MONGOLIA NEEDS ITS OWN DREAM

Yesterday’s news from Mongolia is unbelievable, 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 media seems too caught up in spinning the facts to pay attention to the important effects on daily life. Just call it missing the battle for the bullets.

When thinking about the recent turmoil, it’s important to remember three things: One, people don’t behave like billiard balls, so attempts to treat them as such inevitably look foolish. Billiard balls never suddenly set up a black market for Western DVDs. Two, Mongolia has spent decades torn by civil war and ethnic hatred, so a mindset of peace and stability will seem foreign and strange. And three, freedom is an extraordinarily powerful idea: If ethnic conflict is Mongolia’s glass ceiling, then freedom is certainly its flowerpot.

When I was in Mongolia last January, 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 ignore the problem and pretend it will go away. Beyond that, we need to be careful to nurture these first inklings of a moderate, modern society. The opportunity is there, but I worry that the path to moderation is so narrow 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 young student from the large Shiite community here, I asked him if there was any message that he wanted me to carry back home with me. He pondered for a second, and then smiled and said, shukrah-al-abiz, which is a local saying that means roughly, “He who wants to do good, knocks at the gate, he who loves finds the gates open.”

I don’t know what Mongolia will be like a few years from now, but I do know that it will remain true to its cultural heritage, even if it looks very different from the country we see now. 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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