August 2018

I’ve always been fascinated by the Cold War and, with The Americans ending, I was interested in knowing more about the currentÂ post-Soviet states. I found the above map on Wikipedia.

There are actually fifteen post-Soviet states:

(1) Armenia,Â (2) Azerbaijan,Â (3) Belarus, (4) Estonia (which I would really love to discover one day), (5) Georgia, (6) Kazakhstan (which is enormous), (7) Kyrgyzstan, (8) Latvia, (9) Lithuania, (10) Moldova, (11) Russia, (12) Tajikistan, (13) Turkmenistan, (14) Ukraine and (15) Uzbekistan.

Of course, Russia is the most well-known country, probably followed by Ukraine and Estonia.

I did something interesting. I used the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU)Â Democracy Index, a measure of the state of democracy in 167 countries, to categorise the fifteen countries:

None of them is aÂ full democracy. Interestingly, Mauritius is one and is ranked 16th in the world. The one area where Mauritius could greatly improve is political participation by citizens.
Three areÂ flawed democracies:Â Estonia (30th most democratic country in the world out of 167),Â Lithuania (37th) andÂ Latvia (40th).
Five have aÂ hybrid regime: Moldova (78th),Â Georgia (79th),Â Ukraine (83rd),Â Kyrgyzstan (95th) andÂ Armenia (111th).
And the seven remaining countries areÂ authoritarian:Â Russia (135th),Â Belarus (138th),Â Kazakhstan (141st),Â Azerbaijan (148th),Â Uzbekistan (158th),Â Tajikistan (159th) andÂ Turkmenistan (162nd).

Phew. Is this a consequence of the countries being so young? After all, the Soviet Union was dismantled in 1991 only. Or there another reason to explain why so few of them are democracies?

Anyway, here are their capitals:

Flawed democracies:Â Estonia (Tallinn),Â Lithuania (Vilnius) andÂ Latvia (Riga).
Hybrid regimes: Moldova (ChiÈ™inÄƒu),Â Georgia (Tbilisi),Â Ukraine (Kiev),Â Kyrgyzstan (Bishkek) andÂ Armenia (Yerevan).
Authoritarian countries:Â Russia (Moscow),Â Belarus (Minsk),Â Kazakhstan (Astana),Â Azerbaijan (Baku),Â Uzbekistan (Tashkent),Â Tajikistan (Dushanbe) andÂ Turkmenistan (Ashgabat).

Phew (again). I am realising that I had never heard of e.g.Â ChiÈ™inÄƒu,Â Bishkek,Â Dushanbe or Ashgabat before.

I hope that I’ll have the opportunity to discover some of the these countries in the future. The democratic ones of course :-)

When I was 12, I studied A House for Mr Biswas, a novel byÂ V. S. Naipaul who passed away on 11 August 2018. The book tells the story of “Mohun Biswas, an Indo-Trinidadian who continually strives for success and mostly fails, who marries into the Tulsi family only to find himself dominated by it, and who finally sets the goal of owning his own house” (from Wikipedia).

I have to be honest though. At that time, 33 years ago, I didn’t like the book too much. I thought Mohun Biswas was old-fashioned and I could not relate to him or his family.

I loved the class though. Our English teacher, Mrs Girdhari-Fulena, was fantastic. PityÂ I was too young and too stupid to appreciate V. S. Naipaul then… One of these days, I’ll readÂ A House for Mr Biswas again.

PS: V. S. Naipaul is also known for The Overcrowded Barracoon, published in 1972, in which Mauritius is described as “an overcrowded barracoon where tranquility recedes and escape routes are closed”. The Mauritians “have no sense of danger.” Fortunately, he was wrong.

Archives for August 2018