In Kyiv LvBS Business Credo Discussion Club Met with Bishop Borys Gudziak and Valeryi Pekar, founder and director of Euroindex.
Here are some of the highlights from meeting, which was held on February 17.
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Bishop Borys Gudziak, Eparch of Paris Eparchy of the UGCC
The solidarity and cooperation in faith, which is very moving for anyone who has taken part in the Maidan, is suggested by the following. This movement, this transformation will finally reach full maturity when we realize that our struggle is not only for ourselves, that it should bring forth fruit, which goes far beyond the borders of our country and ethnos. I say this as someone who lives in Western Europe.
For me it is important that our attraction to Europe is not out of our consumerism, so to say, that Europe will give us something. This movement will eventually mature when we realize that we have something to give to it.
We are starting a long process, which requires patience and long-term engagement. We need to find a meeting point. We must look for a format to discuss the deep issues. The Maidan is ready for deeper discussions that shape, explain.
Big business is trying to take a neutral position, not believing that that values are important for business. Unfortunately, business often still believes that it should not care for values and is only concerned about financial issues. The question is simple: Is this war mine or not? And the truth is different for everyone. But orientation values unites us. Business has its own interests and the country has its interests and it is difficult to tell where the line is where business has to rise to a higher level and start to defend not their own interests, but also national ones. If not now, when?
Valeriy Pekar, founder and director of Euroindex.jpg)
Journalists, medics, and priests are the first to receive blows on the Maidan. These are the categories of people who inform the people, and protect their bodies and souls. Many people began to pray on the Maidan for the first time – this process is a revolution of consciousness. Because the church was able to answer those questions that long no one dared to answer.
In Ukraine there is a triple revolution: anti-feudal, anti-imperialist, and a revolution of dignity (consciousness). The revolution of dignity is a revolution of old values against new ones. What is business to do in such circumstances? Of course you can stand aside. But many cannot do so. We all know that in recent years opportunities to do business in Ukraine have been depleted.
One of the three components of the Maidan is the anti-feudal revolution. Because small- and medium-sized businesses, as well as the Ukrainian intellectuals, youth, and former soldiers in Afghanistan are present. These people, who are not normally grouped together in society, today are on the barricades both in the direct and figurative senses. For all businesses want to develop in a free country.
The revolution shows all the best in people, dignity, forgiveness, and reconciliation.
We are experiencing hard times and in the coming weeks we will have have many unpleasant moments. If we do not remember the vision, why we do this in the first place, it will be difficult.
The Maidan accelerates time and events, it is our good fortune that we were given a time machine. I think it is an advance for us and we must work on it. In this time machine social processes that are completely transforming this country are happening in just a few weeks’ time. Under normal conditions it takes decades. The fact that they occur in 10% of the population is enough – the advantage is not the quantity but the quality of people.
Background Information
In 2011 we started working on the project “Business and Society: Mutual Challenges and Influences,” which consists of holding business talks in Kyiv between businesspersons and leading thinkers and opinion leaders in the Ukrainian and international environments.
The purpose of this project is to create a platform and start an active dialogue on the interaction between business and society, to analyze the current mutual challenges and influences, and in the longer term to strengthen the role of business in development of key social processes in the country.
The guest speakers at previous meetings have been Rector of the Ukrainian Catholic University, Bishop Borys Gudziak; famous Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi; human rights activist and publicist Myroslav Marynovych; Cardinal Lubomyr Husar; historian and journalist Yaroslav Hrytsak; publisher and poet John Malkovich; civic activist and publicist Yevhen Sverstyuk.
