MOSCOW, Sept 26: Russian police detained 12 protesters and a journalist on Sunday after an anti-capitalist protest spilled over onto Red Square, a police spokeswoman said.
About 500 protesters waved red flags and chanted "Lenin, Stalin, death to the Bourgeoisie" as they marched through Moscow. A small group then ran onto Red Square near the Kremlin, scene of the Soviet Union's giant, choreographed demonstrations.
"Police detained 12 people from 'the Avant-garde of the Red Youth' (AKM) and one journalist for holding an unsanctioned protest. They were held for two hours and then released," said the spokeswoman for Moscow's police.
Many people, even young people who did not experience the Soviet Union, feel nostalgia for the, stability, healthcare and free education of communist times. Poverty has struck hard at some areas of the population.
http://www.dawn.com/2004/09/27/top15.htmA sort of warning about what happens when one attempts to force democracy onto a society from the outside.
To be honest, none of the states that reamined after the fall of Communism and the Soviet Union even vaguely resemble a democracy, from Uzbekistan and Belorus to Poland, none of the governments are democrati in nature. Croatia spent the last decade under the control of virtually a one man dictatorship wearing the disguise of a democracy by having a puppet legislative body. The same thing is occuring in Bulgaria and Romania, where a group of ex Olympic soccer players control the government due to the vast wealth the picked up from contacts as representatives of various sporting goods companies. Reporters who have tried to expose the control they have over the government have all dies under very suspicious circumstances.
We saw what happened in Serbia when an ethical president tried to move towards democratic reforms.
Most of these countries have fallen into some form of oligarchy or plutocracy, and many citizens of these countries have been calling for a return to a more communist like government, rather than moving towards democracy.
Russia had little historical experience with any sort of representative government, and while the other countreis of Eastern Europe had a brief experiment with it during the years between WWI and WWII, all of these coutries fell back into states that were more or less totalitarian or controlled by military governments, as occured in Poland after WWI. A brief period with a representative republic style gvernment before Pilsudski took over.
In Russia, we are beginning to see Putin move towards a more authoritarian style of government, and I dont think that Bush will choose to invade Russia to prevent it. Putin in no Saddam, and Russia no Iraq. Russia has a LOT of WMD's. There are still 27,000 nucleat weapons in Russia, and that is 9 thousand more warheads than the U.S. has.
No Bush has not made the U.S. or the World a safer place. Most of the nations of the ex Warsaw Bloc are miving towards some form of authoritarianism, and some of these nations are becomng part of the E.C. AS long as they retain the form of a democratic government, they are acceptable tothe E.C.
Turkey is another such government, a nominal democracy that is under the control of the military. IN fact, the only thing that is keeping Turkey from moving towards an Islamic Government under Sharia law is the fact that the Generals in TUrkey will not allow it.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
