Back from Retirement in Honor of Revolution

As per PD's request, I'm going to write a short summary here of what is going on in Kyrgyzstan to try to explain the situation to those unfamiliar with Central Asia. I'm definitely not the expert on these events--I'm a reasonably aware person who has lived in and loves Kyrgyzstan, but I stay far away from politics as a general thing. My work has to do with health and gender and inequality, and of course policy and politics plays a role, but I never ask explicit questions about particular politicians or parties, as the information I am gathering is sensitive enough on its own without adding another layer of unease for any respondents. That being said, I can't tell you the number of respondents who brought up wages and poverty in our discussions of their health and health care, and it is impossible to travel within Kyrgyzstan for very long and not realize how close to the edge most people are. So here's my non-expert explanation of current events, with some background info thrown in:

In 2005 the so-called Tulip Revolution, a mostly (but not entirely) non-violent uprising that started in the South of Kyrgyzstan eventually swept the then-president Akayev (who had held office since independence in 1991) into exile and Kurmanbek Bakiyev into the office. Akayev was a northerner and Bakiyev has his power base in the south. There are major regional differences in Kyrgyzstan: the north is richer, more industrialized, with a different ethnic make-up and cultural and social norms than the south. This is a truism but one that is absolutely born out by work in the country. Knowing this, I divided my research last year into four main sites: northern urban, northern rural, southern urban, and southern rural. Some of you may recall that in my southern rural site (Aravan raion) few respondents even spoke Kyrgyz, as most of them were ethnically and linguistically Uzbek. This is also the area where I could not meet with young(ish) men for reasons of cultural appropriateness. So where those in power come from and where unrest started and continues are among the most crucial elements to understand in the current situation.

During my most recent tenure in Kyrgyzstan, lots of complaints could be heard about Bakiyev and his administration in Bishkek and other northern areas. In Osh and southern regions, however, his popularity was huge. Many people, totally unprompted, praised his name to me and gave him credit for local improvements (this includes my time in the town in Jalalabad Oblast, Kochkor-ata where I stayed with a family that took me in this past year and where I spent time in the sanatorium). It is generally considered, however, that the Bakiyev administration was at least as corrupt as that of Akayev, with power and money flowing to those in Bakiyev's family and those connected to him through family and geographic ties. The opposition, however, always seemed very disorganized and the general population pretty politically apathetic. I think that once you have a revolution and nothing changes, it's pretty easy not to get too jazzed to go vote. Scheduled rallies had small turn outs, and there was no viable candidate in opposition to Bakiyev during the presidential elections this summer. I didn't try too hard, but I asked among local friends and couldn't find anyone who was going to go vote so I could tag along.

This January, shortly after I left, utility prices increased a huge amount, around 200%. The government was actually losing money on utilities, which were heavily subsidized, and needed improvements had to be funded somehow. However, the way utilities are set up in Kyrgyzstan, an individual doesn't have any control over how much he or she uses. Heat, for example, is turned on and off and set at a level by the city, and you have to pay if you live in a building. My utilities, total, usually ran me about $15 per month. So if you triple that, you get maybe $45 per month for heat, water, electricity and so on. It sounds entirely reasonable to American years. But $45 per month is approximately what a nurse working in a city makes per month. There is absolutely no human way possible to exist on current salaries, pay for utilities, and have any money left over for food (granted, there is a lot about reported vs. actual income that I could go into, but it's long and boring and not particularly germane. The point is, the average person in Kyrgyzstan is POOR, and raising prices on heat in the winter in a freezing mountainous country is not going to go over well).

Every year since 2005, in April there are marches to commemorate the 2005 Tulip Revolution. These are mostly symbolic and poorly attended. This year, from what people are saying thus far, widespread disgust with a government that only takes what it can from its people to enrich itself along with anger over inflation and rising prices came together to inspire mass demonstrations, the protests and clashes we have seen, and the eventual fleeing of Bakiyev to somewhere in the south, the interim government of Roza Otunbaeva, and scores dead and hundreds wounded.

Obviously, that last paragraph has a ton on stuff to unpack, and I'm willing to summarize what I know of what has been going on since disturbances started April 6 in Talas, but I'm going to wait and see if this is helpful to anyone and if I should continue before I write any more. Posting to Facebook!