The world is changing before our eyes, and the economic crisis has only multiplied this process. At the same time, some of these changes come as a complete shock, and the underlying causes are poorly understood. The sudden collapse last week of the political regime in Kyrgyzstan is a case in point.
The color revolutions in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan and the stability in Russia stem fr om the same psychological roots. The authorities are quite happy with the mass apathy, indifference and cynicism of the people that has turned the political process into an endless stream of meaningless events occurring in a social vacuum. But the fact that “the people remain silent” — as Alexander Pushkin so aptly put it — is itself an indicator of Russians’ historical alienation and of the large gap between the government and the people.
As daily life continues and as the political system’s inherent weaknesses get increasingly worse, volatile impulses are building, paving the way for an explosion that becomes more probable the less we speak and think about it.
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