Demography Why Kazakh Protests So Different from Russian and Belarusian Ones, Pozharsky Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Jan. 6 – Analysts in Moscow and the West have been wracking their brains to try to explain the explosive protests in Kazakhstan, but the explanation is quite simple: the demography of Kazakhstan is fundamentally different than the demography of the Russian Federation and Belarus, Mikhail Pozharsky says.

            In Kazakhstan, the majority of the population is between 18 and 35 while in Russia and Belarus, the average residents are much older; and in Kazakhstan, only about 50 percent of its people live in cities while in the two Slavic republics, the figures are much higher (t.me/whalesgohigh/4568 reposted at kasparov.ru/material.php?id=61D6E0E22E521).

            According to Pozharsky, “the presence of a large quantity of rural young men is one of the chief statistical predictors of violent protests. Or put in simpler terms, in Kazakhstan, tough country boys in uniform faced tough country boys out of uniform.” The situation in Russia and Belarus is entirely different.       

            In Russia and Belarus, “tough country boys” in the force structures move against a much older group of urban intellectuals. Not surprisingly, the reasons the Kazakhs, on the one hand, and the Russians and Belarusians, on the other, go into the streets are very different as well.

            “The Kazakh protests are not about who ‘stole elections’ and are not ‘against repression.’” They are about the price of gas, something of far greater concern to “tough rural guys” than these more abstract issues, the Russian commentator continues. And these differences lead to another one.

            In Kazakhstan, the siloviki and the protesters are from the same social background and are far less isolated from each other than the force structures and the demonstrators are in Russia and Belarus. As a result, in Kazakhstan, “the tough rural guys” in uniform are far less willing to shoot at “the tough rural guys” among the protesters.

            And that is why the Kazakhstan leadership wanted outside help to suppress the protesters. Such outsiders won’t be subject to the same constraints of identity that Kazakh siloviki clearly are.