Turkmenistan Starts to De-Bizarre: Libraries Legalized
It's true that outsiders (including myself) have spent a good 15 years making Turkmenistan the butt of our Central Asian humor. But in our defense, everyone from ordinary Turkmen to Central Asia's presidential circles felt the same way. When you'd simply mention the name "Turkmenbashi," local people couldn't contain themselves.That of course was what Saparmurat Niyazov insisted that people call him -- Turkmenbashi, or Father of all Turkmen.
Well, all good fun must come to an end. Niyazov died a year ago, and today his successor, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov (a dentist by profession who my friends at Registan.net insist on calling "Stomatalogbashi, or Father of all Dentists) began to discard some of the country's weirdest laws.
Berdymukhamedov announced in a nationally broadcast news conference that Turkmenistan needs a few libraries. Some working cinemas. An opera. A ballet. A circus.
What's next -- will he trash the Ruhnama, the delusional Niyazov tract that's required reading of all Turkmen?
I for one hope that Berdymukhamedov does not melt all the Niyazov statues for scrap. Humor, after all, is the root of sanity.
Photo: Jensimon7
Rights: Creative Commons
Labels: berdymukhamedov, Caspian, central asia, natural gas, ruhnama, turkmenbashi, Turkmenistan
14 Comments:
Mr. Levine:
Great thoughts. I think Westerners (including your friends at Registan.net) should stop making fun of Turkmenistan and start taking the country more seriously.
As BBC's Natalia Antelava said in a recent interview, Western journalists have committed a professional mistake in covering Turkmenistan. They were obsessed with the bizarro leader and his bizarre acts and completely left out the substantive part. As she points out, the regime there has never been oppressive. At least, not the way some of the neighboring regimes have been. There seems to be an implicit contract between those who govern and those who are governed. And the latter have been content with that contract. Everyone should read Ms. Antelava's latest reports from Turkmenistan.
Berdymukhamedov has just announced that Turkmenistan needs a new ideology. He suggested the new one should be "the state is for the people". Implicit is the statement that it's shouldn't be the other way around. The West now has the choice: it can either be a perfectionist and doubt that call for a change. Or give the Turkmen president the benefit of the doubt and support him. If you are willing to bet on the late Bhutto or even Musharraf, you should definitely bet on Berdymukhamedov. Pour money into the EBRD and US AID programs and Eurasia Foundation's projects there. Call George Soros and ask him to chip in. The old man knows how to help societies approachging change. He was the one who supported Solidarity in Poland and Hungarian dissidents long before the Wall came down.
This would help with the pipeline politics but also would go well beyond that. The question the Westerners should be asking themselves is this:"How often do you get an opening in that part of the world to help build civil society?" In other words, this might be one of those rare cases where the West's values and national interests coincide.
The time is for some serious analytical thinking and doing, not for seeking ways to amuse oneself with the reality in a distant land.
That said, the West shouldn't commit another one of its favorite mistakes: the expectation of instant gratification. It should accept that progress will be incremental. The Chinese say the journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. The size of China's sovereign wealth fund is the proof positive that attitude works. The West would do well to adopt that stance.
Hi Laszlo. For blog readers, here is a link to the Natalia Antelava piece.
I agree that satire did take up more space than it should have, often at the cost of serious analysis. I should say that Natalia does not say in her piece that Turkmenistan was never oppressive. In fact, she says the opposite. But she reports that Turkmen are satisfied. She seems to credit Berdymukhamedov for much of this, though she does write of a social contract that she says illustrates that Niyazov wasn't using all the country's cash to build statues.
I myself began visiting Turkmenistan before Niyazov bared his bizarre side. When he started out in the post-Soviet period, there was much hope, as everywhere in the FSU. But that was quickly dashed as people saw that their country was going nowhere. I too found ordinary Turkmen to be open, but heard quite the opposite from what Natalia found -- deep dissatisfaction with career prospects, with the future prospects for one's children, and particularly in Ashkabad with the diversion of scarce water to fountains when whole neighborhoods went without.
Some of the best reporting was done by Sebastian Alison of Reuters, who among us in the Central Asia press corps had the only credential to travel there when Niyazov closed the doors to foreign reporters. Sebastian reported from the ground on the disgrace and catastrophe when Niyazov consigned the population to second-tier status by denying them the possibility of prestigious education abroad.
This said, I did find profound irritation with the constant parodying of Niyazov.
I think reporting in the last year has been different. I too have a hunch that things will be different under Berdymukhamedov.
Thanks for the comment. Best Steve
Laszlo, you are way out of bounds on this one. Just read the latest reports out of Turkmenistan to see the maybe less bizarre-ness but more repressive nature of this dictatorship.
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav011708.shtml
And, Steve, shame on you for bending to this person who, like several more well-to-do citizens of Turkmenistan living in the USA and Scandinavia, tout their country's most democratic and humanitarian ways. Here is another report to dismantle any of this notion (along with the above link).
http://www.gazeta.kz/art.asp?aid=103707
Savages.
-Per
I guess now that there's a Stomatologbashi in the lead, dentist visits are permitted again instead of chicken bone chewing.
we have seen too often that central asian leaders come up with new slogan, new paths......but history has clearly shown that their actions have been for their personal benefit and not the state/citizens...
the burden should be on berdymunkhamedov that he is not one of them...he can start by having a state media that is respected and read by the turkmens....he can start by showing financial transparency...he can start by releasing political prisoners....he can start by appointing competent ministers that are independent rather than accomplices in the theft of state resources....
until he does any of the above, he is no different than niyazov or neighbors...
Per, I think we've got a disconnect here. It's absolutely true that over the years the western press focused on hee-hawing over the latest buffoonery in Turkmenistan at the expense of more serious reporting on what was going on there. I know this personally because I was asked again and again by my editors over the years to do yet another send-up of Niyazov. At some point it's not funny anymore -- we know he's a lunatic. That's where I congratulated Sebastian Alison of Reuters for his substantive reporting.
I don't think anyone can yet put Berdymukhamedov in the same camp as Niyazov. Please resend the Eurasianet.org link. I can't make that one work.
Thanks for the comment, Steve
Steve, I have tried placing the link into your blog comments from Eurasianet.org once again (I broke it up this time so you must copy one portion and then the next portion). If that does not work, just go under the latest news from Turkmenistan or on the front page of that site to see this posting by Aisha from the 17th of January (she shows a disturbing under current beginning to happen with outside media).
Your last comment, although true in the sense of some freedoms, does not really paint the full picture. If one were to say, "I don't think anyone can put Hussein in the same camp as Stalin", it would be true but so lacking of context and the horrors of Hussein as to almost make the 1st "better" than the 2nd (in a "newspeak" type of way). Niyazov is not better than Berdymukhamedov; the only argument you could make is maybe one is less dictatorial and abusive than the other. Without context, readers could be fooled into believing anything, just ask the late and great Edward Bernays!
http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/
insight/articles/eav011708.shtml
-Per
Per, that's a strong piece by the pseudononymous Aisha Berdyeva. The contrast between that and Natalia's is interesting.
I get your point. Thanks for the corrective.
best Steve
My point was the West can use the same serious approach in respect of the Central Asian leaders that it utilised towards the communist leaders in the Cold War. It worked then, it should work now.
The West then used a differentiated approach. It took a hard line against the incorrigibles like Khruschev or Andropov. But it rewarded any slight policy improvements and exploited differences and disagreements. Examples are plentiful. Tito, who was called "our Communist ally" by the wise diplomat Fred Warner Neal. Janos Kadar of Hungary, who was rewarded with better relations for running moderate domestic policies. If you remember, Hungary was known then as "the happiest barrack of the Communist camp". Even dinosaur Ceausescu's Romania gained US support for essentially staying out of the Warsaw Pact's activities.
@Steve: The outcome is important. What did Western audience get? They got an accurate picture. They also got an incomplete picture. The population are content with the status quo. That is a sad but important thing to know. That means a velvet revolution or a Timisoara-type protest are not happening. A Vaclav Havel or a Lech Walesa are not ascending the political stage. The West has to work with what it has got and what it has got is dictators. In Hungarian, there is a saying:"You should stretch so far as your blanket".
@Per: I share your passion for values. The question is what can the West do, given the reality on the ground. The answer is in the first paragraph above. Engage Berdymukhamedov. Maybe even on his terms. The man wants to re-open theatres? Contribute some sound and lighting equipments for theaters there. He wants to re-institute the 11-year schooling? Offer help with teacher training, maybe, in the politically-neutral fields like math and science. He is upset with his TV men over the shoddy quality? Contribute a TV production studio and offer to send consultants who can teach them how to jazz up their TV programs. This kind of specific, targeted support means the cost of betting on the man is low. It also allows the West not to feel it is sacrificing its values. You will agree that it is average Turkmens (teachers, TV producers, theatre troupes, etc.) who would be the beneficiaries of such support. Channeling this support through or jointly with Turkey and the former Warsaw Pact countries that have joined the EU would minimise the talk of the West "promoting its ideology". The Russians can be relied upon to stoke such fears.
The dictator can be just a dictator. He can also be a dictator who cares about his legacy. There are examples in the neighborhood. Nazarbaev seems to care about his legacy. If Berdymukhamedov can be helped to run more reasonable policies like Nazarbaev, that would be a huge improvement already. It could even ameliorate the political dynamic in the region as a whole. Nobody likes being "the black sheep". Others might feel the peer pressure to run more reasonable policies.
Of course, the West has the right to be indignant over the lack of liberties in Central Asia. It can also demand:"It is incumbent upon Mr.X to prove he is committed to reforms." But demands are not going to get us anywhere. With the high oil prices and Russia and China happy to provide whatever needed, the West, regrettably, does not have much leverage. Just consider this: by simply getting Gazprom pay 50% more for its gas, Turkmenistan has added 10% to its GDP growth in 2008. That is higher than the overall growth rate in most countries.
When the oil prices are at $20, you can demand:"Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" and watch checkpoint Charlie become history. When the oil prices are at $100, you have to reach back to the policy tools that proved effective in the 1970s, when those prices were similarly high, courtesy of the OPEC.
Back then it was about the Helsinki Accords. And those Accords enabled the demand about the Wall a decade later.
Also back then the West "got it". It understood the importance of winning the hearts and minds. Today things seem different. The number of people who write about Turkmenistan is very small. Just a dozen or so of journalists and bloggers. Presumably, they care about the improvements there. But their coverage seems to be having an effect opposite from the intended. As Ms. Antelava points out, ordinary people are annoyed with the constant lampooning of their country. This irritation is, no doubt, shared by the power elite. That is some winning hearts and minds. Then it is not surprising that Turkmenistan is more receptive to entreaties from Mr. Putin, a ruthless thug who is smart enough to show respect.
The US may have reasons to keep adistance from Berdymukhamedov. But, at the least, an ambassador to that country should be appointed. The post is vacant to the day, more than a year since Niyazov died.
I agree with Laszlo's point, and it is a good example of the historical background to the US's prior strength of 'soft power' engagement.
For some reason, the US seems to have lost their lateral vision on engaging some of these countries. And this lack of engagement - due to the lack of 'pure democracy' or 'lack of human rights' - only allows the inept leadership of these countries to be swayed by China, Russia.
It's frustrating that the US whines about Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. etc. and yet, while far from western democracies, do their utmost to alienate Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. That's fine, these places now have money coming in and don't need to listen to another four-year-loser's rhetoric about 'long-term commitments to partners in the war on terror' blah blah blah.
And the droll references to Berdymukhamedov's dental background, or childish nicknames like 'Uncle Berdy' are pretty tired - especially coming from those that want their limited insights considered seriously. Get some new material.
Sorry to take this thread in a new direction, but is anyone aware of the state of religious freedom for Muslims in Turkmenistan?
I know that Niyazov's regime built several vast and stately mosques. Are these attended? Do Turkmen participate in the orthodox practices of Sunni Islam, especially during the last five-six years?
Thanks.
Russell: a partial answer to your question. An opposition site run by the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights has an interesting article.
The article says Ashgabat has announced yet another mosque to be built. The population are not happy:"We have not got drinking water and they are offering us prayers." Local teachers are especially unhappy:"Over the years of independence, an growing number of the youth have started going to the mosque instead of the library."
The West should do more to engage Central Asia. The region offers a unique chance. Where else would you find such rational, pragmatic and tolerant Muslims?
The West should engage Turkmenistan via Eastern Europe. Back in the 1990s, it was necessarily the US doing all the heavy lifting. The US have got the idealism and money. The Western Europeans have got their real politik. They kept aloof and watched from the sidelines. The US did most of the pushing the local regimes towards more openness.
Today it is different. Eastern Europeans have got the idealism and the experience. They hate authoritarian and totalitarian systems. They have just made their transition to an open society. It would be easier for Eastern Europeans to understand the situation on the ground and work with Turkmenistan. Washington and Bruxelles can contribute the money. Eastern Europeans can engage in educational and cultural programs. And the US can keep pushing for political reform. The West needs to have the nous to succeed in Turkmenistan since Russia and China are queuing up to be Ashgabat's best friends.
This is the link to the article: http://www.chrono-tm.org/?0264043734000000000000011000000
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