Friday, December 03, 2004
Today was a good day in the Ukraine. Freedom is spreading, slowly creeping into Vladimir Putin's nightmares!
A good year for liberty. May it spread far and wide.
A good year for liberty. May it spread far and wide.
December 03, 2004, 8:09 a.m.
How Far We’ve ComeLet’s not forget.
By Victor David Hanson
The harrowing World War II movie Twelve O'Clock High begins with a postwar bald and bespectacled Dean Jagger (Colonel Harvey Stovall) riding his bicycle out to an old airfield in Archbury, England, that years earlier had been home to the 918th B-17 Bombing Group of the 8th Air force. As the nondescript Jagger walks along the weed-infested airbase and rusting bombers, the movie unfolds as one long dreamlike flashback of the horrors of what daylight bombing over Germany in 1942 entailed and the courageous men who used to take off from the now eerie, abandoned runways.
Talk about intelligence failure, tactical obtuseness, and strategic naiveté — sending B-17s in broad daylight over Germany in 1942-3 was all that and more. Without fighter escort, operational experience, or much knowledge of precision raids, thousands of Americans were blown apart trying to take out the industrial heart of Hitler's Europe, which spanned from the Atlantic Ocean to the gates of Moscow, guarded by the world's best anti-aircraft artillery and veteran German fighter-pilots in high-performance ME-109s and FW-190s. There really were once things far worse than Fallujah.
In juxtaposing the dreadfulness of what the airmen went through (centered around the bravery and eventual breakdown of group Commander Gen. Frank Savage) with the calm of the post-bellum English countryside, director Henry King reminds us how easily we forget horrors of the immediate past. No one in the town, or indeed back home in America, other than the families of the dead, recalled a Bishop, Cobb, Wilson, or the thousands of Savage's anonymous flyers who perished in doing their part to bring down the Third Reich. The tragedy of Stovall's war, King seems to suggest, is that the inferno in the skies was but a blink of the eye from its dividends of victory and rural tranquility — and that we all are of short memory, allowing even the worst nightmare to retreat into the oblivion of everyday life.
I fear the same may be said of Afghanistan and even Iraq in a year or two. Indeed, we already see how few talk of what it was like in the very dark days of September 2001. The country was reeling from 3,000 murdered; a trillion dollars were lost to economic dislocation; and the prospect of going 7,000 miles to the other side of the world to root out Dark-Age killers that had grown emboldened by a decade of American appeasement was considered too frightening.
Do we now remember the impassable peaks, the snowy haunts of the Taliban that were too high for us, or Kabul, the dreaded graveyard of all imperial expeditions? It was just a few months ago, it seems now, that we were admonished about the fury of retaliation to come for daring to fight during Ramadan, the impossibility of working with a nuclear and Islamic Pakistan, and the Wild West nature of Afghanistan's tribes so impossible to forge into the stuff of consensual government. And it was worse still than all that: the cries on the hard left of millions of refugees to come; the European warning about thousands of dead from indiscriminate American bombing; the need to adjudicate 9/11 by jurisprudence rather than arms; and the crazy conspiracy theories of pipelines, neo-cons, 'Jews,' Likuds, and CIA plots.
Have we also already forgotten the controversies, the buzz, and the insider conventional wisdom that consumed us during the days of uncertainty over Mullah Omar's televised rants; Osama's promises of an American graveyard in the Hindu Kush; the diplomats' trial balloon of a proposed coalition government with the wretched Taliban; the panacea of an all-Islamic peace-keeping force; Johnny Walker Lindh's conflicted high-school years; and a thousand other crises of the hour that sent our statesmen into all-night emergency sessions, our generals into desperate improvisations, and, yes, Americans into battle and on occasion to their deaths?
Do we remember all this and more when we talk nonchalantly now of elections in Afghanistan or the decency of the Karzai government? Is there a Frenchman or a German to be had at least to say in retrospect, "Yes, you were not the cowboys we slurred you as, but brought something good where there was only evil before"? Do we ponder if but for a second how improbable — indeed, how absolutely preposterous — it was at the time to even suggest that the Afghan people would soon stand in line hours to vote, freed from those who had so sorely oppressed them?
Have we forgotten what foul and cowardly folk the Taliban were — thugs who lynched women, shot homosexuals, blew up civilization's icons, destroyed a century of culture in Afghanistan, promised us death and worse, and then ran out of town in the clothes of women with what plunder they could carry? Do any of us recall the brave Afghans and Americans, both the planners in Washington who were libeled and the soldiers in the field who routed these butcherers?
So, I think, it will be too even in Iraq, improbable as that may now seem to some. Already we have forgotten the long ride to Baghdad — when our ex-generals warned of thousands of dead to come in a deadly siege, and were trumped by relief workers who assured us of millions more refugees. Then there were the cries of defeat when our forces plowed through a windstorm — as our supposed Dresden-like shock and awe were suddenly mocked not as too terrible but as laughably impotent. We grow depressed now at the canned pessimism of our talking heads who predict failure in post-bellum Iraq — forgetting that these same prophets swore to us just months ago that thousands would die getting to Baghdad.
The disappointments with the looting, the museum desecration, the shoot-out with the Hussein progeny, the flight of the U.N., the insolence of Saddam in the docket, the Halliburton pipeline, and more was hyped — and forgotten as the 24-hour news cycle sought out new prey. And it found it aplenty: The furor over embalming the corpses of the Hussein "princes"; the lack of respect shown Saddam during his televised dental exam; the worldwide horror of Abu Ghraib juxtaposed to the worldwide silence over the thousands in mass graves and the televised beheadings; the lectures by "humane" folk in Europe and the U.N., who looted the Hussein kleptocracy and cared not a whit for the thousands who were starved and shot so that Europeans, Chinese, and Russians could profit with a monster.
Does anyone at all remember any of that? And where now are Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Hans Blix, and all the other wizards of the moment, come and gone off the media shows and best-seller lists, who assured us that we were either liars, fools, or naifs? Do we remember now how the old Wesley Clark once praised the team of George Bush, how the old Anonymous wrote an earlier book warning of Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, or how the old Clintonites a decade ago insisted that Saddam Hussein was brewing WMDs?
Yet despite them all, and after this bloody month of November, here we are now on the eve of elections — the most unlikely of all events in the last half-century of civilization. Just think of it: In place of the past Hussein mass murdering and the present ogres of Fallujah, we are to witness an effort to jump-start democracy in the heart of the caliphate of old, right between the world's worst two governments in Syria and Iran, amid treacherous folk like the Saudis, Jordanians, and al Jazeera cheering the insurgents on. How did we come this far and get so close, when the unprincipled such as Jacques Chirac shunned the once-wounded democrat Allawi and sent his plane instead to fetch the murderer Arafat — a profiteer in the guise of a 'leader' who hand-in-glove with Saddam Hussein made France billions in Iraq and then lectured about morality to those who slammed the cash register drawer on his stealthy hands. How could we ever contemplate the chance of elections when the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Iranians sent millions of dollars and thousands of jihadists to stop it all — lest the virus of freedom spread?
All this we must not forget. We have come too far and too many have died to cease or even pause. In the name of the dead Americans, those lost of the Coalition, and the resolute Iraqis who were butchered by both Saddam and then by the Islamic fascists, let the January election proceed as promised. If Bill Clinton could run America with 43 percent of the popular vote in 1992, if Lincoln could conduct a war after receiving 40 percent in 1860, and if the Supreme Court could adjudicate the electoral mess of 2000, so then the Kurds and the Shiites, if need be, can hold elections in Iraq with participation of 70 percent of the people. As for the Muslim clerics, Saddamites, and al Qaedists of the Sunni triangle, rest assured that there will be elections and you shall all end up on the wrong side of history. How absurd it is that the Sunni Triangle is the heart of an insurrection that feeds off either subsidy, appeasement, or the indifference of its citizenry, only then to plead that its own malfeasance should earn special dispensation from others who chose hard work and sacrifice and the chance for democratic law. Let them participate in history or watch it steamroll by from the sidelines — but let them not stop it.
There may well be even more terrible things to come in Iraq than what we have seen already, but there will also be far better things than were there before. And there will come a time, when all those who slandered the efforts — the Germans, the French, the American radical Left, the vicious Michael "Minutemen" Moore, the pampered and coddled Hollywood elite, the Arab League, and the U.N. will assume that Iraq is a "good thing" like Afghanistan, and that democracy there really was preferable — after they had so bravely weighed in with their requisite "ifs" and "buts" — to the mass murders of Saddam Hussein. Yes, they will say all this, but it will be for the rest of us to remember how it all came about and what those forgotten soldiers and people of Iraq went through to get it — lest we forget, lest we forget....
How Far We’ve ComeLet’s not forget.
By Victor David Hanson
The harrowing World War II movie Twelve O'Clock High begins with a postwar bald and bespectacled Dean Jagger (Colonel Harvey Stovall) riding his bicycle out to an old airfield in Archbury, England, that years earlier had been home to the 918th B-17 Bombing Group of the 8th Air force. As the nondescript Jagger walks along the weed-infested airbase and rusting bombers, the movie unfolds as one long dreamlike flashback of the horrors of what daylight bombing over Germany in 1942 entailed and the courageous men who used to take off from the now eerie, abandoned runways.
Talk about intelligence failure, tactical obtuseness, and strategic naiveté — sending B-17s in broad daylight over Germany in 1942-3 was all that and more. Without fighter escort, operational experience, or much knowledge of precision raids, thousands of Americans were blown apart trying to take out the industrial heart of Hitler's Europe, which spanned from the Atlantic Ocean to the gates of Moscow, guarded by the world's best anti-aircraft artillery and veteran German fighter-pilots in high-performance ME-109s and FW-190s. There really were once things far worse than Fallujah.
In juxtaposing the dreadfulness of what the airmen went through (centered around the bravery and eventual breakdown of group Commander Gen. Frank Savage) with the calm of the post-bellum English countryside, director Henry King reminds us how easily we forget horrors of the immediate past. No one in the town, or indeed back home in America, other than the families of the dead, recalled a Bishop, Cobb, Wilson, or the thousands of Savage's anonymous flyers who perished in doing their part to bring down the Third Reich. The tragedy of Stovall's war, King seems to suggest, is that the inferno in the skies was but a blink of the eye from its dividends of victory and rural tranquility — and that we all are of short memory, allowing even the worst nightmare to retreat into the oblivion of everyday life.
I fear the same may be said of Afghanistan and even Iraq in a year or two. Indeed, we already see how few talk of what it was like in the very dark days of September 2001. The country was reeling from 3,000 murdered; a trillion dollars were lost to economic dislocation; and the prospect of going 7,000 miles to the other side of the world to root out Dark-Age killers that had grown emboldened by a decade of American appeasement was considered too frightening.
Do we now remember the impassable peaks, the snowy haunts of the Taliban that were too high for us, or Kabul, the dreaded graveyard of all imperial expeditions? It was just a few months ago, it seems now, that we were admonished about the fury of retaliation to come for daring to fight during Ramadan, the impossibility of working with a nuclear and Islamic Pakistan, and the Wild West nature of Afghanistan's tribes so impossible to forge into the stuff of consensual government. And it was worse still than all that: the cries on the hard left of millions of refugees to come; the European warning about thousands of dead from indiscriminate American bombing; the need to adjudicate 9/11 by jurisprudence rather than arms; and the crazy conspiracy theories of pipelines, neo-cons, 'Jews,' Likuds, and CIA plots.
Have we also already forgotten the controversies, the buzz, and the insider conventional wisdom that consumed us during the days of uncertainty over Mullah Omar's televised rants; Osama's promises of an American graveyard in the Hindu Kush; the diplomats' trial balloon of a proposed coalition government with the wretched Taliban; the panacea of an all-Islamic peace-keeping force; Johnny Walker Lindh's conflicted high-school years; and a thousand other crises of the hour that sent our statesmen into all-night emergency sessions, our generals into desperate improvisations, and, yes, Americans into battle and on occasion to their deaths?
Do we remember all this and more when we talk nonchalantly now of elections in Afghanistan or the decency of the Karzai government? Is there a Frenchman or a German to be had at least to say in retrospect, "Yes, you were not the cowboys we slurred you as, but brought something good where there was only evil before"? Do we ponder if but for a second how improbable — indeed, how absolutely preposterous — it was at the time to even suggest that the Afghan people would soon stand in line hours to vote, freed from those who had so sorely oppressed them?
Have we forgotten what foul and cowardly folk the Taliban were — thugs who lynched women, shot homosexuals, blew up civilization's icons, destroyed a century of culture in Afghanistan, promised us death and worse, and then ran out of town in the clothes of women with what plunder they could carry? Do any of us recall the brave Afghans and Americans, both the planners in Washington who were libeled and the soldiers in the field who routed these butcherers?
So, I think, it will be too even in Iraq, improbable as that may now seem to some. Already we have forgotten the long ride to Baghdad — when our ex-generals warned of thousands of dead to come in a deadly siege, and were trumped by relief workers who assured us of millions more refugees. Then there were the cries of defeat when our forces plowed through a windstorm — as our supposed Dresden-like shock and awe were suddenly mocked not as too terrible but as laughably impotent. We grow depressed now at the canned pessimism of our talking heads who predict failure in post-bellum Iraq — forgetting that these same prophets swore to us just months ago that thousands would die getting to Baghdad.
The disappointments with the looting, the museum desecration, the shoot-out with the Hussein progeny, the flight of the U.N., the insolence of Saddam in the docket, the Halliburton pipeline, and more was hyped — and forgotten as the 24-hour news cycle sought out new prey. And it found it aplenty: The furor over embalming the corpses of the Hussein "princes"; the lack of respect shown Saddam during his televised dental exam; the worldwide horror of Abu Ghraib juxtaposed to the worldwide silence over the thousands in mass graves and the televised beheadings; the lectures by "humane" folk in Europe and the U.N., who looted the Hussein kleptocracy and cared not a whit for the thousands who were starved and shot so that Europeans, Chinese, and Russians could profit with a monster.
Does anyone at all remember any of that? And where now are Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Hans Blix, and all the other wizards of the moment, come and gone off the media shows and best-seller lists, who assured us that we were either liars, fools, or naifs? Do we remember now how the old Wesley Clark once praised the team of George Bush, how the old Anonymous wrote an earlier book warning of Saddam's ties to al Qaeda, or how the old Clintonites a decade ago insisted that Saddam Hussein was brewing WMDs?
Yet despite them all, and after this bloody month of November, here we are now on the eve of elections — the most unlikely of all events in the last half-century of civilization. Just think of it: In place of the past Hussein mass murdering and the present ogres of Fallujah, we are to witness an effort to jump-start democracy in the heart of the caliphate of old, right between the world's worst two governments in Syria and Iran, amid treacherous folk like the Saudis, Jordanians, and al Jazeera cheering the insurgents on. How did we come this far and get so close, when the unprincipled such as Jacques Chirac shunned the once-wounded democrat Allawi and sent his plane instead to fetch the murderer Arafat — a profiteer in the guise of a 'leader' who hand-in-glove with Saddam Hussein made France billions in Iraq and then lectured about morality to those who slammed the cash register drawer on his stealthy hands. How could we ever contemplate the chance of elections when the Saudis, the Syrians, and the Iranians sent millions of dollars and thousands of jihadists to stop it all — lest the virus of freedom spread?
All this we must not forget. We have come too far and too many have died to cease or even pause. In the name of the dead Americans, those lost of the Coalition, and the resolute Iraqis who were butchered by both Saddam and then by the Islamic fascists, let the January election proceed as promised. If Bill Clinton could run America with 43 percent of the popular vote in 1992, if Lincoln could conduct a war after receiving 40 percent in 1860, and if the Supreme Court could adjudicate the electoral mess of 2000, so then the Kurds and the Shiites, if need be, can hold elections in Iraq with participation of 70 percent of the people. As for the Muslim clerics, Saddamites, and al Qaedists of the Sunni triangle, rest assured that there will be elections and you shall all end up on the wrong side of history. How absurd it is that the Sunni Triangle is the heart of an insurrection that feeds off either subsidy, appeasement, or the indifference of its citizenry, only then to plead that its own malfeasance should earn special dispensation from others who chose hard work and sacrifice and the chance for democratic law. Let them participate in history or watch it steamroll by from the sidelines — but let them not stop it.
There may well be even more terrible things to come in Iraq than what we have seen already, but there will also be far better things than were there before. And there will come a time, when all those who slandered the efforts — the Germans, the French, the American radical Left, the vicious Michael "Minutemen" Moore, the pampered and coddled Hollywood elite, the Arab League, and the U.N. will assume that Iraq is a "good thing" like Afghanistan, and that democracy there really was preferable — after they had so bravely weighed in with their requisite "ifs" and "buts" — to the mass murders of Saddam Hussein. Yes, they will say all this, but it will be for the rest of us to remember how it all came about and what those forgotten soldiers and people of Iraq went through to get it — lest we forget, lest we forget....
Our Ukraine: We will lead our people to a legitimate victory.
BY VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO
Friday, December 3, 2004 12:01 a.m.
KIEV--For months, Ukraine's democratic forces warned officials in Kiev and other European capitals that our autumn presidential election would be neither free nor fair. Two of the main reasons for this conclusion were the incumbent government's unprecedented interference in the pre-election campaign and its censorship of the mass media.
During the first election round on Oct. 31, regional governors colluded with police and other state officials to stuff ballot boxes, falsify vote counts and intimidate election commissions. Ukraine's central and territorial election commissions turned a blind eye and overlooked our well-documented official complaints. In the end, despite massive falsifications by my opponent, the central election commission was forced to concede that I won the first round of voting.
During the Nov. 21 runoff vote, polling stations in the eastern regions remained open two hours after they were supposed to close officially. Some reported voter turnout exceeding 100%, while in other regions up to 35% of the ballots cast were from people's homes. Election observers were prevented from monitoring voting and counting procedures at thousands of polling stations, as permitted by Ukrainian law. Thousands of poll watchers from democratic parties together with average citizens witnessed traveling thugs with police escorts harassing election commissioners, destroying polling stations, stuffing ballots, abusing absentee voter certificates and switching commission protocols, to name just a few of the 11,000 violations officially filed by us in the courts. We are now patiently awaiting the Supreme Court's review of these complaints in the hope that justice will prevail.
The last straw in the government's election fraud efforts came Monday morning, Nov. 22, when the central election commission's voting results showed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych winner of the election, despite two independent exit polls showing otherwise.
Official Kiev did not anticipate that hundreds of thousands of voters would take to the streets to defend their constitutional right to vote and peacefully protest against falsified election results. They couldn't, because since the March 2002 parliamentary election, Ukraine's leaders have turned a deaf ear to voter calls for real political and economic change.
They failed to recognize that two-thirds of Ukraine's citizens are dissatisfied with their leaders and their policies. They failed to recognize that no longer will people tolerate the gap between declared and real rights. They thought they could get away with staying in power by illegal means. They wanted the international community to remain silent.
Now, they are forced to recognize that citizens have taken matters into their own hands. The last vestiges of remaining public trust in official Kiev, both at home and abroad, were permanently severed when the corrupt and blind government unashamedly stole from its people the most fundamental of all rights--the right to choose one's destiny.
Ukraine's people have spoken, and I am confident that we will find a solution to the complex political crisis that has developed as a result of the regime's efforts to steal the election. The most logical way out of the crisis is for repeat voting to be held speedily within the next two weeks. Talks involving international mediators this week reaffirmed this.
For European and other observers, I believe there are four important conclusions that should be made with regard to current events in Ukraine.
• This year Europe has witnessed two fundamental political changes: In the first half of the year, the enlargement of the European Union to include eight countries from the old Soviet bloc, and in the second half--the presidential elections in Ukraine. What will happen in my country after the election will not only impact Ukraine's future, but, to a great extent, the future of Europe and Russia.
• Thanks to television, the world today has seen a genuinely different Ukraine. Observers will no longer associate Ukraine with just Chernobyl, or corrupt regimes, or another scandal involving high-ranking officials. The world is witnessing a noble European nation, one that embraces genuine democratic values and, even more importantly, one that will stand up to defend these values with dignity.
The world has seen how millions of people took to the streets and squares. For nearly two weeks, in biting cold, hundreds of thousands bravely, steadfastly and at the same time gracefully demonstrated their unwavering opposition to a corrupt, authoritarian regime. The world has looked into the eyes of millions of good people of various ages, confessions, different ethnic backgrounds--all peacefully, as is their right under their own Constitution--fighting for their rights. All without unrest, violence and blood: This is what the world community has seen.
• The people of Ukraine have shown the world that we are much more ready to integrate into the European community than the ruling regime. Our path to Europe is not obstructed by formalities--the absence of a formal application or a joint-action plan. No one saw a civil society in Ukraine and the desire to live according to EU standards and values. Now--you've seen.
It is important to recognize that people's demands made from the street are supported by the entire system of popularly elected representatives--local councils, mayors, and Ukraine's Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Only those officials appointed by the president have adopted a position to the contrary.
• Currently the outgoing regime is menacing Europe with the threat of separatism and the dissolution of Ukraine. I state with full responsibility for my words: This is a fictional, artificial threat. It does not exist. The people of Ukraine recognize that an economically prosperous nation-state tolerant of its bilingualism and multiethnic society, and respectful of all religious confessions, is Ukraine's strength and not her weakness.
It is true that today, leading officials in regions which resorted to the largest number of election falsifications are now frightened when faced with taking responsibility for their crimes. They are trying to play the card of regional separatism, by adopting illegal decisions and threatening us with referendums. This process will be halted immediately. We will not allow three governors appointed by the president to tear apart our united country. And, besides, those officials will face a penalty even greater than that for election falsification from three to 15 years in prison.
Ukraine's democratic opposition movement stands for a peaceful resolution to the current political crisis. We oppose the use of force and will not allow anyone to smother our freedom by force. We are a genuine force, a wise one, which will lead our people to legitimate victory based on law.
Mr. Yushchenko, Ukraine's prime minister from 1999-2001, leads the country's democratic opposition movement and is a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine.
BY VIKTOR YUSHCHENKO
Friday, December 3, 2004 12:01 a.m.
KIEV--For months, Ukraine's democratic forces warned officials in Kiev and other European capitals that our autumn presidential election would be neither free nor fair. Two of the main reasons for this conclusion were the incumbent government's unprecedented interference in the pre-election campaign and its censorship of the mass media.
During the first election round on Oct. 31, regional governors colluded with police and other state officials to stuff ballot boxes, falsify vote counts and intimidate election commissions. Ukraine's central and territorial election commissions turned a blind eye and overlooked our well-documented official complaints. In the end, despite massive falsifications by my opponent, the central election commission was forced to concede that I won the first round of voting.
During the Nov. 21 runoff vote, polling stations in the eastern regions remained open two hours after they were supposed to close officially. Some reported voter turnout exceeding 100%, while in other regions up to 35% of the ballots cast were from people's homes. Election observers were prevented from monitoring voting and counting procedures at thousands of polling stations, as permitted by Ukrainian law. Thousands of poll watchers from democratic parties together with average citizens witnessed traveling thugs with police escorts harassing election commissioners, destroying polling stations, stuffing ballots, abusing absentee voter certificates and switching commission protocols, to name just a few of the 11,000 violations officially filed by us in the courts. We are now patiently awaiting the Supreme Court's review of these complaints in the hope that justice will prevail.
The last straw in the government's election fraud efforts came Monday morning, Nov. 22, when the central election commission's voting results showed Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych winner of the election, despite two independent exit polls showing otherwise.
Official Kiev did not anticipate that hundreds of thousands of voters would take to the streets to defend their constitutional right to vote and peacefully protest against falsified election results. They couldn't, because since the March 2002 parliamentary election, Ukraine's leaders have turned a deaf ear to voter calls for real political and economic change.
They failed to recognize that two-thirds of Ukraine's citizens are dissatisfied with their leaders and their policies. They failed to recognize that no longer will people tolerate the gap between declared and real rights. They thought they could get away with staying in power by illegal means. They wanted the international community to remain silent.
Now, they are forced to recognize that citizens have taken matters into their own hands. The last vestiges of remaining public trust in official Kiev, both at home and abroad, were permanently severed when the corrupt and blind government unashamedly stole from its people the most fundamental of all rights--the right to choose one's destiny.
Ukraine's people have spoken, and I am confident that we will find a solution to the complex political crisis that has developed as a result of the regime's efforts to steal the election. The most logical way out of the crisis is for repeat voting to be held speedily within the next two weeks. Talks involving international mediators this week reaffirmed this.
For European and other observers, I believe there are four important conclusions that should be made with regard to current events in Ukraine.
• This year Europe has witnessed two fundamental political changes: In the first half of the year, the enlargement of the European Union to include eight countries from the old Soviet bloc, and in the second half--the presidential elections in Ukraine. What will happen in my country after the election will not only impact Ukraine's future, but, to a great extent, the future of Europe and Russia.
• Thanks to television, the world today has seen a genuinely different Ukraine. Observers will no longer associate Ukraine with just Chernobyl, or corrupt regimes, or another scandal involving high-ranking officials. The world is witnessing a noble European nation, one that embraces genuine democratic values and, even more importantly, one that will stand up to defend these values with dignity.
The world has seen how millions of people took to the streets and squares. For nearly two weeks, in biting cold, hundreds of thousands bravely, steadfastly and at the same time gracefully demonstrated their unwavering opposition to a corrupt, authoritarian regime. The world has looked into the eyes of millions of good people of various ages, confessions, different ethnic backgrounds--all peacefully, as is their right under their own Constitution--fighting for their rights. All without unrest, violence and blood: This is what the world community has seen.
• The people of Ukraine have shown the world that we are much more ready to integrate into the European community than the ruling regime. Our path to Europe is not obstructed by formalities--the absence of a formal application or a joint-action plan. No one saw a civil society in Ukraine and the desire to live according to EU standards and values. Now--you've seen.
It is important to recognize that people's demands made from the street are supported by the entire system of popularly elected representatives--local councils, mayors, and Ukraine's Parliament, the Verkhovna Rada. Only those officials appointed by the president have adopted a position to the contrary.
• Currently the outgoing regime is menacing Europe with the threat of separatism and the dissolution of Ukraine. I state with full responsibility for my words: This is a fictional, artificial threat. It does not exist. The people of Ukraine recognize that an economically prosperous nation-state tolerant of its bilingualism and multiethnic society, and respectful of all religious confessions, is Ukraine's strength and not her weakness.
It is true that today, leading officials in regions which resorted to the largest number of election falsifications are now frightened when faced with taking responsibility for their crimes. They are trying to play the card of regional separatism, by adopting illegal decisions and threatening us with referendums. This process will be halted immediately. We will not allow three governors appointed by the president to tear apart our united country. And, besides, those officials will face a penalty even greater than that for election falsification from three to 15 years in prison.
Ukraine's democratic opposition movement stands for a peaceful resolution to the current political crisis. We oppose the use of force and will not allow anyone to smother our freedom by force. We are a genuine force, a wise one, which will lead our people to legitimate victory based on law.
Mr. Yushchenko, Ukraine's prime minister from 1999-2001, leads the country's democratic opposition movement and is a candidate for the presidency of Ukraine.
Thursday, December 02, 2004
Fate il presepe, non offende i ragazzi islamici
di MAGDI ALLAM
Forse i presidi e gli insegnanti che nel nome del relativismo culturale hanno ritenuto opportuno abolire il presepe, l’alberello e Babbo Natale nelle scuole italiane, per non urtare una supposta suscettibilità degli studenti musulmani, non conoscono i versetti del Corano (Sura III 45-46) che recitano: «E quando gli angeli dissero a Maria: O Maria, Dio t’annunzia la buona novella d’una Parola che viene da Lui, e il cui nome sarà il Messia, Gesù figlio di Maria, eminente in questo mondo e nell’altro e uno dei più vicini a Dio. Ed egli parlerà agli uomini dalla culla come un adulto, e sarà dei Buoni». Perché se lo conoscessero saprebbero che l'Islam, al pari del cristianesimo, venera Gesù e Maria e riconosce il dogma dell'immacolata concezione. Capirebbero che proprio la festa del Natale potrebbe rappresentare uno straordinario momento di condivisione spirituale, di partecipazione religiosa e di intesa umana tra cristiani e musulmani. E che proprio la scuola, la sede istituzionale e ideale dove si forgiano la mente e l'animo delle future generazioni, dovrebbe esaltare la festa di Natale rendendolo un passo saliente verso il traguardo della comune civiltà dell'uomo. La condivisione della spiritualità è un dato di fatto tra le tre grandi religioni monoteiste rivelate dal momento che credono negli stessi profeti. A Hebron le tombe di Abramo, Isacco e Giacobbe sono venerate da ebrei, cristiani e musulmani, anche se vi accedono da due ingressi separati. Due portoni distinti erano presenti anche nella chiesa di Damasco dove è custodita la reliquia di San Giovanni Battista, venerata da cristiani e musulmani, prima che si trasformasse interamente nella moschea Omayyade dove nel maggio 2001 papa Wojtyla entrò per la prima volta raccogliendosi in meditazione affiancato dalle maggiori autorità islamiche siriane. In Egitto esistono una decina di santuari mariani, edificati nei luoghi dove si ritiene abbiano sostato Gesù, Maria e Giuseppe durante la loro fuga dalla Terra santa, e dove annualmente si recano in pellegrinaggio cristiani e musulmani. Ebbene anche il Natale, proprio nella culla del cattolicesimo, potrebbe trasformarsi nella festa probabilmente più significativa della condivisione spirituale tra cristiani e musulmani. Ci sono degli esempi illuminanti. A Nazareth i musulmani preparano l'albero di Natale per condividere la festa dei loro fratelli cristiani. Nel 1995 Yasser Arafat che era un fervente musulmano praticante, dopo il matrimonio con la cristiana Suha al Tawil, partecipò alla messa di Natale nella chiesa della Natività a Betlemme. E quando gli integralisti islamici lo criticarono, lo stesso mufti (massima autorità giuridica islamica) dei palestinesi, lo sheikh Al Alami, disse che i musulmani possono partecipare alla messa di Natale. E non a caso è Feras Jabareen, l'imam della moschea di Colle Val d'Elsa, un palestinese con cittadinanza israeliana, un musulmano praticante con un radicato rispetto per la fede altrui, a sottoscrivere l'iniziativa della festa del Natale condivisa da cristiani e musulmani: «Gesù e Maria fanno parte della nostra religione e della nostra devozione. Il Natale deve diventare un momento di incontro, di riflessione e anche di integrazione». Aggiunge una puntualizzazione: «Ritengo doveroso che i musulmani partecipino con i loro fratelli cristiani alla gioia del Natale come festa tradizionale, ovvero che registra un evento, non come festa religiosa poiché nel Corano si specifica che le feste religiose sono due, l'Id al Fitr che segna la fine del Ramadan e l'Id al Adha dopo il pellegrinaggio alla Mecca». Un altro imam illuminato italiano, Yahya Pallavicini, si spinge oltre ammettendo che «esiste un limite culturale che impedisce di considerare il Natale come una festa anche musulmana», ma che questo limite potrebbe essere superato proprio dalle comunità islamiche d'Europa. Un tentativo fatto dal premio Nobel per la letteratura, l'egiziano Nagib Mahfuz, nell'incantevole racconto breve Il Paradiso dei bambini scritto nel 1969 (tradotto in italiano nel volume L'Altro Mediterraneo, Antologia di scrittori arabi del Novecento a cura di Valentina Colombo, Mondadori). Una bambina musulmana confessa ai genitori la sua passione per la compagna di classe Nadia, una cristiana, lamentando il fatto che vengono separate nell'ora di religione. Ingenuamente chiede: «Se mi faccio cristiana sto sempre con lei?». Il padre risponde: «Ogni religione è buona. I musulmani adorano Dio, i cristiani pure». E lei: «Perché lei lo adora in una stanza e io in un'altra?». Il papà taglia corto: «Chi lo adora in un modo, chi lo adora in un altro». Ma alla fine, dopo un serrato e logorante interrogatorio su Dio, Gesù, la vita e la morte, la bambina musulmana conclude irremovibile: «Voglio stare sempre con Nadia!». E chiarisce: «Anche nell’ora di religione!». E' in definitiva il trionfo dell’umanità sul dogmatismo, dell'illuminismo sul fanatismo. Ed è questo lo spirito che dovrebbe ispirare la percezione del Natale come festa condivisa da cristiani e musulmani. Nel rispetto di una tradizione millenaria che salvaguarda un'identità cristiana autoctona e recependo un'interpretazione riformista dell'islam all'insegna della cultura della vita e della pacifica convivenza. www.corriere.it/allam
di MAGDI ALLAM
Forse i presidi e gli insegnanti che nel nome del relativismo culturale hanno ritenuto opportuno abolire il presepe, l’alberello e Babbo Natale nelle scuole italiane, per non urtare una supposta suscettibilità degli studenti musulmani, non conoscono i versetti del Corano (Sura III 45-46) che recitano: «E quando gli angeli dissero a Maria: O Maria, Dio t’annunzia la buona novella d’una Parola che viene da Lui, e il cui nome sarà il Messia, Gesù figlio di Maria, eminente in questo mondo e nell’altro e uno dei più vicini a Dio. Ed egli parlerà agli uomini dalla culla come un adulto, e sarà dei Buoni». Perché se lo conoscessero saprebbero che l'Islam, al pari del cristianesimo, venera Gesù e Maria e riconosce il dogma dell'immacolata concezione. Capirebbero che proprio la festa del Natale potrebbe rappresentare uno straordinario momento di condivisione spirituale, di partecipazione religiosa e di intesa umana tra cristiani e musulmani. E che proprio la scuola, la sede istituzionale e ideale dove si forgiano la mente e l'animo delle future generazioni, dovrebbe esaltare la festa di Natale rendendolo un passo saliente verso il traguardo della comune civiltà dell'uomo. La condivisione della spiritualità è un dato di fatto tra le tre grandi religioni monoteiste rivelate dal momento che credono negli stessi profeti. A Hebron le tombe di Abramo, Isacco e Giacobbe sono venerate da ebrei, cristiani e musulmani, anche se vi accedono da due ingressi separati. Due portoni distinti erano presenti anche nella chiesa di Damasco dove è custodita la reliquia di San Giovanni Battista, venerata da cristiani e musulmani, prima che si trasformasse interamente nella moschea Omayyade dove nel maggio 2001 papa Wojtyla entrò per la prima volta raccogliendosi in meditazione affiancato dalle maggiori autorità islamiche siriane. In Egitto esistono una decina di santuari mariani, edificati nei luoghi dove si ritiene abbiano sostato Gesù, Maria e Giuseppe durante la loro fuga dalla Terra santa, e dove annualmente si recano in pellegrinaggio cristiani e musulmani. Ebbene anche il Natale, proprio nella culla del cattolicesimo, potrebbe trasformarsi nella festa probabilmente più significativa della condivisione spirituale tra cristiani e musulmani. Ci sono degli esempi illuminanti. A Nazareth i musulmani preparano l'albero di Natale per condividere la festa dei loro fratelli cristiani. Nel 1995 Yasser Arafat che era un fervente musulmano praticante, dopo il matrimonio con la cristiana Suha al Tawil, partecipò alla messa di Natale nella chiesa della Natività a Betlemme. E quando gli integralisti islamici lo criticarono, lo stesso mufti (massima autorità giuridica islamica) dei palestinesi, lo sheikh Al Alami, disse che i musulmani possono partecipare alla messa di Natale. E non a caso è Feras Jabareen, l'imam della moschea di Colle Val d'Elsa, un palestinese con cittadinanza israeliana, un musulmano praticante con un radicato rispetto per la fede altrui, a sottoscrivere l'iniziativa della festa del Natale condivisa da cristiani e musulmani: «Gesù e Maria fanno parte della nostra religione e della nostra devozione. Il Natale deve diventare un momento di incontro, di riflessione e anche di integrazione». Aggiunge una puntualizzazione: «Ritengo doveroso che i musulmani partecipino con i loro fratelli cristiani alla gioia del Natale come festa tradizionale, ovvero che registra un evento, non come festa religiosa poiché nel Corano si specifica che le feste religiose sono due, l'Id al Fitr che segna la fine del Ramadan e l'Id al Adha dopo il pellegrinaggio alla Mecca». Un altro imam illuminato italiano, Yahya Pallavicini, si spinge oltre ammettendo che «esiste un limite culturale che impedisce di considerare il Natale come una festa anche musulmana», ma che questo limite potrebbe essere superato proprio dalle comunità islamiche d'Europa. Un tentativo fatto dal premio Nobel per la letteratura, l'egiziano Nagib Mahfuz, nell'incantevole racconto breve Il Paradiso dei bambini scritto nel 1969 (tradotto in italiano nel volume L'Altro Mediterraneo, Antologia di scrittori arabi del Novecento a cura di Valentina Colombo, Mondadori). Una bambina musulmana confessa ai genitori la sua passione per la compagna di classe Nadia, una cristiana, lamentando il fatto che vengono separate nell'ora di religione. Ingenuamente chiede: «Se mi faccio cristiana sto sempre con lei?». Il padre risponde: «Ogni religione è buona. I musulmani adorano Dio, i cristiani pure». E lei: «Perché lei lo adora in una stanza e io in un'altra?». Il papà taglia corto: «Chi lo adora in un modo, chi lo adora in un altro». Ma alla fine, dopo un serrato e logorante interrogatorio su Dio, Gesù, la vita e la morte, la bambina musulmana conclude irremovibile: «Voglio stare sempre con Nadia!». E chiarisce: «Anche nell’ora di religione!». E' in definitiva il trionfo dell’umanità sul dogmatismo, dell'illuminismo sul fanatismo. Ed è questo lo spirito che dovrebbe ispirare la percezione del Natale come festa condivisa da cristiani e musulmani. Nel rispetto di una tradizione millenaria che salvaguarda un'identità cristiana autoctona e recependo un'interpretazione riformista dell'islam all'insegna della cultura della vita e della pacifica convivenza. www.corriere.it/allam