Elections are everywhere this year. Canadians and Americans are facing them, and coming from the Great White North myself, I have a hunch that our version of them is going to be totally shadowed in significance by what happens south of us.
Ukraine, of course, is facing the possibility of more parliamentary elections in the near future, provided that the so-called "Orange" coalition is able to come back together and actually govern. It collapsed several days ago because of the same old infighting that has characterized Ukrainian politics since the November-December 2003 breakthrough that is beginning to be shadowed by the long hangover in the country.
Makes for a tough transition, to say the least. More elections, in some parts of the world, are a mixed bag of curse and blessing. With an assertive Russia now rearing itself before the former Soviet Union and beyond, it's looking like it will be even tougher for Ukraine to actually assert itself.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Monday, September 1, 2008
Russia, Georgia and everything else
A brief note on this Labour Day weekend about the Russian-Georgian conflict, which has provoked military and diplomatic responses that are closely rivalled only by the war of words and rhetoric that has ensued throughout the media landscape.
I know little about the nature of Georgia's problems, or the origins of the secessionist conflicts in its regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, only that they too, like the other frozen conflicts across the former Soviet Union, are rooted in the Soviet period and were made fertile by lackadaisical Soviet planners that haphazardly drew maps that did not always correspond to ground-level demographics. Some say this was a deliberate divide-and-rule tactic orchestrated by Moscow in dealing with the other nationalities.
Here, then, is a piece about the war of words and diplomatic pot-shots that show no signs of stopping. At the end of the day, there is everything to loose and nothing to gain -- for everyone involved -- in prolonging it.
I know little about the nature of Georgia's problems, or the origins of the secessionist conflicts in its regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, only that they too, like the other frozen conflicts across the former Soviet Union, are rooted in the Soviet period and were made fertile by lackadaisical Soviet planners that haphazardly drew maps that did not always correspond to ground-level demographics. Some say this was a deliberate divide-and-rule tactic orchestrated by Moscow in dealing with the other nationalities.
Here, then, is a piece about the war of words and diplomatic pot-shots that show no signs of stopping. At the end of the day, there is everything to loose and nothing to gain -- for everyone involved -- in prolonging it.
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