Category Archives: Colored Revolutions

Reading Western press reactions to the election of Viktor Yanukovich as president of Ukraine are lessons in how democracy is measured in our era.  Whereas Marx called the coup of Napoleon III a farce to the tragedy of his uncle’s reign, press opinion of Yanukovich’s victory is better viewed as a tragic reenactment to his farcical attempt to steal it in 2004. (Although, Marx’s original play of tragedy and farce might still be in the making as Tiger-Yulia plans contest the results.) Thus for observers of this weekend’s election, revolution has given way to potential counterrevolution, enthusiasm to depression, light to darkness, sincerity to tragic irony.  The disappointment is so palatable that you can’t help wonder if commentators deluded themselves into believing that the election was their own, and Ukrainians were supposed to express their voice.  But ..read more

Today Ukrainians head for the polls, the endpoint (or midpoint depending on your opinion) to a colorful campaign where only the candidates appeared to be having fun.  It’s too bad that Ukrainians don’t have little buttons they can press to kick candidates off the campaign trail.  Instead of a having to choose from a list of 18 potentials, and then between two in an expected run-off, they could have simply kicked everyone off the island.  The reject all vote sounds good to some.  So much so that one candidate is reported to have changed his name to Vasyl Protyvsikh, or Vasyl “Against All” with the hope to garner some votes.   But alas, democracy is what it is.  Too often you vote for the candidate you get rather than the one you want.

If there is one story dominating this election it is the “widespread disillusionment” of the electorate.  As Flavor ..read more

There is nothing more hilarious when people give wondrous powers to the United States.  It’s no surprise that Russia Today would feast on a the idea that the “Green Revolution” is a US orchestrated plot.  Russia already convinced itself that every colored revolution was cooked up in Langley.

And this makes Craig Roberts a perfect guest (I know nothing about Wayne Madsen, but his wiki entry suggests that he’s a crank).  He argued that the Iranian protests are  “classic CIA destabilization” in an article on Counterpunch.  What a sad convergence of opinion between  some in the American Left, Russia’s conservatives, and the theocrats in Iran.

The idea among some Leftists that every uprising they don’t like is the work of the CIA (or Mossad) always strikes me as orientalist.

Robert Fisk, who has been reporting daily from the Tehran, provides Ahmadinejad’s contribution to the theory of colored revolution:

In the aftermath of the Ahmadinejad “success” at the polls, his supporters were handing out leaflets condemning the secular revolutions of Eastern Europe, and their content says much about the anxieties of Iran’s clerical leadership. One of them was entitled: “The system of trying to topple an Islamic Republic in a ‘velvet revolution’.” It then described how it believes Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine and other nations won their freedom.

“‘Velvet’ or ‘colourful’ revolutions… are methods of exchanging power for social unrest. Colourful and ‘velvet’ revolutions occurred in post-communist societies of central and Eastern Europe and central Asia. Colourful revolutions have always been initiated during an election and its methods are as follows:

“1. Complete despair in the attitude of people when they are certain to lose an election…

“2. Choosing one particular colour which is selected ..read more

As hundreds of thousands protesters fill the streets of Tehran and other provincial centers,  one can’t help think that we’ve seen this all before.  So much about the Iranian protests look like the “colored revolutions” in Ukraine, Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, (the failed attempts in) Moldova and Belarus. In fact, “colored revolution” has become a preeminent phenomena in our young 21st century. It’s scripted like a bad TV drama with recycled plot lines, characters, and props.  Colored revolutions unfold like ready-made, recyclable skits.   Their ingredients include a “managed democracy,” a contestable election where the opposition claims “foul,” mass protests, a prominent place for “social networking” technologies (SMS, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, and the like), and the adoption of a color to symbolize all political demands.  The dramatic conflict plays out between the “state” and “the opposition” (whether the latter is actually outside the former matters little) over the legitimacy of the election.  ..read more