Have you seen orange ribbons in the streets of America?
I've seen a number of voting rights activists in Ohio wearing them. It is said that "the color Orange was chosen to Remember Florida, where the wishes of the voters were completely ignored in order to put the Governor's brother in the White House" (
"Orange Ribbons"), but Orange-ribboned Ohio activists told me that they picked up the color from the TV coverage of Ukraine.
Supporters of Ukraine's presidential candidate and opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko enjoy fireworks during a rally in central Kiev, December 8, 2004. Yushchenko said on Wednesday a parliamentary vote to root out cheating in elections opened the way for him to win a re-run of a rigged presidential poll. Photo by Alexander Demianchuk/Reuters
Comparison goes like this: "In the face of obvious fraud, Ukraine's Supreme Court has thrown out an apparent coup for the incumbent and ordered a new election. That's what needs to happen here. . . . [I]f Ukraine can get a new election, why can't we?" (Harvey Wasserman, "As Ukraine Celebrates Democracy, It's Being Denied in Ohio," The Free Press, December 3, 2004).
The problem with the comparison is, first of all, that the 2004 US presidential election wasn't an "obvious fraud" perpetrated by the incumbent -- what's wrong about it is subtler and deeper.
More importantly, what's happening in Ukraine is hardly a celebration of democracy. Jonathan Steele calls it a "postmodern coup d'etat":
Countless elections in the post-Soviet space have been manipulated to a degree which probably reversed the result, usually by unfair use of state television, and sometimes by direct ballot rigging. Boris Yeltsin's constitutional referendum in Russia in 1993 and his re-election in 1996 were early cases. Azerbaijan's presidential vote last year was also highly suspicious.
Yet after none of those polls did the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the main international observer body, or the US and other western governments, make the furious noise they are producing today. The decision to protest appears to depend mainly on realpolitik and whether the challengers or the incumbent are considered more "pro-western" or "pro-market".
In Ukraine, Yushchenko got the western nod, and floods of money poured in to groups which support him, ranging from the youth organisation, Pora, to various opposition websites. More provocatively, the US and other western embassies paid for exit polls, prompting Russia to do likewise, though apparently to a lesser extent.
The US's own election this month showed how wrong exit polls can be. But they provide a powerful mobilising effect, making it easier to persuade people to mount civil disobedience or seize public buildings on the grounds the election must have been stolen if the official results diverge.
Intervening in foreign elections, under the guise of an impartial interest in helping civil society, has become the run-up to the postmodern coup d'etat, the CIA-sponsored third world uprising of cold war days adapted to post-Soviet conditions. Instruments of democracy are used selectively to topple unpopular dictators, once a successor candidate or regime has been groomed. (emphasis added, Jonathan Steele, "Ukraine's Postmodern Coup d'Etat: Yushchenko Got the US Nod, and Money Flooded in to His Supporters," The Guardian, November 26, 2004)
A case can be made, of course, that we can take a refresher course in mass actions for "regime changes" from Washington and its "civil society" fronts, since their "regime change" manual is based upon their study of activists and organizers on the left anyway, but we need to make clear that's what we are doing, rather than spread an illusion that Ukraine's "Orange Revolution" is a spontaneous uprising of ordinary citizens.
Besides, we need to remember that the revolution will not only not be televised. The revolution here won't be funded by a foreign government (illegally) giving Americans 29 cents per capita (which is what we get if we divide $14 million that Washington [illegally] spent on Yushchenko supporters by the Ukrainian population of 48 million) -- or $86 million in total -- to organize it.
Full Text: "Code Orange."
Related Story: "Why Progressives Must NOT Embrace the Ukrainian 'Pro-Democracy' Movement."