Fotball fans in Eastern Europe

I was shocked to hear about the racist riots in Moscow last weekend. A hooligan supporter of Spartak Moscow was shot by caucasian men, and footbal fans retaliated with a mayhem that ended with two people dead. I am no good at russian, but I think it is a good thing that Gazeta.ru dares calling the beast by its name - pogroms.

In the Guardian article above western commentators and russian liberals sees the Russian authorities as partly responsible for fomenting xenophobical feelings to divert frustrations over social and economical woes.

Making a political connection is probably correct. For all I know about Russia, it would be impossible to imagine any other kind of organised people than football fans to cause such havoc in downtown Moscow.


And Russia is not alone. Football fans are pivotal actors on the political scenes in many post-communist countries, not least on the Balkans. In the book This is Serbia Calling, Matthew Collins mentions how it was the fans of Red Star Belgrade that both brought Milosveic to power, and fought the decisive battle against his police when he fell.


Fan's graffiti from Beograd

The football fans of Bulgaria are not any more pleasant than the Spartak Moscow ones - they were probably the only kind of people that truly scared me while I was living in Sofia. In the beautiful film Eastern Plays they are depicted as doing the dirty work for politicians. Something that is easy to believe but maybe harder to prove.

But after all, who was it that decided the course of events on 14/1 2009? The people I talked to after the riots all said that football fans came uninvited to the protests, to fight with the police. For the fun of it? Or did someone want them there?

I don't know. Their presence turned the demonstration violent, and changed the political dynamics into something that was impossible for the Stanishev government to manage.

Someone who wants to really understand the politics of Eastern Europe should make reasearch on the violent football fans. maybe someone has already done it - if you know of any such work, please let me know!

The Swedish Radio and Belarus

Sveriges Radio - the Swedish public broadcasting company has decided to close its sendings in Belarussian. These sendings were a kind of "Radio Free Europe" in the dicactorship Belarus . The Swedish students' group Liberala Studenter have launched an online petition, askin Sveriges Radio to keep the broadcast as a way to support democracy work in Belarus. I was made aware of the topic from posting on the Central europe mailing list. Since it is a public mailing list I take the freedom that publish the entire letter from Sławomir Wójcik here.

Posted by: "Sławomir Wójcik" swojcik@pk.org.pl slawek.wojcik
Sat Aug 8, 2009 3:45 am (PDT)


Protest against Swedish Radio International - who are closing down the
belarusian radioprogramme which had listeners in Belarus (in
belarusian) and promoted the democratic society. The chief of SRI
Ingemar Löfgren says "democracy projects is not our job" - but the
thing is - Swedish Radio is Public Servise and it SHOULD promote
democracy aswell. Please help us support this protest and sign this
petition!

In swedish: Namninsamling startad - protest mot Sveriges Radios
nedläggning av de vitryska sändningarna. Skriv under du med och stöd
demokratirörelsen i Belarus!

http://www.namninsamling.com/InfoBelarus

Press: "Skriv på listan" (=sign the list) down in the corner, then
sign your first name in "förnamn", second name in "efternamn", your
e-mailadress in "epostadress" (it will not be shown on the list, its
just to confirm the signing in a confirmation email) and in "postort"
you write your city. Then press "Spara" (=save).
Thank you!

PLEASE, FORWARD THIS MESSAGE TO ALL, WHOM IT MAY CONCERN!

There are, of course many reasons to keep these broadcasts. Sweden has direct historical, ecological and social ties to the Baltic region incuding Russia and Belarus, and a great reponsibility to work for improved human rights in the region. The fact that Lukajsenko, the dictator of Belarus have showed an increased interest in Europe, should not be an excuse for be more forgiving towards crimes against human rights.

Except for historical and social ties, the Swedish and Polish governments have launched the EU's so called Eastern partnership, a program that was covered in this weekend's Kapital ( #31 page 25). Unfortunately it doesn't seem very clear what the EU wants to offer these countries... certainly not a quick membership, or abolishment of visa regimes. Russia on the other hand, can offer cheap gas and visa-free traveling, at the expense of human rights.

If the EU wants to play hardballs againts Russia, vagueness is unforgivable. And EU showed nothing but indecisiveness towards the violence in Moldova in April. Moreover, as Kapital points out - how can you formulate one coherent policy for countries as disparate as democratical, chaotical Ukraine, authoritarian pro-russian Belarus, a little less authoritarian pro-western Georgia and discretely authoritarian, slighlty democratic and chaotic moldova?

The countries themselves are deeply split on the issue, and in no country, except for Moldova, Kapital writes, is there a strong majority for closer ties to the EU. Kapital adds an interesting graph, showing that in Moldova 80% are for closer ties with the EU and 60% for closer ties with Russia. 140% of all Moldovans are confused I guess...

Maybe Kapital's mistaken graph is closer to ones they got right. Identities are complex, and closer economical ties to the EU and human rights should not necessary exclude a strong cultural affinity with Russia in these countries.

The EU should also ask itself - is Europe ready to redefine itself and regard Moldova, Azerbadjan and Ukraine as parts of Europe - as European as Bretagne or The Rhein valley. If it's not, what could it actually promise?

Nabucco + South stream = crazy

Geopolitics don't seem to have changed much since Napoleon's days. Human Rights, environmental- or even budget concerns are easily sidestepped for Strategic interests. Expenses for Obama's wars are not included in the US budget, and I am pretty sure the same thing goes for Putin's Russia.

That Russia and the West have conflicting around the Black Sea was evident in last summer's war in Georgia, a place were tensions are said to build up again.

Putin has recently visited Ankara, to socialize with the Turkish politicians, and gather support for the Russian oil pipeline project South Stream, a fact that teases the anti-Russian Romanian press. Putin transforms the Black sea into a Russian-Turkish lake, Cotidianul writes.



The point of South stream, a brain child of the soulmates Putin and Berlusconi, is to avoid Ukraine and Romania, two countries traditionally hostile to Moscow, and leverage traditional partners like Bulgaria and Serbia. Bulgaria has so far turned a blind eye to the geopolitical implications, and happily agreed to South Stream as well as Nabucco , EU's competing project. The new government might not be as pro-russian as the earlier, though.

Nabucco is EU's grand project to break free from Russian gas. Eventually the pipeline will be filled with gas from democracies like Azerbadjan, Turkmenistan, Egypt, possibly Iran, and why not... Russia.


Putin seems to play this game much more skillful than his collegues in Bruxelles. The Turkish govenrment works hard to keep the excitement for EU after years of waiting to get in. When Iceland passes in the fast line one can:

1. understand that Ankara loses hope
2. understand that Ankara needs to put some kind of pressure on Bruxelles, to make something happen.

EU has offered less than nothing to Turkey, not even a respectful "no". Contrary to EU Russia has now offered Turkey gas supplies, hard cash in a peak oil scenario.

But at the end of the day ... in a world where we might be out of oil within ten years, what kind of madness is it to build two competing pipelines so close to each other? Two pipelines that go through lots and lots areas that should be protected. In the best case scenario Nabucco frees the EU from dependence on Russian oil, devastates nature around the Black sea, and entrenches the EU's dependence on oil. And with Putin in power, don't expect the best case scenario.


Pics. taken from Wikipedia Commons . Cred to them.

The Cold War

It seems like the war in Georgia is over, thanks God. As far as I can judge from the news the russians are about to leave Georgia proper, however not quick at all. The headlines are taken over by Iran, testing new robots.

From a PR perspective Iran's decisin is hardly controversial. It must be the perfect timing to shoot rockets now. If poor Condoleezza Rice try to adress both Iran and Russia in one speech it will seem a little desperate. I guess the US situation is desperate.

What Putin really showed in Georgia is that Russia have a power it's not afraid to use. If the West wants control over Caspian Sea oil it will have to fight for it. But who actually will? The germans or French don't have political support at home to do it. I guess Romania or Poland have the will, but lack the military strenght. Any further US military involvement would demand either much bigger military expenses or taking existing troops from Iraq or Afganistan. I don't believe any of this will happen soon, and as long as both Russia and Iran casues problems the US is pretty paralyzed.

One might object that this is not a matter of relative strenght between competing super powers. Russia unlawfully invaded a smaller neighbour country , something the world 2008 can't tolerate. It's true that Russia acted brutally and mocked traditional international law. But remember that NATO forces have made exceptions from this traditional law for military action against Afghanistan, Iraq and Serbia. These actions may have been the right thing to do, but how can you expect Russia not to make exceptions whenever she sees her interested threatened?

The same things go for the conflict about the missile defense system in Europe. From a Swedish perspective it's obviously quite scary with russian nuclear bases on the Baltic coast... but what did you expect would come from the decision to put ammerican anti missile robots in Poland?

I guess what is emerging is a continuation of The Cold War. The the borders are redrawn but the main actors, the US and Russia are the same. And isn't it always like this in history? You can't defeat your enemy, you go under together. As long as the US is the dominant world power, Russia will ber her antipole, that's my guess.