In today's G+M and there is more from Mark MacKinnon on the turbulence faced by Ukrainians in the aftermath of last week's flawed election. The headline reads, "East, West meet nose to nose in Ukraine" and MacKinnon provides a couple of examples of divergent Ukrainian views that tell the story of an East-West schism.
I'm not convinced that he, nor any one I have read in main-stream media, goes far enough in explaining the complexity of the issue. At the very least there should be broader analysis of the factors that have led to the present crisis.
More than a decade ago, Samuel P. Huntington pointed to a civilizational fault line that ran down the middle of Ukraine. In an article that appeared in the Summer issue of Foreign Affairs Huntington asserted that this fault line has less to do with political ideology and and geo-political alignment than it has to do with religion.
Further strengthening his contention of a civilizational fault line in Ukraine, Huntington, in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations, expanded on the issue. He pointed to the results from Ukraines 1994 presidential elections where the Western portion of the country (predominantly uniate/catholic) voted overwhelmingly in support of Leonid Kravchuk (up to 90 per cent) and the Eastern portion of the country (predominantly orthodox) supported Leonid Kuchma to a similar degree. With 52 per cent of the vote, Kuchma won the presidency of a region that was seriously polarized along religious lines.
This may be an oversimplification and I can't take any credit for the ideas, but I think it is worth considering. Looking over reviews of Huntington's book at the time of its initial release, many reviewers took a dim view of many of his propositions. The events of the past few years in the Middle East and the past few weeks in Eastern Europe have proven Huntington to be quite prescient in his writing.
I'm not convinced that he, nor any one I have read in main-stream media, goes far enough in explaining the complexity of the issue. At the very least there should be broader analysis of the factors that have led to the present crisis.
More than a decade ago, Samuel P. Huntington pointed to a civilizational fault line that ran down the middle of Ukraine. In an article that appeared in the Summer issue of Foreign Affairs Huntington asserted that this fault line has less to do with political ideology and and geo-political alignment than it has to do with religion.
Further strengthening his contention of a civilizational fault line in Ukraine, Huntington, in his 1996 book The Clash of Civilizations, expanded on the issue. He pointed to the results from Ukraines 1994 presidential elections where the Western portion of the country (predominantly uniate/catholic) voted overwhelmingly in support of Leonid Kravchuk (up to 90 per cent) and the Eastern portion of the country (predominantly orthodox) supported Leonid Kuchma to a similar degree. With 52 per cent of the vote, Kuchma won the presidency of a region that was seriously polarized along religious lines.
This may be an oversimplification and I can't take any credit for the ideas, but I think it is worth considering. Looking over reviews of Huntington's book at the time of its initial release, many reviewers took a dim view of many of his propositions. The events of the past few years in the Middle East and the past few weeks in Eastern Europe have proven Huntington to be quite prescient in his writing.
Ukraine could go be the beginning of the next large scale conflict based along religious lines.
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