Friday, April 15, 2005

Lost Hats and Stolen Thrones

It’s drizzling out there and I am happy to be indoors to enjoy my poetic mood rather than being under the rain and moaning about my absent-mindedness that I have lost the second black nylon hat during last couple of months on a train and both of them were from a dear friend of mine…

I have disappeared for a while, I know, and I do feel guilty for that. At least here, in my Thoughtland, I should have appeared more frequently just to let you and myself know that my head is still able to use its brain and there are some thoughts hidden indeed. But I couldn’t find them in my painfully obscure brain during these days…

I don’t know what happened, but strangely for myself I could see how the clouds of obscurity started getting dispersed and going away and the atmosphere resumed pushing my chest to breathe deeper and forced my eyes to see colours other than black.

I even decided to wipe the thick dust off my radio receiver (a gift from another friend of mine) and replace its rusted batteries to make it speak again.

Throughout those bleak days of obscurity I was silently watching dramatic events in my region. (By “silently” I mean my mental state, otherwise I was shouting and moving in the office.)

The most democratic leader in Central Asia fell down of his throne and ran away as soon as he fell. (By “the most democratic” I mean comparatively open society in the region. I don’t want to give you any illusions of real democracy in that part of the world. Because the real one does not exist in the contemporary world at all, let alone my remote region).

I talked to him, the overthrown monarch that apparently had an intention to root himself and his dynasty to the throne by promoting his siblings – son and daughter – to seize the seats in the parliament. I could feel the sound of remorse trembling in his academically thoughtful words. He was not the same Askar Akayev anymore. Otherwise I couldn’t get him just like that over the phone. He had no hope to regain his authority. It was gone for good and he could realize it. The only thing he was asking for was a certain respect to his historic personality and guaranteed return to his homeland. Respect was given afterwards, but his return is not guaranteed yet.

Firstly, all experts pointed at the US again: the evil empire is spreading its branches in Central Asia and another mushroom-like pro-American regime was born. Even Akayev was certain that “the tulip revolution” was planned by America, namely by its Ambassador to Bishkek, Stephen Young. He prompted me to find the plan in the Internet and I did. The document did really have Young’s signature underneath. Of course, the accusation was firmly denied by Mr Young in Bishkek.

However, nowadays I can hear more whispers about Russia’s role in the Kyrgyz “revolution”. As if Russia just didn’t want to seat and wait until another “pro-American” revolution will overthrow a pro-Moscow regime in the region. Putin has decided to do that himself just by replacing one amicable partner with another one. Surprisingly, current affairs in Kyrgyzstan and early statements of Bakiev (the new Kyrgyz leader) about Russia support this speculation convincingly.

If to believe to the plan purported to be the American plot against Akayev’s regime that coincides with the whole process of the events in Bishkek and its consequences, the incumbent regime in Tajikistan will be the next government to be washed away by the tide of “velvet revolutions” in ex-Soviet empire, followed by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

According to another hypothesis, that plan could have been drafted by Moscow and fraudulently “has been signed” by Stephen Young. Otherwise how to explain unexpected release of the Tajik Democrats’ leader Mohammadruzi Iskandarov in Moscow, whereas he was detained by Russian special forces at Dushanbe’s request 4 months back to face extradition to Tajik authorities? And as soon as he gets freed, in a letter of gratitude to Putin he says: “Dear President! You gave me freedom and I will try to return it to my people!” and starts chanting revolutionary slogans in his interviews and frankly wishing about the repetition of the Kyrgyz scenario in Tajikistan.

Can you really imagine that anything would change in that static country? I know that the picture looks too hopeless, but who could predict what happened in Kyrgyzstan before it did? Even the main factors of the change of power in Kyrgyzstan, as it was put by the leaders of the revolution, are obvious in Tajikistan too: annoying poverty and wide-spread corruption.

I refrain myself from any sort of predictions, but I have some feelings indeed. Something is approaching and something, or even maybe everything, will change in my country too. Just because it has to. Everything changes and Tajikistan is not an exemption. It is a part of the process of evolution too.

Tajikistan is crying for a change, otherwise we will lose it for good. No, no! I am by no means exaggerating, dear!

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