Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
I know everyone in the States probably knows about this video already, but I just absolutely love it. I heard about it earlier, but caught it on my cousin’s blog today while trying to distract myself from paperwork. So just in case I catch a few people who haven’t seen it yet 
Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.
Tuesday, July 22nd, 2008
Ok, so this is a belated birthday post, but here is a video from our small celebration and card signing in Kyiv on the 18th. The event was held by the Eastern European Development Institute, the Nigerian Community of Kyiv and the African Center. Special guest speakers included the Ambassador of South Africa and Mr. Stanislaw Cieniuch, the first Ambassador of Poland to South Africa.
Of course, this pales in comparison to the crowd of over 40,000 that came out for the celebration in Hyde Park. 46,664 to be exact.
46664 is an African response to the global HIV AIDS epidemic that invites the whole world to take the fight in hand. It’s our aim to raise awareness overall and educate the younger generations in particular. By gaining global backing for the cause, we will also raise funds to directly assist the many HIV AIDS projects we support. We intend to do this by using our international ambassadors to spread our messages of hope, our calls to action, our pleas for compassion and our requests for assistance and support for those living with HIV AIDS.
46664 (we say four, double six, six four) was Nelson Mandela’s prison number when he was imprisoned on Robben Island, off Cape Town in South Africa. He was jailed in 1964 for 27 years for leading the liberation movement against apartheid and for his impassioned stance on the rights of everyone to live in freedom. He was prisoner number 466, imprisoned in 1964. The Robben Island prisoners were never referred to by their names, but rather by their numbers and year of imprisonment - hence 46664 was Nelson Mandela’s number…
It was for precisely this reason that Mr. Mandela decided to use this powerful, symbolic number in the fight against HIV AIDS. Through this simple, poignant means he has demonstrated and communicated to the world that people must never be reduced to simple numbers - we are human beings, all equal, and those infected and living with HIV AIDS have the same right to live and to be treated as equals…
It is continually imperative for us at 46664 to make an impact on a global scale in order to draw attention to the HIV AIDS issue; so far we have had success thanks to a worldwide audience of over 1 billion people either viewing or listening to our concerts on TV, radio and the internet…
We will continue to produce these unique concerts combining international, local and African artists joining together symbolically onstage to demonstrate their support for Mr. Mandela’s 46664 campaign. We will also be staging significant sporting and other entertainment events worldwide. Nevertheless a major part of our effort now will involve promoting community outreach campaigns that will encourage people to participate in discussions, educational activities, volunteer work and prevention, care and treatment support programmes. To do this we often partner with governments, NGOs and the private sector.
Happy 90th Birthday, Nelson Mandela.
Thursday, July 17th, 2008
The above quote came from Savik Schuster, whose show, Svoboda, is a popular political discussion and debate forum that attracts some of Ukraine’s most prominent personalities to banter over topics while a live audience electronically agrees or disagrees with the statements of the speaker.
He said, “It seems to me that Lutsenko has gone crazy.” Yuriy Lutsenko, who is the current Minister of Interior of Ukraine, made a statement on Tuesday that has ignited debate not only in Ukraine, but has attracted media attention in Russia and other CIS countries.
From Unian:
Interior Minister of Ukraine Yuri Lutsenko is opposed to attracting foreign workforce in Kyiv.
Thus, speaking at a session in the Kyiv Directorate of the Interior Ministry of Ukraine, the Minister asked the citizenship, immigration, and natural persons registrations department chief about how many residence permits were given to people from the far abroad. Having heard the answer “seventy”, Yuri Lutsenko said: “Do we lack our own workforce? If you want to go to China – you may buy a ticket and often go there on vacation. You may call me a racist, but I will not allow to turn Kyiv into another Kharkiv or Odessa. The instruction is as follows: we give a residence permit only if he marries to our girl. Because shortly I will have to invite the Vietnamese or Chinese to work in police instead of you!”.
Remember that World Bank report that said Ukraine needs more foreign workers to sustain economic growth because of population issues, etc.? Well, apparently Lutsenko disagrees and this is how he chose to express himself. Not to worry, though. Here comes his press agency to the rescue:
The Press Service of the Ministry of Interior has just confirmed Lutsenko’s recent statements, however noted that Mr. Lutsenko’s comments should not be taken so literally, and all he was trying to do is make a point ‘that
registration of aliens is a very serious issue’.“The Minister’s concern is based on the fact that foreigners in Kyiv committed three times more crimes against Kyivites than crimes committed by Ukrainians against foreigners. This year we deported to their historical homeland 1309 individuals of whom 485 are from the Caucases. It is this category (Caucases) who steal and rob. The Minister, who is aware of these statistics, acted in defence of his own citizens”.
In fact, this defense isn’t even creative. The Russian government has been known for quoting the exact same reasons for slacking on combating racist and xenophobic violence within its borders. Yet when these numbers are quoted, the corruption that occurs in the court systems, particularly in dealing with cases against foreigners is, of course, never mentioned. The lack of respect for legal or human rights during the court process is not mentioned. As well, in Ukraine, the recorded number of attacks against foreigners is far below the actual number of violent crimes committed because they’re often too scared to go to the police. And not without reason. And, for example, these statistics also include the arrests of foreigners who have defended themselves after being attacked.
Can you see why Ukraine will have an extremely difficult time combating the rise of racist and xenophobic violence if even the top level of the government cannot look at the problems and issues for what they are, and instead merging everything together to create an unclear and misleading picture of the situation?
Wednesday, July 9th, 2008
I wanted to post these pictures I just took from the small balcony of my apartment. I am going to go ahead and say I’m pretty lucky to be living where I do in the city
This is Slava Park, which is directly across the street. It’s the place where soldiers occasionally gather to blast loud band music at unreasonable hours of your Saturday or Sunday morning. Also famous for its bride parades.
One of the most famous sites in Kyiv - the Pecherska Lavra
Another view of the Lavra, however this time you can see Rodina Mat, as well. Or as she is so fondly known to us: the Iron Maiden.
Saturday, July 5th, 2008
So, I suppose it is about time for a personal update while I wait for my laundry to finish up.
First, Happy Birthday Mom!
And Happy belated Independence Day. Unfortunately, being a Fulbright doesn’t get you an invitation to the fancy Embassy 4th of July Party and it looks like the American Chamber of Commerce Picnic is going to be rained out today. Oh well. To be honest, I see fireworks from my apartment almost every night so they’ve sadly lost their charm.
Here are some pictures of Kyiv I took the other day while wandering near Universitet metro:
A Ministry building of some sort:
Lovely fountain:
Well, I have officially moved on to my extension project. The focus has significantly narrowed. At first, I had planned to do more review of research than original research by collecting and drawing connections between existing material (the little there is) on the rise of xenophobic violence and attitudes in Ukraine. Now, I will be concentrating on the experience of foreign students in Kyiv. There is only one pre-existing study that we know of, so it is going to be more original research than I had intended to collect, but I think it will be worth it. Over the next two months, we will be gathering focus groups of students from a selection of Kyiv’s universities to find out what the process has been like from the beginning (in their home country) to the point they are at now, and how their experiences in Ukraine have affected them. Just from collecting background information and making initial student contacts, I think this is going to be a really interesting project and it will say a lot not only about the life of international students in Ukraine, but also about the larger situation facing foreigners in Kyiv and the Ukrainian higher educational system.
I spent a semester of my own in an Ukrainian university in Chernivtsi (voted, by the way, to be the best city in Ukraine to live in. Sorry, available in Russian only) I never had to deal directly with the administration of the university, but I also never feared for my safety the way my African student friends here do. Just from reports from students who have attempted to talk to their administrators to address their concerns and improve safety on campuses, it seems the administrations are fairly inaccessible and lack a serious attitude about the threatening situation facing their students.
I should probably explain the title of the post at some point, right? From my apartment in Kyiv, I can either walk or take buses or marshrutkas to wherever I need to go. The 527 is one of those marshrutkas, and yesterday, I passed up my 2 hryvnia bill and patiently waited for my change. As I noticed the driver was not making any effort to pass the change back to me, I looked above the windshield to see that the price had jumped up to 2 hryvnias a ride from it’s original 1.75. To put it into perspective, it’s not that big of a jump. 2 hryvnias is roughly 44 cents. But still! Inflation is taking its toll and the dollar is slowly, but surely dropping in value in Ukraine. I guess the hryvnia couldn’t stay at 5 to the dollar forever. It has since 2005.
Inflation, however, is definitely making life harder with an overall rate somewhere between 25 and 31%. Everything from rent prices to taxis to the price of meat and fruit is going up, up, up. When (if) I leave to come back to Buffalo on September 10th, I may be getting out just in time to save a few bucks.
Speaking of coming back to Buffalo, I’m going to need a job. Anybody have any ideas? After seeing that the U.S. lost another 62,000 jobs, I’m feeling a little nervous.
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008
The World Bank recently released a report on what gaps Eastern European countries need to fill if they want to sustain their current growth, Innovation, Inclusion, and Integration: From Transition to Convergence in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union.
Countries of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union have put the crisis of the 1990s behind them, but they need to innovate, include all their citizens in the development of their countries, and integrate with the broader global economy if they want to sustain growth, says a new World Bank report.
The International Herald Tribune focused in on one of the suggestions that the report makes concerning the workforce of these countries, which is to bring in more foreign workers to fill the gaps created by population decline (both natural and due to native workers going elsewhere):
Countries in eastern Europe will have to open up to new waves of immigrants to prevent their economies being hobbled by labor shortages caused by rapidly aging populations, a senior World Bank economist warned Wednesday.
After years of exporting workers westward, Poland, Ukraine, Bulgaria and the Baltic states must bring in labor from outside Europe to offset their demographic decline, or forget hopes of catching up with Western economies, said Pradeep Mitra, the World Bank’s chief economist for Europe and Central Asia.
“There’s no question that immigration will be needed to fill labor shortages,” Mitra told reporters. “The trade off is: accept migration in a regulated way or don’t be serious about converging with EU 15 living standards.”
Mitra was referring to the 15 Western nations who made up the European Union before the entry of 12 other European nations since 2004.
Launching a World Bank report on the region’s economy, Mitra said falling birth rates were expected to lead to Ukraine’s population falling by a fifth by 2025. Bulgaria, Georgia, Belarus, Latvia, Russia and Lithuania are all expected to see population declines of more than 10 percent over the same period.
U.N. data show just 200,000 foreigners are registered as living in Ukraine, mostly from other former-Soviet nations. Experts warn that without action to address looming labor shortages, the country of 46 million will not be able to maintain its healthy economic growth, which topped 7 percent last year.
“There is not an organized policy to identify those gaps and to seek legal mechanism to fill those gaps,” said Jeffrey Labovitz, head of the International Organization for Migration mission in Ukraine.
Pradeep Mitra also acknowledged that there is the possibility a sudden influx of foreigners may trigger backlash from the native population. The IHT article discusses the already rising rate of xenophobic violence in Ukraine.
It seems that xenophobic attacks in Ukraine will increase whether or not Ukraine decides to boost its efforts to bring in more foreign labor if the government doesn’t uniformly recognize the problem and deal with it appropriately. The government still releases conflicting information and policy statements that do everything from recognize the problem to fall back on statistics that “show” crimes by foreigners are increasing (thus creating further resentment against them) to saying that there is no racism in Ukraine, there are only manifestations of racism. I am not sure where the author of the IHT article gathered her statistics on attacks in Ukraine against foreigners with possible racial motivations. The only source it cites is “the police,” which, not surprisingly, are a weak link in the response to racially motivated-attacks in Ukraine. So, the source seems strange to me.
This post will not argue whether or not Ukraine needs more foreign workers to fill its labor needs. The World Bank report has already come to a conclusion about that with facts and figures. However, can Ukraine really handle an influx of foreign workers when the country has a broken immigration system with a lack of an organized policy and a problem with xenophobic attacks that is increasing in numbers and the level of violence? It will be interesting to see what the official response (more likely responses) from the Ukrainian government will be towards this report.