Due to the traditional distrust of the state among Ukrainians, which was provoked by the long colonial past and the shortcomings of the Ukrainian bureaucracy after independence, there is a rather dangerous opinion that “all politicians are the same” and “all politics is dirty.” Russian agents are not the last promoters of such ideas in Ukraine. If we follow this anarchist logic, then the only alternative to political procedures as a form of civilized coexistence of citizens is street violence and the right of the strongest. The only alternative to politics, which is branded as a “corrupt scam,” is rampant banditry, like in Somalia, where armed robbers, not politicians, rule.
At the same time, critics of all politicians, without exception, forget about those statesmen who have made their countries successful through political means. If all politicians are equally corrupt, cynical, and thieving, then who built successful countries that are now models of development? Despite the criticism of politics, there are no countries in the world that have become democratic, legal and social by means other than political ones.
For most of the world, countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Austria, the Scandinavian countries, and Finland have become the epitome of welfare, care for people, civil liberties, and opportunities for human development. But all these benefits were built by none other than politicians. Not by executions, concentration camps, and repression, but by reforms based on the rule of law, respect for human dignity, property, and civil rights. Apart from a dozen and a half welfare states, most of them European, there are no other examples of more successful societies on the planet today. After all, politics is different.
Of course, all countries had corruption, oligarchs, the mafia, and destructive forces, but in some countries, politicians were able to establish laws and rules that made the state’s resources work for the benefit of the people. It is an indisputable fact that successful countries were built by good politicians and statesmen. Politicians were helped by a free press, conscious voters, economic, social and other conditions, but without effective public management, Germany or Switzerland would not be held up as examples of successful social and legal states today.
For example, Germany, the country that has received the largest number of Ukrainian refugees, has been building for decades as a welfare state based on Christian democratic values. The first German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer, the author of the German “economic miracle,” built Germany on the Christian principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, morality, and respect for human dignity, the key values of the Gospel.
Such Christian democratic European leaders as Hanns Seidel and Ludwig Erlhard in Germany, Robert Schuman in France, and Alcide de Gasperi in Italy were the politicians who helped the people of these countries to live in peace, prosperity, and development. All of them were politicians, but they fought for the adoption of laws, regulations and institutions that made possible the welfare and prosperity that are now an example for the whole world to follow. And millions of refugees from other countries dream of getting to the countries that built these policies.
When Ukrainians are told that “all politicians are the same,” it means that they want to divert us from the path of development that modern Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria or Sweden have taken and offer us some kind of anarchy instead of civilized political rules of power change and reform. There will be no politicians there, but bandits, terrorists, militants, or pirates, just like in countries where politics was destroyed in the chaos of civil conflicts.
Author: Valeriy Maydanyuk