Ted Rall: Tajikistan Expert?
Ted Rall is a guy who travels around Central Asia and writes articles about the region. The last time he wrote an article about president Rahmon – The rise of Tajikmanbashi. I don’t know why, but he is giving information which is far from the truth. Well, not that far, but you can feel the exaggeration, as if no one else besides him was in the region and he tries to give a detailed and colorful description of how people live here. Just look at the title of his new book - “Silk Road to Ruin: Is Central Asia the New Middle East?” Probably he wants to put his book in the list of bestsellers about Central Asia.
The other day Ian at Beyond the River gave some of his thoughts on Ted’s masterpiece:
As Central Asia maven Ted Rall noted last week with such originality, Tajikistan is currently undergoing a political shift that involves some top-down social reforms. He must have been reading the blogs a few months ago… The rhetoric here is, to my mind, not very helpful:
Previously the colorless leader of Central Asia’s poorest and most remote republic, Rahmonov — he recently dropped the Slavic “ov” suffix as part of a nationalist campaign to erase lingering Russian influence — is subjecting mountainous Tajikistan to bizarre edicts and egomaniacal rants that recall the deceased Turkmenbashi.
Bizarre edicts? Egomaniacal rants? It’s not as if other republics, even besides Turkmenistan, haven’t had their share of these things for years.
This time Ted wrote about Gorno-Badakhshan. He again gave a colorful title to his article - Let them drink rapeseed oil. When I was reading it I couldn’t believe that the story was about the present day Pamir. It seems like he visited the region somewhere in the middle of 90s when the population was facing harsh humanitarian crisis because of the Civil War. He is using a word “poor” hundred times. Poor, poor, poor…
There’s poor, dirt poor and Gordo-Badakhshan. Misery comes in so many flavors here — economic, political, even topographic — that solving any single problem wouldn’t be enough.
Bordered by war-ravaged Afghanistan to the south, hostile Uzbekistan to the west, oppressed western China to the east and anarchic Kyrgyzstan to the north, Tajikistan was the poorest of the republics of the Soviet Union. And Gordo-Badakhshan was the poorest and most remote part of Tajikistan.
First, I never heard from anyone calling Kyrgyzstan an anarchic state. Second, Gorno-Badakhshan is a poor region, no one denies the fact, but when Ted says that he was eating bread baked out of the flour brought to the region by USAID, it seems to me that he is lying.
As I chewed a nan bread my Pamiri hosts had baked using US-AID flour, I got the warm fuzzies. The struggle for hearts and minds never tasted so good.
As far as I know the flour with USAID label on the bags was brought to the region by AKDN and FOCUS but it was long time ago, as I said in the middle of 90s, the end of 90s the latest. I don’t think that people in Pamir still have that flour. The humanitarian aid was limited long time ago and today international organizations are implementing only development projects.
I wish Ted visited this website and read what others think about his writings…
on June 29th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
I’ve noticed that about Ted Rall as well. His writings on Kazakhstan are similarly incoherent, which leads me to believe he has never actually visited these places (at least, not since 1996). Plus, he tries way too hard to be witty about how he writes, but just comes off sounding ignorant.
on June 29th, 2007 at 5:02 pm
There are still cans and sacks in many parts of Tajikistan, including GBAO, with the USAID logos that get reused. I definitely second that Rall’s exagerating things though.
on June 30th, 2007 at 6:22 am
Teo, you’re right that can and sacks (very lasting) are reused and I’m glad that people figuered out how to use them profitably. I bet the US government could never imagine that their containers would be used in the household. Once I even saw a roof of a house made of barrels (cut) with USAID logo on it. :).
on June 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am
Ted Rall is old hat. Teo Kaye’s where it’s at now.
on July 2nd, 2007 at 1:04 am
There were still quite a few aid trucks full of new supplies on the road along the Panj going into the GBAO when I was there in 2003. The fire station in Khorog contained two Soviet era fire trucks, one of which was out of commission due to lack of parts. The road along the Panj washed out regularly and the other major road into the GBAO is impassable during 1/3 of the year. Air service into Khorog is intermittent at best due to weather and other factors.
However, saying that the GBAO is beyond poor is incorrect and is doing a huge disservice to the inhabitants of the region and the agencies working there, such as FOCUS. Clearly there are enormous problems in the region, but progress is being made, and erroneous reporting doesn’t help the situation.
-David
on July 2nd, 2007 at 11:44 am
I agree with Daud and nonpon. OK the GBAO is remote and statistically poor but thanks to the end of the M-41 road blockade since 2002, the remittances from labor migrants in Russia and the efforts of the Aga Khan Foundation and its branches in the field of infrastructure things are definitely taking off again.
Ted Rall has the merit that he has actually visited the region, even briefly and superficially yet that is more than many pundits can say. I also find some of his stuff hoo-ha and denigrating and he’s cleary worn-out though — same for his primal Bush-bashing cartoons, even though some are funny.
on July 4th, 2007 at 8:09 am
I would agree with him on about 80% of his article. But he does sound like an [moderated].
on July 4th, 2007 at 8:25 am
horny_bastard, you give interesting comments, but please, don’t use offensive language.