The Full Mongolia Experience
Yesterday’s news from Mongolia is unique, and it raises questions about whether there might just be light at the end of the tunnel. It is impossible not to be tantalized by the potential of these events to change the course of Mongolia’s history. What’s important, however, is that we focus on what this means to the people. The current administration seems too caught up in worrying about their own skins to pay attention to the important effects on daily life. Just call it missing the battle for the bullets
When thinking about the ongoing ethnic strife, it’s important to remember three things: One, people don’t behave like lemmings, so attempts to treat them as such are going to come across as foreign. Lemmings never suddenly shift their course in order to fit with a predetermined set of beliefs. Two, Mongolia has spent decades as a dictatorship closed to the world, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, freedom is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If authoritarianism is Mongolia’s ironing board, then freedom is certainly its faucet.
When I was in Mongolia last month, I was amazed by the people’s basic desire for a stable life, and that tells me two things. It tells me that the citizens of Mongolia have no shortage of potential entrepreneurs, and that is a good beginning to grow from. Second, it tells me that people in Mongolia are just like people anywhere else on this flat earth of ours.
So what should we do about the chaos in Mongolia? Well, it’s easier to start with what we should not do. We should not let seemingly endless frustrations cause the people of Mongolia to doubt their chance at progress. Beyond that, we need to be careful to nurture the seeds of democratic ideals. The opportunity is there, but I worry that the path to stability is so poorly marked that Mongolia will have to move down it very slowly. And of course Ulaanbaatar needs to feel like it is part of the process.
Speaking with a up-and-coming violinist from the large Suni community here, I asked her if there was any message that she wanted me to carry back home with me. She pondered for a second, and then smiled and said, respre austee, which is a local saying that means roughly, “It is in vain to cast your net where there is no fish.”
I don’t know what Mongolia will be like a few years from now, but I do know that it will probably look very different from the country we see now, even if it remains true to its basic cultural heritage. I know this because, through all the disorder, the people still haven’t lost sight of their dreams.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
When thinking about the ongoing ethnic strife, it’s important to remember three things: One, people don’t behave like lemmings, so attempts to treat them as such are going to come across as foreign. Lemmings never suddenly shift their course in order to fit with a predetermined set of beliefs. Two, Mongolia has spent decades as a dictatorship closed to the world, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, freedom is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If authoritarianism is Mongolia’s ironing board, then freedom is certainly its faucet.
When I was in Mongolia last month, I was amazed by the people’s basic desire for a stable life, and that tells me two things. It tells me that the citizens of Mongolia have no shortage of potential entrepreneurs, and that is a good beginning to grow from. Second, it tells me that people in Mongolia are just like people anywhere else on this flat earth of ours.
So what should we do about the chaos in Mongolia? Well, it’s easier to start with what we should not do. We should not let seemingly endless frustrations cause the people of Mongolia to doubt their chance at progress. Beyond that, we need to be careful to nurture the seeds of democratic ideals. The opportunity is there, but I worry that the path to stability is so poorly marked that Mongolia will have to move down it very slowly. And of course Ulaanbaatar needs to feel like it is part of the process.
Speaking with a up-and-coming violinist from the large Suni community here, I asked her if there was any message that she wanted me to carry back home with me. She pondered for a second, and then smiled and said, respre austee, which is a local saying that means roughly, “It is in vain to cast your net where there is no fish.”
I don’t know what Mongolia will be like a few years from now, but I do know that it will probably look very different from the country we see now, even if it remains true to its basic cultural heritage. I know this because, through all the disorder, the people still haven’t lost sight of their dreams.
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
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