A new wave of anti-government mobilization has swept across the Eurasian countries that once comprised the Soviet Union. Crowds in Moscow have mobilised to call for free and fair city council elections this September. Despite massive arrests and police violence, the protestors have returned every weekend for seven weeks. Similarly, in June a new political movement “Oyan, Kazakhstan!” (Wake up, Kazakhstan) was founded by urban youths demanding political freedoms after the resignation of Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan’s president for three decades. It now commands hundreds of followers across the country. Last year in Yerevan, Armenia, young activists led anti-government protests demanding the resignation of long-serving leader Serzh Sargsyan. The list goes on.
These activists are part of a generation that was born or came of age since the collapse of the Soviet regime. These 20- and 30-somethings seek to define their political landscape by wresting power from older, incumbent politicians who cling to the autocratic tendencies of communism. They are internet savvy and have traveled abroad. They now see themselves as agents of change, willing to risk more than their parents could stomach.
The activists draw from many resistance tactics and have different political agendas, ranging from wholesale political reforms to merely claiming the right to protest in public. For example, in Ukraine, young political activists mobilised into powerful professional networks after the violent regime change in 2014, pledging to collaborate with parliament and government agencies to implement democratic reforms. Ukraine’s newly formed government is the youngest in Europe, led by 35-year old prime minister Oleksiy Honcharuk. By contrast, Kazakhstan’s young activists are just beginning to exercise their constitutional right of free assembly and normalise collective action in a public space.
