ukraine people say they want to be European, but not everyone knows what it actually means. Freedom of choice and dignity of person: you can derive everything from these two things. If you wish, you may add honest labour to the list. Living here in London, you may think these are universal and fundamental. But there are many societies where personal freedom is not the first value. Some prefer safety to freedom of choice. And the same split of values is present in Ukraine.
You can’t choose both freedom and safety as basic values. If you choose safety, you will never get freedom. If you choose freedom, you’ll get safety as a consequence, but it might take some time to achieve it.
Making reforms without changing the values in the people’s minds – is a Sisyphean task. Hence, the most important task is to educate people, show them that there are other, better ways of living, building the country and the society.
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I don’t believe in fast change. You can’t change minds of adults; you can only work with the kids. So it will take several generations before we can see the result we want. We need patience. A typical feature of Ukrainians is impatience. We always want everything right now and right here. But it doesn’t work that way. If you are interested in doing something for your country, you should see the goal and act toward its achievement for your whole life. Your lifetime won’t be enough to see the goal achieved, but you should be happy to see your country on the right irreversible path. That’ll be already a huge victory.
Ukraine started to rebuild its values. The first step – Maidan. It’s like civil war in the US, revolution in France. We might seem to do this much later than others. But there are many societies not even close to the point where Ukraine is now.
http://www.ukrainianlondon.co.uk/vakarchuk-lse-ukraine-today-challenges-tomorrow/
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