Students Change the World Again
Ukraine's Orange Revolution and the Christians at its Centercompiled from eyewitness reports
College and university students have always been leaders in world change: sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Recently in Ukraine, a well-organized protest movement triggered a political revolution that blew up a stolen election. And Christian students were at the very center of it all.
A tent city had materialized near the parliament building in Kiev, making possible the sustained student demonstrations. At first hundreds, then thousands, hundreds of thousands and eventually over a million people assembled in the capital’s snowy streets last November, demanding justice and accountability. The first few days were pretty tense: students had no assurance government thugs wouldn’t come out to rough them up. But emboldened by a few courageous souls, the crowd swelled over the next few weeks.
Food poured in from around the country, donated by stores, farmers and individuals for the feeding of the crowd. Clothes came in. Old Grandmothers made tea in big pots and, lacking thermoses, would wrap the pots in aluminum foil and walk into the crowd to serve cold students.
And it was cold. Despite the ubiquitous orange scarves, this was no Woodstock: with temperatures hovering around C -15°, students were motivated by greater concerns than entertainment and pleasure. They wanted justice. Local Christians invited strangers into their homes, and raised socks and clothes.
A corrupt election like any other
It started during the fall’s election campaign. Widespread intimidation of opposition groups, and half-truths from the state-run media had failed to stifle discontent among a generation of students with little memory of the Soviet Union. The Berlin Wall fell in 1989 and the USSR dissolved in 1991. The heroic protests of an earlier generation of Eastern European students had put an end to communist Europe. But democracy hadn’t yet established itself.
The freedom wine of 1989 didn’t flow everywhere. Poland and the Czech Republic, under the leadership of statesmen like Lech Walesa, Vaclav Havel and Pope John Paul II, were able to transform their societies into open democracies. Other former communist countries like Yugoslavia dissolved into war. Treading a different road, Ukraine, Belarus and several other countries simply continued with authoritarian government; but this time without the communist ideology.
The Ukrainian students may not have known absolute repression; they were however acutely aware that change was possible. 2003’s “Rose Revolution” in nearby Georgia stood as witness to the power of democracy to bring corrupt leaders to account.
That fall Georgian voters had booted a corrupt regime from office; to everyone’s surprise and delight, Georgian president Shevardnadze - cajoled on by colorful crowds demonstrating outside his office - had gracefully accepted defeat. The new government’s legitimacy thus derived too much from populist support to become another entrenched cabal.
History seemed to be repeating itself in Ukraine in 2004. By all indicators the enormously popular opposition candidate stood no chance of losing, short of election fraud. But cheating and theft were standard tools in the government’s toolkit. By the end, the government had overextended itself. Somebody – no one knows for sure who – poisoned Yushchenko, the leader of the opposition with a dioxin used in chemical weapons. His survival was a surprise to everyone. Actually, it made him stronger, because he carried in his poison-disfigured face evidence of the sinister nature of the incumbency. Students began to prepare for a showdown.
Sure enough, the incumbent party “won” the elections. Fraud was apparent to everyone, and dissenting voices began to demand the elections be annulled. That’s what the tent city was about. The students became media darlings for the world. Their stamina in the frigid weather and their orderly protests kept the cause alive. Soon the government would have to account for itself.
Christian university students were there from the beginning, helping to keep the tent city orderly, legal and responsible. They facilitated a spectacular alignment of leadership – charismatic leadership for the vision-casting, paired with bureaucratic leadership for the long haul. Students with military experience organized the tent city, the latrines, the donation stations; other students led prayer tents, Bible studies and even preached sermons among the crowd. By firmly anchoring the protest in God’s word about justice and injustice, Christian students helped act against corruption without disintegration into chaos.
Student Power for Good
In the end, the Ukrainian Supreme Court annulled the election; a new election was held with opposite results, and Ukraine installed a new President.
Those courageous few student protesters; those quiet administrative types who organized the protests; and those with quiet gifts of hospitality and service had made it possible. Students are a unique set of people: they are courageous because they’ve got nothing to lose. They aren’t yet slaves to material concerns or family obligations. They’re free to shape the world. Like the poor anywhere, like rioters in oppressive countries, like outsiders, they risk only their own heads when they take to the streets.
But unlike the poor or the peasantry, college students are privileged with knowledge of power, connections to the international community, and skills in diplomacy. The combination of social endowments with material liberty has always made students a force for changing the world. Ukrainian students just pulled off a bloodless coup more effective than a civil war. It was fuelled by a mixture of discipline and courage.
Unless otherwise noted, all materials on the urbana.org web site are Copyright InterVarsity Christian Fellowship / USA. All rights reserved.
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