The “aeroplane affair” between Russia and Tajikistan, as I suspected, shows no sign of landing (excuse the pun) anytime soon. Konstantin Parshin has – again – written an excellent article summarising what’s happened over the last few days, so if you’re not following this story elsewhere (and even if you are), do read what he has to say. He’s based in Tajikistan and clearly has his ear to the ground.

Whilst my previous post about this incident took a somewhat sardonic look at the latest episode of post-Soviet squabbling, I have since been reflecting much more seriously about the repercussions this event could have for the political scene in Tajikistan.

Think about the following sentences as a chain of events, each magnifying the impact of the one before it. The first few hundred migrants have now been sent home from Russia and there are threats that more will follow. I hear reports from Moscow-based Tajiks that they are too afraid to leave their apartments due to anti-immigrant/nationalistic feeling amongst Russians. If this continues for a while, then they will probably lose their jobs for not turning up. If they lose their jobs, they lose their source of income. They may get sent home by the Russian government in any case. So the income from migrant workers’ wages that the Tajik economy is so dependent on starts to drop. Large numbers of mainly young men, mainly from rural areas, may come back to Tajikistan, and there certainly aren’t jobs for them to go to: that’s why they left in the first place. Then consider the altered social circumstances that these men will find when they return to their villages and see how the women/old men/children have been adapting without them.

All this leaves you with a a shrinking economy and more significantly, potentially a large group of unemployed young people  with not much in the world going well for them.

And it’s not just this situation which could have longer lasting impact, as stories are circulating about a host of other issues that are making people in Tajikistan angry and frustrated:

• an incident on the north-west border with Uzbekistan, where shots were fired over an alleged illegal border crossing with a possible fatality on the Uzbek side
• allegations that a pensioner in the south of Tajikistan slapped the President in anger at the government initiative asking Tajiks to buy shares in the Rogun dam project when many people don’t even earn enough through salary or pension to provide basic food and shelter for themselves and their families
• ongoing frustrations in the Gorno Badakhshan Semi-Autonomous Region in the east of the country towards the national government, where the appetite for full independence appears to be on the rise again

Now set these events and feelings against what’s happening in two other Central Asian states. Whilst the recent presidential election in Kyrgyzstan wasn’t perfect, it was at least peaceful and led to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe saying they feel “cautiously optimistic about the future of democracy in Kyrgyzstan”. And in Kazakhstan, the President – not known for his overtly democratic tendencies – has today called a snap election for January 2012 in order to try and increase the number of parties in parliament (currently just one party is represented).

And then finally consider the impact that a lot of very angry and frustrated people in other parts of the world have had over the last year, notably North Africa. No one is yet talking about whether there will be a “Libya effect” in Tajikistan, but with increasing internet literacy and access, it can be expected that many Tajiks – particularly those in urban areas – may be very knowledgeable about the events of the Arab Spring.

Add all of these parts together and you see that there are already many straws loaded on the camel’s back. The question is, just how many more straws can it take before the load will become too heavy?