March 24, 2005
LEMON?
Protesters overthrow Kyrgyz leader in 'lemon revolution' (Chris Johnston, 3/24/05, Times Online)
Seemed like an odd choice, but it looks like this may be where "Lemon Revolution" comes from, From west to east, rolling revolution gathers pace across the former USSR (Jeremy Page, 2/19/05, Times of London)
IT WOULD be either the “lemon” or the “tulip” revolution. Kazbek and his friends could not quite decide.But as they watched Ukraine’s Orange Revolution unfold last year, they were convinced of one thing: Kyrgyzstan could be next. Their mountainous homeland was thousands of miles east of Ukraine, and one tenth of its size, but the political parallels between the former Soviet republics were striking.
Kyrgyzstan, like Ukraine, was hailed as a beacon of democracy after the Soviet Union’s collapse but had slipped into the standard post-Soviet habits of clan capitalism and authoritarian government.
After 15 years in power Askar Akayev, the President, now appears determined to pack the parliament with relatives and allies at elections on February 27 — and to install his chosen successor at a presidential poll in October. Kazbek, a young Kyrgyz democracy activist, had been an election observer in Ukraine and witnessed first-hand the tactics used to mobilise opposition protests there.
Returning to Kyrgyzstan, he co-founded a youth movement, Kelkel, (Renaissance) modelled on Otpor (Resistance), the Serbian group that helped to topple Slobodan Milosevic and spawned similar movements in Georgia and Ukraine.
“We decided on the lemon revolution, because yellow is a colour of change — like on a traffic light,” Nazik, another Kelkel leader, told The Times. The tulip idea was to match the Rose Revolution in Georgia.
MORE:
Rose, Orange, now Lemon or Tulip (Philippe Naughton, 3/24/05, Times Online)
The Tulip Revolution? The Lemon Revolt? The latest display of people power in the former Soviet Union happened so quickly that Western pundits barely had time to choose a name for it.Posted by Orrin Judd at March 24, 2005 3:09 PMFirst came Georgia's "Rose Revolution" in 2003 that saw the bloodless departure of Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet foreign minister who had ruled the country for over a decade. Then, last December, Ukraine's Orange Revolution saw off Viktor Yanukovych, the Kremlin-backed presidential candidate.
Then, today, President Askar Akayev of Kyrgystan, who had ruled the Central Asian republic since 1990, fled from another people's revolt, his government collapsing after his helicopter left for neighbouring Kazakhstan. [...]
Many of the protesters wore red and yellow headbands - the colours adopted by opposition parties. Many carried tulips, a symbol of peace in the Central Asian state. Either way, the day was theirs.
At this rate, the revolutions are going to run out of unique colors.
I like the comment regarding the lemon revolution. Yellow was chosen to indicate change, as in the traffic signal. We're going to have to come up with a new color for cowardice, since their choice certainly doesn't reflect cowardice.
Posted by: John J. Coupal at March 24, 2005 4:31 PMWe should institute a revolution naming schedule similar to the yearly hurricane christening rotation. Start with the primary colors, work into the blends, then when the color wheel makes a complete rotation start changing the hue. Maybe by the time the Cubans come around they can have burnt sienna (would that be sienna quemado?). Or what colors were Ricky Ricardo's two tone jackets?
Posted by: Shelton at March 24, 2005 4:51 PMNope, Bush has absolutely nothing to do with this...nothing to see here, move along please, pure coincidence...
Posted by: Matt Murphy at March 24, 2005 4:55 PMShel,
I couldn't see the colors of Ricky's two tone jackets on my RCA Victor tv.
These events tend to have a rallying effect. Not only do they inspire one another, but they develop a knowledge base to assist the next group who wants to do so.
There is a herd mentality in internation affairs as people back who they view as a winner. It worked to the fascists' favor in the Depression and to Communism's favor after the Vietnam War when the US was seen as weak and thus discredited.
We may see a few more of these until someone in a much weaker situation pushes their luck in some odd corner of the world and gets promptly smashed and no one cares because of other more pressing matters. Still, who would expect Kyrgyzstan? People panic, and until the dictators get their spines back, the situation should be taken advantage of. But it will not last forever, and a period of consolidating gains will occur.
Posted by: Chris Durnell at March 24, 2005 6:28 PMI was enchanted by the tulip symbol I saw on the posters in photographs from Kyrgyzstan, though I thought it was a lotus or some other exotic asian flower.
Posted by: jd watson at March 24, 2005 7:08 PMIf there's a vowelless fruit or plant out there somewhere, that's what the revolution should have been named after.
Posted by: John at March 24, 2005 11:43 PM