Exactly three years ago Ukraine looked like it was in the process of becoming a failed state. A systematic campaign coordinated at the highest levels of government was well underway with the clear objective of rigging the presidential elections and placing a former convict in the president’s office. Voters were being promised dual citizenship with Russia while opposition activists were subject to summary arrest and imprisonment on the kind of trumped up charges that would disgrace a banana republic.
A different country altogether
Fear was in the air in the autumn of 2004. The leader of the democratic opposition had been terribly disfigured by a poisoning attempt on his life. In between emergency medical procedures he was forced to travel personally around the country to give his message to an electorate that was being subjected to the kind of media censorship more commonly associated with third world dictatorships. Regional airports routinely refused to let him land. Scheduled rallies were called off due to power cuts or the threat of violence.
Meanwhile, the country’s TV stations generally refused to cover those opposition rallies that did manage to go ahead, or did so in a manner so slanted that viewers could be forgiven for assuming that the pro-democracy movement was in fact a fascist fringe.
Finally the day of the big vote arrived. Anyone in Ukraine on 21 November 2004 will remember the curious mix of resignation and resentment that permeated the country as mass falsification kicked in. Busses of government-corralled voters were driven from polling station to polling station to cast multiple votes, often with police escorts. Ballot boxes were destroyed all over the country and ordinary citizens terrorised by gangs of thugs. The scale of the falsification was industrial and its implementation institutionalised. Hundreds of thousands of people were directly involved in one way or another.
Miracle on Maidan
And then the most amazing thing happened. Ordinary people, initially from Kyiv itself but within days from all over Ukraine, began gathering in the centre of the capital. The figures jumped from the tens of thousands to half a million. The government appeared clueless when confronted by the scale of the protests, while the world was transfixed by images of people risking all to fight for their rights in the snow.
The rest, as they say, is history. After what was the longest, largest and most peaceful protest movement in modern world history, a re-vote was ordered and the pro-democracy candidate duly won.
Lack of historical perspective
The disappointments have come thick and fast ever since, beginning with the constitutional compromise struck during the Orange Revolution itself. High hopes have been dashed and old foes have reappeared on the scene. The political climate has remained troubled, and the country’s regional divides have been thrown into sharp relief.
Nevertheless, it remains hard to believe that today’s Ukraine, with its free media, boisterous multi-party political system and EU ambitions, is the same place as the land that came so close to the abyss just over a thousand days ago, and that is surely worth celebrating.
The Orange Revolution will ultimately be remembered as one of the great turning points in this nation’s troubled history, and it would be a fitting tribute to the millions of ordinary Ukrainians brave enough to participate if November 21 eventually becomes one of the biggest holidays of the year. Continuing political battles may have served to temporarily cloud the historical significance of those magical November days, but future generations may eventually come to look back on them with awe and wonder.
