Car accident triggers unrest in Azerbaijan

[Os Cangaceiros]

BAKU, Azerbaijan (AP) — It began late at night with a minor car accident.

By midday Thursday, a hotel had been burned to the ground, several expensive vehicles torched and crowds were facing off with police to demand a leading regional official's resignation.

The episode has exposed latent tensions nurtured by economic inequality and unresponsive governance in the oil-abundant Azerbaijan. The ostentatious display of wealth and aggressive, arrogant behavior among well-connected individuals is commonplace across resource-rich former Soviet republics and engenders much bitterness.

http://newsimages.citrine.synacor.com/ap_photos//103a1800-f329-4071-bf99-d03e67f5e2cf.jpeg

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=170130622

[Paul Pott]

Let's see if it turns into more.

[Red Commissar]

It is unfortunate in a way, most of these people thought that leaving the Soviet system behind meant that they would be ending the whole system of connected individuals- especially when the US and others harp on about the "Nomenklatura" and the corruption of party bosses, it has continued to exist in a different form.

But competition and capitalism was supposed to end all that!

If anything it has gotten worse, imo. The problem is unfortunately while this anger is a clear illustration of the problem, it has occurred before and has never gone beyond brief periods of activity. The government has ways of defusing the situation, and of course it will have its apologists ready to chide the people for being violent, impatient, or if all else fails, backwards religious idiots. Even looking at the article it has to mention,


Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Azerbaijan service, which is funded by the U.S. Congress, cited local residents as saying Shamsaddinov's hotel was being used for prostitution and that local authorities had failed to heed requests for it to be closed.

Maybe some had been pissed off about that, but this can't be written off as religious blowhards getting angry.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Azerbaijan is a pretty irreligious place IIRC. Islam is what most people believe officially, but it's mellow Islam compared to some variants.