Ukrainians are all those who consider themselves such... by Illya Chedoluma

Frankly, about the essential things Let me, for once, open before you, dear readers, a part of my strategic cards.

First and foremost — I am an egoist. Not even just an egoist — a Spoiled Egoist. You can’t even imagine to what extent. So much so that I actually want to live in a free, strong, and prosperous country. Only in such a country will the resource base and the possibilities for creation constantly expand, allowing me to do what I want without the constant need to “trim myself down” as an Author. And it will allow you to fulfill yourselves as well, no matter how you personally feel about me. In other words, a win-win situation.

In a country where everything is designed around encapsulation, shrinking, and the constant search for enemies, you will have to play by its rules and hope that in the queue of “enemies of the people,” you end up somewhere at the very end (yeah, right). Forget any hint of humanity or dignity and try to be more “Catholic” than the Pope. As the experience of the 1930s under Stalin showed, no matter how “proven a comrade” you think you are, sooner or later they will come for you. There will always be some “deviation” from the party line.

Another option is to retreat into internal dissidence in the spirit of the 1960s–80s; as long as social media remain relatively free, you can still say something from different platforms. And then, in the best case, write “into the drawer.” For a writer, that is a slow, gradual fading. In the best case, if you live long enough, decades later the next generations will “rediscover” you for themselves.

You can also fall completely silent and stop creating — that is simply death, even if you keep breathing for a while.

We are being carefully steered toward a simple dichotomy: either a corrupt, narrow project opposing Russia can exist, or unconditional capitulation to the Russians and absorption into a new “empire.” Allow me to ask: why on earth have we reduced the entire diversity of projects and policies to these two rotten alternatives? As political technology, it is clever; as a vision for the future, it is utterly inept.

Here is how I, for example, calmly see a third alternative:

• Ukrainians are all those who consider themselves such. Regardless of origin, language, religion, or political beliefs. + From this perspective: it allows us to bring the maximum number of people into the Ukrainian project. People are the main capital of the 21st century. This approach removes the very question of the “correctness” of being Ukrainian. Its space becomes limitless, capable of including everything that contributes to the development and strengthening of the country. “There is neither Jew nor Greek” in political Ukrainianness.

• Ukraine as a place for innovation and the creation of the New. From the defense industry to new principles for organizing human communities, Ukraine should position itself as a testing ground for ideas, concepts, and technologies. + This is something we can “sell” abroad to various interested groups — from intellectuals to businesses, militaries, and entire countries.

• Everything that has happened on the territory of modern Ukraine, or is connected to people from here, is part of our heritage and history. In looking at the past, we choose the “subjective” option — we see history as the result of decisions and choices made by people of different eras. No more erasing or “deleting.” We can shift accents, but not ban. + This gives us a practically limitless symbolic space and capital, which can be used depending on the different target audiences we want to address. And it also reduces internal conflict in society. From a single historical model we move toward understanding the need for a Synthesis of multiple histories as parts of our country’s boundless past. It also restores our faith in ourselves as Creators of Our Own Destiny.

• We remove the invisible “seals” from conversations about the future and new rules of coexistence. Obviously, the war has left no trace of the old ones. Which means it is time to begin discussing what the relationship between people and the state should look like. Who has what rights and obligations. + Discussions about the future are themselves psychological support for a society that has been under the relentless pressure of war for years. The future is what gives strength to endure the present, no matter how hard it is.

• We must reassess the balance of freedoms in the country. Which should indeed be restricted for the sake of wartime effectiveness, and which — on the contrary — are necessary at the very least to maintain stability in the rear. + Economic and cultural freedoms do not undermine national security or the conduct of war — on the contrary, they strengthen and calm the rear, which is now the most vulnerable place that the enemy is systematically targeting.

• “Ukrainian-made” must become a mark of quality. This means that every area of development that produces a high-quality product must receive systematic investment and be used to amplify our influence in the world. Technologies, books, films, games, ideas — anything that captures broad interest should immediately be scaled and supported. Beauty, like in the image above, is also Quality — of the highest grade. + We must move from the principle of “man is wolf to man,” the destruction or squeezing out of potential competitors, to real competition. Whoever delivers a better, widely acknowledged result receives encouragement and support. This applies to civil servants as much as to artists. We compete not through bans, but through creating Beauty — in actions, organization, deeds, creation.

At the end of the day, we may still end up with the same concentration of power and authoritarian tendencies politically (it is unlikely we can avoid this in the coming decades). However, in exchange for wartime-required constraints, the system will give people hope for prospects, economic relief, and an inclusive approach to defining the collective “us.” It will foster the creation of the New and the High-Quality — primarily as potential resources that can be added to the scales of war. It will give hope for the Future.

Note: from the outside, this is still the same Ukraine fighting a war with Russia. But in essence, it is radically different from the current one. I’ll go further: only such a Ukraine has a chance to raise its level of organization and survive in the storms of wars that will soon engulf our planet (we still don’t know with whom and how much we may need to fight before the end of this century).

In such a country, my egoistic desires and your egoistic desires can harmoniously align with the needs of the state. And according to Aristotle, this is the highest essence of Community as a social order.

Like the fresco above, such a Ukraine not only becomes a center of Beauty and Strength, but also has a chance to become one of the centers of universality in a world that has already forgotten what that even means…