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| Central Asia |
| Who will suffer in the terrorist acts in Uzbekistan? |
| 2004-04-02 |
| EFL - Uzbeki letter to the editor of Ferghana.Ru about PC and currupt response to terrorism (roughly parallel to the DNC/Chomsky correct response to terror plan. I remember explosions in Tashkent in February five years ago and what they did to our economy. Regular reports to the government may have included some optimistic figures, but budget sphere employees with meager salaries (teachers, doctors, state officials of low ranks, etc) felt the echo of February explosions that summer: the Uzbek sum went down, pay-rises became history. Training and propagandistic counter-terrorism programs were promptly adopted by all institutes and universities, not to mention hospitals and other state organizations. Curricula of institutes and universities, for example, were burdened with a new subject Vidzhon Erkingli Va Diny Extremizm (liberty of conscience and religious extremism). The subject was supposed to take priority over absolutely everything. It was taught by famished tutors in tatters (there are such decent tutors who do not know what is good for them) or by the ones who had become fat accepting bribes (there are such ones too). It was even worse than that, sometimes. The subject was taught by police officers or representatives of khokimijats (mayoralty) and prosecutor’s offices - the men ordinary Uzbeks in general and students specifically are not exactly endeared to. The campaign backfired. It does not matter that some students merely slept in the lecture halls or discussed how much the new subject would cost them by way of bribes at the exams. What counts is that some meticulous students calculated how profitable terrorism was and how much an explosion could be paid for. Department of Peace? Explosions on February 16, 1999, provided an additional impetus for corrupt traffic police officers and officials manning checkpoints and metro stations. Particularly rude were traffic police officers on the Kuilyuk Bridge searching absolutely all cars from the Ferghana valley and policemen assigned to Sabir Rakhimov metro station collecting from vendors they searched (the metro station in question was on the way to the famous Hippodrome wholesale market). I earnestly believe that most terrorist acts only enrich police officers. Of course, most of them honestly want peace and do not want to be restricted to the barracks with nighttime patrols, inspections, etc. But there are police officers (lots of them, in fact) who make money on distress. Unionize the airport inspectors? All of us living in Uzbekistan want cloudless skies and happy lives. It pains us to see how the government cannot handle the outrage in its own and our country. It cannot indeed, because handling the outrage successfully demands that we understand the following: 1. Terrorism in Uzbekistan feeds on radical Islamic ideas and impoverishment of the population and particularly on episodes of crying injustice our life is full of. Meager salaries breed bribes, bribes breed corruption when state officials become businessmen and dictate the rules absolutely unfair with regard to other businessmen. Corruption leads to the lack of faith which eventually leads to economic stagnation. And dying economy cannot offer decent salaries to the people. This is a vicious circle that has to be broken but the powers-that-be do not see a way out. A non-Arab societal demonstration of how Soviet style socialism can breed militants. This is again equivalent to what happens Arab societies wit the added spice of Wahhabism. 2. Newspapers and TV channels are orderlies of moral health in any society. Instead of building informational barriers, normal conditions should be established for journalists. Crooked officials do not fear a reprimand from their superiors, they fear exposure. Superiors may be appeased, but not the people. The people will be merciless as regards these sores. Iraq, Iran, Syria, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Venezuela ..... The government does not understand that the informational boom sweeping across the world like an avalanche grows in geometric series. Information blockades will not help at all, they will only bring harm. For a stiff information blockade (like the one in the Soviet Union), the authorities of Uzbekistan will have to do away with Internet, confiscate all dish antennae, stop publication of Russian newspapers (already censored as they are), and - what really counts - outlaw free exit and entrance from and into the country. Can the authorities afford it? No way, because it will mean a colossal economic catastrophe. Cuba, Iran, Saudi Arabia, PRC .... What information blockade are we talking about then? Mini-blockades (like making some websites unavailable, censorship of Russian newspapers, silence of the local media with regard to domestic problems) only whet the people’s appetites. Adepts of ideological sabotage use all of that and use it smartly. How else can we explain the rumors in Uzbekistan that the president’s elder daughter has privatized absolutely everything? snip - details of nepotism present in Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Lybia and various other despotic regimes. 3. Competent specialists should be promoted into upper echelons of the state. Particularly the men who can work with the media, who can mount adequate PR campaigns. Ordinary Uzbeks know all federal ministers in Russia, they even have favorites there like Shvydkoi (culture) and Fetisov (athletics). But who knows the Uzbek minister of culture? Do we have this ministry in the first place? Even I (and I view myself as a more or less educated person) cannot answer the question. Who knows the Uzbek minister of athletics? Ministers of the Uzbek government move into the spotlight only when they become actually damaging. Maybe we can send them Stephanopolis - I disagree with teh writer on the value of spinmeistering. -snip- biting social commentary but irrelevant to WOT Here are but a few conjectures: STATE OFFICIAL OF ANY RANK, REMEMBER: OPENNESS, HONESTY, AND DECENCY WILL ONLY UP YOUR CLOUT WITH THE PEOPLE CLEAR CONSCIENCE IS MORE HEALTHY THAN ALL FASHIONABLE SPAS YOU VISIT WHEN THE POPULATION OF YOUR COUNTRY HAS BEEN ROBBED ONCE AGAIN THERE IS GOD. THAT IS PROVED, SO FORGET ALL YOUR DOUBTS. IT IS ALSO PROVED THAT HE DISLIKES CROOKS SWISS BANKS ARE PREDISPOSED TO ARRESTING CROOKS’ BANK ACCOUNTS RELATIVES MAY BETRAY YOU ONCE YOU’VE REGISTERED ALL YOUR WORLDLY ASSETS IN THEIR NAMES. THE PEOPLE WILL NEVER BETRAY *** The letter was delivered to Ferghana.Ru on March 30 morning. This is a verbatim rendition. |
| Posted by:Super Hose |