BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan – On Feb. 27, 2014, as Russian euphoria over the successful seizure of Crimea was nearing its peak, the Kyrgyz nationalist group Kalys held a protest outside the U.S. embassy, saying they opposed what they called the Western gay agenda and a recent Human Rights Watch report criticizing the treatment of gays by Kyrgyz police.
They burned the portrait of a local ethnic Ukrainian activist who had been vocal in his support of Ukraine's anti-Russia “Maidan” movement, called him a “gay activist,” and called on Kyrgyzstan's parliament to take up a law banning “gay propaganda.”
That protest, with its interweaving of the cultural and geopolitical, opened the most recent front in the new Cold War between Russia and the West. A month later, Kyrgyzstan's parliament introduced a law to ban “gay propaganda.” Six months earlier MPs had already taken up another law on “foreign agents.” Both laws were copied nearly verbatim from Russian legislation adopted in 2012 and 2013. “This is really Russia's influence,” said Amir, an LGBT rights activist in Bishkek who asked to be identified only by his first name, echoing the opinion of most liberals here. “I'm sure they're connected.”
Neither law has passed. Both are still very slowly winding their way through the legislative process. And both could be subject to a veto by President Almazbek Atambayev, who so far has refused to say how he'll act if the laws make it through parliament. But questions remain: Has all this been orchestrated by Russia behind the scenes? Or has Russia merely been a reactionary inspiration?
Two and a half decades after gaining independence, many post-Soviet states are grappling with issues of identity as they navigate their way through an intimidating complex of strong currents: the disappointing fruits of democratic and capitalist reforms, a resurgent Russia, the emergence of an Internet-borne global culture and the reemergence of pre-Soviet forms of religion and traditional values. All of these have come together with particular strength in the battle over Kyrgyzstan's values.
And Russia-backed groups have organized protests and media campaigns against the new U.S. ambassador, Richard Miles, highlighting the fact that Miles had been ambassador in Georgia and Serbia around the times of the so-called “color revolutions” in those countries, warning that his appointment to Bishkek means the same thing is afoot in Kyrgyzstan. But the protests were so ham-handedly organized — with signs featuring grammatical errors and other amateurish touches — that they backfired, the Russian analyst said. “Russian structures organized such stupid, pointless, clumsy protests that for me and a lot of my friends it was really embarrassing … the people who organized these protests really don't show the best side of Russia. One of my colleagues wrote on Facebook that ‘The U.S. Embassy should give them an award,’ and I totally agree,” he said.
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