the revolution is on hold

U.S. News & World Report says of Belarus: The Revolution is on Hold, OK?. It's an interesting read, noting that "democracy" in Belarus is one of President Bush's new pet projects, and saying a combination of "eye candy" (things there look far better than they are) and police crackdowns keep democracy-minded sentiments in check. Some excerpts:

For now, many Belarusians seem to prefer the status quo to the possible alternative, the kind of economic turmoil they have seen befall other former Soviet states. Products here are cheap, the official unemployment rate is low, and the government pays pensions regularly and relatively amply. "Lukashenko has given us a good life," says pensioner Maria Balzevich, 61, who lives in a dilapidated village an hour from the capital. When asked if she misses the Soviet Union, Balzevich looks around her two-room dacha, smiles, and replies, "What do you mean? I still live in the Soviet Union." Last year, Lukashenko pushed a law through the puppet parliament requiring that all government jobs be reviewed and renewed annually. "As soon as a person complains about what`s going on, he loses his contract, and this is done publicly in order to instill fear in others," says a leading pro-western opposition figure, Sergey Kalyakin of the Party of Communists of Belarus. "And this system will be sustainable as long as fear trumps people`s desire to change the situation."

The fact is that under the status quo, the system is too full of corruption and confusion to last. Every year, the Powers that Be have to pull the rubberband tighter and tighter to squeeze things into the current model. It won't be long before the rubberband breaks. I would love to be there when it does.