Kyrgyz Implosion

Ridiculously, I often hear about big changes in Kyrgyz politics from the AP or the New York Times. I suppose that people are basically just fed up with all the backroom scheming. I'll try to illustrate why.

The current super-president is Bakaev, from Osh. Most of the government is run by his buddies. People from the North don't like this. So the North and South tussle about who gets to control the government. Some people that feel they are not getting their fair shake at governance (or non-governance?) are planning to protest in April. Bakaev has reason to be afraid, such a protest put him into power two years ago and could just as easily put him out of power.

It the countdown to the protests everyone is jockeying to shore up their exposure to political risk. Seven Ministers (of 12 or so I think) tried to resign. First people thought that Bakaev was getting rid of them to co-opt opposition protest leaders. But then he failed to endorse the resignations. So now it looks like maybe the ministers were trying clear the wreckage of Bakaev's sinking ship.

But today the NYT's reported that he has announced a new prime minister, from the opposition. Does this mean that Kyrgyzstan will be really looking at reform and move away from brinksmanship politics? or does it mean that the wobbly super-president has negotiated another few months in office? No one is sure, most don't care.

How do demonstrations topple governments when the people are universally alienated and apathetic? My theory is that things get rolling by "bought" demonstrators, literally paid to make a fuss by one side or the other. Throw in underemployment, a lack of positive male avenues in life and the resulting anger at the world and you can get a Bishkek pillaged in minutes flat.

The real moral of the story is that no one really knows what is going on and what people's intentions are. People have become estranged from political dialogue because so far all that has been served up is very superficial stuff that is not properly challenged by the weak media. For example, polygamy has actually been thrown around the parliament here as a potential idea.

Some of the pro-polygamy arguments:
"I mean, we're Muslim so we are allowed to be polygamists, right?"

"One guy I know has four wives but he is just helping out widows and stays with his family. So polygamy can be sweet and touching and doesn't have to be scary."

A real dialogue about what it means to be Kyrgyz and Muslim and what being Muslim means for policy is pretty much non-existant. That estrangement from dialogue can be dangerous as it tends to lead to reinforcing cycles of revolutions, brinksmanship and instability rather than evolution, negotiation and flexible-continuity.

As time for me winds down, there have been a lot of good-byes. I was surprised to feel sad about giving my last English classes. It's always bitter-sweet.

Some of our young climbers made it to the finals of a climbing competition. They made second and fourth place. I am hoping that the format of the competition will reinforce the message I have been lamely trying to deliver: It is not if you get to the top that matters but how you get there. After all, once you finish one climb, the only thing left to do is start another and if you always take the easy route, that is all you will be capable of. Banal and cheesy, but that is often a good indication of more than a nugget of truth.

Swollen Eyes, Dancin' and Monkey Morality

I had to admire my host sisters. The dance club was 4/5 empty. They had imbibed not a drop of alcohol but they set out to dance and dance they did. I wish I could have admired them from afar. Three people, the base-intensive stylings of Mr. Timberlake, and a big old dance floor. If only the fog machine had been more proactive in creating a hazily anonymous ambiance.

One of my students had swelling under his right eye. It looked like an ingrown under-eyelash, or one of those lovely deep painful pimples. When I asked him what was up, he said that he must have looked at something unclean. I wasn't sure I understood. So he made some odd hand gestures and then settled on the example of a dog peeing.

I chuckled, my cultural sensitivity caught off guard by what seemed to me to be a quaint explanation. And that is why it is hard to have discussions about o-so-many topics with my students. Our underlying assumptions about reality are completely different.

Biological Origins of Morality this is an interesting article that overviews a discussion about the origins of morality. I think it is hard to defend a universal objective moral truth. What does it matter to the infinite cosmos if one human kills another? Do we pass judgment on single celled organisms for destroying one another? An insightful way to examine morality is to ask, why? The answer is usually that unregulated behavior leads to instability which is bad for the group (even though it may be advantageous to the individual in the short term). It does not make morality any less important though. We are what we are and there is more escaping that. Also, social bonds of friendsship or love are fairly easily explained rationtionally, but that does not mean they are any less significant. Considering why we think the way do however, can help us avoid tragic folly.

I am struggling with going to grad school. All and all it sounds like the experience will be similar to IPE at UPS. That is to say, flexible and drawing off of many disciplines. But by borrowing from so many disciplines, in someways it can lack discipline (structure). IPE did not give me any special technique that makes me employable. But it does give an excellent and adaptable approach to examining many problems. JSIS offers much of the same but more indepth and focused regionally.

Is it possible to specialize as a generalist in today's world?

So it seems that (and the language emphasis) plays to my personality. So far the IPE-type style has worked out pretty well for me. The lack of a defined alternative also tilts me toward school. And Seattle/the Cascades. Finally, I am reminded of a bit of mountaineering wisdom. Sometimes a decision and corresponding action is better than indecision and inaction. Sometimes (most often) you have make a decision based on incomplete information and only vague knowledge of what lies ahead. After all, it would not be a decision if the best option were obvious.

Finally, I am approaching 10 days left in Kyrgyzstan. Today is a national holiday and an excellent reminder of why I will be relieved to arrive home (with no regrets). (It Would Seem) Everyone in Kyrgyzstan has a family. Everyone has plans. Everyone in Kyrgyzstan has plans with their family.

I confess to being tired of being an observer.

But I know that my affinity for Abroad will continue to stretch me between some sense of "home" somewhere in the US and the sense of personal growth I get from moving out of my comfort zones. I would rather be a little dissatisfied now and then than comfortable and bored.

A Bump and a Bleet

With the spring weather and the prospect of returning home on the horizon, I have been trying to get out of Bishkek.

This weekend, the weather looked good and we decided to go climbing. there were six of us. A French couple biking from France to Nepal, Christine (French Alpine Fund volunteer and host to the couple), a British English teacher, Colin (American boyfriend to Christine and Alpine Fund volunteer) and myself met Saturday morning at a round about.

After a frustrating if predictable discussion about the merits of taxis vs. a mashrootka we found ourselves compelled to get into a van. By compelled I mean that all of that taxi drivers sort of started yelling and urging us to get into the car. The first thing I noticed was a bad smell coming from the car. The second thing I noticed was that there were 3 sheep in the back. The driver told us "just throw your stuff in the back." We gingerly put the packs on the sheep and squeezed into one row of seats.

There was no time be cranky about safety.

As we sped and bounced our way up into the mountain valley the sheep remained calm and collected. Then we swerved around a machine pulling up asphault. The back opened up.

Said I, "Excuse me, your door has opened"

"ehhhe, the door opened, yes?"

"Hey mate, I think this sheep is going to fall out," stated my British colleague.

"Yeah, it is open." I assumed that would be enough information.

We drove on.

"You might want to stop."

"This sheep is definitely going to go"

"Your sheep will fall out if you don't stop"

Unphased, our driver pressed onward.

"And there is goes," I looked behind and there was a sheep, legs tied and one of our backpacks on the road.

"Stop. Your sheep fell. Oi, stop." I urged to no avail. The driver remained unconvinced. Then all of us yelled at him at once and he finally stopped the van. I guess he really didn't want to stop. He only seemed to do it because it might shut us up.

They heaved the sheep in with a THUNK. and slammed the rear door several times as the sheep bleeted. Finally, the door remained shut. All of the bags were unloaded but somehow mine got missed. As the driver pulled away I yelled. Then I banged on the side of the van. Then I opened the door. Only when I had seated myself in the moving vehicle and asked him for the sixth time to stop did he finally yield. Here was a man who really didn't like to stop.

It is possible that his Russian (or mine) was really so bad that we were having a communication impasse. But "stop" is something that everyone has to learn to say to get around Bishkek and I have not met anyone yet with such bad Russian. I maintain that this was a man who really did not like to stop.

During the hike to the canyon we greeted an old man. He said "what nazis." I stopped and asked him what he was talking about.

"Oi, you're not Russian!" he said in Russian.

"No, I am American, he is british and those guys are French." I left Colin out because he was standing with the French folks.

"Oi, that's great. Nevermind."

The climbing was great. It rained at least half the night and my bivy passed it's second test. We had interesting conversations about traveling and how everyone seems to not appreciate the American government. The French couple leave for Kazakhstan tomorrow where they will not have to to through a friend of the Chinese consulate to pay a bribe for a Chinese visa.

Cranky About Safety

Spring weather feels like it is here to stay now in Kyrgyzstan. Day by day the weather has been warming. Today was t-shirt weather. The change in people’s moods is my favorite part. Everyone get very explicably happy.

I received good news on Wednesday. The Ellison School for Russian, Eastern European, and Central Asia Studies (REECAS) at the Jackson School of International Studies (JSIS) at the University of Washington (UW) invited me to join their musing, yammering lot. At first I was unconvinced. But I tried to look at the situation logically. If as an undergrad I pursued International Political Economy at the University of Puget Sound than studying something like Comparative Sociology at the Ellison School for Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington is surely the next step. Just compare the abbreviations: IPE at UPS and Csoc at REECAS at JSIS at UW. The swelling tide of multi-syllabic words (that can now compose multi-syllabic acronyms) clearly indicates that I am moving up in the world of social studies.

Do you ever go a long way for a concept that seemed funny but then it’s really not all that funny at the end? Yeah, me neither.

There was a almost-terrible almost-incident at the climbing wall yesterday. A man with his 2 year old kid wandered in (the wall is at a sort of indoor running track). While one friend and I were setting up, he decided to try once. He climbed probably four meters up. His sun stood directly underneath him and watched. I gave it the old open-palmed slap on the forehead in astonishment of the man’s irresponsibility (for himself but especially his son’s). He came back down with out incident. During the next 45 minutes three other climbers came, we climbed and the man and his son wandered around the facility and watched us in turns.

I was climbing at this point. The man came back to the wall. He started up a little bit, as curious people are apt to do. No one else spoke any Russian and did not think anything of it as passers by often try to boulder at the bottom of the while fairly frequently when they see us climbing. Then he climbed a little higher, say 2 meters off the ground. As the ground is concrete below the wall, this is the “I am not sure I would do that, but…” point. This wall was slightly more technical than the first one he tried. He promptly pushed right passed that height. At about 4 meters I noticed that him and came off the wall. Around that time he learned the blind climb dilemma. That is, it is almost universally easier and safer to go up something than to go down it. So then he got worried and climbed a little higher. Then he realized he was screwed.

He froze, he head about 20 feet above the ground. His son once again watching from directly underneath him until we moved him. There was nothing that we could do for him; once he is on the wall any attempt to help is only going to compromise his balance. He was very lucky that some Kyrgyz guys happened to be playing a native game (similar to marbles but with sheep bones). They came over and coaching him down. By the time he started to come down his legs and arms were shaking from exhaustion and/or fear. But he got down, clapped his hands and smiled sheepishly. “Ha, ha. That really got the heart going.” My head and heart will still turning with memories from the broken back last summer and the first steps for assessing and treating various dramatic injuries.

He made it down safely, I would say barely. I was pretty upset. I am very unimpressed with the machismo in South America, Russia and Kyrgyzstan. The reason we never chided him the first time is because one quickly learns that advice which could be conceived of as questioning one’s manly prowess and courage is poorly received. I had assumed that once demonstration of incompetence would suffice for the day. Never underestimate the things people are willing to do to entertain delusions of pride in nation, religion and gender identity.

The “it’s my life, I’ll do what I want” is hard to penetrate but really it’s a load of crap. It’s your life and you’ll deal with the consequence until it is a problem that you are unable to cope with and then it becomes the problem of professionals, your family and strangers. And when your kid is watching from a position where IF you screw up, he’ll break your fall (all 30 pounds of him), well then you are just an idiot. And the issue is that because the machismo argument seems to hold for single-independent men then it spills over into every part of society. No one wears seat belts and legitmate concerns about health or safety are dismissed as being whiny. And as a result more people end up dead and crippled by car accidents and work place accidents. While the individual may pay the brunt of the suffering, the family and society and a whole also ends up taking up the slack. It would be inhumane not to.

I was most sickened to watch bad decision-making being passed on between father and son without an apparent twinge of self-reproach.

As a visitor with a heavy tongue, I get used to largely playing the part of passive observer. In fact, I actively try not to project my values and ways of doing things onto the people and places I go. That is the point, to second guess the way things are ‘always done’ back home. This incident made me question how far that amnesty for cultural difference should go.

It is easy to see how cranky-‘bout-safety outdoors old-timers get that way. They are like that because enough misses and near misses eventually pierce the adolescent assumption of adventuresome invulnerability.

Next time, I will definitely say something the first time.

Karakol

Karakol means darkhand in Kyrgyz. Lonely Planet postulates that this is because the soil is fertile there and dark there. It is in the northeast corner of Kyrgyzstan.

A had a few quintessential solo traveling moments. The first was on the marshrootka out to Karakol. I read most of the way. There is not much else to do on 6 hour rides on bumpy roads. About 2/3 of the way there conversation must have petered-out among the young and restless in the van and I started catching words like "ihnastranitz," "chitat'" and "ni ponimayet" (foreigner, read, doesn't understand) followed by rounds of boyish giggling and expectant nervous silence. After a couple of awkward-glances complete with foolish but good-natured smile, I piped up. They were very nice. One of them invited me to his house, or his grand parents' house, rather, to sleep. I had expected the ride to be 4 instead of eight hours and it was dark and definitely not the tourist season. After he insisted that it would be great, I accepted.

His family was not really in to the surprise guest. They were very welcoming, however, as a matter of duty if not of pleasure. I tried to shrink. The next day I found a ride up to the mountains and got out of their hair. I gave them some tea and cookies. I had to do something but I thought trying to offer money would be inappropriate if not insulting as the son had invited me.

Skiing was great. First day of downhill in some 7 years or so for me I think. All of the lifts are T-bars or worse. There is no parallel in the states so I will explain. It is an iron tow rope and you get a rope with a hook on one end and a wooden-dealy on the other. You put the hook on the rope and hold on to the wooden thing and away you go. There was a third lift that was sort of like a T-bar but with just a little circle for your crotch to squeeze. 3 lifts, 3 designs. All of them kinda crappy.

I got to spend the day zipping along with a doctor, who became my line-waiting conversation buddy. He is a traumatologist (because he likes screwing bones and stapling tissues) and makes US$ 100/mo. So he has to teach as well. Pretty amazing. He lamented the corruption but it seems pretty inevitable when people make so little. People have to pay to get extra attention or special treatment, not to mention the bribes the doctors themselves pay in med school. I figured a traumatologist might buck the trend of not wearing seat belts. I was wrong. "Ha ha! Of course not! It's my business and no one else's." Yeah, I guess. Despite the illiberal Big Brotherism of it all sometimes it seems wise to have Big Brother make society change self-destructive attitudes. About half of the time I half left the city on bad weather days I have seen a bad accident. You can bet that no one (not even kids) were wearing seat belts. Having dealt with the consequences of that "it's my business" attitude last summer, I don't much sympathize.

The people I got a ride with were Russians from Kazakhstan. They didn't have much interest in me. They didn't even play the what do you do where do you work, what are your plans game. So I guess I win by default. They did ask, "Why do all you [American, Europeans] come here anyway?" I wasn't sure whether not to be amused or offended. There was subtext to the question but I am not sure which it was. A couple of the more likely possibilities are "Only Russians should be in Central Asia" and "Why would anyone visit somewhere backwards and poor when you could go to Breckenridge?" I was really baffled by the use of "all you" which was repeated when I asked what they meant. Anyway, I asked "why not?" it seemed like the safest play.

The finally classic moment was the drunken man on the bus. The bus added 2 more hours of pleasure but cost 1.50 less. I will spare all the inglorious details of the gripe session but he was very talkative and very drunk. Aside from insisting I visit (in 10-20 years if not this time) he was very excited that I might buy him some Colgate toothpaste his aching tooth. Alcoholism is dumb.

It is hard to know when to be patient and when to be firm with people of infirm mental constitution.

I have to say that all the experiences were very unplanned and undiluted, which is the way things go, for better and for worse, when you go it alone.

One of the funny mentality things people seem to have over here (I experienced it in Russia too) is concern and moderate dismay when you reveal that you are traveling alone. Dependence can be more acceptable than independence but people also think it is dangerous. The second count I find ironic because people will speed past giant truck on narrow two lane roads in sleet, going around a bend (to the left), with a mountain obscuring their view of oncoming traffic, on the crest of a hill but seem to think their streets are filled with drunken serial killers.

I am trying to figure out the future, as always. Do old people spend as much of the last 23 years of their life looking back as I have spent looking forward? It seems very silly and I try not to overdo it. How much stability and how much change and flexibility do I need to create the most happiness? I don't know but fortunately many of my friends are groping similar questions. I take great comfort in the insecurity of a group while individual insecurity is very trying.

There is the grad school possibility. But I am not sure where that leads exactly. And there is the need to balance the challenge by choice of wilderness trips and the introspective potential of independent (abroad?) living with the richness of drawing on long term intimate relations with family and friends.

I think that the freedom of action presented to young bourgeoisie Americans presents both a source of inspirational potential and a terrifying burden. The burden is a moral obligation to all those whose circumstances in life are dictated to them to make the most of the tremendous opportunities afforded us to affect the world for the better.

If privileged young people will not, who will?

So we must choose to challenge ourselves. Because it is our choice, it is our responsibility.

It is like Spiderman's Uncle Ben said, "with great power comes great responsibility."

Good Signs from Sketchy Sources

Recent reports from Turkmenistan indicate that the new President may be a BIG improvement on the old regime. It is so early that it is untested and it could all just be to generate hype. There are now internet cafes open to the public. The cost at $4/hour is prohibitively high for a country where most people officially make $100/month. I say officially because I noticed that in Kyrgyzstan lying to tax authority is standard fair and collecting bribes is also. That makes the official economy the tip of the iceberg. I would count on the same being true in Turkmenistan. That said, people are not by any means well off.

Also he has started to free up the education system and promised some tweaks in the rest of the outrageously eccentric policies of his predicessor. He even made a commission to support human rights and uphold the constitutionally promised rights of Turkmenistan. I won't hold my breath for any explosive revelations. But hopefully, the reforms will keep on rolling.

That info comes from local printed press that is not online. It sited the AP but it must already be archived because it is not on the AP news wire anymore.

And Bush went to LA ostensibly not to counter Chavez, but he is too loud and dissonant to be ignored. I think Chavez is not right fundamentally, but neither are the United States and his outlandish criticisms push the US towards more responsive and responsible policies. It is too bad that the congress is now split from the White House. The Democratic party with its skitzophrenic save-the-underdeveloped-world hippy lobby and its don't-deal-with-the-underdeveloped-world labor lobby does not make for good legislative trade partners.

I would like to see the trade deals we hashed out with Peru, Columbia and Panama signed. This may be naive, but I think it gives Latin America an incentive to cooperate and put leverage on the US in the long run. I think that it will hurt as much as it helps in the short term. But if a few countries can get together and say "you guys are consistently being jerks with these common provisions, we want it changed or we are all pulling out" that will get US attention, especially after our industries have gotten used to exports dependent upon the treaties.

NYT Bush in LA Article

Here is a Russian joke:

Two guys are standing next to each other on the street.

First guy says, "how's it going?"

"aw, you know same as always, always a little different" the second guy says, "First everything was bad, bad, bad. But then things suddenly took a turn for the worst. But again now things are just bad, bad, bad."

I'll say this for the joke. It's very Russian. When I get home, I am going to watch a funny movie. A clever, ironic, intelligent and funny movie. But as long as I am here I will grimace and soldier on. The funny thing about fitting in here is that the world seems bleak and you feel generally estranged. And yet somehow I take great comfort in that.

Some links to thoughts

"The Must Do List"

The list outlines some of the stuff that gets to me, all in convenient list form. I think America's patriotism-identity is founded on an assumption that we are basically good. History of course shows that that assumption is not always safe (just look into Guatemala or Cuba for starters if you have doubts). But the current tactics by our government are pretty much evil. Remember when we were the good guys because the Soviet Union was documentably evil and even if we were not perfect, at least we better than that? That was nice.

It is an opinion article and some of the potential of the article maybe gets hampered in partisanship. One can let the accusation speak for itself without saying (and I paraphrase) "Bush has shown himself untrustworth of exectutive power let along MORE executive power." But when one set of partisans starts looking like apologists for evil, I'll be an apologist for slipping into partisanship.


"Darwin's God"

This is a long article that explores evolutionary explanations for why people (most all people, most everywhere) believe in God or stuff with God-attributes.


Happy wishes for you all and with good dashes of hardship to make the happiness happier.

Solitude and Internationalism

The Boys and I on Defenders of the Nation Day (Man's Day)

I apologize for not writing much about Kyrgyzstan or Central Asia. Being in one place for a few months it sort of blurs together. Corruption sucks, but I will probably end up assisting to it if it means I can get one of my students into tech school and thus set for employment and hope outside of hauling boxes at the bazaar. Teaching English is rewarding but in a slow way. The weather has lingered between winter and spring for the last two weeks, precluding any interesting trips.

I did have a “play defense for US policy/role in the world” conversation today. It is hard to explain why one always seems to end up on the defense. I think it is just to try and explain what the non-malevolent motivations are behind malevolent looking policies and postures. It is a good exercise because it helps me see other perspectives both when assessing my (or US) behavior and when assessing others. Anyway, one critique that is a little flat on the surface is that the US’s actions are “illegitimate” or “illegal” because under Bush we have acted unilaterally to a large degree. It is a little flat because internationalism is not so well established that one can say there is a set or laws that one must abide. There may be standards or norms but countries go to war, use economic leverage and bargain for their own advantage all the time. The US just looks worse for a couple of reasons 1) we are bigger and thus more effective at these self-interested tactics. 2) Other people, like Americans, expect more morality from the US than from other countries. But the critique is fundamentally correct, if perhaps naïve.
But I think that in the long run it is in the US’ interest to establish and follow through on international constraints on state behavior and encourage proto-international governance. Why? Because the US is almost certain to have less influence proportionally in the future than it does now. Thus we can shape the system that will constrain the action of future powers.

I’ve been thinking a lot about solitude lately. I have sort of an odd relationship with solitude. On the one hand, solitude makes me feel lonely and a little down. Not despairing and (thus not depressed) because I have never experienced the feeling down as though it would be unending. But sometimes I know that I would be overwhelmingly glad to see an friend from pre-Kyrgyzstan. Due to that feeling, I think I have cultivated a premium on friendships. It looks, and is, downright corny on the instances I let out of the bag. I get greater joy now out of all my relationships from it.

The sadness and modest frustrations have become an opportunity for growth. I almost feel the growth from loneliness or minor regrets (a word too many or few in a conversation and other social faux-pas). Once the modest suffering is perceived as constructive and instructive, it becomes very bearable to the point of being pleasureable. One can then focus not on the suffering but on the cause of the suffering and thus on a way to avoid or reduce it in the future.

Little pains and sufferings are a necessary part of life. But by learning from it and not feeling ourselves to be the victims or irredeemably guilty of it, the joys and light moments should out shine the adversities. Solitude and the change of pace that setting into a far-away routine provides amplifies the suffering and forces us to deal with it head on rather than procrastinate. Being with friends is not a coping mechanism but not having the luxury forces one to see the sources of discontent more clearly and resolve them from the inside-out. In the states it often seems that time to ones’ self is fleeting. Letting it linger for a longer term feels almost like a kind of long term meditation in that something which at home is always changing and demanding our attention becomes suspended.

Something can be gleaned from that, I think, which otherwise may remain illusive. I don’t know what it is, but I would liken it to a wilderness experience, time abroad or a really intense talk with an old friend. Somehow, things get a little clearer. It may not always be fun at the time, but one would not trade it for anything because it immediately becomes a part of one’s very composition.