Hi everyone!
This blog originally started out as a forum for me to share and expand upon my views of current affairs, particularly in regards to the rise of the Arab Spring in Egypt and Syria. But I eventually found keeping up on these events hard-going and, frankly, rather depressing. For every step forward it seemed, two rather large steps back were taken and I felt that the whole process -- despite what at the time seemed to be some very positive developments -- just became utterly moribund. So I turned away from the news and chose to devote this blog to entertainment -- music and movie reviews and the occasional riff on Big Brother, etc.
But I've felt compelled for some time of late to give Syria another look. I just didn't know where I wanted to start. And then I read New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff's extremely tragic piece in this morning's paper, "The Boy Who Stood Up to Syrian Injustice", and realized this was the launch I was looking for.
Mr. Kristoff writes about a Syrian middle school kid named Mohammed who is currently living with his family in one of the overpopulated refugee camps in Jordan. He writes that although Mohammed wasn't one of the original child activists that started the Syrian civil war -- I'd completely forgotten it began with schoolchildren -- Mohammed was arrested and tortured by the Syrian police. This is a twelve year-old boy. After his release, Mohammed continued his protest. The police arrested and tortured his father and burned their home. Now Mohammed and his family have left Syria, like thousands of others, and are living as refugees in neighboring Jordan. He is now a part of what Mr. Kristoff describes as "Syrian's lost generation".
It's shameful that the Western World continues to allow tragedies like this to happen. The situation in Syria is rapidly approaching three years with no end in sight. Assad greeted the shameful US-Russia alliance on chemical weapons as a victory and although he claims to be cooperating with chemical weapons inspectors, we all know he's using this as a means of strengthening his resolve and brutality against his own people. Yeah, the opposition is fractured and rife with Al-Qaeda affiliated extremists and the West has to be extremely judicious in how and where it offers its aid.
And yet, the issue here isn't chemical weapons. The issue is the fact that President Obama -- who is increasingly becoming a do-nothing president -- chose to take the easy way out. His pact with Russia (which I'll predict now was doomed from the start) is nothing short of collusion with the enemy -- not just with Assad, but Putin, Assad's greatest ally apart from Iran. And this is a tragedy of epic proportions. We are collectively failing Mohammed and millions of children like him who want nothing more than a decent education and the opportunity to advance in life.
How many more children like Mohammed have to suffer in the face of diplomatic intransigence? How many more millions will be added to Syria's Lost Generation?
For shame.
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Putin. Show all posts
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Sunday, December 25, 2011
The Russian Revolution Redux
Merry Christmas everyone!
I'm writing this on the tail-end of a packed Christmas Day out here in the mountains of Colorado. I overate and am ready to call it a night but I did want to comment on this weekend's news coming out of Russia. Yesterday's second rally to protest the recent Russian elections sounds to have been a tremendous success with estimates of anywhere from 30,000 to 120,000 people filling the streets and squares of Moscow.
As reported in today's New York Times, what set this rally apart from the first was the presence on the platform of high-level Kremlin officials--including former Finance Minister Alexsei Kudrin--giving measured support for the gathered crowd. Russian business oligarch and newly minted opposition candidate Mikhail D. Prokhorov was also in attendance, although he didn't give a speech, choosing instead to show his support through photo ops and meet-and-greets at the street level. Without a doubt, however, the man it appeared the crowd was there to see was dissident blogger Aleksei Navalny. Mr. Navalny, who was recently released from a fifteen-day detention and who has been tireless in his very public criticism of Mr. Putin, did not disappoint. In a fiery and impassioned speech, Mr. Navalny said, "I can see that there are enough people here to seize the Kremlin. We are a peaceful force now and will not do it now. But if these crooks and thieves try to go on cheating us, if they continue telling lies and stealing from us, we will take what belongs to us with our own hands."
Whoa! Is Mr. Navalny hinting at the possibility of a more violent attempt at overthrowing the government if the Kremlin continues on its current course of generally ignoring or ridiculing the protesters' demands? Or is he merely using dramatic rhetoric to whip up additional support from the protest movement? Mr. Navalny's motivation isn't exactly clear. And herein lies the crux of the issue: while it is all well and good for the Russian people to brave the notorious Arctic winter cold in a massive show of support for ending Putin's political aspirations once and for all, it becomes quite a different matter if they are indeed successful in bringing down the government but are left with a political vacuum and no individual or party in a position that can actually enact much-desired reform. As I've said repeatedly over the past several weeks, the situation facing Russia right now is not dissimilar to that currently facing Egypt or Yemen or Libya, for that matter. Okay...so you successfully forced out a dictator...what then do you have lined up in place of him?
This is precisely what appears to be lacking in any discussion about a Putin-free political landscape. The current opposition is dubious at best. Prokhorov is not particularly well-known and some skeptics believe that he is little more than a tool of the Kremlin, a puppet disguised as opposition but whose function in truth is to only give the impression that he represents change while dividing the genuine opposition and thereby assuring Putin's win in March's presidential election. Outside of Prokhorov, who else is there? Mr. Navalny is an intriguing possibility but with no real political experience, what are his chances of winning political office? I suppose there is always Dmitri Medvedev who appeared this week to give measured support of the protest movement while holding to his line that foreign governments and agitators were behind the unrest. The question remains: how married is Medvedev to Putin these days? Is there indeed a break between the two? We just don't know. And, speaking of which, where was Putin all weekend? He seems to be lying low. Even former president Mikhail Gorbachev lent his support to the protesters, saying it's time Putin cedes control now as a means of preserving his positive legacy in the future.
If we can be certain of nothing else, we can be certain of this: unless Putin and the powers-that-be in the Kremlin are miraculously lobotomized between now and next March, we can expect more of the same: both from the current government and from the Russian street. If Mr. Navalny's speech is any indication, the Russian people are losing patience. If peaceful protests don't bring them what they want, who's to say that more forceful tactics won't be employed in the near future?
Is this the second coming of the Russian Revolution?
Ciao.
I'm writing this on the tail-end of a packed Christmas Day out here in the mountains of Colorado. I overate and am ready to call it a night but I did want to comment on this weekend's news coming out of Russia. Yesterday's second rally to protest the recent Russian elections sounds to have been a tremendous success with estimates of anywhere from 30,000 to 120,000 people filling the streets and squares of Moscow.
As reported in today's New York Times, what set this rally apart from the first was the presence on the platform of high-level Kremlin officials--including former Finance Minister Alexsei Kudrin--giving measured support for the gathered crowd. Russian business oligarch and newly minted opposition candidate Mikhail D. Prokhorov was also in attendance, although he didn't give a speech, choosing instead to show his support through photo ops and meet-and-greets at the street level. Without a doubt, however, the man it appeared the crowd was there to see was dissident blogger Aleksei Navalny. Mr. Navalny, who was recently released from a fifteen-day detention and who has been tireless in his very public criticism of Mr. Putin, did not disappoint. In a fiery and impassioned speech, Mr. Navalny said, "I can see that there are enough people here to seize the Kremlin. We are a peaceful force now and will not do it now. But if these crooks and thieves try to go on cheating us, if they continue telling lies and stealing from us, we will take what belongs to us with our own hands."
Whoa! Is Mr. Navalny hinting at the possibility of a more violent attempt at overthrowing the government if the Kremlin continues on its current course of generally ignoring or ridiculing the protesters' demands? Or is he merely using dramatic rhetoric to whip up additional support from the protest movement? Mr. Navalny's motivation isn't exactly clear. And herein lies the crux of the issue: while it is all well and good for the Russian people to brave the notorious Arctic winter cold in a massive show of support for ending Putin's political aspirations once and for all, it becomes quite a different matter if they are indeed successful in bringing down the government but are left with a political vacuum and no individual or party in a position that can actually enact much-desired reform. As I've said repeatedly over the past several weeks, the situation facing Russia right now is not dissimilar to that currently facing Egypt or Yemen or Libya, for that matter. Okay...so you successfully forced out a dictator...what then do you have lined up in place of him?
This is precisely what appears to be lacking in any discussion about a Putin-free political landscape. The current opposition is dubious at best. Prokhorov is not particularly well-known and some skeptics believe that he is little more than a tool of the Kremlin, a puppet disguised as opposition but whose function in truth is to only give the impression that he represents change while dividing the genuine opposition and thereby assuring Putin's win in March's presidential election. Outside of Prokhorov, who else is there? Mr. Navalny is an intriguing possibility but with no real political experience, what are his chances of winning political office? I suppose there is always Dmitri Medvedev who appeared this week to give measured support of the protest movement while holding to his line that foreign governments and agitators were behind the unrest. The question remains: how married is Medvedev to Putin these days? Is there indeed a break between the two? We just don't know. And, speaking of which, where was Putin all weekend? He seems to be lying low. Even former president Mikhail Gorbachev lent his support to the protesters, saying it's time Putin cedes control now as a means of preserving his positive legacy in the future.
If we can be certain of nothing else, we can be certain of this: unless Putin and the powers-that-be in the Kremlin are miraculously lobotomized between now and next March, we can expect more of the same: both from the current government and from the Russian street. If Mr. Navalny's speech is any indication, the Russian people are losing patience. If peaceful protests don't bring them what they want, who's to say that more forceful tactics won't be employed in the near future?
Is this the second coming of the Russian Revolution?
Ciao.
Thursday, December 22, 2011
A Russian Spring?
Hi everyone!
So Russia held its first session of its new Parliament yesterday in a bid for a return to normalcy and, no doubt, a hope that with the appearance of business as usual, the wind will have been taken from the protesters' sails. Mr. Putin paid lip service to some of the protesters' demands by saying he was committed to investigating and rooting out corruption, particularly in regards to business and off-shore accounts. He said he wants to make Russia an entrepreneur's dream within the next ten years. At the same time, however, anti-Putin blogger Aleksei Navalny was released after fifteen days' in jail, only to hold a news conference outside his detention center to further denounce the fraudulent elections and rally the Russian people for another demonstration this coming Saturday, Christmas Eve. He said his detention had done nothing to diminish his ardent calls for bringing down Mr. Putin and the current Kremlin hierarchy. In fact, he said he enjoyed listening to radio broadcasts while in prison of the recent 50,000-strong demonstration in Bolotnaya Square. He wrote on his blog, "You cannot imagine how cool it was to listen to the radio broadcast from Bolotnaya." And while the people seem to be united behind Navalny's anti-Kremlin stance, there are signs that there isn't a similar unity among the leaders of the opposition. Boris Nemtsov, head of the Solidarity party, was faced with the embarrassment of having several recorded telephone conversations made public wherein he denounced some of his fellow opposition leaders as "scum" and "half-witted."
While I am dubious of the chances of any sort of Russian Spring coming into fruition in March when Putin is more-or-less guaranteed to win the country's presidency, I do wonder what would hypothetically happen if the collective opposition succeeded in bringing the government down. It is all very well and good for Mr. Navalny to rally his supporters on the streets of Moscow and motivate Russian society to come out in force in Bolotnaya or Red Square, but would the people really be all that better off if the current leaders of the opposition were voted into office? If Mr. Nemtsov and his ilk are already hurling insults at one another, how are they going to behave in the event they are voted into office?
We see this to a certain extent in recently liberated Libya. Now that Qaddafi is gone, the various rebel factions that united to reach this goal have very little in common and have in some cases turned against each other. Egypt isn't dissimilar. The military after Mubarak's oust was seen by-and-large as being an important source of stability while the Egyptian people adjusted to a new, more democratic leadership and society. But now that same source of stability is wreaking devastating havoc on the people because it has become power-hungry and is loathe to give up the power it has enjoyed. Are the Egyptians now back to square one?
Political change is always tough, especially when a country makes the transition from a one-party/one-leader hegemony to a democracy. It's human nature to want to hold onto power when it's been granted. We don't cede control willingly. For the time being, we can only hope and pray that the military will step down in Egypt and that the opposition in Russia, Mr. Navalny aside, overcome petty disputes and childish name-calling in favor of the overarching good. I fear though that this may be too much to ask.
I hope I'm proven wrong.
Ciao.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: "With Parliament back in session in Russia, are the Russian people destined for more of the same or will change really and truly come?"
So Russia held its first session of its new Parliament yesterday in a bid for a return to normalcy and, no doubt, a hope that with the appearance of business as usual, the wind will have been taken from the protesters' sails. Mr. Putin paid lip service to some of the protesters' demands by saying he was committed to investigating and rooting out corruption, particularly in regards to business and off-shore accounts. He said he wants to make Russia an entrepreneur's dream within the next ten years. At the same time, however, anti-Putin blogger Aleksei Navalny was released after fifteen days' in jail, only to hold a news conference outside his detention center to further denounce the fraudulent elections and rally the Russian people for another demonstration this coming Saturday, Christmas Eve. He said his detention had done nothing to diminish his ardent calls for bringing down Mr. Putin and the current Kremlin hierarchy. In fact, he said he enjoyed listening to radio broadcasts while in prison of the recent 50,000-strong demonstration in Bolotnaya Square. He wrote on his blog, "You cannot imagine how cool it was to listen to the radio broadcast from Bolotnaya." And while the people seem to be united behind Navalny's anti-Kremlin stance, there are signs that there isn't a similar unity among the leaders of the opposition. Boris Nemtsov, head of the Solidarity party, was faced with the embarrassment of having several recorded telephone conversations made public wherein he denounced some of his fellow opposition leaders as "scum" and "half-witted."
While I am dubious of the chances of any sort of Russian Spring coming into fruition in March when Putin is more-or-less guaranteed to win the country's presidency, I do wonder what would hypothetically happen if the collective opposition succeeded in bringing the government down. It is all very well and good for Mr. Navalny to rally his supporters on the streets of Moscow and motivate Russian society to come out in force in Bolotnaya or Red Square, but would the people really be all that better off if the current leaders of the opposition were voted into office? If Mr. Nemtsov and his ilk are already hurling insults at one another, how are they going to behave in the event they are voted into office?
We see this to a certain extent in recently liberated Libya. Now that Qaddafi is gone, the various rebel factions that united to reach this goal have very little in common and have in some cases turned against each other. Egypt isn't dissimilar. The military after Mubarak's oust was seen by-and-large as being an important source of stability while the Egyptian people adjusted to a new, more democratic leadership and society. But now that same source of stability is wreaking devastating havoc on the people because it has become power-hungry and is loathe to give up the power it has enjoyed. Are the Egyptians now back to square one?
Political change is always tough, especially when a country makes the transition from a one-party/one-leader hegemony to a democracy. It's human nature to want to hold onto power when it's been granted. We don't cede control willingly. For the time being, we can only hope and pray that the military will step down in Egypt and that the opposition in Russia, Mr. Navalny aside, overcome petty disputes and childish name-calling in favor of the overarching good. I fear though that this may be too much to ask.
I hope I'm proven wrong.
Ciao.
QUESTION OF THE DAY: "With Parliament back in session in Russia, are the Russian people destined for more of the same or will change really and truly come?"
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