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also the most attractive. And after establishing myself at the State Department in this job, I’ve made it a point, no matter how busy, to answer whenever the White House calls. All of which is to say, when opportunity leaves the door ajar, have your running shoes on. Two: Master the American context. Admittedly that’s a demanding standard — implicating such matters as comportment, education, negotiating style, and a host of other sensibilities and cues, along with the spoken and written word. But Ukrainian-Americans don’t deserve a free pass on this any more than any other group. My parents, Mykola and Antonina, are both Ukrain ian patriots, they named their children Lecia and Taras after guess which poetss and national bard. But they parted company with certain friends who urged “purity” of Ukrainians, by Ukrainians, for and with only other Ukrainians — even in the midst of this marve lous E Pluribus Unum that is the American way. As a result, while I grew up speaking Ukrainian in a New Jer sey home where Ukraine was awfully important, I never shied away from competing and achieving in the Ameri can context. The cultural concerns of our community and your “Soyuz” are important ones. To pick but one example, I applaud and appreciate the strong literary component of “Nashe Zhyttia" magazine. As the First Lady sug gested in her Chornobyl remarks, Ukraine’s history is a history of endurance — and we know how central the Ukrainian language and culture have been and are. But we must never make ourselves or our loved ones feel guilty immersing themselves in American affairs. We are, after all, in America, our childrens’ des tinies largely lie here. Of course we want what is best for Ukraine — strongly. But often, the best way for us to help Ukraine is to excel at what we are doing here —in the various coins of the realm that are valued here, in America. Put differently, it is as distressing to hear a teenager raised in New York speaking English with a marked Ukrainian accent as it is to hear a teenager raised in Los Angeles speaking English with a marked Mexican accent. I want to implore both sets of parents. It’s not about pride in your heritage — it’s about providing a fair shot to succeed here. No cause justifies depriving our people of that priceless opportunity. And if we do make that mistake, then — paradoxically — we do Ukraine no favor. Three: In working on Ukrainian issues, put yourself in the shoes of non-Ukrainians. This may sound like a variant of rule two, but it’s actually an acknowledgment that we can’t expect others to share our obsessions. What we should do is translate our concerns into terms that fit others’ agendas. Then others will serve our goals — not becouse they will have magically swallowed our entire agenda, but because they will have seen that helping us attain ours will help them achieve theirs. Adrian Karatnycky is a maestro at this. I point you to his op-ed this spring — written specifically for the New York Times — on the communist leader who remains a threat to become Russia’s president. Much of the first half of the piece describes his frightening anti- Semitism. And the piece ends with a wonderful skewer ing of demagogues on two continents: “Patrick Bucha nan, meet Gennadi Zyuganov.” Adrian is effective because he knows his audience. Know yours. Put differently, user-friendliness is no less an impe rative in the politics and policy world than in the compu ter world. Four: You get more flies with honey than vinegar. This sounds like an obvious corollary of the preceding rule. But our community has not always observed it. So we do well to remember that it’s rarely wise to risk embarrassing our allies in public. It is rarely effec tive to shout demands at the top of our lungs when gra ciousness is more appropriate and dispositive leverage is non-existent. It can fatally wound our credibility to act preemptively without first nailing down the facts. And especially if we have a trusted friend or two on the inside, it is almost always better to test the waters first with a quiet phone call. To the evolved beings in this room, all that must seem like human nature and manners and politics 101. But to some prominet members of our community, I would respectfully recommend a refresher course. Conclusion I will conclude with two seeming non-sequiturs. The Oscar for best picture this year went to Braveheart, Mel Gibson’s epic about a Scots freedom-fighter. And lately, those of us with our antennae fine-tuned have been discovering that at last it’s become cool to be Ukrainian ... and not just among those of us who answer to the call, “Uvaha, Uvaha.” The data points are all around us. Zbig Brezinski, President Carter’s national security advisor, brings down the house at the Freedom House dinner in honor of President Kuchma — and much of the house at the Mayflower Hotel is non-Ukrainian. After the Chornobyl prayer service the same evening as the White House event, the gathered clergy and laity, Administration offi cials and Members of Congress, all march in unison around Lafayette Park to the Chornobyl tree. And the non-Ukrainians do not leave until the bitter end. They don’t have to stay — the face time is over — but they do. America is lucky to have us, and our kind — to draw talent and pluck from around the globe because she offers the world’s most powerful political idea: freedom ... tempered by tolerance, justice, compassion. But as lucky as she is, we are even luckier to have
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