A confusing campaign (1/19/05)

Someone in Kyrgyzstan is trying to influence my opinion about the upcoming parliamentary election.

But they’re going to need a better translator if they want to win my support.

Not surprisingly, my home e-mail address has made its way into the hands of folks I don’t know on the other side of the world. I’m not talking about people who want to refinance my mortgage or enlarge parts of my anatomy. I’m talking about political operatives for one faction or another.

Sunday’s e-mail was pretty typical. Of 14 new messages, ten were in Russian and the Cyrillic alphabet. Since my Russian reading skills are limited to essentials like “Exit,” those were quickly deleted.

But the English translations which appeared later were another story and took awhile to digest, primarily because they were translated by someone whose English skills are only marginally better than my Russian skills.

When you add in the cultural differences and the insider politics of a small country, the messages can leave a reader scratching his head.

I’m guessing my correspondent is a supporter of the current president, who has watched the “Rose Revolution” of Georgia and the “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine with a degree of nervousness.

But that’s just a guess.

Here’s a sample of what I’ve been trying to decipher: “In light of present pre-election events, we cane (sic) make conclusion: deputies knowingly undertook this step understanding that there are no friends in politics.”

Or this: “The fight among candidates has already started and probably just few ‘scapegoats’ will come to finish.”

Racing scapegoats?

Apparently my correspondent also believes that human rights organizations and those pushing for press freedom are fomenting civil strife.

He lashes out incomprehensibly: “Besides official ‘rights-defenders’ a lot of crude ‘democracy dogs’ wander around office potential grant-givers. And they usually don’t disdain from anything.”

He’s also angry at the Western tendency to equate the beating of reporters with suppression of free expression: “God forbid the brick to fall down on the his head! They would say free media is beaten without misses. They would say so because West pays big money for the tremble in the voice. Such money is worth of superfluous word.”

And then, just to confuse things further, he tosses in a few references that baffle an American: “All of us know the old and loved by children of many countries fairy tale about wolf, who wanted to craftily get into the dwelling of peaceful goats. As strange as it may seem, sometimes fairy tales become real.”

Ah yes, the old fairy tale about the wolf and the goats. Which book was that one in?

He goes on: “Of course, the wolves will not calm down and will keep on attempting to take root in the place, where in their opinion there is a lot of sheep. But, I think, we will always be able to discern their grey color even behind cutting orange they will wear.”

Cutting orange?

Actually, this last passage is relatively easy to understand. He’s warning about the opposition leaders who seem to be following the Ukrainian path.

At least that’s what I think it says. But what does an old “democracy dog” like me know?[[In-content Ad]]