tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28187250217281065442024-03-14T09:53:15.158+00:00Security, in Russia and beyond....Some ad-lib musings on security in and around the former Soviet Union, and in the wider world.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger44125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-69414406352701738292018-04-29T09:37:00.000+01:002018-04-29T12:29:25.389+01:00Whither Armenia's 'Velvet Revolution'?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">To say that recent events in Armenia have caught observers – including yours truly - by surprise would an understatement.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Its hybrid, semi-authoritarian regime, while highly unpopular, appeared relatively well-entrenched: all major challenges to its hold on power – usually following one of the country’s perennially flawed elections – had been successfully seen off in recent decades.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The population had seemingly been cowed into apathy through a deft combination of repression (with the</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7273497.stm" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 11pt;">killing of opposition demonstrators in March 2008</a> <span style="font-size: 11pt;">as a particular low point), electoral bribes, administrative resources, ‘political technologies’, and the ever-present safety valve of emigration, to which the country had lost hundreds of thousands of its best and brightest – and possibly most rebellious – since independence.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span></div>
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The ongoing ‘velvet revolution’, as its protagonists call it, has put most of these certainties in doubt: a new generation of activists, most of whom are too young to remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, has taken over the streets of Armenia’s capital, Yerevan. The trigger was an attempted <a href="http://www.euronews.com/2018/04/12/armenia-s-changing-political-system-a-parliamentary-republic-or-the-president-s-third-term" style="color: #954f72;">sleight of hand</a> typical of the post-Soviet regimes that perennially hover between fully-fledged authoritarianism and pretend democracy: the ruling Republican Party had ensured a transition from a presidential to a parliamentary constitution in recent years, only to hand the now powerful Prime Ministership to the former President, Serzh Sargsyan, in a bid to allow him to maintain power beyond his two-term, ten-year limit, turning what appeared to be a welcome piece of democratic reform into a legislative hoax.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/2018_Armenian_Protests_22.04.2018.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="300" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a1/2018_Armenian_Protests_22.04.2018.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Demonstrators on Republic Square, Yerevan, Armenia, 22 April 2018 (Credit: Narek75)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">There was little indication, at first, that this move would meet with much resistance: the regime had been able to push through a stage-managed victory during the</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-armenia-election/ruling-party-wins-armenian-parliamentary-vote-idUSKBN1740ZI" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 11pt;">previous parliamentary elections in 2017</a><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, and the traditional opposition protests that followed – as after almost every one of the country’s post-independence polls - were a relatively timid affair. A new president – Armen Sargsyan (no relation) – had been elected and sworn in by parliament a few weeks ago.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Having left the presidency for the position of Prime Minister – the new centre of power following the constitutional reforms – Serzh Sargsyan didn’t even have to change residences: overnight, Armenia’s presidential palace became the prime minister’s residence.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">For Armenia’s population, the message was one of inevitable continuity, tinged with a sense of mockery: all change, but no change.</span></div>
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But <i>real change </i>was exactly what the Armenian population has been craving for a long time: in decades of rule by an oligarchy that combined the country’s political, business and criminal elites in ways seen throughout the former Soviet Union, the grievances had never ceased to accumulate. Discontent at pervasive corruption; frustration at a small, stagnant economy marked by informal cartels and monopolies, often owned or protected by those in positions of political power; disgust at a <a href="https://armenianweekly.com/2012/01/27/to-maim-and-kill-with-impunity/" style="color: #954f72;">culture of impunity</a> putting a small group of oligarchs and their offspring above and beyond the law; impatience at the nepotism which made a travesty of meritocracy and excluded the brightest from the careers they deserved. And, above all, an end to the practice whereby subsequent governments kept up the pretence of democracy by making its usurpations of the same sufficiently ‘plausibly deniable’ to maintain a sheen of respectability towards the outside world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The outburst of pent-up frustration came from the most unexpected quarter: the leader of the protests – Nikol Pashinyan – is the head of a radical opposition party, Yelk, which in the previous, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-vote-parliament-sarkisian-tsarukian/28404992.html" style="color: #954f72;">admittedly flawed elections, garnered only 8% of the vote</a>, and had therefore been seen as, at most, an annoying but manageable irritant by the regime. ‘Nikol’, as he is now colloquially known, nevertheless succeeded in galvinising a broad demographic that had, for a long time, been seen as too politically apathetic to count in the unaccountable comings and goings of Armenian politics.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nikol Pashinyan (Credit: Yerevantsi)</td></tr>
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A veteran of anti-government protests – he was present during the bloody crackdown of 2008 – he and a close circle of activists had honed their skills in mobilising and utilising public discontent effectively. Thus, rather than the traditional static, centralised demonstrations, the ‘velvet revolution’ included flexible, mobile acts of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/potent-protest-movement-emerging-armenia-180419135116999.html" style="color: #954f72;">peaceful civil disobedience</a> powered by social media: a peaceful form of the hit and run guerrilla tactics that left Armenia’s police force at times comically unable to respond. <o:p></o:p></div>
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When, on Sunday 22 April, Serzh Sargsyan miscalculated by arresting Nikol, the result was a further galvanising of the protestors, and greater mobilisation. The fact that Armenia’s commemoration of the 1915 Genocide – on 24 April - was only hours away severely limited his options as well: no Armenian leader would want to be known as the man who ordered a violent crackdown against tens of thousands of peaceful protestors just before or on that particular day.<o:p></o:p></div>
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With the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan, Armenia’s revolutionaries have won one battle – but will they win the war? Attention has now switched to ending the rule of Armenia’s ‘Party of Power’, the Republican Party or HHK; but this will require longer-term vision and determination than what was required for the removal of one single man from within what remains a deeply corrupted system. Even the increasingly likely appointment of Pashinyan as the ‘people’s Prime Minister’, with a view towards organising free and fair elections, wouldn’t be sufficient in that regard.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In fact, Armenia is faced with two important questions if its revolution is to survive beyond this moment. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Armenian_%26_Russian_flags_in_Gyumri.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="600" data-original-width="800" height="240" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Armenian_%26_Russian_flags_in_Gyumri.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(Credit: Alexanyan)</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 11pt;">Firstly, the careful denial of the revolutions’ geopolitical aspect may become less tenable as time goes by.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Armenia’s revolutionary leaders have always been keen to stress that the</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><a href="https://eurasianet.org/s/armenias-velvet-revolution-keeps-peace-with-russia-for-now" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 11pt;">demonstrations are <i>not </i>aimed against Armenia’s strategic ally, Russia</a><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, and have, sensibly, avoided presenting Armenia as an example for other post-Soviet states to follow.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">But would Russia accept an Armenian state based on public accountability and liberal democracy - if only it submitted to its geopolitical priorities?</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Armenia is a test case for the Russian oligarchy’s ability to deal with a former Soviet republic</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> </span><i style="font-size: 11pt;">not </i><span style="font-size: 11pt;">ruled through the unaccountable methods it is itself used to: as </span><a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/armenia-protests-serzh-sargsyan-russia-vladimir-putin-a8327266.html" style="color: #954f72; font-size: 11pt;">developments in recent days have shown</a><span style="font-size: 11pt;">, whether or not geopolitical orientation and regime type are two separate issues in Moscow’s eyes is still very much an open question.</span></div>
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Secondly, the oligarchy is larger than the HHK alone: Ukraine’s <a href="https://www.kyivpost.com/article/opinion/op-ed/taras-kuzio-lets-first-clean-house.html" style="color: #954f72;">post-Maidan corruption woes</a> provide a cautionary tale regarding the resilience of the post-Soviet political-business-criminal complex. To eliminate such an entrenched, all-pervasive system whose tentacles reach into every nook and cranny of Armenian society will take much determination: removing individuals from its informal structures – only to seem them replaced by other individuals – will not suffice. Some oligarchs – especially those who previously engaged in murder and violence – will have to be taken to account by a state reasserting its authority; the corrupt structures will themselves have to be dismantled. The question is how, and whether that will be accomplished – and, again, whether Russia will have the foresight to temper its imperial reflexes when it comes to Armenia’s internal politics, as and when these post-Soviet legacies are dealt with.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In that sense, winning what comes <i>after </i>the revolution will be as important as winning the revolution itself; and this cannot be done without a clear, positive, explicit, consensual programme that goes beyond the requirements of regime change, and manages the population’s currently sky-high expectations. This is where the revolution will succeed or fail; the challenge should not be underestimated.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-1151195473014649312016-11-09T15:15:00.001+00:002016-11-09T15:15:14.252+00:00On Trump, the Populist Wave, and the Forgotten Virtues of Qualitative Approaches<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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What really bothers me about Trump’s win is not just the clear disconnect it has revealed between the political and economic elites and the ‘man on the street’; it is also the way it has revealed a dangerous blind spot in the social sciences, which have, in general, either moved towards greater quantification (and therefore an increased distance between themselves and their subject-matter), or have systematically prioritised societal discourses and practices as top-down, unidirectional, elite-led phenomena.<br />
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In the case of securitisation theory – which should, by any standard, be able to provide important insights into the existential fears (if any) driving the ongoing populist wave – analysis usually centres on elite ‘securitising actors’, performing ‘securitising moves’ towards a mostly passive audience, put before a binary choice of acceptance or rejection. Yet, from what has happened in the UK and the US, one might have to surmise that rather than ‘creating’ securitisations, elites are in a constant state of negotiation with their audiences, tapping into existential narratives that are to some extent already pre-existing, at least in embryonic form, within wider society, at a (overwhelmingly ignored) micro-level. People do not simply listen to their leaders and choose - not unlike consumers - from a range of optional narratives they might adopt or reject; they talk among themselves, and, to some extent, generate discourses that elites then react and – in the case of populists - tap into, rather than impose from above. In that sense, ‘the masses’ have a chaotic agency of their own.<br />
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To some extent, this can be observed in the societies of semi-authoritarian states, where what is said around the kitchen table can be much more indicative of the existential concerns of ordinary people, and their attitudes to state institutions, than what can be surmised in the official, elite-controlled media. I myself came to this conclusion when studying securitisations, at this very micro-level, in the former Soviet Union, where distrust of elites and states yields a completely different security discourse than what would be detected at higher levels of analysis. Added to this is the existence of social media, whose very model rejects the top-down structure of their traditional counterparts: that creates a much more chaotic – and unmanageable – horizontal ‘marketplace of ideas’, one where micro-level nonsense can much more easily eke out an independent existence; something both China and Russia have clearly understood, the former in its defensive insistence on total control, the latter in its aggressive use in disinformation campaigns.<br />
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Point being that only going out in the field, and revalidating this micro-level through deeply qualitative (e.g. ethnographic) methodologies, would be able to fill the gap in our knowledge of what on earth is going on in the now-declining liberal world.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-60836287434713128602016-10-30T18:50:00.003+00:002016-10-30T20:09:31.000+00:00The War on Experts: Why it Matters<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Politicians like power, and they do so for a variety of
reasons.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most believe their ideas
deserve to be realised for the sake of the public good, or at the very least
rationalise their ambition in terms of this adherence to a higher ideal; very
few would unashamedly admit to vying for power for its own
sake.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In democratic states, the
distinction is, in any case, hard to make: no politician was ever elected on a
platform of unadulterated, unjustified ambition.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Ignorance is another matter, however: revelling in it
appears to have become a mark of distinction for a number of expert-bashing
members of parliament.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Gove tells us
Britain has ‘had enough of experts’; Rees-Mogg demands the resignation of the governor of the BoE; and only yesterday, his conservative
colleague Glynn Davis confidently - and somewhat outrageously - tweeted:<o:p></o:p></div>
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“Personally, never thought of academics as 'experts'. No
experience of the real world”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Not surprisingly, all of these sceptics are situated at the extreme end of the Tory brexiteer spectrum, a place where expertise - above all, academic expertise - appears to be seen as a
curious defect, a disqualifier from ‘normal life’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What is, of course, conveniently omitted is
the rather quaint nature of an entirely political existence.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It takes a measure of doublethink, for
instance, to imply that the ‘Westminster bubble’ or the upper reaches of British corporate life are somehow more of a qualifier
to real world experience than the precarity lived through by young academics, a
precarity in no small part thrust upon them by policies voted through in
previous years by the much more privileged likes of Mssrs. Gove, Rees-Mogg, and Davies.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In a post-truth society, attacks on experts are attacks on
the very idea of truth itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> They</span> enable politicians to create their own realities and spread their sophistries
unchallenged by the shackles of expert scientific knowledge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In that sense, Gove and Davies have something vaguely in common with Vladimir Putin: for just as the master of the Kremlin has
decided there is no such thing as universal morality, the anti-intellectuals on
the extreme euro-sceptic fringes of the Tory party have decided there is no
such thing as objective truth, just everyday lived experience.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> As a consequence, t</span>he world
is theirs to re-invent, at will, and
‘experts’ just stand in the way of their unbridled attempts at reinvention.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This very mechanism is, in fact, at play, when one
referendum result – one clear answer to one clear question – is then used and
abused to interpret dozens of other contentious questions in very specific –
but ultimately unjustified – ways.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When
Theresa May repeats that ‘Brexit means Brexit’, she in effect says that it is she
who will tell you exactly what it means – in good time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Untruths and half-truths then follow: ‘The
vote was against immigration’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The vote
was for hard Brexit’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>‘The vote was for
grammar schools’. And so on.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Throughout this exercise in political semantics - comfortably outside any election manifesto - detachment from experts remains preferable: for
the dogmatic, it means the ability to enact pure ideology; for the ambitious, it
allows the exercise of power unencumbered by the authority of scientific
fact, or critical analysis; for the pragmatic, it enables political compromise outside the bounds of technocratic truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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True, the expert will not be right all of the time; in fact,
he will make mistakes. But, certainly when compared to politicians uncritically
beholden to the twin vices of dogma and ambition, he will be right <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">more of the time.</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That might be annoying to the doctrinaire and
the ruthless, but of vital importance to any polity aiming for enlightened government by
the well-informed, rather than the inexpert blundering<span style="mso-ansi-language: EN-US;"><span lang="EN-US"> of demagogues.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-83436905890490384032016-04-05T22:47:00.000+01:002016-04-05T22:48:12.056+01:00How War in Nagorno-Karabakh Could Spread – and Become a Major Problem for Europe<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Every now and then, the West is reminded of a quarrel in a far-away country between people of whom it knows nothing (as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/history/mwh/ir1/chamberlainandappeasementrev8.shtml">Neville Chamberlain once said</a>). Nagorno-Karabakh is such a place, a tiny enclave that has caused strife between neighbouring Azerbaijan and Armenia even before they gained independence from the Soviet Union.</div>
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While recognised as part of Azerbaijan by the international community, the ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh region <a href="https://theconversation.com/nationalism-sparks-a-summer-of-deadly-violence-in-the-caucasus-30933">fought an independence war to a standstill in 1994</a>. It is now essentially an independent republic supported by Armenia, and while the fragile truce that has held from 1994 on has been regularly breached, the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-35949991">latest bout of fighting</a> is the most serious escalation of violence to date.</div>
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Recent political developments have made the opportunity to calm hostilities more difficult than in the past. In the absence of any democratic legitimacy in either country, those in power have turned Nagorno-Karabakh into the centrepiece of incompatible and entirely uncompromising nationalist narratives.</div>
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Armenia’s leadership lives and dies by its ability to hold on to the territory, and so has a clear interest in maintaining the status quo. Azerbaijan’s government on the other hand, under pressure to “liberate” the region, has become <a href="http://en.apa.az/xeber_president_ilham_aliyev_____the_activities__238623.html">disillusioned with the deadlocked negotiations</a>, and the recent fall in oil prices has hit Azerbaijan’s economy hard. With President Ilham Aliyev’s regime’s stability based on oil revenues, stoking nationalist sentiment is a likely means to compensate. Combined with Armenia’s recent <a href="https://armenianow.com/karabakh/70098/armenia_army_military_russia_weapons_azerbaijan_karabakh">more assertive military posture</a>, there is already great potential for further escalation.</div>
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Worse, the situation has moved on since the <a href="http://www.c-r.org/accord-article/nagorny-karabakh-conflict-origins-dynamics-and-misperceptions">first Karabakh war up until 1994</a>. While this is still the bloodiest post-Soviet inter-state conflict with its <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/background-nagorno-karaback/26514813.html">estimated 30,000 deaths</a>, the forces in the South Caucasus are no longer simply hastily assembled groups of Armenian and Azerbaijani militiamen. Both sides have poured <a href="http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/europe/south-caucasus/b071-armenia-and-azerbaijan-a-season-of-risks.aspx">billions into their militaries</a>, with oil-rich Azerbaijan in particular <a href="http://www.tol.org/client/article/23254-azerbaijan-military-spending.html">acquiring high-tech weaponry</a>. Both sides are now <a href="http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/infographics/27651411.html">armed to their teeth</a> with up-to-date weapons systems capable of targeting infrastructure and cities far from the frontlines: both <a href="http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66061">Baku</a> and <a href="http://news.az/articles/society/91074">Yerevan</a> can be reached by the belligerents’ ballistic missiles.</div>
<br />
<br />
<figure class="align-center zoomable"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/117330/area14mp/image-20160404-27115-1n4qbuy.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" height="160" src="https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/117330/width754/image-20160404-27115-1n4qbuy.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span class="caption" style="text-align: justify;">The boundaries of Nagorno-Karabakh fixed in 1994.</span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;"> </span><span class="attribution" style="text-align: justify;"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nagorno-Karabakh_Occupation_Map.jpg">Clevelander</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</figure>
<br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The consequences of escalation for the region would be far more wide-ranging than seen in the past. Now, there are contradicting and rigid interests and alliances that are much more dangerous than in the 1990s, when the Caucasus was still a largely isolated, post-Soviet backwater. Today the European Union sees the “<a href="https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/imports-and-secure-supplies/gas-and-oil-supply-routes">Southern Gas Corridor</a>” and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline as vital for its energy security. With the latter an obvious target in the event of a prolonged Karabakh war, both existing and prospective energy transportation routes would be severely disrupted. EU ally Georgia would also be faced with near-impossible choices, squeezed between strategic partnerships with the EU and Azerbaijan, its hitherto friendly relations with Armenia, and the latter’s alliance with Russia.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
More worryingly, today great powers and regional players such as Russia and Turkey could be drawn into the conflict through their relations with Armenia or Azerbaijan. The <a href="http://www.odkb.gov.ru/start/index_aengl.htm">Collective Security Treaty Organisation</a> could see its first serious test of credibility in the event that war spills over beyond Karabakh into Armenian territory. Moscow would be faced with an unpalatable choice between having the credibility of its alliance commitments weakened into irrelevance, or having to intervene directly. Turkey might find itself entering the fray if hostilities spread to the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichevan, separated from Azerbaijan by Armenia and sharing a short border with Turkey, where clashes in 1992 led to a <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1992-05-21/news/mn-337_1_karabakh-conflict">sharp war of words between Moscow and Ankara</a>.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It might all still seem very unlikely at this stage, but the political elements are falling into place that could see the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict quickly grow from a geopolitical sideshow to a major regional problem. Seen through the lens of the conflict in Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the concerted effort required for a diplomatic solution now looks more implausible than ever. Armenia’s president has already threatened to <a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-nagorno-karabakh-fighting-independenc-idUKKCN0X118S">recognise the enclave’s independence</a> in case of further escalation, while <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/04/azerbaijan-and-armenia-clashes-continue-for-third-day">Azerbaijan has raised the spectre of all-out war</a> in response to “continued provocations”.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The South Caucasus could be the next breakdown in European security that has held since the Cold War, adding yet another element of instability to the growing disorder of today.</div>
<br />
This article was originally published on <a href="http://theconversation.com/">The Conversation</a>. Read the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-war-in-nagorno-karabakh-could-spread-and-become-a-major-problem-for-europe-57241">original article</a>.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-68775378850101658802015-05-11T19:47:00.002+01:002015-05-11T19:48:15.326+01:00The Ties that Bind: War, History and Power in and around Today’s Russia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It
is difficult indeed to overstate the importance of victory day in Russia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In its solemnity, it is as close to a
religious festival as any secular event could be.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Soviet Union was adept at filling the
void left by its Marxist atheism with ritual and symbolism, and, more than on
other days of the contemporary calendar, its imprint was still palpable on May
9<sup>th</sup>, 2015.<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<a name='more'></a><br />
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Posters
of war heroes – military genius <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgy_Zhukov">Georgy Zhukov’s</a> foremost
amongst them - could be seen everywhere in central Moscow; Soviet-era
hammer-and-sickle flags were flying off almost every building.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many a Muscovite sported the Red Army’s distinctive
cap, with some dressing their children in full World War Two garb.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in Soviet times, a dwindling contingent of
elderly veterans, often in full uniform and always with an inconceivable array
of medals proudly pinned to their chests, walked the streets, to be offered red
carnations in thanks to their sacrifice.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TlYjImq1S7E/VVD30A4IgsI/AAAAAAAAAfY/ItSpf3XITWg/s1600/L1124323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="267" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TlYjImq1S7E/VVD30A4IgsI/AAAAAAAAAfY/ItSpf3XITWg/s400/L1124323.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Georgy Zhukov's giant portrait on Arbat Avenue<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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All
in all, this wasn’t surprising: Russians participated in the ‘Great Patriotic
War’ as the main ethnic group within the USSR, and Stalin made sure to
appeal to their national sentiments by skilfully combining Soviet and Tsarist
imperial identities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After Hitler’s
surprise attack in 1941, positive allusions to the pre-Soviet past suddenly became
part of official propaganda, including references to Tsar Alexander I and
Marshall Kutuzov, the victorious leaders of a previous ‘Patriotic War’, in
1812; perhaps more than during any other period under Communist rule, Russian-imperial and Soviet
identities became intermingled and entwined.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Stalin
may have remained largely absent from the contemporary event’s official
iconography (his picture was rarely displayed on official posters), but his basic
idea – of harking back to Russia’s past military glory – has returned, with a
vengeance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>While most of the outside
world has focused on Russia’s largest post-Soviet military parade in recent
days, a tiny, orange-black ribbon was, in fact, a much more important indicator
of contemporary Russia’s claim to its place in history, and the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WnJnPBWdYhU/VVD3TcZY8fI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/JTtcEUiblS4/s1600/L1124591.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-WnJnPBWdYhU/VVD3TcZY8fI/AAAAAAAAAfQ/JTtcEUiblS4/s400/L1124591.jpg" width="267" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"A rescued world remembers"<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Its
colours refer to the ‘Order of St. George’, a military honour instituted by
Catherine the Great herself in 1769, during her conquest of the Crimea, and to
the ‘Order of Glory’, introduced by Stalin during the Great Patriotic war, in
1943. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Re-instated under its original, Tsarist name in post-Soviet Russia, its colours were adopted by pro-Putin groups
following Ukraine’s Orange revolution, and actively pushed as a symbol of
national pride following last year’s (re-)annexation of the peninsula. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It has now become <a href="http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-05-08/russia-is-losing-world-war-ii">an
established element in Russia’s Victory Day commemorations</a>: it could be
seen <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everywhere </i>in the landscape, on
posters, in toy shops, banks, the metro, on handbags and clothing, and in more inappropriate
locations.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The ribbon had never featured
prominently in Soviet-era Victory Day celebrations; and its present-day ubiquity
clearly speaks to the ability of states and societies to invent tradition as
required by circumstance. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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In
effect, the ‘Georgievsky’ ribbon provides Russians with something they have had
in short supply in recent decades: a sense of continuity in a history riven by
rupture.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Today, the fundamental challenge
posed by the 1917 revolutions and the fall of the Soviet Union to creating a
seamless historical narrative that appealed to Russians’ sense of self has been
resolved in much the same way as in 1941-45: through an appeal to previous
incarnations of the Russian state, and, more specifically, to the military
successes of yore.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It is not by accident
that both 1812 <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> 1945 are
memorialised in one and the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Garden">same Moscow park, at the
foot of the Kremlin</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This small
ribbon is about more than just World War Two: it combines the previous
experiences of Russian martial glory – loudly proclaimed by a giant display on
New Arbat Avenue - into one continuous narrative, running from the Tsars, over
the commissars, to the siloviki.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OsOkfWsBxe0/VVD4NxxJ7mI/AAAAAAAAAfg/W6PemMz4GyU/s1600/IMG_2151.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OsOkfWsBxe0/VVD4NxxJ7mI/AAAAAAAAAfg/W6PemMz4GyU/s400/IMG_2151.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Russia's Day of Military Glory<span style="text-align: left;"> </span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Today’s
Russian state simply could not formulate this sense of continuity in
institutional or ideological terms, as is done elsewhere. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Save for Christian Orthodoxy, the empire of
the Tsars is long gone; and, except of course for its victory over Fascism, the
Soviet Union was a socio-economic failure.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Russian Federation itself does not offer a political or economic
alternative with much universal appeal, a fact of which Russians themselves are
painfully aware.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What it does have,
however, is sheer power, and a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">history</i>
of power; and this is what provides its leadership with the element of
continuity that was so lacking in recent decades.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia’s
elite has to stick to a narrative of ‘Derzhavnost’, or great-power-ness: the
St. George’s ribbon links its rule, and its wars in Crimea/Ukraine, to the
victories of 1945 and 1812.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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A
long-held sense of grievance has now culminated in a return to the certainties
of a largely autocratic past; but while these certainties might appeal to the
Russians themselves, this return to a narrative of imperial glory also contains
the seeds of its own unmaking abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The little orange-and-black ribbon may work wonders at home; in the
former Soviet Union, however, it remains a highly contentious – <a href="http://dfwatch.net/uneasy-victory-day-celebration-in-tbilisi-35604">at times
even inflammatory</a> - piece of fabric, acting as a marker of narrow pro-Russian sentiment
rather than a unifying force, and this on a day when the<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>nations of the former Soviet Union – <a href="http://www.rferl.org/contentinfographics/soviet-war-dead/26999777.html"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">all </i>of whom contributed and suffered in
World War Two</a> – should be able to remember their dead in a common cause. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Instead,
what we witness today is a fracturing of memory, throughout the former USSR.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Baltics have always held a radically
divergent view of the period between 1939 and 1945 in any case.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But, for the first time in its history,
Ukraine’s central government has now decided to hold the Victory Day
celebrations on the 8<sup>th</sup> instead of the 9<sup>th</sup> of May, together
with its Western allies; and while St. George’s ribbons have been on prominent display
in the region’s pro-Russian entities - from South Ossetia to the Donetsk
Republic - even nominal allies of Putin’s - like Belarus and Ukraine - have made
sure to have <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/victory-day-st-george-ribbon-orange-and-black/26999911.html">a
nationally specific alternative</a> at hand.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="10" QFormat="true" Name="Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Closing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Default Paragraph Font"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="List Continue 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Message Header"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="11" QFormat="true" Name="Subtitle"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Salutation"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Date"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text First Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Body Text Indent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Block Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Hyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="FollowedHyperlink"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="22" QFormat="true" Name="Strong"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="20" QFormat="true" Name="Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Document Map"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Plain Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="E-mail Signature"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Top of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Bottom of Form"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal (Web)"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Acronym"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Address"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Cite"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Code"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Definition"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Keyboard"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Preformatted"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Sample"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Typewriter"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="HTML Variable"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Normal Table"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="annotation subject"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="No List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Outline List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Simple 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Classic 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Colorful 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Columns 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Grid 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table List 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table 3D effects 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Contemporary"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Elegant"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Professional"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Subtle 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Web 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Balloon Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" Name="Table Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Table Theme"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 7"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 8"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" UnhideWhenUsed="true"
Name="Note Level 9"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Placeholder Text"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="1" QFormat="true" Name="No Spacing"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" SemiHidden="true" Name="Revision"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="34" QFormat="true"
Name="List Paragraph"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="29" QFormat="true" Name="Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="30" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Quote"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="60" Name="Light Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="61" Name="Light List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="62" Name="Light Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="63" Name="Medium Shading 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="64" Name="Medium Shading 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="65" Name="Medium List 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="66" Name="Medium List 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="67" Name="Medium Grid 1 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="68" Name="Medium Grid 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="69" Name="Medium Grid 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="70" Name="Dark List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="71" Name="Colorful Shading Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="72" Name="Colorful List Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="73" Name="Colorful Grid Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="19" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="21" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Emphasis"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="31" QFormat="true"
Name="Subtle Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="32" QFormat="true"
Name="Intense Reference"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="33" QFormat="true" Name="Book Title"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="37" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" Name="Bibliography"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="39" SemiHidden="true"
UnhideWhenUsed="true" QFormat="true" Name="TOC Heading"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="41" Name="Plain Table 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="42" Name="Plain Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="43" Name="Plain Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="44" Name="Plain Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="45" Name="Plain Table 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="40" Name="Grid Table Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="Grid Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 5"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="Grid Table 1 Light Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="Grid Table 2 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="Grid Table 3 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="Grid Table 4 Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="Grid Table 5 Dark Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="Grid Table 6 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="Grid Table 7 Colorful Accent 6"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46" Name="List Table 1 Light"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51" Name="List Table 6 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52" Name="List Table 7 Colorful"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="46"
Name="List Table 1 Light Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="47" Name="List Table 2 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="48" Name="List Table 3 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="49" Name="List Table 4 Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="50" Name="List Table 5 Dark Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="51"
Name="List Table 6 Colorful Accent 1"/>
<w:LsdException Locked="false" Priority="52"
Name="List Table 7 Colorful Accent 1"/>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
From
that perspective, the St. George’s ribbon could also be seen as an unwitting, implicit
admission of failure on the part of Russia’s elite, an indication of its
inability to reinvent post-Soviet Russia beyond the narratives of past
grandeur, and great power status, in ways that could hold genuine soft-power
appeal to those within its cultural sphere of influence: and such a deficit in this
most elusive form of power often lies hidden behind ostentatious displays of
its harder variants.<o:p></o:p></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-19764556144839750792014-11-20T16:16:00.000+00:002014-11-20T22:42:06.807+00:00A Small Exercise in Speculation: In the Caucasus, All Roads Lead through Tbilisi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
The unresolved conflict between
Armenia and Azerbaijan experienced a sudden flare-up in tensions last week when
the <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia-azerbaijan-karabakh-helicopter-down/26687375.html">Azeri
armed forces shot down an Armenian Mi-24 attack helicopte</a>r engaged in
military exercises near the ‘line of contact’.
A <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XKSSXj8P4U">video published
by Azerbaijan’s defence ministry</a> showed what appeared to be a
shoulder-fired ground-to-air missile homing into one of two low-flying aircraft,
resulting in a fiery explosion and subsequent crash. As of yet, continued shelling has reportedly
prevented the Armenian side from retrieving the bodies of the three crew
members presumed to have died in the incident.
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Whatever the exact circumstances,
the downing of a helicopter represents an unprecedented escalation in the more
than twenty-year long confrontation between Baku and Yerevan concerning the
mainly Armenian-populated enclave, and seven adjacent, once overwhelmingly
Azeri-inhabited districts. Deaths and
injuries from shelling and sniper fire have become an almost daily occurrence
in recent years, and there have been occasional flare-ups involving incursions
and direct engagement, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-28626986">with
one particularly intense episode during this summer</a>; none of these
precedents have, however, involved the destruction of heavy military hardware,
let alone combat aircraft.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
Some have suggested that <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/opinion/russias-next-land-grab.html?_r=0">the
current spate of tensions is part of a Russian plot</a>. Under this scenario, Moscow would allow the
conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan to thaw – that is, erupt into unbridled
violent conflict – only to present itself as the all-benevolent and indispensable
peacemaker in the South Caucasus when things spiral entirely out of
control. In what comes below, I will try
to speculate – and I do stress <b><i><u>speculate</u></i></b><i> </i>– on a somewhat different possible scenario.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
To Russia, Karabakh is undoubtedly
a geopolitical boon, keeping the South Caucasus divided and ensuring its
susceptibility to Russian pressure. It is the crucial stress-point preventing
any tri-lateral co-operation between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. It is, moreover, a disciplining mechanism
that can be used against Yerevan and Baku as circumstances demand, apart from
generating <a href="https://iwpr.net/global-voices/yerevan-angry-russian-arms-sales-baku">billions
of dollars in arms exports to <i>both</i>
belligerents</a> as a particularly cynical bonus. An escalation every now and then only serves
to reinforce all of the above points, including the all-important notion that
the South Caucasus cannot be stable without the restoration of Russian
hegemony. But a fully-blown conflict is
quite another matter: the consequences of such a scenario would be unpredictable
and uncontrollable, and, therefore, of limited use for Moscow.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
In fact, the road to the restoration of Russian hegemony over the South Caucasus may very well lead through Tbilisi, not Yerevan or Baku. Georgia’s geographic blessings are also its main curses, and, given the multiple advantages such a scenario would provide, chances are that the Kremlin would try its utmost to reinsert Georgia into its orbit <i>before</i> tackling the Karabakh conflict, should it decide to reassert regional control. The country lies in between Central Asia’s energy reserves and the outside world as the only feasible Southern alternative to Russian pipeline routes; in the overall scheme of things, this is probably an even greater motive than its oft-cited position between Russia and fellow Eurasian Union/CSTO member Armenia, which, like arch-rival Azerbaijan, remains existentially dependent on Georgia for trade with the outside world. <br />
<br />
Conflict or unrest in Georgia would be more controllable, and geopolitically useful than in Nagorno-Karabakh: any advantages would start accruing immediately, as soon as Georgia is destabilised through, say, manufactured political crises, a concocted conflict between Tbilisi and the Kremlin's separatist proxies, or provocations in the Armenian-populated region of Javakheti. Moscow would have the luxury of time to pressure, coax, bully a subverted Georgia into submission while Armenia and Azerbaijan, cut off for the duration of any conflict, would be quite dramatically reminded of their dependence on Russian goodwill for access to the outside world, as they were in 2008. Abandoned by NATO – and there is no reason for the Kremlin to believe the Alliance would act any differently than it did in 2008, and intervene – Tbilisi would have no choice but to give in and bandwagon with its northern neighbour. At that point, and only at that point, Moscow would turn its attention to Nagorno-Karabakh, its position as supreme adjudicator bolstered by its control over both countries’ Westward access.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For Armenia – already clinging on to the last remnants of its independence – this would imply little change. Baku, on the other hand, would face a series of very difficult choices: with Georgia under Russian control, and crucial energy exports dependent on Georgia, maintaining a ‘multi-vectoral’ policy would become much more difficult. In the end, both Baku and Yerevan would have wasted their effective statehood through their short-sighted bickering over Nagorno-Karabakh, whose fate would now be entirely in Moscow's hands, as it was in 1988: Russia would be left as the last man laughing.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
But thank God this is just speculation, no?</div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-27406583282297615972014-03-02T20:21:00.004+00:002014-03-02T20:29:49.475+00:00The Empire That Will Not Speak Its Name<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">A few months ago, I posed the question – <a href="http://fpc.org.uk/fsblob/1561.pdf" target="_blank">was Putin’s Eurasian Uniona pre-electoral sideshow, or a fully-fledged quest for renewed empire?</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I believe this question has been answered
beyond a reasonable doubt in recent days.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>But should that surprise anyone? Since 1991, maintaining control over
its ‘Near Abroad’ has clearly been part of Russia’s core interests.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Even while the Kremlin paid lip service to
the territorial integrity and sovereignty of ‘its’ former Soviet Republics, it
countered any attempt by them to join Euro-Atlantic structures with subversion, and, in Georgia’s case, successful provocation and open military intervention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dimitri Medvedev – once supposedly the
‘friendly’, Westernised face of the Putin regime – publicly declared this
policy when he referred to Russia’s <a href="http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e9469744-7784-11dd-be24-0000779fd18c.html" target="_blank">‘sphere of privileged interests’ during the Georgian-Russian war of 2008</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And even under Boris Yeltsin, Western
policymakers knew perfectly well that inviting former Soviet Republics to join
NATO would have been inviting mischief; they had enough trouble convincing the
Russians to accept any form of eastwards expansion, full stop.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="EN-GB"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<a name='more'></a><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kPzs7TsHWzo/UxOQIzq1QCI/AAAAAAAAASA/p7VpTqQgV7s/s1600/czar-putin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-kPzs7TsHWzo/UxOQIzq1QCI/AAAAAAAAASA/p7VpTqQgV7s/s1600/czar-putin.jpg" height="320" width="270" /></a></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">In a post-Cold War International Society built on liberal
principles, ‘spheres of interest’ are an outdated concept, as is the concept of
‘empire’.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But Russia’s elites have, especially
under Putin, held onto principles that cannot but be described as neo-imperial,
reformulating them in 21<sup>st</sup>-century terms – and turning Russia into a
hydrocarbon-fuelled great power in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The liberal West may find the concept of ‘empire’ anathema; and, in
fact, its discrediting in today’s post-colonial world means that it will be
carefully hidden in a wide range of euphemisms so as not to affect the imperial
power’s standing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But claims to
‘leadership’ – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">global</i> in the case of
the United States, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">regional</i> in the
case of Russia – are often dead giveaways in a game that, in a world of formal
sovereign equality, must be conducted with a familiar measure of hypocrisy and
doublespeak.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Russia is still, very much, an empire.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And it has never existed except as an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">empire</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Under the Romanovs, when the word was still a source of international prestige,
it basked in its imperial power, creating an intricate hierarchy of nations
under the rule of an <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">autocrat</i>, a
hierarchy that became increasingly Russo-centric with the emergence of
nationalism in the late 19<sup>th</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It remained an empire under the formally
anti-colonial Bolsheviks: all their anti-imperialist rhetoric notwithstanding,
the USSR’s civilising mission was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still </i>a
hierarchical affair, and save for a brief, initial period when Russian
chauvinism was seen as ‘the great danger’, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Russia</i>
in particular was portrayed as being in the vanguard of the march towards
socialism and the creation of the Soviet man.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The Romanovs and Bolshevik civilising missions might have disappeared,
but Russia’s leaders – who emerged from the dark core of the Soviet regime - haven’t
lost the sense of hierarchy they inherited regarding the peoples of
Eurasia.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two hundred years later, they
still portray themselves as the guarantors of civilisation in a region they still
very much see as their own; only now, they had adopted the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">liberal </i>terminologies of free market <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economics -</i> including regional integration - and the upholding of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">international
law</i> when it comes to rationalising their Eurasian projects.</span></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Putin’s instrumentalisation of the liberal vocabulary is not limited
to the international sphere; his idea of sovereign democracy, where both civil
society and popular sovereignty in effect become hollowed-out shells directed
from behind the scenes by a murky elite, is an almost perfect analogy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">On
paper</i>, there are ‘free’ elections – only, with carefully pre-determined
results; laws are promulgated and enforced by the courts – with background guidance
from the executive branch, where necessary; the media are free to print and
broadcast at will – that is, until they cross a line and some regulatory body
or the tax authorities shuts them down. Just like his sovereign democracy,
Putin’s adherence to liberal values in international affairs is one of
stage-management and make-believe, an instrumentalisation of liberal narratives
towards the Russian - still-imperial - state. Just like it ‘creates’ its own
voters, the contemporary Russian state ‘creates’ its own humanitarian victims
to save – lest it be accused of imperialism. The stated need for economic
integration in the post-Soviet space similarly emerges from the need to cloak
an essentially geo-political, imperial project in the mantle of contemporary
liberal <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Salonfähigkeit</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B6Wk7oZrJOc/UxOQsS_xJhI/AAAAAAAAASE/xM2iYFvLuIU/s1600/il_570xN.383401400_irfc.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B6Wk7oZrJOc/UxOQsS_xJhI/AAAAAAAAASE/xM2iYFvLuIU/s1600/il_570xN.383401400_irfc.jpg" height="200" width="400" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">This presents the Western policymaking community and commentariat with
a particular problem.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia itself has
adopted liberalism’s economic and political vocabulary, and its policies are
therefore evaluated by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their</i>
yardsticks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But this, inevitably, risks
failures of communication that, in turn, lead to situations we have in the
Ukraine today.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>First, it risks judging
Moscow’s notions of ‘rationality’ by liberal criteria.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When, for instance, it is said that an EU
Association Agreement with Ukraine would also economically benefit Russia (the
classical liberal positive-sum argumentation), it runs into Russia’s singular preoccupation
with old-fashioned zero-sum territorial geopolitics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When the Kremlin is judged to have ‘lost
Ukraine’ because of its inability to convince ‘the Ukrainian people’, it is,
again judged by a liberal yardstick of soft power, which the EU possesses in
great quantities (at least for those remaining outside of its borders).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Russia has very little soft power in
comparison; it has, however, plenty of relative hard power in ‘its’ near abroad,
and so is left to play by those rules of the game – without acknowledging it,
as that would, again, not be conform to the grammar of contemporary
international relations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
<span lang="EN-GB">Russia’s leaders talk the talk, but don’t think it, and most
certainly don’t walk it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>red lines, </span>and these red lines run somewhere along the outer border of the former Soviet Union. They have<span lang="EN-GB"> their world-view, and it is a
world-view where concepts like international law, human rights, and economic
expediency are instrumentalised towards the state interest, in Machiavellian
fashion. Insofar as they are the
red lines and world-views of a nuclear-armed great power, they should be respected – especially
as they may not change any time soon. Russia’s sense of territorial
hierarchy has survived a revolution, and the end of the Cold War; to pin it on
one person – Putin – and expect it to dissipate with the disappearance of his
regime would be a grave mistake. It runs
much deeper than that; the West, and the unfortunate states on the other side
of Moscow’s red lines will have to live with this knowledge, and incorporate it
into their policymaking, lest they trigger the instabilities that challenges to
a great power’s core interests inevitably produce.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-20935902175261908782013-11-25T11:56:00.000+00:002013-11-25T11:59:15.014+00:00Homophobia, Racism and Empire in Putin's Eurasia<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
As things go, the former Soviet Union is quite a homophobic
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Over <a href="http://rt.com/politics/gay-propaganda-ban-senators-284/">eighty-eight per
cent of Russians approve</a> of the law banning ‘homosexual propaganda’,
including any assertion that homosexuality might not be deviant or morally
reprehensible behaviour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In other, even
more conservative Soviet Republics, hostility against the LGBT community is
even more dramatic. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In relatively ‘democratic’
Georgia, one attempt to hold a Gay Pride’ parade, in May this year, <a href="http://en.rian.ru/world/20130517/181207800.html">was thwarted by a
furious mob</a> egged on by extremist Orthodox clerics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>According to recent surveys, <a href="http://crrc-caucasus.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/attitudes-towards-homosexuality-in.html">ninety-six
per cent of Armenians believe homosexuality cannot be justified</a>; and <a href="http://www.pewglobal.org/question-search/?qid=1125&cntIDs=@52-&stdIDs=">seventy-four
per cent of Ukrainians believe homosexuality should ‘not be accepted by
society’</a>. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>These are disheartening figures; and they
provide politicians with dubious democratic legitimacy – like Vladimir Putin –
with welcome ways of restoring some form of moral authority, by using a
popularly marginalised group as a lightning rod. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
<a name='more'></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the first decade following the fall of the Soviet Union,
newly independent Russia went through a major identity crisis.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Paradoxically, because they had been part of
the Romanov Empire and the Soviet Union, the Russians themselves had, over
centuries, failed to develop a distinct national identity separate from their
subsequent empires.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Was Russia a
nation-state? Was it a multi-national federation?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Did it primarily belong to the ethnic
Russians (‘Russkiye’) or was it the land of its citizens (‘Rossiyanii’)?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In any case, most Russians agreed it would
still have to be a Great Power; but, if it was, what kind of Great Power would
it have to be? A ‘normal’ one, indistinguishable from its Western counterparts?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Or the leader of an independent
civilizational pole in a world otherwise dominated by the West?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
After the uncertainty of the 1990s, and a brief flirtation
with the West following 9-11, Vladimir Putin’s government has increasingly answered
these questions by defining Russia <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">against</i>
the West, both politically and culturally; Moscow’s homophobic streak must be
seen within this context, of (re)defining the parameters of political
community, of who’s in and who’s out.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The
apologists of Putin’s authoritarianism routinely put Russia at the head of a
separate civilizational pole, neither Western nor entirely Eastern, a
‘sovereignly democratic’ great power whose identity is based on a curious mix
of Tsarist imperial pride – including the restoration of a particularly <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/aug/19/nick-cohen-pussy-riot-putin">corrupt,
politically subservient and socially retrograde version of Russian Orthodoxy</a>
– and the large-scale rehabilitation of Soviet authoritarianism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Homophobia fits perfectly into both of these
elements, as part of an actively promoted Russian self-view as the lone
standard-bearer of a curious mix of Orthodox mysticism and lost Soviet might
against foreign, Western moral decadence: both these inspirations were relentless
persecutors of homosexuality.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This self-view goes much further than, simply, an obsession
with sexual orientation; it also entails a fundamentally unequal view of
Russia’s relations with the near abroad.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>If Moscow indeed stands apart from the West as a Great Power, it
requires an exclusive zone of influence, where it can act as this alternative
‘pole’, and perform its pre-destined leadership role.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Thus, while the ‘Eurasian Union’ is outwardly
presented as the Russian-led alternative to the European Union, with an
entirely <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economic</i> rationale, the broader
societal narratives surrounding it are at times suffused with references to a
<a href="http://eng.globalaffairs.ru/number/Spiritual-Values-to-Cement-the-Eurasian-Union-16163" target="_blank">shared Soviet/Russian cultural past and ‘common values’</a>; that Russia, as a
rule, stood and still stands at the core and at the top of these narratives
goes without question.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This imperial line of argument leaves little space for
self-critique; gone are the days when the Tsars’ genocidal campaigns against
Caucasian tribes, or Stalin’s crimes against the Chechens, Crimean Tatars and
Meskhetian Turks, were discussed and contextualised as shameful episodes of an
imperial past, as they often were in the early 90s.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Any elements within civil society that might
actually generate critical introspection are cornered through <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/06/25/russia-harsh-toll-foreign-agents-law">restrictive
funding laws</a> that, in themselves, imply the hostility and foreignness of
the West.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Instead, that age-old
corollary of empire – racism – has firmly established itself in Putin’s Russia,
targeting, as elsewhere, the sub-alterns of the olden days - in this case,<a href="http://www.hrw.org/node/80466/section/1"> ‘dark people’ from the Caucasus
and Central Asia migrating to the former metropole in search of precarious menial work</a>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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Homophobia and racism end up constructing a political community that
seeks to legitimise power on two levels: the domestic and the
international.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Their mechanics of
inclusion and exclusion imply, among others, a rejection of gay rights at home,
and a rehabilitation of the country’s imperial past abroad - two sides of the
same coin.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Internally, separating Russia
from the pernicious, decadent liberalism of the West feeds into those
narratives that justify autocracy as inevitable because of sovereign Russia’s
cultural incompatibility with Western notions of democracy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Externally, separating the former Soviet
Union from the wider world creates an autonomous geographic space in which
Russia can reign supreme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not by
accident do both these aspects chime exactly with Putin’s view of his, and
Russia’s, role in the world.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Conservative and nationalist forces in the near abroad similarly
combine homophobia and racism to justify unequal relations with a variety of groups,
even without Russia’s imperial element.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>From the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-19881905">Ukraine</a>
to the <a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/storm-over-gender-word-armenia">Caucasus</a>,
any concessions to LGBT, women’s or minority rights are presented by mainly pro-Russian forces as a dark conspiracy to loosen their own ties with an
idealised traditional past, revalidated in particularly raw, uncritical form
following the fall of the Soviet Union and the failure of its internationalist,
universalist political project.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As in
Russia, these traditionalists are often associated with local oligarchies and petty
potentates, providing a nationalist cultural shield for authoritarianism-as-non-Western-specificity; they also feed on the traditional Russian narratives of 'samobytnost' ('ethno-national authenticity') that emerged in the 19th century, spread throughout the nations of the empire, and revived following the fall of the Soviet Union.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Some <a href="http://www.stephenfry.com/2013/08/07/an-open-letter-to-david-cameron-and-the-ioc/">–
including Stephen Fry</a> – have called for symbolic punitive gestures, like a
wholesale boycott of the upcoming Sochi Olympics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But instead of looking at Russia’s and the
former Soviet Union’s troublesome attitudes towards minorities as a short-term
aberration that could be solved through one single event, an understanding how
these attitudes are entangled with local – and broader regional – relationships
of power reveals the complexities inherent in resolving them.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And that will require a much longer-term,
concerted effort aimed at opening up and democratising the former Soviet space
as a whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Homophobic and racist
attitudes in Russia – and the near abroad – are the product of a complex
entanglement of discourse and power, and will only be resolved if one takes a
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-39099250491654989402013-09-04T01:16:00.001+01:002013-09-08T10:27:41.117+01:00A Miracle of Empire? Sargsyan's Pauline Conversion<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In the grand scheme of things, Armenia is a relatively
insignificant country. No major
transportation routes traverse it. It
has minimal natural resources. Its economy
is stagnant, and its major export is, in fact, migrant workers, a steady flow
of whom has depleted the population by several hundred thousand since
independence. Strategically, it is
entirely dependent on Russia, which supplies most of its arms at preferential
rates, maintains several military bases, guards its 'external' borders, and owns much of its economic infrastructure. </div>
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<span style="text-align: left;">Reports of today's sensational about-turn by Armenia’s current president during a
visit to Moscow should therefore not have come as a surprise;</span><span style="text-align: left;"> Armenia’s long-standing insistence on initialling the Association Agreement
with the European Union during the Vilnius Summit in November this year </span><span style="text-align: left;">– despite of its military-strategic dependence on Moscow –</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;"> had been far more puzzling.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;">And yet, that policy formed part of a longer
tradition, a ‘silent accord’ whereby Yerevan was allowed to participate in
European integration processes by Moscow, provided it co-operated with Russia on the military front, and did not pursue actual </span><i style="text-align: left;">membership </i><span style="text-align: left;">of any Euro-Atlantic structures.</span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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That silent accord was cancelled today. After having tentatively and unsuccessfully pressured the
Ukraine and Moldova – two states similarly poised to initial their Association
Agreements with the EU – with its usual “food hygiene” shenanigans, the Kremlin
decided to try with the weakest link in the chain by pushing Yerevan into
line. Outsiders know little of what was
said during the Sargsyan-Putin talks; what is certain, however, is that Armenia
decided to instantaneously undo the results of four years of arduous negotiation
and legislative action, in an about-turn that was nothing short of sensational.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Some might argue that what happened today was simply the culmination of a much longer-term lack of strategic vision on the part of Armenia’s leaders: in view of Armenia’s resulting dependence on Russia, the only reasonable<i>
</i>thing left for Sargsyan to do when ordered to jump would be to ask ‘how high?’. In that sense, the cynicism in the post-meeting statement that Armenia
had made a ‘rational’ choice was palpable. But those pointing to Armenia’s pre-existing
dependence on its northern neighbour as an exceptional circumstance miss
several important points with implications for far larger participants in the Eastern Partnership programme.</div>
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Firstly, those who dismiss Armenia as an exceedingly
dependent, and, therefore, unimportant exception should ask themselves why, in
light of its dependence, and Yerevan's almost impeccable record in accommodating
Russia’s concerns, Moscow would still have insisted on its head of state
performing such a humiliating about-turn. Armenia already being so dependent, adding it to the Eurasian Customs
Union would surely have made only a minute difference to the bilateral strategic relationship
with Moscow? Did Russia pressure Armenia
– rather opportunistically - <i>because it
could get away with it</i>? Or did it
pressure Yerevan<i> to make a broader point</i>, to both the European Union and the
near abroad? The odds are that Moscow was
pursuing a rather more substantial prize than little Armenia with its approach.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This feeds into my second point, on the increasingly
imperial nature of Putin’s attitude towards the former Soviet Union. Russia might have mastered the neo-liberal
narratives of ‘economic expediency’, it might keep up the formal niceties of
Westphalian sovereignty (at least outside of Georgia), but it retains a highly hierarchical view of the ‘near
abroad’ which has been reinvigorated in recent years. The various problems with ‘food hygiene’, and
implicit threats against migrants of former Soviet states that would not want
to join Putin’s pet project could (and probably should) be seen as the 21<sup>st</sup>-century
disciplinary practices of <i>empire, </i>reinforced, in the broader societal narrative, by an uncritical acceptance of Russia’s
colonising past and a profiling of collective ‘Russian’ values against
decadent, individualist ‘Western’ ones. <o:p></o:p></div>
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These claims to ‘civilisational alterity’ from the West, of
cultural specificity – referred to in Russian as <i>samobytnost </i>– have been taken over by pro-Russian
nationalist and traditionalist groups throughout the Soviet Union. They were particularly visible in Armenia, in
the run-up to the volte-face by Serj Sargsyan, with a host of conservative
groups and individuals viciously and at times mendaciously campaigning against
the use of the term ‘gender’ in the country’s EU-mandated gender equality
legislation. Artificially mobilised or
not, these homophobic and misogynistic groups saw the choice between
Russia and the EU as one between two competing value-systems: Russian/Eurasian – based
on authoritarian, patriarchal collectivism – and European – based on liberal, egalitarian individualism.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This creates a double danger further afield, with Europe's soft power being confronted by an entirely warped Russian version of the same. Firstly, by constructing Russian (and former
Soviet) values as fundamentally different, Russia constitutes an
effective mobilising mechanism among its sympathisers throughout its region,
one that can be used, in conjunction with ‘harder’ economic levers, to hammer
home the message of ‘Eurasian separateness’.
This is especially true in places like the Eastern Ukraine, with its Russian
speakers; a little bit of homophobia can do wonders in getting those Eurosceptic
juices flowing. Secondly, and more
importantly, the promise of unfettered authoritarianism being construed as
‘culturally innate’ can sound appealing to semi-criminalised politicians and
oligarchs that litter the region’s elites (as Putin would know).
EU conditionalities can be a pain sometimes; Russian tutelage comes with
no such (domestic) strings attached. <o:p></o:p></div>
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It is, of course, possible that all of this is an
unfortunate misunderstanding, and that president Serj Sargsyan did have a
sudden, miraculous Pauline conversion to the Eurasian Customs Union in the hallowed
halls of the Kremlin today. Alternatively,
Putin might have decided to make a point by humiliating the head of state of
one of his closest allies, in the name of higher aims. In any case,
Europe’s policymakers will ignore this smallish (?) incident at their, and the Eastern Partnership’s,
peril.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-75460848682183377042013-05-20T10:49:00.000+01:002013-05-20T12:29:12.589+01:00The Pharisees of the Caucasus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Since independence, all three South Caucasus states have seen a revival in religious practice. The Georgian and Armenian ‘national’ churches were quickly restored in their central roles within the identities of their respective ethnic groups; the Islamic denominations in Azerbaijan likewise saw the faithful return to their mosques in large numbers. Meanwhile, as in the rest of the former Soviet Union, a large number of cults – including the Jehova’s Witnesses, and the Hare Krishnas – started infringing on what the established religions saw as ‘their’ rightful spheres of influence as ordinary Armenians, Azerbaijanis and Georgians embraced the spiritualism they had been denied under Soviet, scientific-socialist rule, with gusto.</div>
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<span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="text-align: left;">This religious revival tied in perfectly with the national (re)awakenings that occurred in parallel at that time. Church and mosque provided a value-system that could act as a complement to the more secular post-Soviet mythologies of nationalism; as victims of Communist repression, Armenia’s and Georgia’s churches could, in particular, be portrayed as repositories of a long-lost, pre-Soviet ethnic authenticity and authority, an insight also <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/01/us-russia-putin-church-idUSBRE91016F20130201" target="_blank">seized upon, within the Russian context, by Vladimir Putin.</a> In both of the South Caucasus’ majority Christian republics, post-Soviet elites took great care to maintain good relations with their respective church hierarchies. Former Communist party members – including <a href="http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1346&dat=19930227&id=ipcsAAAAIBAJ&sjid=SfwDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4228,4479433" target="_blank">Eduard Shevardnadze – had themselves baptised</a> after quite sudden Pauline conversions; large cathedrals were built at great public expense in both Yerevan and Tbilisi, in the middle of economic crisis and stagnation. And as the walls between secular and religious authority crumbled, a shady ideological alliance emerged between religious, political and business elites. </span></span></div>
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As a result, the South Caucasus’ Church hierarchies make sure their injunctions do not entail any criticism of the corruption and moral degeneracy that have become a hallmark of their countries social elites; and in return, political leaders grant ‘their’ churches carte blanche, place them above legal scrutiny, based on a faux reverence towards an institution they are all too willing to manipulate towards their ends. In effect, significant portions of the region’s clergy and its politicians have developed a symbiotic relationship that is not quite unlike the one between Pontius Pilate and the Pharisees - as depicted in the New Testament - with the latter moralising over the behaviour of their ‘little people’ while failing to ever challenge the decadent ways of the powerful, including themselves. While these churchmen aim their arrows of damnation on the weak in their societies, they remain deafeningly silent on the much greater and immoral transgressions of the wealthy; in return, they are embraced by oligarchs and politicians as their own, sometimes unashamedly flaunting the wealth gathered from their interaction with the worldly, unholy games of commerce and corruption.</div>
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In both Armenia and Georgia, clerics have had a lot to say about the weakest among their ‘little people’. They have expressed definite views on the place of unmarried women in society (obedient and virginal), of married women (equally obedient, but constantly pregnant and in the kitchen), unmarried mothers (hell-bound), homosexuals (hell-bound in this world and the next), and religious minorities (equally hell-bound). And yet, they have failed at every turn to challenge the strong, the powerful in society, and their far more destructive immorality. Clergymen in Tbilisi are prepared to <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/georgia-gay-rights-protests/24988972.html" target="_blank">lead lynch mobs against peaceful LGBT activists</a>; their Armenian counterparts are equally active in spewing hatred against people engaging in entirely consensual sexual behaviour. But I have yet to see one single priest lead a furious mob or even fulminate against, say, the men engaging in quite non-consensual rape, or domestic violence against women; or preach against the materialist greed, the corruption, the dishonesty, the lack of selfless charity of the oligarchs in their societies. While the powerful destroy lives and ruin whole countries, blaspheme through almost each and every one of their actions, their Pharisees point their fingers at women, gays and Jehova’s Witnesses, anywhere except towards the rotten sources of power. No wonder: upholding the sexual mores of the least powerful is much easier than follow the example of the founder of the Christian faith: challenging the powers that be where it matters, at great cost. </div>
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When watching the scenes of hateful, religious fanaticism coming out of Tbilisi last week, or hearing about <a href="http://asbarez.com/94712/the-borgias-of-etchmiadzin/" target="_blank">Armenian bishops driving around in Bentleys and toting handguns</a>, I always ask myself whether these ‘guardians of the faith’ have read the same New Testament I have? What does this behaviour have to do with the example set two thousand years ago by an ordinary carpenter from Nazareth who preached love as he challenged power, and willingly paid for it with his life? Have they even understood why Jesus saved a prostitute from stoning by challenging those who are without sin to cast the first stone (John 8:7)? Are they followers of the same Jesus behind the Sermon on the Mount, where He stated how salvation would be reserved, in the first place, for the weak, the poor, the wretched of this earth? Do those Bentley-driving, business-owning, gun-swinging clerics believe in the same man who said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich man to enter Kingdom of God (Mark 10:25)? The same person who smashed the tables and scales of the money-changers in front of the temple, in a clear admonition not to mix the godly with the worldly, faith with commerce (Matthew 21:12)? </div>
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All one hears from the clergy in the Caucasus are the noisy, formulaic incantations of dogma that hide their pale-faced unwillingness to challenge those who are not meek, their failure to condemn the greed of the powerful in their societies, and, in some cases, their own participation in the dubious ways of their world. A lot of noise is needed to drown out that silence, that unwillingness to speak spiritual truth to material power, that corruption. Last week, on the streets of Tbilisi, that diversionary noise transformed itself into acts of physical aggression against people who happen to be different, in just the latest indication of just how morally inept and power-drunk today’s Pharisees have become.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-6443710233180444692013-04-28T20:05:00.002+01:002013-05-01T15:22:44.288+01:00Syria: The Road to Nowhere?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Syria’s civil war has been raging for two years now. And, as ever in such protracted internal conflict, the outside world is torn between responding to a heart-wrenching humanitarian catastrophe and staying outside the fray. The images of death and deprivation, of humanity’s cultural heritage destroyed cry out for ‘something to be done’. And yet, apart from humanitarian aid to the dramatically growing number of Syrian refugees, the provision of ‘non-lethal assistance’ to ‘approved’ Syrian rebel groups, and the drawing of a (now muddled) red line around the large-scale use of chemical weapons, very little appears to have been done so far, eliciting accusations of indecisiveness from some Western media and of indifference from Syrian rebel groups. Surely, now that Assad has <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/28/syrian-nerve-gas-claims-eyewitness?INTCMP=SRCH" target="_blank">seemingly</a> used chemical weapons, it is time to ‘alleviate the Syrian people’s suffering’ and push yet another ruthless Baathist regime out of power?<br />
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Those advocating direct – or, indeed, indirect – intervention in the Syrian civil war claim to be taking the moral high ground. Many of the more gung-ho politicians and commentators itching for a final reckoning with the Assad regime accuse those with a more cautious view of a cynical disregard for human suffering. They demand immediate action, through the UN Security Council if possible, through unilateral action if necessary. In these exhortations, the tortuous complexities of the Middle East are simplified, and the tight interlacing of strategic imperatives with humanitarian concerns are camouflaged. As in the past, such simplification and obfuscation could lead to miscalculations for which thousands of the region's inhabitants would pay the ultimate price.</div>
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To start with, the ‘Syrian democratic uprising’ was neither about Syria,
nor, in fact, about democracy, at least for many of the outside forces involved in fomenting the conflict's transition from popular uprising to armed revolt. The West's and its Gulf allies' prime concern has always lain with the Syrian regime’s strategic
alignment with Iran; this, not a bleeding-heart interest in
human rights explains the early support given by the Gulf’s hereditary
dictatorships to the Syrian opposition. In the years running up to the rebellion, Bashar Al-Assad was gently
coaxed into giving up this alignment with Tehran through subtle pressures and
inducements; it is not at all unreasonable to assume that, with the Arab Spring presenting an unmissable opportunity, someone, at some point, made a decision to <i>push </i>him out when it became clear subtlety and coaxing would not have their
desired effect. In the process, the dictator's murderously ruthless determination and his ability to play on Syrians' sectarian fears were seriously underestimated. That the Syrian people are now paying the
price of such a major miscalculation is not something that would be easily
admitted in Western and allied capitals.<br />
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Syria has since long become a proxy battleground for Iran on one side, and Saudi Arabia and the West on the other (with a good number of Salafi wildcards thrown in for good measure); this amplifies the potential effects of any future miscalculations regarding interventions that will, as ever, mix any humanitarian considerations with cold strategic computation. Those who think Tehran will remain impassive at the sight of its last Arab ally’s demise, or that Syria’s sectarian fault-lines will not spread out to engulf the whole Levant are discounting potential scenarios for both of Syria's immediate neighbours that are, mildly put, far from promising. In Lebanon, both Iran and Saudi Arabia have their own proxies - respectively, Hezbollah and the March 14 movement - and any major cross-border incident could already cause a spill-over of the war into its ever-fragile body politic; the Syrian conflict has also started feeding into the fault-lines running through Iraq’s fractured society. Full-scale civil conflict in either of these countries could prove at least as deadly as anything seen in Syria to date; and the West might, therefore, end up saving some strangers at the price of sacrificing others.</div>
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In Lebanon, a substantial weakening or downfall of the Assad regime would dramatically affect the country’s internal balance of power, increasing the likelihood of civil war. An emboldened March 14 alliance could – with Saudi support and perhaps backed up with threats from a rebel-dominated Syria – press firmly for Hezbollah’s disarmament. Faced with a choice between disarming itself into strategic irrelevance and pre-emptively taking control of the country by force of arms - as it already did once when pushed into a corner, in 2008 - Hezbollah may very well choose the latter, egged on by its external allies’ wish to further confound things for their Western and Gulf opponents. Israel provides a further potential complication: once Hezbollah’s supply-lines through Syria are cut, it would most definitely be under an intense temptation to finish what it started in 2006 by annihilating the Shi’ite party’s considerable arsenal of missiles and other assorted heavy weaponry. In the ensuing mayhem, “saving the Syrian people” could therefore very well end up in the sacrifice of thousands of Lebanese.</div>
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In Iraq, the Al-Maliki regime has, over the past few years, become increasingly sectarian, fuelling the Sunni minority’s discontent through escalating levels of (often murderous) repression and selective access to the state’s oil-based resources; Bagdad's <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/apr/28/al-jazeera-banned-iraq-sectarian" target="_blank">recent ban on several satellite channels</a> - including Al Jazeera - on the basis of perceived sectarian (pro-Sunni) bias is only the latest manifestation of this development, and echoes similar accusations heard in Damascus and South Beirut. A potential future Sunni uprising could, in turn, easily replicate the discourses of “Sunni dispossession by a dictatorial Shi’ite regime” heard in Syria, quite apart from receiving the support of the armed Salafi (and non-Salafi) fighters now engaged in fighting on Syrian soil. Iran’s influence on more radical Shi’ite elements within the country should not be discounted either: again, if pushed into a corner, Tehran would be interested in and capable of causing serious trouble in Syria's weak Eastern neighbour. Rash intervention could thus end up causing the the deaths of thousands of Iraqis as well.</div>
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There is, quite simply, no automatic moral high ground in knee-jerk democratic or humanitarian entanglements, in the saving of some at the price of killing scores of others. Not keeping this in mind could lead the whole region into yet another - entirely avoidable - disaster, involving not one, but <i>three</i> collapsed states, and a host of other cynical players whose actions and reactions might take everyone...on the road to nowhere. The <a href="http://thehill.com/video/senate/296195-mccain-white-house-looking-for-excuses-not-to-intervene-in-syria" target="_blank">McCains </a>and <a href="http://thecable.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/03/19/graham_calls_for_american_boots_on_the_ground_in_syria?wp_login_redirect=0" target="_blank">Grahams</a> of the world better take heed, instead of playing on the short-term hopes and fears of their electorates, as happened in the run-up to an earlier Middle Eastern debacle.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-81352248417225536352013-04-21T12:54:00.002+01:002013-05-01T15:22:57.576+01:00Boston: Between Fear, Power and Temptation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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America woke up to the Caucasus this week; and, unfortunately, it was not quite the awakening anyone would have wished. In the West, Chechnya had hitherto been the purview of a select few: academics, scholars, and perhaps a journalist or activist or two with an interest in far away places with unpronounceable names. Russia’s annihilation of Grozny didn’t really ring a bell with too many; and the tremendous horrors of Beslan had long migrated from one-minute news bites into the back recesses of most people’s memories. But in an era when places with unpronounceable names suddenly become relevant as soon as they are connected with that ‘T’ word – you probably know which one I mean – Chechnya suddenly received its share of attention. And for all the wrong reasons.</div>
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Twitter pundits and Wikipedia experts latched on to the two perpetrators’ ethnicities to spew out a raft of platitudes about ‘Iranian-funded Al Qaeda terrorists’ in the ‘eternally savage and ungovernable’ Caucasus. The media went into a feeding frenzy, tracing the two brothers’ each and every move over the past twenty-six odd years: Chechnya, Dagestan, Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, the United States, what they’d had for breakfast that morning. Meanwhile, the whole city of Boston was shut down: businesses were closed, public transport halted, citizens told to stay home. All it took to grind an American metropolis of four million to a halt were, it appears, two pressure cookers, some ammonium nitrate (assumedly), and a couple of dark-haired blokes with weird-sounding names, including a teenager.</div>
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You might say that one can never be too careful when it comes to the ‘T’ word. Perhaps. But then again, the question was, from the very beginning, whether this was indeed an act of terror. Terrorism is - always, by definition - a tactic in the service of higher political aims. Its motivations are, invariably, <i>political</i>; its primary method is the spread of <i>fear</i>. Al Qaeda’s motives for 9/11 were complex, but included the removal of US troops from the Arab peninsula, a clear, specific demand of the organisation since the early 1990s. The ('non-terroristic') motives of the killers at Columbine, on the other hand, were entirely egotistical: a nihilistic reaction against alienation and rejection, a personal wish to “go out with a bang”. Motive is what differentiates the act of terror from the act of a criminal (or madman).</div>
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But if so, where were the brothers’ political demands? None had been posted in the days following the Boston Marathon attacks. In fact, as it stood, the only known factors differentiating the Tsarnaevs from the killers at Columbine (and Thurston, and Sandy Hook…) were their use of explosives, and their ethnicity. Being of Chechen extraction was, on its own, apparently enough to assume this was not the act of isolated sociopaths – the fallback narrative when white Christian males go berserk with guns and/or explosives – but of ‘terrorists’. I doubt many would recall the ethnicity of Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, or Jeffrey Weise; I doubt many would even remember which atrocities these particular names refer to. I have to admit it: I had to look them up myself. That would not have been necessary in the case of Mohammed Atta.</div>
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In the days and weeks to come, we might indeed finally uncover the two brothers’ motives. And, naturally, it matters greatly whether these two young men acted out of a dissipated sense of marginalisation, or a more organised militant subordination to a Chechen-nationalist or Jihadist cause. On one level, however, all of this remains strangely irrelevant to understanding the counterproductive nature of the Boston lock-down: whatever the Tsarnaev’s motives: terrorists and mad-men will have been greatly emboldened. </div>
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The US government’s knee-jerk reactions will have shown the former how their actions on the US mainland – aimed precisely at spreading ‘terror’ for political aims – are thankfully amplified by both the media and the authorities in their aftermath. Their handlers – if they indeed had any – will note that two pressure-cookers and a little determination are all it takes to make a major political point. And if the Tsarnaevs were simply a couple of “losers” - their uncle’s word, not mine - on a murderous ego-trip, it will have confirmed to any similarly disturbed US individuals a simple truth: that the ‘bang’ in ‘going out with a bang’ is nowadays afforded a major boost by both government and society. Again, a few well-placed home-made pressure-cooker bombs will be all that is required to achieve your fifteen minutes of immense power and fame. Either way, this going over the top will just encourage atrocity over the longer term.</div>
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A second reason why this this overreaction matters is much more fundamental, and touches on the very core on the rights and freedoms that make up open societies. And here, it behoves to remind oneself of the central logic that underlies America’s system of governance: the Founding Fathers’ fundamental distrust of power, expressed in its containment and dilution through unassailable civil rights and a marvellously complicated and cumbersome system of government. Much will be said in coming months about what happened during the previous week, among others by some very powerful people. And those centres of power will have a natural interest in overreacting, regardless of whether this is an act of terror. </div>
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They will have an interest in blurring the border between <i>motivation</i> and <i>rationalisation</i>, portraying the two brothers’ crimes as ‘terror’ even if ‘politics’ may just have provided a loose excuse for a violent reaction to disenchantment with the American dream. They will be tempted to further chip away at rights and freedoms that have already been under assault, in the United States and throughout the world, since 9/11. They will, in other words be lured towards further weakening the US constitution’s central idea: that power, once unconstrained and undiluted, creates its own temptations. Abroad, they will be enticed towards using Boston to justify the violation of the fundamental human rights of strangers in those 'far away places with unpronounceable names'.</div>
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Already, the powers-that-be are using the assumption of ‘terrorism’ to reportedly <a href="http://www.aclu.org/organization-news-and-highlights/statement-aclu-executive-director-anthony-d-romero-miranda-rights" target="_blank">do away with the suspect’s Miranda rights</a> – and essential part of Habeas Corpus. And there has been quite a lot of ‘chatter’ about the use of domestic drones and a ‘strengthening’ of homeland security, some of it from very influential people. Abroad, the Russians have been eagerly pursuing their own agenda, interested in tapping the current climate of fear and dismay as a potential public-relations fig leaf for their imperial misrule of the North Caucasus, among others, <a href="http://www.hrw.org/news/2009/03/31/another-year-ramzan-kadyrov" target="_blank">through dictatorial tiger-owning viceroys</a>.<br />
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Real security – for the United States’ inhabitants, for people further afield, and for the values that make America <i>America</i> at home and abroad – will require that cool, and distrustful heads prevail throughout society: rethinking some of the more hysterical decisions of the past week - indeed, the past 12 years - and resisting the temptation of the powerful to amass yet more power. It will require accepting that the openness of a society inevitably entails risks, risks that can only be minimised, not eliminated.</div>
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After all, what are temptations for, save to be resisted?</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-70099472964458067252013-02-24T18:26:00.001+00:002013-03-03T15:53:25.427+00:00Barevolutionaries and Dinosaurs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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And
so, it is taking off. Or is it? Since last Monday’s elections, and following
his surprisingly strong showing at the presidential polls, opposition candidate
Raffi Hovhanissian has been holding a series of rallies that have, over time,
morphed into something called the ‘Barevolution’, an amalgam between ‘barev’ - Armenian
for ‘hello’ - and Revolution. What are
this movement’s chances of success? Will the ‘barevolution’ really be able to
topple Armenia’s current political system, based as it is on deeply entrenched
patterns of patronage and clientelism, with a regular dose of authoritarianism
on the side? Unfortunately, in the short
term, the odds are stacked massively against this movement sweeping away
Armenia’s oligarchic elite; over the longer term, however, what is happening on
streets and town squares throughout the country might form the basis of something entirely
new in Armenian political culture.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AyeXs0r5tW4/USpWIaLKI5I/AAAAAAAAAJU/Xz2aFc-AY7s/s1600/BD0iuZXCAAA3_zl.jpg-large.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-AyeXs0r5tW4/USpWIaLKI5I/AAAAAAAAAJU/Xz2aFc-AY7s/s200/BD0iuZXCAAA3_zl.jpg-large.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
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At
the risk of sounding defeatist: the impediments to the barevolution’s success
are, to put it mildly, formidable.
‘Raffi’, as he is known to his supporters, will have to mobilise a
population that, since the violent suppression of anti-government
demonstrations in 2008, has displayed extreme levels of political apathy and
alienation. So far, attendance at the
‘barevolution’ rallies has been haphazard at best, with the largest attracting
crowds of around 10,000 people, well below what most would consider the
‘critical mass’ required to affect fundamental change. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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This
issue is especially pressing as, over the past week, it has become apparent
that Hovanissian will employ peaceful, ‘constitutional’ methods on the road to
fundamental change; but one cannot use Gandhi-like methods with the active support
of only a tiny proportion of the population.
Even if Hovanissian continues his tour around the country on a daily
basis into next year, unless the regime does something stupidly provocative, he
will, in all likelihood, not be able to keep up the momentum emerging from
citizens’ indignation at yet another fraudulent election. And this is not even considering the fact
that the regime would probably grow less tolerant of such civic activism if and
when it made a <i>real </i>impact on its
chances of survival.<o:p></o:p></div>
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This
is compounded by the absence of a tangible set of demands on the part of the
barevolutionaries. What do they want? Is
it the immediate recognition of Hovanissian as president-elect? An election
rerun? New parliamentary elections? Or just the prosecution and punishment of
those engaged in election fraud? One has
to guess – in this case from various speeches and the demands made by
Hovanissian during his meeting with Sargsyan – as to what is on the table
here. The ‘barevolution’ has not yet
emerged with a clear manifesto behind which people would be able to mobilise, a
concrete set of goals against which success (or failure) could be
measured. The longer these questions are
left unanswered, the higher the probability of this movement petering out.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/xYfNfm4q0JY?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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<br /></div>
This
lack of a clear programme can be seen as an attempt to unite Armenia’s highly
fragmented opposition. But prospects for
such co-operation beyond the vague and the sloganizing are dubious, at
best. Any list of concrete demands, any common
programme would have to be agreed upon by organisations as disparate as the nationalist ARF
(which has joined the ‘barevolution) and Ter-Petrosyan’s liberal HAK (which, as yet,
hasn’t), two organisations that diverge fundamentally on the very nature and
purpose of Armenian statehood, and on Armenia’s place in both the region and
the wider world. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Cobbling
together any alliance between such natural ideological adversaries would be a
thankless task. In fact, Armenia is not
only plagued by incompetent government; it is also saddled with a largely
ineffective opposition, illustrated by the fact that several of its largest
parties failed to either field or endorse any candidates during these
elections, in a major abrogation of responsibility. Based either on over-towering
personalities or fossilised ideologies, they have been utterly ineffectual in
uniting to, at the very least, protect and safeguard Armenians basic civic and
political rights over the past few decades (quite apart from having within them
a few personalities who <i>themselves</i> rigged
an election or two when they were in power). <o:p></o:p></div>
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And
this leads me to my final point, and the prospects for future success: if
Armenia is to change <i>fundamentally</i>,
its population will have to be abandon<i> </i>established
political forces – first of all inside the government, but in the opposition
too – that have failed to represent their interests with sufficient political
maturity and statesmanship. This will
require thinking outside the box, something most members of the established political
class seem to be incapable of doing. The
core elements of such an alternative approach can already be found in today’s Armenia. Firstly, in
Hovanissian’s refreshing civility, his emphasis on peaceful but determined
struggle, which in itself is an invaluable contribution to the country's political culture. Secondly, in the various single-issue civil society groups that have
sprung up over the past few years, groups that could form the backbone of a
broader alternative movement but that have, so far, operated mostly on the sidelines of the political process. This is
where Armenia’s future lies, not in the endless regurgitations of the various
parties that have populated the political landscape since 1988; its hope emerges from this possible combination of peaceful struggle, with the civic consciousness of those engaged in civil society today. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; text-justify: inter-ideograph;">
Such
a movement for change would set an agenda, and then invite the established parties
to accept or reject, to follow<i> </i>where
it leads, or otherwise fall into irrelevance.
This is not as far-fetched as it sounds.
In neighbouring Georgia, the 2003 Rose Revolution brought about radical
generational change virtually from nought, doing away with the once-powerful political dinosaurs
of the old order in one fell sweep. In
Armenia, the process of political transformation would culminate in a bottom-up
renegotiation of the now-flawed constitutional compact that was foisted upon
Armenians during the 1990s, and distorted in subsequent years through
constitutional coups, rigged elections, the violent repression of opposition demonstrations, a distorted media landscape, and the cartelisation of an already small economic pie. A fresh start is what is
needed in Yerevan, not some tinkering at the edges by the same old faces people
have been seeing over the past twenty years.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-5173993097411822202013-02-19T17:05:00.001+00:002013-03-03T15:53:40.120+00:00Democracy, Beyond Elections<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Compared to the previous elections in Armenia – when ten people lost their lives during opposition demonstrations - the 2013 presidential ballot was predicted to be a boring non-event. It had actually been decided long ago, when, following what appears to have been a highly convincing private meeting, Armenia’s wealthiest man, Gagik Tsarukian, decided not to put forward his candidacy to the office. If anyone could pose a threat to the sitting president, Serj Sargsyan, in terms of organisational capability and financial firepower, it would certainly have been the richest of all Armenian oligarchs. Over the past few years, Tsarukian had gradually built his ‘Prosperous Armenia’ party into the second-largest in the land, with the reserves required to counter-act the blatant disparities that accompany every incumbent’s re-election campaign in the former Soviet Union. </div>
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But when push came to shove, Tsarukian drew back, prompting accusations that he had been in cahoots with the sitting president all along (his party used to be part of the ruling coalition and he is, after all, still an <i>oligarch</i>), and that this had all been a set-up designed to even Sargsyan’s path towards a second term. Armenia would not follow Georgia’s example, where president Saakashvili had been turned into a lame duck by that particularly country’s richest man, Bidzhina Ivanishvili, following parliamentary elections in 2012. The Armenian population was subsequently confronted with a complete fait accompli when the ANC’s Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Armenia’s first president and leader of the main opposition grouping, decided not to field his candidacy either. ‘Serjik’, with his control of state resources and the formidable machinery in and around the oligarch-stuffed Republican Party (which I shall henceforth refer to as ‘the system’) could now rest assured of his next term.</div>
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And so, at first at least, the election campaign became a rather lacklustre affair. The incumbent, predictably, had a ready supply of government-provided extras at his campaign rallies, usually consisting of state employees and their families (<a href="http://iwpr.net/report-news/search-culprits-follows-armenian-rally-blast" target="_blank">but no balloons!</a>). His utter lack of personal charisma didn’t matter: in Armenia, crowds know when to applaud and to cheer, and feign government-mandated enthusiasm at the appropriate moments. They had practiced it for decades in Soviet times, during their May Day rallies on Republic Square. Most of his opponents didn’t stand a chance in any case. Baruyr Hayrikian, a Soviet-era pro-independence dissident, wasn’t taken seriously as a politician despite the popular respect he commanded for his confrontations with Moscow, at a time when it was still not fashionable to believe in Armenian statehood. For all his qualities as an economist, former prime minister Hrant Bagradyan was still associated with the privations of the early years of independence, when Armenians had to subsist on rationed bread and 4 hours of electricity a day during their freezing winter. One fringe candidate limited his campaigning to a hunger strike in a tent on a Yerevan square – as a continuous protest against the public apathy that had apparently taken over the population. Raffi Hovanissian, Armenia’s first post-Soviet foreign minister, emerged as his most credible opponent from among the seven registered opposition and independent candidates. But with his Heritage Party lacking the financial and organisational resources of its oligarch-funded counterparts, he would have to make up for this disadvantage through a down-to-earth, Western-style, flesh-pressing campaign, which he attempted to do as best he could.</div>
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Still, thanks to Sargsyan’s administrative resources, these elections were to be a walk in the park for the incumbent. And, in any case, Armenia’s population appeared entirely apathetic, in no small part because of the tendency of young, unemployed men of working age to emigrate: Armenians habitually vote with their feet rather than at the ballot-box, a national tradition which the current elite doesn’t object to in the least, seeing it as a rather welcome pressure valve ridding the population of the ultimate potential troublemakers – young, educated, unemployed men. Faced with such weak opposition, Sargsyan could therefore afford to be generous. The other candidates were allowed free access to the media; there was minimal violence or intimidation at campaign rallies; and, significantly, with the spread of internet connectivity, streaming technologies and social media did reach at least part of the Armenian population. The pre-election discourse nevertheless remained so tepid that the incumbent could afford to be exceptionally gracious in expressing effusive praise for his opponents; an unprecedented event in Armenia’s post-independence history. There were no televised debates, in fact, there was no debating whatsoever in any meaningful sense of the word, despite of the momentous, urgent issues facing the country: economic stagnation, the Karabakh conflict, fraught relations with its neighbours, emigration.</div>
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You never know, however, and, sure enough, come election day, ‘the system’ went into full swing to make doubly sure its preferred candidate attained victory, its task facilitated by electoral lists that have, for years, been deliberately left inaccurate so that those who are dead and those who have fled may kindly provide their votes. Especially in poorer urban areas, the ‘khoroshi tgherq’ – literally ‘goodfellas’ – make certain to deliver ‘their’ precinct in favour of the authorities, 1920s Chicago-style; as elsewhere in the FSU, organised crime and pro-government politics are tightly interwoven at all levels, and the local (or even provincial) ‘hood’ is often a member of the ruling party. His goons hang around polling stations (or worse, become local election committee members), and do the dirty work like bribing voters, stuffing ballot boxes, or, if necessary, intimidating opposition proxies (if they are present at all, as most candidates lacked the resources to post them in every precinct this time round). Outside cities, in the villages, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Ur0maK-UdT0#!" target="_blank">‘the system’ is usually organised around the village heads</a> (often also local strongmen), who similarly undertake to ‘deliver’ their community’s votes, come what may. Regardless of your party affiliation, you must be either extremely courageous or extremely foolish to protest in the face of irregularities, and there is little doubt that most of these activities go unreported. How Western observers - most of whom have merely parachuted into the country for a few weeks or days - would be able to detect the full extent of such behaviour is, also, a very pertinent question. </div>
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And all of this combined neatly with the country’s fundamentally distorted media landscape. When the OSCE observer mission reported that the various candidates did have fair access to the media, it was only half-correct: it would have been more accurate to state that these candidates were <i>tolerated</i> on channels that are, overwhelmingly, owned by government-connected individuals. This mattered – and very much so – on election day itself: for incisive reporting on violations you had to visit the alternative outlets, some which were anti-government channels that had been taken off the air years ago, often in the run-up to previous elections. In the absence of cleverly denied over-the-air broadcasting licenses, A1Plus, Gala TV (and an internet-only source, Civilnet.TV) were left streaming video to the very few Armenian citizens with access to broadband. Later, instead of doing what responsible journalists are supposed to do on an election night, the oligarch-owned terrestrial channels - with their mass audiences - swiftly switched to a mixture of pop music, chat shows and soap operas, instead of reporting on the press conference where Sargsyan’s challenger alleged massive fraud, a major news story any right-thinking news professional would insist on covering live on an election night. </div>
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Who won the vote? God knows. As the OSCE observer mission should itself admit, Rumsfeld-style, there are too many known unkowns and unkown unkowns to establish whether Sargsyan got 40, 50 or 70% of the vote. What Armenians do know, however, is that there were violations, and, that in their society, there <i>are </i>people who remain, as ever, above and beyond the law. You cannot blame them for extrapolating from there: in the presence of this very <i>known </i>reality, and the absence of the <i>rule of law </i>percentages become a moot point. For Armenian democrats, the OSCE's claim that these elections were an 'improvement' implied a sinister truth: that Armenia’s continued domination by a privileged, thuggish oligarchic class has become so entrenched, so utterly all-encompassing and structurally dominant, so ‘reified’ as to be invisible to those who are supposed to uphold democratic norms, as they remain fixated on the finer points of (observable) electoral procedure. And that is a very dangerous development indeed. It is a feeling of disgust and despair with all of the above, not some kind of irrational or immature inability to accept election results, that prompted <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-YNSaq8HY0" target="_blank">courageous democratically-minded Armenian citizens like Lena Nazaryan to display a distrust towards official figures, and loudly protest observers’ reports that uncritically document ‘improvements’ over previous elections earlier today</a>. What a pity the observers themselves chose to move away, instead of trying to <i>understand </i>as well as <i>observe</i>.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-65961328512463867122013-02-03T18:52:00.001+00:002013-03-03T15:53:49.439+00:00Aylisli’s Artful Challenge<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Akram Aylisli, the eminent Azeri writer who has stirred up a hornets’ nest with his recently published novella on the Karabakh conflict - <a href="http://magazines.russ.ru/druzhba/2012/12/aa5.html" target="_blank">“Stone Dreams”</a> - is evidently a courageous man. A ‘People’s Artist’ of the Republic of Azerbaijan, a recipient of the country’s highest state honours, he has taken upon himself to do something extremely dangerous, reckless even by the standards of nationalist conformism that suffuse politics in the Caucasus. It takes a lot of daring to break through the taboos and manipulated historiographies constructed by subsequent nationalist governments and their subservient ‘intelligentsias’, and place oneself in “the other side’s” shoes, even for one moment. For this, Mr. Aylisli deserves respect and consideration, and not the relentless, apparently government-sanctioned harassment of which he has been the victim over the past week.</div>
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In the novella, Armenians, not Azeris are the ones being persecuted and massacred; and, contrary to orthodox Azeri historiography, Armenians are not portrayed as almost-innately ‘fascist’ intruders subservient to Russian imperialism (the standard Azeri nationalist trope) - but as people, ordinary, frightened, fragile human beings caught up in a period of history when awful things were done by and to all sides of an ethnic divide. Aylishli correctly identifies the major pathology of the Caucasus – selective memory - and, in doing so, breaks a cardinal rule in all narratives of hatred that pervade the region, and in so many other regions of the world saddled with sectarian divides: “Ignore the other’s suffering, especially when it is inflicted by yourself. Wallow in your own suffering, especially when it is inflicted by the other”. </div>
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The reaction to Aylisli has been one of furious indignation. Among others, nembers of the youth wing of president Aliyev’s Yeni Azerbaijan Party (YAP) organised<a href="http://en.apa.az/news_another_protest_held_against_akram_aylis_187065.html" target="_blank"> a demonstration during which the author was accused of ‘being Armenian’ and no-so-politely being told to emigrate</a>. Azerbaijan’s parliament – the Milli Mejlis - opened its first session of the year with a debate on the matter, with pro-government MPs again using the ‘Armenian’ epithet as an insult, and one individual even demanding <a href="http://www.rferl.org/content/armenia-azerbaijan-stone-dreams-akram-aylisli/24890815.html" target="_blank">Aylisli undergo DNA analysis</a> – assumedly, to look for the ‘Armenian genes’ that may have muddled his patriotic thinking. Unfazed, Aylisli asked these gentlemen how they could <a href="http://wap.contact.az/docs/2013/Interview/020200026937en.htm" target="_blank">unite their wish to rule over the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh with their obvious racism towards that very ethnic group</a>. More importantly, however, he issued a challenge to his Armenian counterparts: the response he expects is not applause – which he obviously knew he would get – but an equal level of self-examination, over events like the Khojaly tragedy of 1992, or the expulsions of Armenia’s Azeri minority at various points in the 20th century.</div>
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How unfortunate, then, that this call was made in the very week of premiere of what is probably the highest-budget film to have been produced in Armenia since independence (at a cost of USD 7 million),<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILguHHS1b9U" target="_blank"> on “national hero” Garegin Nzhdeh</a>. Problem is: apart from being a military leader at during the First Armenian Republic (1918-1920), Nzhdeh also developed an ideology called ‘Tseghakron’ (a fanciful, racist combination of nationalist, Christian and pagan mysticism) during the 1930s, and actively collaborated in the setting up of Hitler’s Armenian Legion, with the aim of liberating the Armenian SSR from Stalin’s Soviet Union, facts that are either minimised or whitewashed by the country’s nationalist historians and politicians (<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l887fLIu83E&feature=endscreen&NR=1" target="_blank">as seen and heard in this government TV documentary</a>). The premiere of the film contrasts dramatically with Aylisli’s actions: just as one public intellectual used his art to question and critique the assumptions held within his own society on his side of the divide, Armenian artists allowed their elite to abuse an art-form, in order to uncritically lionize an individual associated with an openly racist creed and –to boot – the Third Reich. (That Nzhdeh and his balderdash 'ideology' have been <a href="http://www.hhk.am/en/rpa-library/" target="_blank">adopted by the country's ruling Republican Party</a> makes this situation all the worse: as if they couldn't choose out of a plethora of far more deserving historical figures.)</div>
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It would indeed be a pity if Armenian intellectuals now shrugged their shoulders at the somewhat unfamiliar sight of an Azeri counterpart breaking through the selective memories that plague all societies in the South Caucasus, and proceeded with ‘business as usual’ in response (except perhaps for a few predictable snippets of uneasy praise). Armenian memories are just as selective, and hampered, among others, by the routine conflation of Turks and Azeris, and an entirely unfounded fear that admitting ‘their’ atrocities against Azeris would somehow undermine the historical veracity and moral repugnance of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in Ottoman Turkey. The right answer, from the Armenian side, would be a frank examination of historic episodes like the March 1918 events in Baku, or the forcible expulsions of Azeri populations from the country in 1918-1920 and 1988-1990, or the Khojaly tragedy of 1992. </div>
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In so doing, intellectuals and artists in both societies could eventually end up redeeming themselves from their sheepish subservience to nationalist narratives since independence. Azerbaijan and Armenia are both authoritarian, patriarchal societies whose nationalists have thrived on spoon-feeding unfortunately all-too receptive populations with falsehoods, upheld through the disciplining force of the taboo, and, failing that, the use of intimidation and physical force. Aylisli has fired the first shot in challenging these falsehoods on his side of the ethnic divide. Let’s now see if his Armenian counterparts pick up the gauntlet, and perform their role in questioning, critiquing and piercing through the very same taboos that govern discourse on their side. Unless, of course, they believe that uncritically parroting the languages of power and conformity is all they are supposed to do.<br />
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(UPDATE: According to latest reports, President Aliyev issued a decree today -7 February- depriving Aylisli from the title of 'People's Writer' of Azerbaijan.)</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-31194167345143460472012-09-03T22:03:00.000+01:002013-03-03T15:54:03.815+00:00Playing the Patriot<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Let's first enumerate a few simple, incontestable facts: in 2004, during a NATO seminar in Budapest, Ramil Safarov, a lieutenant in the armed forces of Azerbaijan, hacks a sleeping Armenian co-student to death, with a hatchet. In 2006, he is condemned to a minimum of 35 years in jail by a Hungarian court. In August 2012, he is handed over to Azerbaijan, under a European treaty that allows signatories' citizens to sit out their sentences in their home countries. Despite assurances to the contrary, once in Baku, he is given a hero's welcome, pardoned, and promoted to the rank of major by the Aliyev regime. Armenia promptly cuts off its diplomatic relations with Hungary; its president, Serj Sargsyan, issues an uncharacteristically blunt statement a few days later, asserting Armenia's readiness for war. The plot thickens when, almost simultaneously, it is revealed cash-strapped Budapest could be the recipient of a token of oil-rich Azerbaijan's generosity in the form of a multi-billion dollar loan.</div>
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As usual when base nationalist passions come into play, reactions in Azerbaijan and Armenia were depressingly predictable. In Baku, the media and an army of regime sycophants praised president Aliyev for a diplomatic coup, unapologetically raising Safarov's racist hatchet-job to those of a national hero. Armenia's zealots were all too happy to latch on to these actions as proof of the "innate barbarism" of Azerbaijanis, their supposed blood-lust, originating somewhere in the steppes of medieval Central Asia. Lost somewhere in between were the voices of reason, questioning the Azeri government's actions or calling for moderation, and promptly eliciting familiar accusations of 'treason' and 'prostitution' from nationalist and regime trolls. Ethnic antagonisms require two to tango, and the Armenian-Azeri dance of mutual hatred was once again a spectacle to behold.</div>
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Lost in this cacophony of triumphalism and recrimination was also a simple fact: of a corrupt and authoritarian regime using and abusing nationalist emotion to camouflage its utter contempt for democracy and the rule of law. The government in Baku ranks among the planet's great kleptocracies; thanks to its country's immense oil wealth, the Aliyev clan has been able to amass fabulous riches, according to several courageous exposés by Azeri investigative journalists. This regime falsifies elections, censors its media, frames opposition members, jails activists for the most trivial offences. Laws - as to economic propriety, civil rights and political-judicial procedure - are there to be broken at the dictator's and his cabal's whim: in that sense, the Safarov case was<i> </i>nothing exceptional.</div>
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In the absence of a democratic mandate, or an ability/willingness to uphold the rule of law, the Aliyev regime latches onto the basest form of 'Ersatz' legitimacy: feigned patriotism. A search for this 'Ersatz' legitimacy is what drove the Argentine generals into invading the Falklands/Malvinas. It is what underlies the Assad regime's commitment to the Palestinian cause. It is what drove the Greek colonels towards their attempted 'enosis' with Cyprus, in 1974. In short, Aliyev must play up his patriotic credentials in order to dissimulate his (quite unpatriotic) corruption and authoritarianism. Forget your stolen billions. Forget your trampled civil rights. Think of Safarov and don't forget how our dear leader led him to liberty.<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Qx1Tsdse4/UEUdHhIxV0I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/Yyx5nahhiEM/s1600/Gordon+Brown+Meets+Ilham+Heydar+oglu+Aliyev+EI_FvBtmjC6l.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i4Qx1Tsdse4/UEUdHhIxV0I/AAAAAAAAAHQ/Yyx5nahhiEM/s320/Gordon+Brown+Meets+Ilham+Heydar+oglu+Aliyev+EI_FvBtmjC6l.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The sous-texte in all of this is, of course, that, just as the Aliyev regime delivered Safarov, it will deliver Nagorno-Karabakh: to the current president, this would be the holy grail of fake legitimacies - Ilham Aliyev, 'liberator' of Daglik Qarabag, saviour of the nation. In that sense, the glorification of a murderer acquires a much more sinister meaning. If the government in Baku is serious about ever regaining control over Nagorno-Karabakh <i>and its Armenian population</i>, how exactly is that population to<i> </i>accept its authority when it lionises those who perform hatchet-jobs on sleeping Armenians? Or does the regime in Baku simply not care because it wants the enclave<i> without its current population</i>? Policymakers in Yerevan and Stepanakert will no doubt make the worst-case assumption and answer the last question in the affirmative.<br />
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Suffice it to say that peace processes seldom survive the combination of nationalist posturing and worst-case scenarios.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-56375586196721753162012-07-09T11:24:00.001+01:002013-03-03T15:54:15.523+00:00Armenia and its Oligarchs<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In <a href="http://kovkaz.blogspot.co.uk/2011/10/defending-indefensible.html" target="_blank">an earlier post, </a>I pointed to
the dangers involved in ignoring the many deficiencies within Armenian society,
arguing that progress would emerge not through accommodation with a corrupt and
increasingly arrogant <i>soi-disant</i> elite, but through consistent critique of and principled
resistance against its many excesses.
Unfortunately, events over the past few weeks have proved my assertion
that government in Armenia is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of some
people, by some people and for some people </i>painfully correct: in the
absence of a state under the rule of law, all become prey to the whims of those higher-up in
the echelons of power. </span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Many will point to the recent parliamentary
elections as an element of progress in the country’s ongoing democratisation. The government triumphantly pointed to <a href="http://www.osce.org/odihr/elections/91643" target="_blank">the final report by Western observers </a>stating that the polls represented an
improvement over their past iterations.
The different political parties had enhanced access to the electronic
media, there was little pre-election violence, and the main problems lay in the use of administrative resources and the distribution of electoral bribes by various parties and candidates (of both the
pro-government and opposition camps), as if a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">bought</i> election that turns votes into a marketable commodity is
somehow more legitimate than one that involves creative counting and
tabulation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In the cat-and-mouse game
between falsifiers and observers, it appears the falsifiers have simply
perfected their methods - by limiting them to vote-buying, disappearing ink and
a few other selected tricks - and the observers have been struck by
fatigue. A trend is seemingly emerging
in OSCE/CoE observer missions in the former Soviet space: Western states seem
to have given up hope of these states ever becoming democratic, and
appear to put less effort in their observer missions than in the 90s or the
noughties. On the other hand,
authoritarian regimes throughout the FSU have become more adept at hiding their
electoral manipulations behind legalisms and social machinations that
consistently pitch the playing field in their favour: whether it is their
control over and alliance with wealthy oligarchs, their direct and indirect
long-term usurpation of the (electronic) media, the timely elimination of
potentially successful challengers, and their distortions of the judicial
process, the electoral game been slanted towards the powers that be for
decades. Long enough, in any case, for
electoral shenanigans to become institutionalized, reified, accepted as a fact
of life. And that is nothing to be
self-congratulatory about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But elections go only halfway in
making a country fully accountable to its people; even if they had been held
according to the highest democratic standards, the elected legislative bodies they
would have produced would have been utterly worthless, because the laws they
passed would not be applied onto society by a corrupt and insipid regime. The other, often forgotten and possibly more important
half of the liberal-democratic equation has always been the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">rule of law</i>. The legitimacy of a 21<sup>st</sup>-century
state is, after all, based on its ability to maintain order while upholding the
rights of its citizens, to safeguard the common good rather than the good of
those in control of government, to banish violence from society and make the just life possible, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">for all</i>, on a level
playing field that, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">at the very least</i>,
provides everyone with security and equality<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">
before the law</i>. Armenian realities are
even more depressing on that front. For
the vast majority of citizens, life is neither good, nor just, nor secure. The economic, political, judicial playing
field belongs to a small oligarchic class so conceited it does not even try to
hide its contempt for society at large. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIFNGaT6VRI" target="_blank">explosion of balloons during a pre-election event by the Republican Party in the capital Yerevan.</a> That the balloons were filled
with highly flammable butane gas instead of inert (and more expensive) helium
would seem like an act of criminal negligence, for which no one has been
charged to date. And that president
Sargsyan carried on and delivered his speech as scheduled despite of 150 fellow
citizens being injured in the blast would seem like the height of tactlessness. But why should all of this be surprising? The
laws of criminal negligence are, after all, suspended for select members of the
party in power; and how much respect can you feign if you see your voters as
electoral <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">meat, </i>to be bought and sold
by the kilogram?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But then, showing respect is not
the oligarchs’ strong suit. Take the
former mayor of Yerevan, Gagik Beglaryan, aka ‘Chorny Gago’ or ‘Black Gago’ (FYI
- You can’t be a self-respecting oligarch without an appropriate, dangerously
sounding nickname). Mr. Beglaryan was
dismissed from his post a few years ago, apparently for assaulting
one of the president’s bodyguards (nickname: ‘Gndo’) in a dispute over a seat
at a Placido Domingo concert at the Yerevan Opera (roughly equivalent to Boris
Johnson roughing up a member of the Queen’s household cavalry at the Royal
Albert Hall). Long before that, gangs of burly men
reportedly made his fief in Yerevan a no-go zone for opposition candidates during
previous election campaigns. All of that
did not disqualify him from <a href="http://www.a1plus.am/en/politics/2012/06/28/gagik-beglaryan" target="_blank">becoming Minister for Transport and Communication</a>
in the current Armenian government. In
Armenia, <a href="http://news.am/eng/news/111411.html" target="_blank">‘services rendered’, membership in the right political party and a bit of time wash away your sins more effectively than Ariel</a>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The recent, deadly icing on the
cake – in terms of the arrogance of Armenia’s ruling class - was the violent
assault by grunts working for Ruben Hayrapetyan (aka ‘Nemetz Rubo’ or ‘German
Rubo’) on three patrons of his Harsnaqar restaurant near Yerevan, who happened
to be military doctors. The precise
details of what preceded the assault are unclear; what is certain is that there
was an exchange of insults between at least one of the group and an employee of
Hayrapetyan’s establishment, ostensibly over the restaurant's dress code. A group of security guards subsequently surprised the three medics as they were leaving, seriously injuring all of them, and thrashing one into a coma from
which he did not recover. In fact, he
died a few days later, prompting the resignation of Hayrapetyan from his parliamentary seat in the face of a fierce public outcry, in a very rare instance of public accountability.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For those
uninitiated to the wonders of Armenia’s oligarchy: Nemetz Rubo also happens to
be the chairman of Armenia’s football federation. And neither FIFA nor UEFA seem to have a
problem with him openly admitting to electoral fraud, belittling the
intelligence of female journalists or telling them that being ‘impregnated’ by
his son would not be such a bad thing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Rnkg82tYZBg?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The problem goes far beyond a few individuals and a handful of isolated incidents. Armenia's oligarchic class stands far above and beyond the laws of the land. It steals Armenia’s natural resources and soils its environment through opaquely owned foreign-registered
corporations. It destroys Yerevan’s precious green spaces
in its drive to fill the city with its and its relatives’ open-air
cafes. And it doesn’t really mind when the
country’s barren villages bleed dry in the face of socio-economic hopelessness: better for the miserable to emigrate than to demonstrate. In any case, when the emigrants send back
their remittances into a blockaded and isolated economy, the oligarchy's cartels and monopolies ensure the money flows
straight back into its bank accounts through over-priced and under-taxed
imported commodities. And it maintains this
most literally parasitical status by usurping the Armenian state for its purposes, bending and breaking the law at will.
It does so with a broad grin, spitting on the faces of Armenia's ordinary citizens while openly bragging about its very ‘manly’ illegalities.</span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To
paraphrase an old Armenian proverb: <a href="http://armenianow.com/society/39082/armenia_candlelight_vigil_vahe_avetian" target="_blank">one day, these citizens will stop pretending it is raining when being spat at</a>.</span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-10028841256290438622012-06-09T14:52:00.001+01:002013-03-03T15:54:30.826+00:00Greece and its Fascists<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One week from now, Greece will find itself at yet another unwelcome crossroads. It is difficult to
overstate the importance of what could be the country’s most important moment
since the fall of the military junta, in 1974.
The choices are stark; the potential consequences dramatic. But the various <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">economic </i>alternatives provided by a panoply of parties from the
radical left to the centre-right pale into insignificance when compared with
the existential choice between democracy and thuggery, civilisation and
barbarism presented by the neo-Nazis of Golden Dawn.<o:p></o:p></div>
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The gradual re-entry of violence into the political process
has been one constant feature of the Hellenic Republic’s slow descent into hell
over the past few years. Unfortunately,
it took a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUidyAmMnbI" target="_blank">televised incident</a> to shock a nation that had so far been all too acquiescent
to that violence into a very necessary debate.
But truth be told, the smacking of veteran communist MP Liana Kanelli by
the neo-Nazis' spokesman was nothing but the very public
tip of an iceberg of terror and intimidation.
In fact, party-affiliated thugs have been threatening and assaulting journalists, left-wing
politicians and, especially, migrants for several years, often with impunity,
in much the same manner as Hitler’s brownshirts in early thirties Germany.<br />
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The daughter of the party’s loud-mouthed Führer, Mikhaloliakos, was thus<a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/02/greek-neo-nazi-golden-dawn" target="_blank"> arrested alongside two MPs </a>during an assault – vigilante man-hunt would perhaps be more
appropriate – on migrants in the centre of Athens. A Jerusalem Post reporter witnessing a
similar confrontation was, in turn, attacked by an angry masked mob. There are several instances of Greek <a href="http://digitaljournal.com/article/324527" target="_blank">journalists being intimidated </a>by members of Golden Dawn. The problem is, of course, that these
incidents were <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not </i>broadcast on live
television.</div>
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Mikhaloliakos himself is on the record as praising the leaders of
the 1967 military coup, and denigrating the value of the democratic process by
claiming that ‘elections have never saved Greece’, as clearly seen and heard in
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxxDsXS0zJ0&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">this video</a>. Even more alarmingly, there
are persistent rumours of collusion between elements of the police and members
of the party (although hyperbolic claims that '50% of the security forces voted for the party' should be taken with a large grain of salt, considering the necessarily scant circumstantial evidence they are based on).<o:p></o:p></div>
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This combination of thuggery, fascist anti-constitutionalism
and possible ties to elements within the security forces would pose a problem to any democratic
polity; in a country with Greece’s history, it presents a potential
time-bomb. The fractures of the 1946-49 civil war were only summarily taped over in the 1974 post-dictatorship
constitutional arrangement known as the ‘metapolitefsi’. For someone – anyone – to be allowed to
campaign on a platform that would tear them open once again is beyond
comprehension. <o:p></o:p><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6Vx9PC63oQ/T9NWh844pTI/AAAAAAAAAGw/0IlO1OlZ0eU/s1600/nikos-michaloliakos-leader-of-greek-neonazi-party-golden-dawn.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-i6Vx9PC63oQ/T9NWh844pTI/AAAAAAAAAGw/0IlO1OlZ0eU/s320/nikos-michaloliakos-leader-of-greek-neonazi-party-golden-dawn.gif" width="294" /></a></div>
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Is it really this hard to ban a party that brazenly
challenges the state’s monopoly of legitimate force, openly advocates the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">subversion</i> of Greece’s constitution and unashamedly
boasts a programme that violates many of the most fundamental points of the
European Convention and UN Declaration on Human Rights? </div>
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There is indeed a cacophony of choices for Greece's voters come June 17th. But abolishing electoral democracy and civilisation itself should <i>not </i>be among them.<br />
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-35844994092457042152012-04-21T19:41:00.017+01:002013-03-03T15:54:47.961+00:00A Tale of Two Nations<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The 24th of April is upon us again, and for the 97th time, that date will pass without proper acknowledgment of the Armenian Genocide by the government of Turkey.<o:p></o:p><br />
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The Genocide's survivors, and their descendants are, time and again, confronted with the refrain that ‘history should be left to historians’ and that this is not a political matter. In the most general sense, those who try to divorce history from politics in so definite and absolute a manner forget that, if politics is about the making of history, history is also about the making of politics. The ways we treat issues like racism, anti-Semitism, authoritarianism, war, democracy, equality, security in our times are inextricably bound with our societies’ views on the histories connected to these issues, from which their relevant discourses and practices inevitably emanate. <br />
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The continuing very <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">political</i> relevance of the Armenian Genocide is amplified by the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">politics</i> of denial and the continuing effects these have on the two societies most directly affected. In Turkey proper (as amply documented by Turkish sociologist Taner Akçam in the video below) denial sustains the mythologies associated with a virulently anti-Armenian, anti-Western, paranoid ultra-nationalism that has always existed in the dark underbelly of the ‘deep’ state (which claimed <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hrant_Dink">Hrant Dink</a> as its most recent victim, in 2007). Among Armenians, denial constantly re-opens the wounds of 1915, combining the traumas of victimhood into an unrealistic nostalgia for dangerous and self-destructive imaginaries, and a deep-seated fear and hatred of the stereotypical 'barbaric Turk' (one that is, incidentally, extended towards the Azeris, massively complicating a solution to the - very contemporary and <i>political</i> - conflict around Nagorno-Karabakh).<br />
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This is a tale of two deeply troubled nations.</div>
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On the one hand, Armenians maintain a profound sense of injustice that simple exhortations to 'look towards the future' will not dispel: attempts at extermination have a rather annoying tendency to be remembered by victims and their descendants. Almost every Armenian family’s history – including my late father's – can be traced through the sands of the Syrian Desert. The Genocide stands at the core of Armenians’ identity, and remains a rallying cry precisely because of the lack of closure brought about by this absence of recognition by the successor to the perpetrator state. It is unrealistic, and, in fact, patronising for third parties - including subsequent US and UK governments - to expect a group with such deeply held grievance to simply roll out of the way of geopolitical imperatives and give up in its quest for recognition. The core demands of Armenian lobbying groups – of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">recognition</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">contrition</i> – are uniformly held, by Armenians in both the diaspora and Armenia proper, whatever their ideological persuasion, from the radical left to the extreme right.</div>
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On the other hand, Ankara loses an absurd amount of energy and prestige in trying to re-write what cannot be re-written in an attempt to defend the historical reputation of an Ottoman autocratic junta that shared none of the democratic values Turkey’s current leaders claim to aspire to. It reacts in an entirely irrational manner every time the issue is brought up in foreign legislatures or on international fora, a manner that is quite removed from the emerging self-view in Ankara of Turkey as a leading regional power. It pursues a blatantly absurd version of history that requires it to fall into the ridiculous at best, heartless at worst (as when it argues, without a hint of irony, that Armenians 'just died' from hunger and disease after death marches into<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_ez-Zor_Camps"> </a><i><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_ez-Zor_Camps">desert concentration camps</a>)</i>. And it ends up restricting the freedom of speech of its own citizens through article 301 of its penal code in its attempts to maintain the historiographic orthodoxy of their discourse.</div>
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Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, recently made statements about ‘sharing the pain’ with the Armenians on the 100<sup>th</sup> anniversary of the Genocide (naturally avoiding that term), in 3 years time. That would perhaps, just perhaps, be the suitable time for Ankara to come to terms with its past by properly - <i>expressly</i> - recognising that what happened in 1915 was <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Genocide</i>. The odds are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">vastly </i>against that happening; but anything less will leave both peoples stuck in a part of shared history that has, for too long, driven the mutual hatred and distrust of generations. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-64978086779435867772012-02-07T19:17:00.009+00:002013-03-03T15:55:01.219+00:00The Trouble with Syria<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Let’s first get something out of the way: the Syrian regime is one of the nastier ones in the world, and even by the nasty standards of the Middle East, it excels in its oppressive paranoia. It is thus not at all surprising that a large number of Syrians would rebel against a cliquish government that, just as in neighbouring Iraq in years past, is largely built on the loyalty of a religious minority (in this case, the Alawite one). But the Middle East being what it is, nothing is as it seems at first sight, and one must ask oneself: is the outrage heard in Western and Middle Eastern capitals truly one born out of a bleeding-heart concern for democracy? With absolutist Gulf monarchies like Qatar and Saudi Arabia clamouring for democratisation and human rights, there is more than just a whiff of hypocrisy in the air.</div>
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First, there is the Syrian opposition: even by the dismal standards of Middle Eastern opposition movements, it is woefully divided. An array of groups each have their own particular constituencies and programmes, and have so far failed to unite within one single umbrella organisation capable of clearly laying out a path for a post-Assad Syria. And this is particularly troubling in view of Syria’s sectarian divides; without a clear commitment of these groups to some kind of blueprint for the future that respects minority rights, the danger is for this anti-Assad uprising to eventually morph into a witch-hunt against the Alawites and the numerous non-Sunni minorities that make up 25-30% of the country’s population.</div>
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Second, it is far from clear that this is a clear-cut case of the ‘Syrian people’ rising against an oppressive regime. Assad and his acolytes do have the support of a still-significant proportion of the Syrian population; the reliance by Western media and politicians on claims by the opposition that pro-government protesters are somehow ‘forced’ to attend the rallies in support of Assad are rather facile - they would claim that as the opposition, wouldn’t they? Assad is not Gaddafi; he has an efficient, well-armed and -disciplined security apparatus behind him, and is not about to fall from power, as pointed out by as consummate an observer of the Middle East as Robert Fisk. In the range of possible outcomes, democracy will have to contend with either a massacre of the opposition by the regime, or a protracted civil war, or a massacre of the Alawites and other minorities by the opposition. Taking sides in this war amounts to one gigantic wager with the lives of additional thousands.</div>
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The real issue here is not democracy or the human rights of the Syrians. This is not what this particular wager can be about; considering the risks, the reward must be something much more incentivising to the West. And this is where Syria’s Iranian connections come in: it would be strategically foolish for Western powers not to use this opportunity to pry away the Islamic Republic’s main ally in the Levant, its conduit for arms to one of its principal deterrents against Israel (Hezbollah). Prying away Syria would deprive Tehran of a major retaliatory weapon if military action against it is imminent, or limit its ability to 'create mischief' behind a nuclear shield if it nuclearises. As so often in international affairs, it is the hard realities of politics, not the bleeding hearts of politicians, that are behind a clamouring for humaneness that was so absent in the case of, say, Bahrain. Too bad if the wager results in the disintegration of Syria, or a massacre of the opposition or the pro-government camp.</div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-83510057816178626042011-12-26T09:59:00.005+00:002011-12-26T10:15:54.436+00:00Pravda, Panarmenian.net and Neuroticism<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>373</o:Words> <o:characters>2143</o:Characters> <o:company>LSE</o:Company> <o:lines>35</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>5</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>2511</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>14.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> 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</xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:JA;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Little more than two decades ago, there used to be a country called the Soviet Union, ruled by a Communist Party that had little tolerance for ideological deviance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The mouthpiece of that party was called ‘Pravda’, staffed by petty ministry-of-truth bureaucrats whose purpose it was to enforce the party’s monopoly on power and extol the virtues of Communism, if need be through denigrating slander, an art that was perfected during Stalin’s years.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Pravda mentality is, it seems, alive and well in Armenia, with two minor variations: the ideology to be defended is no longer Marxism-Leninism, but petty nationalism, and the mouthpiece is called ‘<a href="http://www.panarmenian.net/">panarmenian.net</a>’.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">In a <a href="http://www.panarmenian.net/eng/details/87546/A_crumpled_roseleaf_or_the_price_of_Armenian_accent_in_Turkish_freedom_of_expression">particularly vicious and chauvinistic piece</a> on that web-based news outlet, a certain Marina Ananikyan takes issue with those citizens who dare question their own republic’s defence policy, who want to celebrate Azerbaijani culture (‘non-existent’, according to the author) on Armenian soil, or those who have dared question the wisdom of the decision by the French parliament to criminalise denial of the Armenian Genocide.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>After viciously attacking and ridiculing Armenia’s NGO sector, the author concludes that: “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">People capable of treason should be called to account.</i>”<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US">The mentality that allows one to classify the expression of an opinion, or the organization of days of culture, or the advocacy of human rights, or, in fact, the questioning of a foreign legislative act as ‘treason’ has always eluded me.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it is intimately linked to the completely skewed attitude towards statehood that pervades so many former Soviet societies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The state is there to be obeyed, to be served; as in Soviet times, and as in Leninist political parties, once policy has been established, it must be adhered to by all citizen-comrades.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Any dissenting voice is immediately qualified as ‘treasonous’ and sent into the realm of dissidence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>An echo of this attitude could also be heard in the <a href="http://www.azatutyun.am/content/article/24429589.html">confrontation between the governor of Syunik province and environmental activists</a> protesting the expansion of copper mining, where after a few sinister threats, the activists (‘shrimps’) were basically called upon to shut up and serve their state.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span lang="EN-US" style="mso-ansi-language:EN-US">I guess the choice here is between a jealous, neurotic state that demands obedience and crushes dissent wherever it sees it, or a self-confident, tolerant state that thrives on pluralism and debate, turning diversity of opinion into a strength.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>M. Ananikyan and panarmenian.net have clearly chosen the neurotic variant; their readers deserve better.</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-44393633882005801892011-11-30T15:05:00.009+00:002011-12-01T10:29:53.317+00:00Back to the Future, Again?<div style="text-align: justify;">Is this how it feels before global calamity?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The problem with historically transformative disasters – the two World Wars, the collapse of the Soviet Union – is that they are usually accompanied by a confluence of circumstance and agency that causes the situation to spiral beyond the control of political actors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Witness the dramatic acceleration of the Soviet Union’s hitherto gradual decline following the August 1991 coup.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Or, in a more conventional vein, the deadly forces unleashed like a coiled spring by a few shots in Sarajevo, in August 1914.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Economic crises and financial crashes provide even more appropriate examples of what complexity theorists call this the ‘butterfly effect’: a minor event (‘the flaps of a butterfly’s wing’s in China’) is amplified through an unstable system out of all proportion (in the conventional narrative, into a hurricane).<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Joe Shmoe fails to pay the sub-prime mortgage on his woefully overvalued home in Duluth, Ohio, and Italy goes bust, with or without a few human blunders in between.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Today, we, in the supposedly victorious post-Cold War West, may be finding ourselves in a similar situation, where an unstable set-up could combine with political ineptitude to produce the most unintended results.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The world (or, to be more exact, the Western) economy has been considerably weakened by the ongoing financial crisis, whose underlying systemic tensions and imbalances are still present in unmitigated form.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The banks may have been saved, but only by transforming private into public debt, pulling down the weakest sovereigns in the process.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Global trade still places China as the export manufacturing powerhouse it was before the crisis; efforts at encouraging domestic consumption there have been piecemeal, and the yuan is still undervalued.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The financial system remains, for all intents and purposes, unreformed:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>it has been tweaked at the edges, but over the longer term, its capacity to produce systemic crises has neither been eliminated nor in fact mitigated.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The Euro’s possible death-throes are an ominous sign that these imbalances are creating a tipping point, at the other end of which lies financial, economic and political chaos. </p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-817htXzuq0Y/TtZMNR9JQVI/AAAAAAAAAFg/QaFf6icRIQI/s320/european-origin.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5680811771016331602" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Any miscalculation would be disastrous at this point. At stake is not just a common currency, or a particular economic model.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At stake is the very structure of security on the European continent, in Western Europe since World War Two, in the centre and the east since the fall of the Berlin Wall.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">But what the myopic Eurosceptics in the conservative party and on the pages of the Daily Mail, The Daily Telegraph and the Spectator either do not realise (or do not want to realise), is that is isn’t simply Italian and Greek pensions, the Franco-German axis, European democracy or that is at stake with the failure of the common currency; it is the very idea, the very mode of thought that has made Western Europe the most peaceful region in the history of mankind over the past 60 years. </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">De-securitisation and a-security are central to this mode of thought: the idea that there are no longer security issues between European nations, and that threats are defined and tackled collectively, be they of a military, political, economic, societal or environmental nature.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is precisely what dampened the modern European curse of nationalism following World War Two, and it has become taken for granted to such a degree that we might actually end up inadvertently losing the very stability it has provided over the past decades.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This has happened before: the crowds that cheered their armies into the meat-grinder that World War One was to become were blinded by the progress, prosperity and European hegemony of the years that came before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Those – like David Cameron - who see the possible fall of the Euro as an ‘opportunity’ are in no way less small-minded.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">In fact, a plethora of anti-European market fundamentalists – among others Daniel Hannan, Norman Tebbitt and Janet Daley, and the larger part of the parliamentary Conservative Party – have made a point of populating the pages of the British press with a curious and incoherent mix of the euro-sceptic and germanophobic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As usual, they accuse Europe of a lack of democracy, nay, even of organising coups; the solution, they say, is not the democratisation of Europe’s institutions but a return of powers to Westminster.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Staunch parliamentarians that they are, they suddenly discover the wonders of the not-so-parliamentary referendum. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, with a mindset stuck somewhere in 1945, they accuse Germany of trying to take over Europe, the implication being that the United Kingdom would have to play its traditional role of ‘balancer’, as in the good old 19<sup>th</sup> century.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For good measure, they also advise the PM not to trust ‘them frogs’, no doubt remembering the past glories of Trafalgar and Lord Nelson.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some people apparently don’t mind taking the term ‘<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">conservative’</i> to its absurd, retrograde extremes.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Purposefully or not, all this finger-pointing serves to camouflage the one elephant in the room: the dismal failure of the Anglo-Saxon model of unfettered, minimally regulated capitalism in fulfilling the very promise of prosperity it has been dangling in front of the overwhelming majority of society for decades, but could only deliver at the cost of massive indebtedness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Contrast this with the success of the much more tightly regulated and consensual German economy – where employers, trade unions and the state co-ordinate instead of engaging in never-ending class warfare – and the inherent power relations that drive such narrow fake patriotic rhetoric become clear.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">This is not about defending democracy; after all, none of these instant radical democrats are clamouring for referenda on that insultingly archaic and undemocratic institution much closer to home, the Corporation of London, or the austerity measures and cutbacks that have affected millions right here, in Britain.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is about transferring powers back to nation states, whose individual regulatory power will pale into insignificance when confronted with the might of transnational corporations and financial entities whose market capitalisations and turnovers can rival an individual country’s GDP.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> This is about diverting attention from local socio-economic failures through a primitive appeal to parochial nationalism. </span>This is about divide, rule, and obfuscate, and certainly not people power.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">The implication of this euro- and Germany-bashing is that Greece and Italy would have had a choice in the absence of intervention from Brussels to retain the ridiculously inept governments of Berlusconi and Papandreou.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But the argument is flawed on two levels that go beyond the simple observation that both changes in government were approved and legitimised by elected parliaments.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Firstly, ‘Europe’ was merely acting as an intermediary, transmitting the demands of the market to these nation-states; if anything, it is the market – sacrosanct to the Eurosceptics mentioned above - that is fundamentally undemocratic, and shifting power to nation-states wouldn't change that one jot.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Quite on the contrary, on their own, outside an economic and political union, nation-states would be at the mercy of these markets to a far greater extent. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Could the UK, Greece or Luxemburg take on wannabe (?) monopolists like Microsoft, extortive multinationals like Europe’s mobile telecoms operators, and professional gamblers in the financial sector on their own?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Hardly. ‘Desist, or we’ll take our jobs elsewhere’ and ‘Regulate, and we’ll take our money elsewhere’ would become even more frequently heard refrains than they are today. Try to organise referenda against that.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Secondly, even if the flawed mechanisms behind the Euro are to blame for the imbalances affecting Southern Europe, the solution to these flaws is more, not less of a more democratised Europe; and this choice for Europe, democracy and the Euro goes beyond the simple logic of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">economic</i> expediency.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Shrinking the European project, or risking the latter through a collapse of the Euro would be the height of irresponsibility, precisely because of the ‘butterfly effect’ and its associated dangers described before.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Abandon Europe, and all bets are off, security-wise. For the first time since World War Two, 'Europe' will not have tackled a major security challenge collectively. Once this logic of nationalist competition takes hold, once relationships are re-securitised, there is no knowing where it will end, as it spills over from the economic into other security sectors and affects issue-area after issue-area.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>What might be inconceivable today could become reality tomorrow: Mearsheimer’s back-to-the-future thesis might perform one of the most dramatic turnarounds in the history of social science. </p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-17454601982615304022011-10-17T11:36:00.003+01:002011-10-17T12:00:48.518+01:00Defending the Indefensible.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>451</o:Words> <o:characters>2576</o:Characters> <o:company>LSE</o:Company> <o:lines>21</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>6</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>3021</o:CharactersWithSpaces> 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mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:JA;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">One can only guess what led Mr. Benon Sevan - former under-secretary of the United Nations - into publicly attacking critics of the current regime in Armenia (“</span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">so-called pundits, rabble-rousers, including self-serving former government officials</span></i><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">”) for trying to “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">bring about a regime change not through the ballot box but through encouraging a mob culture</i>”. One could not fail to feel a measure of puzzled, slightly nauseated discomfort at his <o:p></o:p></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; ">de-crying of the excessive negativity heard about the Republic in the Armenian media. Whatever the reason - fawning servility or accidental ignorance - the sight of someone of Mr. Sevan's stature defending the indefensible was not at all appetising. </span></p> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> <o:revision>0</o:Revision> <o:totaltime>0</o:TotalTime> <o:pages>1</o:Pages> <o:words>12</o:Words> <o:characters>70</o:Characters> <o:company>LSE</o:Company> <o:lines>1</o:Lines> <o:paragraphs>1</o:Paragraphs> <o:characterswithspaces>81</o:CharactersWithSpaces> <o:version>14.0</o:Version> </o:DocumentProperties> <o:officedocumentsettings> <o:allowpng/> </o:OfficeDocumentSettings> </xml><![endif]--> <!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <w:worddocument> <w:view>Normal</w:View> <w:zoom>0</w:Zoom> <w:trackmoves/> <w:trackformatting/> <w:punctuationkerning/> <w:validateagainstschemas/> <w:saveifxmlinvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid> <w:ignoremixedcontent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent> <w:alwaysshowplaceholdertext>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText> <w:donotpromoteqf/> 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10]> <style> /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Table Normal"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:JA;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--><!--EndFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span lang="EN-US" style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font:major-latin;mso-ansi-language:EN-US">“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal">Of all the hundreds of negative reports, is not there at least a single positive development to report on? Contrary to the ongoing politically motivated negativism, there are indeed many successes and improvements achieved in Armenia which deserve to be congratulated and encouraged</i>”, so goes the argument.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>No country has become democratic overnight, it is posited, and centuries of foreign occupation and seventy years of communist rule have apparently turned poor native Armenian brains into such incoherent goo that they are not able to comprehend the complicated ins-and-outs of electoral democracy and the rule of law. Counting ballots correctly is a very difficult task, it seems.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">It is fair to ask whether there has been any society in history that has achieved progress through the kind of self-congratulatory censorship Mr. Sevan proposes.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Armenians could, of course, fill the pages of their newspapers with stories of Armenia’s glorious victories and successes – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Pravda</i>-style – only to see a polity without critique and introspection inevitably end in Brezhnevite stagnation.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Armenians could, naturally, pretend life in Armenia is fab while hundreds of thousands vote with their feet and seek their economic prosperity and political liberty in foreign lands.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And Armenians could, as a matter of fact, close their eyes to the authoritarian excesses of Armenia’s leaders, excesses that, far from being the mysterious product of some centuries-old trauma, are the conscious efforts at usurpation by a corrupt elite whose insidious politics and organised criminality are inextricably intertwined. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">But when Mr. Sevan directs critics of the current authorities towards the ballot-box, he leaves out the crucial fact that it is the heavy, sweaty hand of a this elite that rests on that box and does the “counting”.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In the absence of elected government, it behoves outsiders to respect those who try to resist injustice and effect change, instead of siding with those who, over the past two decades, have turned this country into one gigantic money-making racket, based on government of <i>some</i> people, by <i>some</i> people and for <i>some</i> people. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><span style="font-family:Calibri;mso-ascii-theme-font:major-latin;mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin">Those who want a clearer view of the real dangers Armenia is sleep-walking into should urgently re-read <a href="http://www.ianyanmag.com/2011/08/03/emigration-threatens-armenia-libaridians-appeal/">Dr. Jirair Libaridian’s recent open letter</a> on the current situation, one that offers a depressing but harshly realistic contrast to Mr. Sevan’s advocation of self-indulgent and entirely misplaced complacency.</span></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-47833870579865744452011-09-13T18:41:00.005+01:002011-09-13T18:55:33.875+01:00Ten Years On<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> <o:documentproperties> 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0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0cm; mso-para-margin-right:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0cm; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-font-family:Cambria; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-hansi-font-family:Cambria; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:JA;} </style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Alongside marriage, the birth of a child, the death of a relative, 9-11 probably ranks as one of our lives’ starkest, clearest reminiscences.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Emotions always help jog the memory; and no emotion does that better than raw terror, the one raw sentiment that these attacks were designed to instil with such chilling effectiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>For some, that terror consisted of witnessing a world-changing atrocity live, on television; for others – with relatives in the towers, the Pentagon, the planes – that terror mixed with the much closer grief of personal loss.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Ten years on, the mastermind of these attacks is dead.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>By all accounts, Al Qaeda is a mere ghost of its former self, its most important operatives neutralised, many of its networks dismantled. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But will, as Fukuyama asserted in this week’s Observer, the West’s challenge by extreme and violent Islamism be a mere blip on the radar compared to the importance of the rise of China, especially when viewed fifty years hence?<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">Yes, 9-11 was about the violent, extreme ideology of Jihadist Islamism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And, as Fukuyama contends, it is quite probable that particular mode of thought will fall by the wayside.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>That is, if our leaders have the foresight not to saw the seeds of terror in an ever-growing number of Islamic states.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It was particularly chilling, in that context, to hear Tony Blair engage in an exercise of spectacular intellectual dishonesty by claiming the Iraq invasion made the world a safer place.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The cherry on top was his advocating military action against Iran. <o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">If hijacked 767s act as our terror, the driver of our fears and wars, don’t F22s, drones and hellfire missiles have the same effect on those expendable as ‘collateral damage’?<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>This is not about good, old-fashioned Western self-flagellation, not about blaming ourselves for outrages like 9-11 and 7/7.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Indeed, the vicious ideology behind these atrocities has a comprehensive totalitarian and obscurantist world-view, and the core carriers of that ideology would probably not stop before these goals are realised, no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But ideologies only die once their core constituencies are isolated, once they are unable to create and maintain the decentralised networks of operatives and supporters that radiate outwards from them.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Creating the conditions under which their ideological claims are validated by levelling one Islamic country after another can, to put it mildly, not be helpful, for the West at least.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The terrorists, on the other hand, will be much obliged.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">But 9-11 was not only about the emergence of global violent Islamism, in the narrow ideological sense.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Fukuyama, it seems, is repeating the mistake he made in ‘The End of History’, by confounding the concrete manifestations of grand historical patterns with the patterns themselves.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Terrorism – as has been so often pointed out – is a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">tactic</i>, a specific method within a broader, ideologically driven strategy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And it is the change in tactics towards mega-terrorism that is far more important than the ideology driving that change.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Various waves of terrorism have been informed by diverse ideologies – anarchism, nationalism, Islamism.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>But there is one thread running through all of them: their increasing violence, their wider geographic reach, and the resulting escalating body counts.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is in the nature of humans to produce extreme ideas. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> Al Qaeda showed a willingness and ability to kill thousands for these ideas; the extremists of the future</span> – whatever their ideological substance - will have at their disposal means of destruction unimaginable to their predecessors as technology continues proliferating.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Divorced from its substantive ideological aspect, abstracted into human history, 9-11 becomes a much scarier, much more defining event.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>If Al Qaeda is defeated, it will morph and reincarnate under a different banner, whose colours are entirely unknown today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>You can count on it. <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2818725021728106544.post-51456978913251281782011-07-11T09:52:00.005+01:002011-07-11T10:10:56.036+01:00Millstones and Molotov Cocktails<div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dbQvHwdDFBc/Thq8H3XJhyI/AAAAAAAAAEc/owfdWBcxzpY/s1600/OB-IQ838_greece_G_20100527193533.jpg" onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}"></a><div style="text-align: justify;">‘Greece is at an existential crossroads’: a statement that has been repeated over and over again in the international media, at European summits, and in the Vouli.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>On the streets and squares of Athens and throughout the country, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">existential crossroads </i>is not something remote and impersonal, something abstract and far-away.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It concerns people’s own livelihoods, their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">personal</i> existence, their very ability to feed their children.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And when humans feel threatened so profoundly in their everyday lives, they tend not to ‘give a damn’ about the lofty (?) motivations that underlay the Euro, the supposed attractions of the European project, or the world’s interest in wider financial stability.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They disavow the system.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>They revolt.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Some do so using petrol bombs.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Others do so through their voting patterns.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Greece’s tortured political history suggests resistance could tend towards the former rather than the latter if Greece’s and Europe’s political leaders don’t tread very carefully. But there is yet hope for peaceful and profound change.</div><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><o:p></o:p></p><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nLiEGyqEl28/Thq7kDARBbI/AAAAAAAAAEU/zMf0kNZXxQw/s320/161703481.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5628016912308962738" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">The problem goes beyond mere questions of constitutionality or economics; it emerges, above all, from Greece’s broken, post-dictatorship social contract, the very basis for its failed societal model of the past three decades.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is easy to forget in 2011 in how far the period of stability in post-dictatorship Greece has been the exception rather than the rule within the broader context of recent, twentieth-century history.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Spain’s civil war – a cause célèbre throughout Europe in its day – has been written of extensively, and has in many ways overshadowed that other, perhaps equally cruel European civil conflict, in post-World War Two Greece. The resulting constitutional instability and internal turbulence reached their nadir only during the cruel-but-farcical Colonels’ Regime of 1967-1974; when Greece entered the EU in 1980 as the ‘Hellenic Republic’, the scars within its society hadn’t healed.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Substantial portions of its population remained disenfranchised and excluded.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The subsequent flow of European grants and subsidies provided a cure of sorts, but resulted in a social contract that was entirely distorted and ultimately untenable.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In fact, it would perhaps have been better had Greece joined the European Union at a far later date.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Greek elites always saw the public sector as a tool of political patronage; Europe allowed them to expand this abuse, without moreover having to raise the domestic revenue that such an exercise in patronage would normally require.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Andreas Papandreou (whose father Giorgios allegedly prophesied that he would run Greece asunder) at first hired left-wing Greeks in an understandable effort to correct their exclusion from the state in the decades following the Communists’ civil-war defeat; but things soon spiralled out of control, with successive socialist and conservative governments hiring sympathisers in turn, buying off public-sector workers with an ever-expanding list of (at times preposterous) benefits and wage rises.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The private sector, meanwhile, was stifled under a mountain of rules and regulations, or smothered with productivity-reducing subsidies (Greece is 109<sup>th</sup> in the World Bank’s ease-of-doing-business index): sector after sector was turned into a ‘closed shop’, where only a few select, licensed, and usually ‘connected’ individuals were allowed to ply their trade.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In return, those left outside of the relative safety of public service or monopolised private sectors were allowed to treat the payment of taxes as contributions to a charity called the ‘Hellenic Republic’.<o:p></o:p></p> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(0, 0, 238); -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: underline; "><img src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dbQvHwdDFBc/Thq8H3XJhyI/AAAAAAAAAEc/owfdWBcxzpY/s320/OB-IQ838_greece_G_20100527193533.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5628017527659005730" style="display: block; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: auto; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: auto; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 214px; " /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Without these generous grants and subsidies from Brussels, Greek society would have had to confront the state’s spiralling expenses and inadequate revenues far earlier, and in a far more piecemeal fashion than is the case today.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And without the entirely politically motivated admission of Greece into the Euro, Greek society would have faced the higher interest payments on its debt, soon disallowing any publicly funded ‘generosity’ on the part of its irresponsible elites.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Quite apart from the issue of inadequate oversight and the fiddling of numbers, it is these subsidies and grants themselves that created an imbalance in the Greek economy that allowed for the continuation of venality in all impunity.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>As it happened, these subsidies crammed the countless difficult decisions that could have been taken in stages, over decades without causing much social disruption into <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">today</i>, overwhelming the nation’s body politic and tearing its fabric apart.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph"><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">Re-establishing social cohesion on a more sustainable basis won’t be easy.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The kind of economic shock Greece is going through more often than not results in a shifting of the political landscape, but this doesn’t seem to have dawned on many of the existing political actors.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The established political centre is, in essence, morally and politically bankrupt; both Pasok and the ND have lost a large chunk of their electorates, even as they continue business as usual by playing petty partisan politics on Greece’s economic half-corpse. <span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Predictably, both the populist right and unreformed radical left are screaming their lungs out hysterically in an attempt to pilfer votes from their mainstream counterparts, in a way that insults the Greek electorate’s intelligence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Greece’s trade unions are fully living up to their reputation as the unduly romanticised representatives of vested public-sector interests.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And ordinary Greeks are looking on in growing disgust, confusion, fear and anger.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span><o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align:justify;text-justify:inter-ideograph">This existential crossroads could take the country in either of two directions: political-economic oblivion, or renaissance.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The basic choice is there for Greeks to make.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>While still relatively disorganised and ideologically incoherent, the ‘indignados’ movement could form the basis of the latter by spawning political movements that could challenge existing elites and claim a place in the country’s parliamentary politics.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>And Greek politics needs new blood, badly; given Greece’s still-vibrant and articulate civil society, and the utter rot of its political elites, such new blood should not be too difficult to come by.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The end result could be a ‘fourth republic’, with a renegotiated constitutional bargain, and a competitive economy where social progress is based on substantial private-sector growth rather than the pilfering of state institutions and overdependence on EU aid.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Insofar as one cannot rebuild state and society with a millstone around one’s neck, default – preferably managed and gradual - should also be an option, an option a far-from-blameless Europe would have to accept and support. Failure to rebuild would mean the Molotov cocktail and the brash populism of the extreme right and the left gaining the upper hand; taking that millstone off the Greeks’ necks would thus be a wise investment, far wiser in any case than the maladministered subsidies and grants that distorted the country’s economy in the first place.<o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0