Kazakstan: Two (and a half) views

The coverage of recent events in Kazakstan falls roughly into two camps:

•          People rose up against a dictatorial, corrupt regime and were mowed down by the country’s brutal security forces, assisted and backstopped by Russian troops.
•          Foreign intelligence services cooked up an attempted “color revolution” to install a West-friendly regime in Kazakstan, threaten Russia along a huge central Asian border, and simultaneously break up the Chinese Belt & Road Initiative.

At the risk of sounding like a Christian Democrat, I propose that both are partly true, and therefore each is incomplete.

Having seen a bit of life in the post-Soviet republics up close, I am immediately pre-disposed to think that demonstrations, riots, street fighting, and even the seizure of government buildings reflect pent-up anger and frustration among the populace at decades of blatant corruption among the self-serving elites along with the elites’ failure to address basic issues of survival and well-being for the majority, even in countries pulling in vast amounts of ready cash (e.g., Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, both oil producers). In my experience, these countries tend to operate on the assumption that state officeholders are nothing more than members of an organized mafia whose sole purpose is mutual enrichment and that no government function is to be performed in the absence of a bribe. 

My immediate apologies to long-suffering, honest bureaucrats in any of those countries—I’m sure you exist, and it can’t be an easy life.

If those are the terms, many citizens will patiently accede to them given the unlikelihood of gaining anything by not doing so. However, the implied exchange is that the state will function, keep a lid on the more grotesque forms of lawlessness, and make it possible to live modestly day to day if one has no particular ambitions beyond an adequate lunch. 

Something like a 100% increase in the price of fuel, then, blasts this social contract apart, and it should hardly surprise us that spontaneous and even violent outbursts followed when the Kazakstani authorities imposed it.

In such a case, one would expect to see clashes with cops, perhaps demonstrations that cannot be controlled, masses of people surrounding key government buildings, and, depending on how many firearms are circulating, a few potshots and casualties. Depending on how scared the regime is, deaths might amount to a handful (as in Chile’s demonstrations in recent years or several hundred (as in Myanmar, given the extreme unpopularity of the military coup-makers there).

What one would not expect in this scenario is news of armed bands attempting to seize the main airports, successfully in one case, especially if they appear to be well prepared and well supplied with small arms, logistical capabilities, and manpower. Nor would you expect the chief of national security, Karim Massimov, to order a pullback by airport defenders just hours before the assault takes place, as he is accused of doing. That is where the long-suffering-people-mowed-down-by-murderous-cops scenario doesn’t provide an adequate explanation.

There is enough evidence, even at this early stage, to suggest that popular unrest was utilized to unleash a deadly power struggle at the top of the very top-heavy Kazak ruling class. According to some knowledgeable observers, the two camps are, or were: a pro-Russian one represented by President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, and a Kazakophile-but-West-friendly tendency long dominated by former president Nursultan Nazarbayev, the erstwhile power behind the Kazak throne, so to speak.

Nazarbayev, while fulfilling all the clichés about Central Asian autocrats from the personality-cultish naming of the new capital after himself to his supposed plan to have his daughter Nariga inherit the presidency, also tilted quite noticeably in the direction of western oil companies and the governments that stand behind them. Nazarbayev, like Lukashenko in Belarus, attempted to balance the two hostile camps to extract maximum concessions from each. In our increasingly war-ready world, this turns out not to be a winning strategy.

Many accusations are flying over what and who exactly were involved in the two-day uprising, which probably put Tokayev’s life in danger and could shorten those of others. There will be ample opportunity to sort through the claims and accompanying evidence or lack of same. For now, we can keep in mind that the U.S. and its spook allies in Britain, perhaps Turkey, are entirely comfortable with utilizing all sorts of dubious and bloodthirsty elements, including the same jihadis whom we are supposedly at “war” with, to advance their immediate aims. We don’t know if they did, but we know that they would.

At the same time, it would be nice to hear—from those enthusiastic about the Russian role in suppressing the alleged coup—some occasional acknowledgement of the legitimate grievances of the Kazakstani people who have had no role in the governance of their country since the moment of its creation. If the Kazak elites had provided even the slightest opportunity for a democratic airing of grievances, they might have thought twice about ramming through a policy that threatened people’s survival and about how the average Kazakstani might react. A little democracy might have prevented the outbreak of deadly power games costing dozens of lives.

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