(cont. from Russia. August. 2010. Part 1: Grain. )
The surge of wildfires this summer has shown two important developments in today’s Russia: deteriorating regional/local government system and growing importance of Russia's blogosphere.
Ever since 2000, when then President Putin started to rebuild centralized federal government system, regional governments were gradually giving up political power. In some respect such reconstruction was aimed at limiting the power of regional political elite, rather than actual power of Russia’s regions, which never were strong. Establishment of the seven (and later the eighth in the Northern Caucasus) super-regional administrations or Federal Districts was meant to bring systematic order and constitutional synchrony to diverse forms of regional entities of new Russia. Political centralization process, coincided with decade long surge in the commodities market, allowed Russia’s Federal Government to gather low-hanging fruits of administrative reforms and economic development. Modernized federal system permitted relatively efficient federal intervention on political, economic and security matters on a case-by-case basis.
This summer, however, the system has encountered its biggest challenge so far. Wildfires in more than 40 different regions (7 with the state of emergency) of Russia have stretched its Federal government and its most effective agency - EMERCOM.
Of course record heat wave and drought throughout Russia were key systemic factors that significantly impacted the scale of the disaster. However, if we measure the apathy and ineffectiveness of the regional/local governments not in "hectares of forest burned", but in “lives lost” or “days it took for some of the regional governor to interrupt their vacation” the picture gets clear. In the system where accountability and resource allocation has only upward dynamics, regional elite is more likely to respond to the criticism from the federal center (i.e. Putin or Medvedev) rather than people on the ground.
In any event, when you watch President Medvedev meeting with Russian oligarchs who pledge money to rebuild villages of Central Russia or Prime Minister Putin responding to remarks of an unknown before blogger, whose comments on government’s handling of fire gone viral, the question you may ask is "what is regional/local governments' response of to the fire or at least the discussion on the web?"
This brings us to the second point of this post - growing importance of Russia's blogosphere. The backbone of Russia’s civil society is not community services, local churches, PTAs or rotary clubs. The backbone of Russia’s civil society is truth seeking and straight talking “lonely hero”, the one who dares to speak to the authorities. If previous Russian regimes have sent such loners to Siberia and psychiatric hospitals, the current landscape is significantly different. The internet connects such "lonely hero" to like-minded persons all over the nation. Russia’s blogosphere gives such "lonely heroes" opportunity to express themselves and to be heard by ordinary people. Twitter makes the dissemination speed supersonic, and mainstream media’s fascination with new means of communication results in media spillovers.
The blogger named “top_lap” with his “Put my f___n village bell back” is yet another example of Russian blogosphere’s growing influence and its interesting manner of communicating with the authorities (in Russian http://top-lap.livejournal.com/2010/08/01/, YouTube - "Рында как символ русской демократии" - Эхо Москвы 1/5).
Here is English language summary of the discussion:
In a scathing attack posted on LiveJournal, a blogger writing under the name top_lap vented his frustration at the authorities’ chaotic efforts to contain the fires. He said the ponds his village had previously used as reservoirs for fighting fires had been filled in and sold to developers, the local fire engine had vanished and the fire bell had been removed.
Such is the sensitivity surrounding public anger over the government’s response that Vladimir Putin himself was forced to go online and answer top_lap’s claims. This in itself is noteworthy as the prime minister claimed in 2007 that he had never even written an email.
***
Top_lap, who says he has a holiday home in a village in Tver province, 153km (95 miles) from Moscow, asked why there were no more forest wardens, who in Soviet times would have raised fire alerts. The fire bell had been replaced by a telephone which did not work, he said in his blog entry, which is punctuated by obscene swear-words. "Where is our [tax] money being spent?" he asked. "Why with every passing year are we hurtling towards a primitive social order?"
***
Top_lap questioned the need for Medvedev’s pet project of building a Russian “Silicon Valley” when the country doesn’t have enough fire engines. “We have no hope in you,” he wrote, addressing Russian officialdom. “We all understand that your one principle in life is that everybody owes you. But you’re mistaken, you owe us and you owe us a lot.”
Putin penned his answer after a Moscow radio station forwarded him a blog that railed against the decline of rural fire protection and self-serving bureaucrats. Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, confirmed the authenticity of the response posted on the website of broadcaster Ekho Moskvy.
“On the whole I agree with your observations,” Putin wrote in a letter mixing flattery with irony... Putin, 57, told Time magazine in 2007 that he’d never sent an e-mail... Putin, who began his letter with the words “dear user,” said he read the blog “with great interest and pleasure.” While conceding the government’s responsibility to fight natural disasters, he explained that Russia was facing its worst heat wave in 140 years and that western countries also suffered frequent wildfires. “You’re definitely a gifted writer,” Putin wrote. “If you made a living by writing, you could live in Capri, just like Vladimir Lenin’s favorite writer, Maxim Gorky.” “If we had your address, you’d immediately get a ship’s bell from the governor,” he wrote.
No comments:
Post a Comment