Critical Thinking

Before I left the States, when I would tell people that I was moving to Ukraine for Peace Corps, I often received a response akin to, “Why is Peace Corps is in Ukraine? That’s Europe. I thought they only sent people to, like, Africa”. People often think of Peace Corps volunteers as only working in contries that have obvious physical needs like hunger, poverty, and health. So when I respond to this question of “Why Ukraine?”, I try to emphasize that Peace Corps’ primary goal is helping meet the requested needs of its partner countries, be it water sanitation or community development or Education. It’s grounded in diplomacy and highly individualized. For Ukraine, as I’m realizing, the need is emotional and intellectual——the amazingly abundant (yes, abundant) in U.S. education and I’m sorry I ever took you for granted in my American classroom——critical thinking. Here it is both desired and feared.

Ukraine. Ukraine Ukraine Ukraine. Europe, yes, but it was only two decades ago that we called this the USSR, sealed by an Iron Curtain so tight that, as many nationals here recount, there was an absolute inability to know what was happening outside of it. One woman told us that during her studies at University in the mid-80s, they were encouraged by the government to raise money for the United States and Great Britain——whose people, they were told, were living in unimaginable poverty. The money kindly raised never left the country, and god only knows where it went. Regarding a post-Soviet nation, we’ve been given the metaphor of a cage——When you cage an animal, for example, it learns to rely on that environment through fear. When you remove the cage, the animal does not know how to continue living without that barrier. And based on the supply of fresh flowers at Lenin’s statue in the city’s center, there remains a population deeply nostalgic for its cage. However, as I talk to younger Ukrainians, they want nothing to do with their past——as “past is past,” and they are often embarassed to discuss it.

When I was at the PC office in Kyiv on Wednesday, I borrowed a copy of Adam Hochschild’s The Unquiet Ghost, a collection of interviews with Russians conducted shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. Many of his observations have also rung true for me, and I’m finding it surprisingly reassuring to know that the thoughts and feelings I have here as an American are not unique——and they are, indeed, a response to an environment that is still grappling with its own traumatic history. Hoshschild notes how, “This consistent, looming, unacknowledged catastrophe was, as therapists say of long-denied family secrets like incest or alcoholism, “the elephant in the living room” that no one dares speak of. And, like an individual survivor of prolonged abuse, a whole society that survives shows the same post-traumatic symptoms: Amnesia. Shame. Numbness. And a lingering fear” (xxii). It was one of those incredible reading moments when the precise thought I had just days ago was perfectly articulated by someone else. It provides a strange sense of superconscious community for foreigners.

When talking to students, I intentionally try to work questions that engage critical thinking into the dialogue. On Tuesday we had our first English club, and one of the questions Kristen and I had the students ask each other was “What problems do you see in Ukraine, and what can you do to change or improve it?” I talked to a young woman who, quite assertively, informed me that she and other young Ukrainians are well aware that they have no power, no money, and absolutely no agency. She concluded, “The most powerful thing we can do is leave, and that’s nearly impossible to do.” In my American naivity and optimism I responded, “But do you think it’s possible for young Ukrainians like yourself to bring change and to challenge corruption?” to which she said, “No, Ukraine doesn’t and never will work that way.”

With U.S. elections coming up, I see a number of things floating around, and to be honest, I’ve not had much time to pay attention. But I will say: If I hear another American complain about not having agency or power in their government, legislation, or environment, I will throw a stink. Not to say that it’s easy to improve these climates in the U.S., but we have a Constitution that allows its people, regardless of class, the right to bitch, moan, take it to court, challenge authority, challenge legislation, run for office, impeach, protest, revolt, put it up, take it down, fight the man, join a union, say whatever you want, etc. etc. etc. The result of living without agency is fear and apathy on a national level. And I’m realizing that I have no right to say that I have no money. Because “money” means something different to me. It means maybe having to use my credit card or call my family for help. There is always an option. As I noted to another volunteer the other day, “All they want to do is leave, and we get to for free in 26 months. Or actually, whenever we (bleeping) want.” It’s almost embarassing.