The Xinjiang Police Files

Circular logic without due process. You don't just become a criminal because a totalitarian government says you're one, at least not by the standards of the rest of us. In other words: careful just because you're Han doesn't mean you won't be next

Because it introduces an alternative to people who remember nothing but injustice, violence and corruption. We're not at the end of history, and don't know how such efforts will play out next year, or next decade. I notice you ignored my point about how Chechnya could also have another war in the coming decade too, as if Russia leaves anything resembling stability wherever it goes.

No one says liberal democracies necessarily become permanently stable. You know nothing about political development if you believe this. In many ways it's considered the opposite in its early stages, fragile, needing constant work and refinements to build on incremental improvements. In these stages any ham-fisted strongman or warlord has a good chance to destroy the gains that have been made before informal institutions gain real authority. And when there is momentum behind old tribal, religious and feudal systems, this is a long, slow, vulnerable process.

And during that time you'll observe gains and losses over literally decades. Which is why you'll see liberal reforms make small gains, then fail for a while before they can resume. But they build slowly and that's what people die for. This has been the case for every developed country in existence. You're happy to give Europe 300 years of ugly fighting to get to this stage but if Muslim countries can't succeed within 50 you'll call the end of the game now to reinforce your biased conclusions. But sure, keep using your myopia and lack of education to keep hating on the Muslims.

The issue with Putin is he doesn't even try, because, like every autocratic asshole, he can make more power for himself and his friends this way than through real development. And he can count on weak-minded bigots with poor political and historical context to unquestioningly back his cynical aims.

But forgetting about terminology, and without whatabouting your way out of it, explain how you can excuse a leader who who effectively makes himself president for life, poisons his opponents, secretly enriches himself, murders critical journalists, backs corrupt friends and jails protesters after show trials. Isn't the fact that he doesn't do just ONE fewer of these things enough to criticise him?

Your argument by anecdote assumes political oppression and development should both be equally visible, ignoring clear statistical evidence on police use of torture, corruption and violence against journalists and activists. Lucky the Tatars immediately around you like what Russia has done to their land - because they have no choice or voice if they don't. Just see what happens to people who say otherwise, like Asan Akhtemov, Nariman Ametov and see what anti-insurgent animals did to Reshat Ametov. Maybe for your next holiday you can travel further south and ask some Tatars in Crimea how they are feeling about the totally not-corrupt, shining beacon of political enlightenment that is Russia right now. Since they're so free to give honest answers, just imagine how qualified to discuss you'll be then.

Your baseless, paper-thin arguments blow over each time and all you can do is repeat them, ignore the criticism and latch onto tangential issues. It's getting kinda boring.

So it's a cult where every member has a right to publicly express their opinion of its dear leader, and also the right to select a new leader every few years if they choose... But sure, of all the known political systems, it's Liberal Democracy that stand out as cult-like!? Not the one under the 20 year autocrat?

You're coming off as grasping for any straw you can now.

Putin is the subject of only 2 out of 7 paragraphs above, you confuse personality traits with political methods, when such methods are directly relevant to the state of political freedom in Tatarstan, your anecdotally chosen example which doesn't invalidate anything since it's just one province in a repressed country... Just weak.