Postcard from Bishkek

In Britain we have a children’s rhyme which runs …

Remember, remember, the fifth of November,
Gunpowder, treason and plot …

I am not sure how many people could recite the rest of the verse, although I knew it in my childhood, it has long since disappeared from my long term memory and I had to look it up:

I know of no reason
Why Gunpowder Treason
Should ever be forgot.

I was surprised to discover that this not the end of the rhyme.  It continues:

Guy Fawkes, Guy Fawkes, t’was his intent
To blow up the King and Parli’ment.
Three-score barrels of powder below
To prove old England’s overthrow;
By God’s mercy he was catch’d
With a dark lantern and burning match.
Holla boys, Holla boys, let the bells ring.
Holloa boys, holloa boys, God save the King!
And what should we do with him?
Burn him!

To those who aren’t familiar with some of the intricacies of British history, the rhyme refers to an incident in the early years of the reign of James the First, (… of England and Sixth of Scotland).  Yes, the same guy I referred to last week who is credited with originating the phrase, “No news is good news”.  I said at that time that he was not one my favourite monarchs and that I always thought of him as being somewhat dour.  Although his reign was pretty eventful, it doesn’t have the interesting “colour” that you find littered through the reigns of some of his predecessors.  “The Gunpowder Plot” immortalized in this rhyme, however, is the exception.

In a nutshell, Parliament was due to meet on November 5th, 1605, but some disgruntled citizens, (Catholics as it happened) decided to stage a revolution.  Together with a Dutch engineer called Guido Fawkes, (commonly known as Guy Fawkes), they rented some rooms in a building adjacent to the parliament and dug a tunnel into the cellars underneath the chamber where the members of Parliament, together with the King were to assemble for the opening session.  The plotters stuffed the cellars with barrels of gunpowder ready to blow the politicians to kingdom come.  They then dispersed to their country estates in order to lead a “popular” uprising and seize the reigns of power once the news broke.

However, one of the plotters just happened to have a relative who was a member of the parliament and he sent his cousin an anonymous letter advising him to absent himself from the opening session.  Suspicions duly aroused, a search of the premises was conducted during the night and the guards discovered Guy Fawkes amongst the assembled thirty six barrels of explosive in the cellars, (the children’s rhyme got it wrong.  I presume the “three score” – i.e. sixty – barrels it refers to is an example of poetic license),   and duly arrested him.  Having foiled the plot, the search was on for those implicated who were tracked down and duly dealt with.

At least, that was the official story which is commemorated up and down the country each year with bonfires, with an effigy of the Guy Fawkes atop, and firework displays.

Enquiring minds, however, were not really satisfied with the official account, and there has long been a controversy suggesting that there is enough evidence to show that the the plot was not the only conspiracy.  In fact, the Monteagle letter was no more than a ruse, providing the the authorities with the excuse to discover something that they already knew – and may indeed even have engineered. However, the case is neither proven one way or the other, but it does provide ample material for the conspiracy theorists to get their teeth into.

So, you can imagine how my interest was piqued when the election results were announced this week and Roza Otunbaeva said that she hope the Parliament would begin its work on November the fifth.

Unfortunately, however, they didn’t make it.  It would be nice to say that someone, somewhere, had dropped a word to someone else about the rather unfortunate coincidence, the possible precedent and the need to postpone the opening session, ( … or, at least, search the cellars under the Jorgoku Kenesh), but I doubt if anyone, apart from the odd British ex-pat, gave it a thought.

Amongst the reasons that the parliament didn’t meet were the fact that there ten appeals to the court to challenge the results, five from political parties, three from “public organizations and two from private citizens – despite the fact that the Supreme Court reported earlier in the week that they had received no complaints about violations in the elections.  (The Electoral Commission apparently considered over 1000 reports and, apparently, local courts received over 50 complaints.)   By Friday, four of the cases had been heard and dismissed – but the other six remain to be heard.  I’m not sure what appeals are permitted. Then the process of registering the members of the parliament has to be gone through, so that will take a few more days.

One elected member has already written his letter of resignation and he will be replaced by the next person on the parties list.  I wonder if this establishes a record for the shortest ever parliamentary career of any politician.  To be fair to him, apparently he had already discussed with the party leadership the fact that he intended to step down and not take his seat in the parliament but they felt it important that he be included in the list of candidates as he was an important member of the party’s team and was largely responsible for drafting their economic policy.

Although we now have a set of election results and know who has been elected to sit in parliament, even if it can’t sit yet, there is still no agreement about who will form the government.  As no party was able to achieve a majority – indeed the system was such that it was almost impossible for any one party in the current circumstances to do so – the government will have to be a coalition comprising at least three of the parties if it is to be able to command a majority in the House.  That probably means a formal agreement, the result of negotiations, where all the parties of the coalition will be represented – as in the UK today where the government is a coalition comprising ministers from both the Liberal and Conservative parties.  A “pact” such as the Lib-Lab pact of the 1970′s where the Liberals had no seats at the cabinet table, but were consulted about measures and agreed not to vote against the Labour government, probably wouldn’t work.  Although discussions, (I presume that means negotiations) have been underway almost ever since election day, a formal agreement still seems to be some way off.

There is an attempt to institute a new law of “lustration” – yes, that caught me out too … apparently it comes from the Latin for “purification, and since the demise of the former communist governments in Eastern Europe the term has been used to refer to government policies of limiting the participation of former communists, and especially informants of the communist secret police, in public life as political appointees or in civil service positions.  Here, the idea seems to be to prevent members of the previous regime from serving as in the government, as elected representatives, etc.  The initiators have been given three months to collect signatures in order to present a draft law to the parliament – but several parties have indicated that the parliament won’t consider the law … well, as most of them include people who served the two previous regimes – even party leaders who did so, that is not surprising.  The measure raises lots of questions, such as: where would the line be drawn?, and, as the population is so small, would the measure deprive the country of the talent and experience necessary to fill many posts? …

So, we are still waiting “in limbo”, at least in that respect.

Things are happening elsewhere, for example:.

Bakiev’s nephew has been sentenced for ten years for organizing mass disorders.  A number of court cases have been initiated against officials of the previous regime for abuse of power, corruption, etc.  A number of these will have to be heard in absentia as the accused have fled the country and won’t be available for trial, or punishment – assuming they are found guilty.  This is being hailed as a major crackdown on corruption.

The story of the fuel supply for the Manas Transit center has also provided a certain amount of interest and “excitement”.  The contract had been assigned to a firm closely which was apparently closely connected to the Bakievs, been under scrutiny by a congressional committee, heavily criticized as involving “corrupt” practices by many analysts, and the new Kyrgyz authorities had urged the Americans to renegotiate it with other companies – including a Kyrgyz-Russian company.  Well, apparently, the Pentagon have looked at the contract and found no reason not to renew with the original company – which sent the Ministry of Foreign Affairs into “emergency mode” issuing a press statement on Friday urging the Americans to think again.

JICA, (The Japanese International Cooperation Agency), have marked ten years of work in the country.  Personally, I quite like their projects because, although some of them are quite large, most are practical and down to earth.  They also have a center here and undertake a lot of training.

“Fashion Week” has started in Bishkek with a variety of activities for those who are interested in that sort of thing, showcasing designs from sixty odd local designers.

Bishkek is also hosting a culinary festival – and next week there is a international film festival featuring films from Kyrgyzstan, Germany, France and Spain.

Sunday, of course, was Halloween and although this is not a big thing in Kyrgyzstan, it was marked here in Bishkek, especially amongst the young and a number of discos and night clubs held special events.  Because Halloween fell on a Sunday, some of these events were held on Saturday, and one or two places managed to run events on both nights!  Although people here like to take every opportunity to celebrate and throw a party, most of the Kyrgyz are nominally Muslim and the Russian Orthodox church doesn’t take kindly to the holiday, so I suppose it’s not surprising that only a few people really mark the occasion … and I’m not sure they’ve really grasped the idea. I particularly liked the story, for example, from one of friends who is a consultant here who went to answer the doorbell to be greeted by a couple of young kids in costume.  He was about to turn to go and collect some sweets for them, when they thrust two sweets into his hands, turned and ran away.   I missed out because I was in, or traveling back, from Naryn.

November 1st, was Police Day – another of the “professional” holidays.  I got quite confused because this year they were marking the 86th anniversary of the founding of the Kyrgyz police force, although a month ago the Criminal Investigation department celebrated the founding of their particular organization some six years earlier.  So I went off did some research and the history of the police force in Kyrgyzstan since the Bolshevik Revolution which led to the disbanding of the Russian (Tsarist) Royal Police, has had a fairly convoluted history.  So much so that I can’t really claim to be much the wiser.

The First also saw the start of the Heating Season, here in Bishkek.  The Central Heating for most of the city, (apartment blocks, office building and so on), is provided by two huge Heating Stations on the Eastern and Western outskirts of the city.  They heat water which is then piped to consumers throughout the city.  Apparently the system was turned on on Monday, but we didn’t turn on our tap until Tuesday, and when we did we felt the effect immediately.  My office became like an oven even though it was relatively cold outside – an ideal recipe for catching cold.  So I now have to put on extra sweaters when I go out and take them off when I return to the office.  Oddly enough, I am told that some of the micro regions, suburbs, still don’t have heating.  I suppose that is one of the advantages of having the office in the city center.

Wednesday, the choir from the local music school which is in the yard at the back of our office went off to give a performance for some invalids in a home about sixty kilometers away.  I was confused, again, because I thought it was in honour of the International Day for the Disabled – but that happens to be on December 3rd, not November 3rd.  However, several events, including a month long sports festival for the disbaled, have already started.

Thursday, November 4th is the Saints Day in the Orthodox Church in honour of Our Lady of Kazan.  This commemorates an icon which was paraded before the troops before a battle in Moscow with an invading Polish Army in which the Russian victory is attributed to the intervention of the virgin.  The day is now marked in Russia as Russian Unity Day, and the icon is Nationalist symbol.  Just outside Bishkek there is a church dedicated to the icon and there was a special service which was well attended by many of the Russian Orthodox community who could get the day off work.

Sunday marks the anniversary of the November Revolution in 1917 which brought the Bolsheviks to power in Moscow and is a holiday here.  As, usual, when a holiday falls on a Sunday, then the following day, Monday, is declared a non-working day.  Likewise, Friday is the Muslim holiday Kurman Ait, so next week is another three day week!

So, along with the variety of meetings that I have had to attend, and lots of celebrations, it’s been a fairly eventful week.  Thank goodness, however, free of any fireworks.

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Actually, I got it wrong … Friday the twelfth is not a holiday – it’s a week later … so it was only a four day week – followed by another – not a three day week!

Tags: Calendar, Elections, History, Reminiscences, Weekly_Postcards