Читать книгу Maidan in Asia. Kazakhs and Arabs - Алмаз Браев - Страница 7

Forerunner

Since the Maghreb, all modern Maidan events take place on the periphery of market civilization. At the end of the global financial pyramid. In the former USSR going so also, so today the Maidan is predictable in terms of the level of urbanization and sudden urbanization after the so-called market reforms and privatization. Look, who are the revolutionaries, leading in the name of human rights and democracy?

The most sensitive to cynicism and lies are rural residents, many often from large traditional families, where parents, fathers, or mothers are hardworking, or from incomplete urban suburban families since provincials are the most radical deniers of lies and hypocrisy. But they are also carriers of an inferiority complex against the background of the same lies and hypocrisy that made hypocrites and other arrogant and wealthy people rich. Now they began to remove their complexes not by denying lies and hypocrisy, but by becoming the best students of hypocrites and corrupt officials. They are the best students in this case of the worst, that they are ready to walk on heads literally because being rich today is fashionable, and prestigious. Although the main rule of traditional morality of all peoples is an honor and the honest name of the father. But it has been in the past. Who needs an honest father’s name today?

Actually, along with total market urbanization, when millions of rural residents were forced to flee to the cities, everyone seemed to forget about the honest name of any property. The past honesty was connected with the past communist ideology. Therefore, even the usual integrity has become unnecessary. All the former provincials just wanted to stay in the city and live. And for speculation in the market of goods, honesty is even harmful, since speculation in everything has become the main occupation of the population. No one was interested in what the local authorities were doing, people were engaged in speculation and resale of goods – initial accumulation, as economists would say about it. (With one amendment: it is impossible to demand integrity from rural people, those who have known need. Can you not require women to give birth in four months?)

Traditional peoples have also forgotten pity. Although, pity for former nomads is also not peculiar to nomads. The nomads always had the support of relatives in the first place. Relatives should support relatives. And no else. So it was in the past. And how did become now?

The reforms were the very disaster on which the real folklore nepotism flourished. This cultural quality was bound to lead to total corruption. And corruption has even become an informal ideology in the new state (everyone now knows that this situation was in all republics, not only in our country. Although we are still in Asia). At the very core of the new regime, this primal passion initially crept in. What else could the ideology be supported on? After all, no one was ready for independence, including the top. Officially, of course, the top declared their commitment to democracy and market values. But this is all for the public. In fact, the whole system was built on the principles of kinship (ruling family). In each region, over time, a ruling family was to appear. These relatives appeared everywhere. Relatives pulled relatives with them. People of the same kind had to appear in all institutions headed by relatives. The same picture was all over the republic. The Republican tribal elite had to form alliances with regional and district elites. They can’t just walk away from culture, from age-old practice, from age-old experience.

As for the unusual callousness of traditional people, so traditional people did not need to be taught how to survive. For relatives, other people, especially people of another ethnic group, are strangers. Therefore, such people, the Zerefs, are the best executors of orders. Moreover, the second market quality in addition to kinship in the administrative apparatus has become Asian performance. In any army in the world, reasoning and obstinate soldiers are not needed. Therefore, the so-called market reforms took place for the population painlessly. Everyone quickly forgot everything. Propaganda focused on the famine caused by the Communists during Soviet modernization in the 30s of the last century. The losses from market reforms were forgotten by everyone as if on command. What is beautiful about Zeref’s low-reflexive memory, so is rapid forgetfulness. In general, the entire memory of the people was now in charge of the authorities. She recommended, taught, and even ordered to remember only the miscalculations, stupidity, and cruelty of the bloody communists. Although it looked strange. The former communists who were in power in the USSR became adherents of the Democrats and blamed their teachers for all their sins. But now is independence! It was necessary to carry out privatization faster. In other words, to rewrite the former Soviet property for themselves.

Here we will present only one example of how rigidly economic reforms were carried out in the former republic of the USSR. This example is taken from a provincial newspaper. It was difficult to call the irresponsibility and selfishness of officials reforms because reforms are always understood as some kind of progress. Here, at first, there was a strong regression. Probably, all peoples have had reforms and probably in all ages and all peoples have had reformers. You can recall, for example, the English King Edward V, who drove the peasants from the family lands in the name of the nation. None of the local patriots would even think of accusing Edward V of communism, or of dictatorship, although almost as many English peasants died under him as Kazakhs died under Stalin.

«Grandfather Anatoly from room 29 died in the summer. Once he had his own apartment, it had to be given away for debts. Grandfather was brought to the dorm by young people and left lying in the corridor, where he lived out his last days. Sometimes the neighborhood boys fed him what to eat. After a month and a half, he was gone. The old man was found dead there, in the corridor.

Then Rakhimzhan ata (grandfather by Kazakh) died right on New Year’s Eve. He couldn’t hear well and almost couldn’t see. He lived in the hostel for only three months. They said he also gave up his apartment for debts. Rahimzhan ata rarely left the room. Just to take boiling water from the neighbors. He was last seen on December 31. Three days later he was found frozen in his room under the bed.

On January 10, Ermek from the 9th room died. The 13-year-old daughter of a single father was taken to a special school.

The last to die was Zhenya from room 59. The former PMK painter has two small children left. Now they live with the neighbors.

The stories of the residents of the hostel on Skulkin Street, 5a, resemble entries from the diary of Tanya Savicheva from besieged Leningrad. Only here the war and the blockade have nothing to do with it. The events take place in absolutely peaceful times. Just a few minutes’ walk from the sparkling lights of the central avenue.

– And how do you bury the dead? – I ask Muratbek, who invited me to the hostel in order to tell me about the problems of his and his neighbors.

«Is nothing way,» he says. – We call the police. A car arrives, picks it up. Last year, 13 people died here.

We are standing on the first floor of the dormitory, where there are no windows or doors. Instead, there are huge empty openings. Someone’s barbaric hand broke the partitions. The dirt and stench are unbearable all around…

In a five-minute walk from the central avenue of Aktobe, as in the besieged Leningrad, they die of cold and exhaustion. 26 families remain in the house, where there is still no heating. The light was cut off long ago, and there has never been gas here»

Newspaper «Diapazon» Aktobe city, 1999.

The events described in the local newspaper took place during the reforms of the 90s). This shows how market reforms were carried out in the former USSR, on its periphery. What was the crisis and how did the residents survive it?