ANALYSIS: Environmental disasters in post-Soviet states: a renewed source of nationalist sentiment (07/05/98)

ANALYSIS

Environmental disasters in post-Soviet states:
a renewed source of nationalist sentiment

by Paul Goble
RFE/RL Globe

Environmental disasters - some left over from Soviet times, others the product of the actions of weak new governments and still others the result of the activities of foreign firms - may reignite nationalist passions in many post-Soviet states.

There are three reasons behind this somewhat surprising conclusion.

First, as a recently released poll shows, citizens in the post-Soviet states appear even more concerned about the environment than residents of other countries around the world.

Second, the leaders of many of the national movements in these countries started as environmental activists in Soviet times and thus are now simply returning to their roots as a result of new ecological disasters.

And third, the media have increasingly focused attention on such disasters, especially when corrupt local officials or foreign firms appear to be to blame.

The United States Information Agency last month released the results of two surveys its researchers conducted in late 1997 in Russia, Ukraine and Kazakstan on popular attitudes toward environomental issues. Those polls found that majorities in all three countries - including more than 65 percent in Russia - said they favor protecting the environment even if doing so meant they would have to put up with slower economic growth. Such support for environmental activism would be impressive anywhere; it is especially striking in countries whose economic situation is anything but good.

In addition, the survey showed that the citizens of these three countries are extremely critical of what their respective governments are doing to clean up environmental pollution. Some 70 percent of Kazaks, 85 percent of Russians and a similar percentage of Ukrainians felt their national governments were doing a poor job in this respect.

Not surprisingly, politicians both in power and in opposition are sensitive to such attitudes, seeing them either as a threat or an opportunity. And that is particularly the case with those political figures who began their careers as spokesmen for ecological causes in Soviet times.

In the 1960s and 1970s, environmental concerns were among the few issues that opposition groups, especially in the non-Russian regions, could raise without running afoul of the Soviet state. Many of these environmental activists subsequently became active in the preservation of historical monuments when that became possible. And, later still, they adopted an openly nationalist agenda as the Soviet state crumbled around them.

Now, in the post-Soviet environment, these same people are drawing strength from others appalled by the environmental degradation visited upon them by past Soviet practices, by the failure of their own governments to prevent new disasters, and by the poor ecological record of many Western firms now operating in these countries. And, just as in Soviet times, they are focusing attention not so much on the environment in general, but on conditions in their own country or even in one part of it. According to the USIA poll, only one person in 50 is concerned about global climate change, but virtually everyone is worried about more immediate environmental degradation.

The media in these countries are playing up these issues, frequently with an increasingly nationalist gloss directed either at the Soviet past, an uncaring and corrupt local regime or foreign firms. Recently, for example, the press in Kyrgyzstan has called attention to the environmental disaster visited on that country's Lake Issyk-Kul by a Kyrgyz-Canadian gold-mining concern. Ukrainian media have continued to discuss the fallout from the Chornobyl nuclear accident - a disaster made all the worse by Soviet policies and the West's unwillingness to help. And the Georgian media have raised questions about the consequences for that country if Turkey builds a dam on the border between the two countries.

Many both in the West and in these countries may be inclined to dismiss such concerns as relatively unimportant to the political life of this region. But the experience of these countries in the past and the intense feelings that environmental issues can still arouse point to a different conclusion.

They suggest that future environmental disasters in this region may quickly lead to a nationalist response, particularly if those responsible are individuals and groups from abroad. That conclusion, in turn, indicates that anyone seeking to do business with those countries must be especially environmentally responsible to avoid unleashing a popular movement that no one will be able to control.

Paul Goble is publisher of RFE/RL Newsline.