Very informative and no doubt all true.
I'd just like to make a point about the economism that's taken hold of this discussion. Everybody seems to be suggesting that ethnicity, national identity, etc. is secondary, and only the bottom line counts. But to give an example closer to home, Kurds in Turkey are also perfectly aware that they are better off trading in their language and territoral claims for a place in Turkey's relatively developed economy, as opposed to an endless war for cultural identity and a barren wilderness. But that will never stop them from harboring a grudge against Turks. Whatever their material benefits, they will always consider themselves as victims of oppression. It's also a matter of public record that the Turkish state has poured far more development money into the Kurdish regions than it has collected. In fact, a lot of the investments were sabotaged by the PKK. Turkey would immediately have a higher GNP if it just let them secede and walled off the border. But this is unthinkable because it would incur enormous political costs. So there's more to imperialism, and to life, than cash flow.
Hakki
|| In Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Tajikistan, etc. there is widespread
|| anti-Russian
|| feeling but there is also widespread recognition that the USSR
|| modernised
|| them, to the extent that they are modernised. I mean, they were agrarian
|| tribespeople before the USSR (not to be dissing agrarian tribespeople or
|| anything). And everybody knows that their economic viability
|| lies in being
|| close to Russia -- compare conditions in Tatarstan, which did not secede
|| from Russia, and Georgia, Abkhazia, Uzbekistan, etc.
|| Tatarstan's no paradise
|| but it's a hell of a lot better than the competition.
||
|| This has very little to do with the current topic, but the only
|| country in
|| the FSU where total economic collapse did not take place is
|| none other than
|| Belarus, the one country that did not participate in shock therapy.
||
|| Chris Doss
|| The Russia Journal
||