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pie; and, third, how we should react to our government’s treatment of us as a community. Establishing Effective Lobbying Institutions The second part of our four point plan should be the decision to create effective lobbying institutions, which, once they receive their direction from the community, actually formulate and carry out our objectives on a consistent, day to day basis. Here I am speaking about political offices in national and state or provincial capitals, such as the UNIS office in Washington, or the recently-established information bureau in Ottawa. I will say point-blank that without rel atively large and well-funded offices, we cannot hope to accomplish anything. A one-person office is better than nothing; a five person office comes closer to being influential; an ideal office would have more staff and more money. To have an impact on governmental policy making, a lobbying office essentially needs the following com ponents: • A staff consisting of a Director; professionals han dling (1) Government Relations, (2) Media Relations, (3) Community Coordination and Coalition Build ing; (4) Fundraising, (5) Legal Issues, (6) Policy Research and Writing; and clerical staff. • A large enough budget to buy the appropriate equip ment, sustain an office, and carry out its operations. • The support of grassroots organizations. • Assistance from a network of Ukrainians in influential positions. Until a few years ago, such an office was considered a luxury. Even now, a minimal share of the entire com munity’s budget is allocated toward mantaining central lobbying bureaus. It is time we started looking at the establishment of an effective lobbying organization as our number one piority. We have the money, we have the educated individuals, we just don’t have the resolve to direct our efforts this way. O rganizing an Effective Grassroots Part III of our plan involves organizing an effective grassroots structure. A voice demanding something from a government means nothing unless it has votes and dollars (or pounds and deutch marks) behind it. A lob bying office is supposed to serve as the voice of the community it represents. For this community network to be effective, it must be active and responsive. When the office in Washington or Ottawa identifies an important issue, it should be ready to coordinate massive mailing campaigns, voting coali tions, and fundraising drives. We have been successful when the issues are overwhelmingly threatening or painful, such as the use of Soviet evidence against Ukrainians or the deportation of Myroslav Medvid. We have been less successful when it comes to tracking the voting records of our legislators and writing letters on topics that are not glamorous. Positioning our People The final point in my plan is to place our people into important policy making positions. I often like to para phrase a quotation I once heard: “ I labor as a carpenter or shoemaker, so that my children can be doctors and engineers, so that their children can be writers and musicians and poets.” To poets I would like to add jour nalists, and congressmen, and politicians, and film makers. It would be difficult for me to count how many times I was able to raise Ukrainian issues in the course of my daily work. Whether writing a speech, answering ques tions in an interview, preparing background papers, there are always opportunities to provide example from our own knowledge and experiences. We complain so often that the President or Prime Min ister never mentions Ukraine, that our representatives never pass bills about Ukrainian dissidents, that the media never writes about the terror famine in Ukraine, that movies do not portray Ukrainians favorably. We have a tendency to blame this omission on prejudice. I suggest to you that the answer is much less ominous and less complicated: they do not raise Ukrainian issues because the facts are not immediately accessible when they prepare those speeches, legislation, newspaper articles, or film scripts. Or because there is no pressure on them to go out of their way to consider our point of view. As an overworked government worker, I confess that I, too, have picked up the last letter I received when deciding on a dissident or refusenik name to put into a speech, and called a human rights organization that I know would readily have the information I needed for a report. If I put a Latvian rather than a Byelorussian dis sident’s name into a paper, for example, it is not because of my bias against Byelorussians, but rather it speaks for the effectiveness of the Latvian lobby. This is the job of the lobbying and information bureau. But, and here is my point, I go out of my way to try to find a Ukrainian name if there is an opportunity to talk about individual dissidents. This is the benefit of having our people in the right jobs — in newspaper bureaus, in film studios, in universities, in Congress and Parliament. Thus individuals form grassroots networks, which assist the central inormation bureaus, which carry out the community’s political agenda. The Role of Ukrainian Women So far I have not tailored my speech specifically to women, because I believe that every issue that influen ces our lives becomes necessarily a women’s issue. All Ukrainian women have a very important role to play in the four-point plan I have outlined. Women should take continued on the next page ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, СІЧЕНЬ 1988 23
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