Less bizarre than it seems
The landslide in Belarus reflects its demonised leader's refusal to back market fundamentalism
Mark Almond in Minsk
Tuesday March 21, 2006
The Guardian
[...] Although the west has never batted an eyelid about accepting a 97% vote obtained by a favourite such as Georgia's rose-revolutionary President Saakashvili, at first sight four-fifths voting for one candidate seems hard to credit. But if you look at the socioeconomic reality of Belarus and compare it with its ex-communist neighbours, as Belarussians do, then the result is not so bizarre.
No communist-era throwback, Belarus has an evolving market economy. But the market is orientated towards serving the needs of the bulk of the population, not a tiny class of nouveaux riches and their western advisers and money launderers. Unlike in Georgia or Ukraine, officials are not getting richer as ordinary folk get poorer. The absence of endemic corruption among civil servants and police is one reason why the wave of so-called "coloured revolutions" stopped before Minsk. [...]
4 comments:
Well, my call for comments whistled unanswered across the plains, so here's the Ablution's deconstruction of the original article. It is not exactly unpartisan, but (crucially) there are plenty of links that allow you to check his facts and sources.
West to put sanctions on Belarus
BBC News
24 March 2006
And here's a comment on the sanctions mentioned by JP above. (I'm assuming an Ablution deconstruction will follow.)
You cannot be serious
The Belarus saga exposes the hollowness of the west's support for human rights and democracy
Neil Clark
Monday March 27, 2006
The Guardian
Timothy Garton Ash critizes apologists of Russian Socialism:
To Criticise capitalism don't try to defend the dregs of Soviet Socialism
Timothy Garton Ash
The Guardian
'The larger issue - not of fact, but of interpretation - is whether the economic and social achievement, such as it is, justifies or compensates for the restrictions on civil liberties, intimidation and human rights abuses that Steele, as a very serious and experienced correspondent, fairly acknowledges later in his piece. Here we have old form, Steele and I. Way back in 1977 he published a book about communist East Germany, entitled Socialism with a German Face. He concluded that East Germany's "overall social and economic system is a presentable model of the kind of authoritarian welfare states which eastern European nations have now become". My question then was, and still is: presentable to whom? Presentable to the outside visitor, engaged on his or her reportorial and ideological journey, but free to leave whenever he or she wishes? Or presentable to the people who actually live there? I think the East Germans answered that question in 1989. Bitterly disappointed as many of them have been since, they still don't want the Wall back.
All I propose today is that the Belarussians should be able to answer that question themselves, without fear, in a free and fair election. If they then freely choose to bring an old rogue back, as one in three Ukrainian voters have just done, that's their choice and their perfect right. But if you think that's what has just happened in Belarus - where the BBC reports that more than 150 opposition supporters have been thrown into prison - you really do need your head examined.
It's fair and vital for people on the left to criticise western double standards, the human consequences of neoliberal shock therapy, social inequality and current US foreign policy, but that should not lead anyone into weaselly apologetics for the authoritarian dregs of Soviet socialism. Surely the first concern of anyone on the democratic left today should be for those peaceful protesters now banged up in Lukashenko's jails. Wanting the people to have the chance to choose their own government is not a rightwing thing. It's simply the right thing.'
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