Financing from the West and Pro-Western Policy.
Those political forces who rise up to some degree and carry out
opposition activity, are often labeled as “pro-Western” and being financed from
the West. This is done in an attempt to
tarnish their reputation in the eyes of the people. The inference is that if a political organization
is financed from abroad, should it then later come to power, it will be
beholden to that foreign country and subject to its will.
This is of course absolutely baseless, but it still resonates with
the people. This reminds me of the
saying “does not see a tree in his own
eye and looks for a stick in the other’s eye”. Since this perception is not particularly
astute, such arguments only really affect those who have limited political or
economic knowledge.
This concept may be explained in a number of contexts.
First, the government has previously accepted financial aid and state
loans from foreign countries. For
example, the head of state used to hold consultations with the former
presidents of both Turkey and Russia, Suleyman Damiral and Boris Yeltsin, prior
to each of his foreign visits. So
despite their conviction that they were independent leaders of an independent
state, they were not able to make independent decisions on many of the key
issues. They simply had no choice othe
than to engage with other foreign leaders.
Such is the nature of the modern world. The same is true now. But our country is not receiving foreign
financial aid because of its oil revenues.
Yet consultations with foreigners continue regardless.
So we end up with the duplicitous situation whereby the authorities
blame Europe and America for carrying out double standards, yet they themselves
carry out their own double standards when it comes to things like Northern
Cyprus, Ossetia and Kosovo. This does
not demonstrate the government’s reolute position in any of these cases and
underscores the fact that it does not have any financial dependence on any
foreign state. Therefore, this means
that the point is not about being financed from abroad or not. Consequently, it is incomprehensible as to
why political parties are being blamed for having contact with other states.
The second point is that political forces struggling for democracy
and liberalism really need financial support. There are three sources of
financial support. First, peoples’
donations; second, finances of the state;
and third, grants from foreign democratic institutions.
The authorities do their utmost to prevent real opposition forces
from utilising the first and second methods. This is done by scaring people from donating
and by creating technical, legal and moral obstacles to get state grants. Only foreign grants are then left which the state
forbids by decree. And then the authorities scoff at the supposed weakness of
the opposition!
This is comprable to the following scenario – one “hero” calling an
opponent, whose hands are tied and who has been kept hungry for a long time, to
the ring to fight. Completely unfair.
So why then does a pro-western policy worry the government so much? They cannot break from the orbit of the West,
or Russia come to that, when it comes to policy formulation. So what
is it that they do not particularly like about the West? Maybe they have human rights problems, or
their education and healthcare is so bad?! Maybe their social programs make their people
leave their countries?! We can of course
note a lot of such “maybes”. The stark
reality is, the West, which the authorities dislike (at least on paper), is a
number of times better than us in its economic development and societal
progress. Despite the fact that we are way behind them, the current government pushes
the mantra “if you can’t reach it, tell it that it stinks.” Despite, of course, they themselves go to the
West for treatment, send their children there for study and even move their
monetary capital there for “darker days.”
If being pro-Western is so bad, why are they doing this?!
This government understands perfectly well that the only harm the
West can do to them is causing them to leave their privileged seats of power
and influence. The West won’t harm ordinary people. The level of respect that
the USA and the European countries have for all people, including our very own,
is higher than our government’s is to us. There is only one reason why the civil states
we call the West want our citizens to share in their enlightenment, built on respect
for human rights and the establishment of freedom of expression – because they want
to be neighbours with civil, adequate and similarly democratic countries. That’s
because if neighbouring countries are civil, democratic and understanding, then
the world will have a much greater chance of living in peace and prosperity.
Just think about the neighbours in your own life. Would you want your neighbour
to be a brawler, be loud and generally disrespecting himself, his family and
his surroundings?! Of course, not! Western policy and principle is built on those
very same values.
