WordPess AI-elicited image: “Mongolia, as imagined by Russian liberals”
Political scientist Andrei Nikulin writes on his Telegram channel: “If even Mongolia can be progressive and democratic, then all the more so can Russia be progressive and democratic.” Claims to the contrary are just neurolinguistic programming, he argues.
I am unironically aware that, from the Moscow intellectual’s lofty vantage point, Mongolia is a backward, third-rate country. The whole semantics of Nikulin’s turn of phrase says so. Since those nomads were able to do it, why can’t we, cultured Europeans, have a normal future?
I generally salute positive affirmation. But before we are cheered up by a sense of superiority, let’s face reality. Here are just a few facts about Mongolians today.
Yes, forty percent Mongolia’s population is made up of nomads who, like their ancestors, live in yurts and travel with their livestock. Yes, there are only three paved roads for a population of three and a half million people.
But since 1990, the Mongolian people have elected six presidents, never once allowing any of them to exceed their rightful term in office. The Mongolian constitution gives a leader only one six-year term without the right to re-election, and this norm has never been violated. The average turnout in elections at all levels of government is seventy percent. By comparison, turnout in progressive Moscow barely exceeded thirty percent when Navalny ran for mayor.
Further, while Russians were seizing Crimea and “nullifying” Putin’s previous terms as president, the humble Mongolian nomads forced their government to resign at least twice, in 2017 and 2021. In 2012, a former president was arrested and jailed on charges of bribery.
The real, democratic Mongolia, as seen in the photos selected by the author to illustrate her post
More recently, in the winter of 2022, Mongolians staged large-scale protests in Ulaanbaatar over a corruption scandal. It transpired that when exporting coal to China, customs officials had “diverted” six and a half million tons of the cargo, according to the paperwork. Mongolians considered this a theft of national revenues and marched on the capital’s square demanding that the theft be investigated and the names of those involved be made public. Eventually, the protesters stormed government house and demanded the government’s resignation.
Remind me again what Muscovites stormed in Moscow after Navalny’s investigations, of which there were dozens?
But Mongolians protested in the cold for three weeks until they forced the government to arrest the corrupt officials and reform the coal industry.
In April, the protests resumed. This time, Mongolian youth blamed the government for its poor performance and rising prices.
And lastly, let’s talk about the culture. Mongolians do not shout at their children or punish them. You will not hear from a Mongolian mom say to her child “I told you to shut your mouth” or “The more you cry, less you piss.” How should I put it? Mongolians love their children. There are only 924 orphaned children the entire country—that is less than 0.03% of the population. By comparison, there are 391,000 children living in Russian orphanages—that is 0.3% of the Russian population. In other words, children in Russia are left parentless ten times more often.
You can remain trapped in the old optics, looking down on everyone and denying reality. This will not bring social and political change any closer. If you want to go on living, but your body is rotting and falling apart, you need an accurate diagnosis. And the more honest it is, the greater the chances of your recovery.
Everything else can be put down to helplessness.
Source: Julia Khazagaeva (Facebook), 21 June 2024. Translated by the Russian Reader
