Much has been written in the international media over the past few years about what has come to be seen as the Great Ukrainian Divide.
Some have characterised this as a geographical schism, pitting East against West. Others have opted for a religious angle, arguing that the fault line runs along the (fictitious) boundary between Greek Catholic and Russian Orthodox denominations and almost everyone seems to agree that the population can be neatly divided into Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking camps.
Then there is the whole “pro-Russia v pro-Europe” interpretation, which would seem to suggest the country is listing aimlessly at sea and in desperate need of a mother ship to latch onto. It is quite possible to mix and match any and all of the above without ever once referencing the fact that the overwhelmingly Orange capital Kyiv is a Russian-speaking, largely Orothodox city or any number of other glaring contradictions that these overviews conveniently overlook.
However, whilst serving to grossly distort and over-simplify the complex and momentous historical processes at work in Ukraine, these dumbed-down explanations of the Ukrainian question are not totally misleading. The country is indeed struggling along without an overall consensus over its past, present and future direction, and remains ill at ease with many issues of grave national importance.
But my point is simple: So what? Is Ukraine really any different to the differences of opinion which one would inevitably encounter if one asked the same set of fundamental questions to a Bavarian German and his Hanoverian counterpart, or a docker in Marseilles and his colleague in Cherbourg? Wouldn't you encounter a similar lack of clarity if you crossed the social and ethnic divides in any major western European city? My own native Britain is a land of such deeply intrenched regional identities and attitudes that I would be reasonably confident of guessing the home town, class and political preferences of any given fellow countryman based on nothing more than a couple of sentences, yet this has never been cited as an indicator of impending doom, civil war nor national collapse.
Crude party politics
Such worst-case scenarios are readily aired when it comes to Ukraine largely because since the 2002 parliamentary elections those political groupings with strictly regional appeal have calculated that their best bet lies in an electorate polarised on crude and often illusiory ideological lines. The international media has been quick to lap up this easily digestible formula, safe in the knowledge that most foreign readers would find the choices facing Ukrainian society highly unpalatable if broken down into their many component parts.
As a result more complex realities are generally left undiscussed. Little is ever made of the fact that a whopping 90% of the population voted for independence in 1991, nor that these apparently unreconcilable divides remained mysteriously underreported for much of the country's first decade of self-rule.
Challenges not so insurmountable
By any standard today's Ukraine is certainly a patchwork nation, but then so is America. So is Spain. So is India. In fact, so are the vast majority of sizable nation states today. It is surely time for everyone to stop dwelling on the many supposed barriers facing Ukraine. These divisive issues may well be real enough but there is nothing particularly insurmountable about them and it is only the lack of a corresponding shared history which paints them in such sharp relief in the eyes of foreign observers. In due course that problem will inevitably right itself and it would be refreshing if those who attempt to play on such divisions were shown short shrift in the upcoming election campaign, both at home and abroad.
