Central Asia - General Discussion Thread

Things changed.

Bishkek declared a SOE and Atambayev is thrown back in the slammer.

And the president has resigned, citing a wish to avoid bloodshed.

Thing is, the current Speaker, though he will convene Parliament to consider the resignation, is not sure whether he himself can take up the position given that his own mandate is almost over.

The Kremlin, meanwhile, is saying they are pausing support as they don't even know who is in charge over there right now.

Kyrgyzstan is in anarchy.

This has not been a great time for the former Soviet Union.

This is almost typical for Kyrgyzstan, sadly.

In the latest bizarre twist of the War on Terror, the US is providing the Taliban with air support to help them fight ISIS.

So, let's see:

The US backs the mujahideen, then a former mujahid's personal force (al-Qaeda) allies with the Taliban against the US, then the US kicks the Taliban and AQ in the ass and kills the AQ leader, then ISIS splinters from AQ and AQ fades into irrelevance, the Taliban come back, and the US allies with the Taliban against ISIS. Sounds...actually, pretty normal for the Greater Middle East.

Not sure if this belongs more to the Racism thread, but still...

So, yesterday Borat 2 got released, which, predictably, caused an uproar in Kazakh social media. As it happened the previous time, many were outraged, some were indifferent, some liked it, many also didn't pay much attention to its release. Our government didn't ban its release in the movie theaters (they're still closed due to the whole Coronavirus situation, but still...) this time.

I didn't watch the original, don't intend to watch the sequel mostly because while I understand that Sacha Baron Cohen's jokes are aimed at the Americans, I don't quite enjoy the sort of humor he employs. I still want to discuss the movie itself and its impact on the lives of Kazakh people from the point of view of people not living in Kazakhstan.

I do realize that our nation is so obscure many people don't even realize we even exist (which is probably why Kazakhstan was chosen in the first place) and this is just a film by one deliberately controversial comedian so, it won't leave a lasting cultural impact even in the US, but I have a couple of questions related mostly to, you guessed it, to the morality of making such a product.

1. Is it cultural appropriation to portray a member of a real-life nation (even if very obscure) and the nation itself as uniformly backwards and racist, have Yiddish as a stand-in for the nation's official language and employ whitewashing when casting for roles of the people of that nation?
2. Related to the above, is it racist to deliberately use an obscure nation as the butt of the jokes in the movie (with Borat being Funny Foreigner the source of much humor), considering it's about the only major portrayal of the nation in Western media, and also considering such portrayal led to bullying and harassment of real-life Kazakh people living abroad (potential boost to Kazakhstan's tourism sector notwithstanding)?

Edited by Millership on Oct 24th 2020 at 9:43:44 PM

@Ramidel -

Al Qaeda =/= Mujahiddeen. The former were a mostly Arab group fighting holy war, egged on by the US and Saudi Arabia. The Mujahideen were local warlords of various persuasions (mostly ethnic, some ideological and some religious). The Taliban were a creation by Pakistan to bring some semblance of order and control in order to achieve "strategic depth" in a post-Communist, near-anarchic Afghanistan.

A lot of people don't realize Central Asia in general exists.

Looks like Nur-Sultan aka Astana has adopted Borat's line "Very nice" in their tourism ads and are ironically thankful for the movies to make non-Central Asian people aware of the country and increased tourism.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/rest-of-world/2020/12/18/a-kyrgyz-custom-officials-luxury-getaways/

Bellingcat did OSINT on a corrupt Kyrgyz official.

So there are reports that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan had heavy clashes around one of the disputed parts of the border (admittedly, most of the border is disputed but....) over some water source.

Picture is still hazy, but Kyrgyzstan is reporting about 40 dead. Tajikistan is being a bit more opaque on their casualities, other than that they had some. While there is a ceasefire in place, at least one Kyrgyz publication has stated that Tajikistan invaded sovereign Kyrgyz soil and is playing a blame game.

RFEL posted a video that was a supposed vacation resort/mansion for President Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

Elections are heating up between Pashinyan and Robert Kocharyan.

Is anyone here from/their family was from Central Asia?

Too obvious

Edited by RJ-19-CLOVIS-93 on Jul 21st 2021 at 5:11:12 AM

Why not Kazakhstan?

Bishkek reported an "armed coup" after the elections was stopped by Kyrgyz security forces.

A SOE's declared in Kazakhstan. CSTO's being called in for help.

PS - Looks like stuff I need to get mailed from Kazakhstan could potentially be delayed.

Edited by Ominae on Jan 5th 2022 at 7:29:28 AM

Fake reports coming from pro-Russian media that foreign countries are behind the protests in Almaty.

Media? Nikol Pashinyan claimed this. A bit ironic, given his history. But maybe Karabakh war helped him "see the light".

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jan 6th 2022 at 11:34:15 PM

Huh...

Update on the protests in Almaty (yes, I'll refer to the capital as such. Not that... long name).

So far, our media has been rather neutral on the whole topic. Which is honestly not surprising, given how most protests in Central Asia aren't anti-Russian or pro any foreign power. People just want internal change, so why would Putin care?

Edited by KnitTie on Jan 6th 2022 at 2:43:28 AM

We'll have to see.

I'm getting reports from Almaty (yes, using that name) that they're still repeating claims that some terrorist groups are helping the protestors. It's really tiring that Tokayev hasn't shown evidence.

Also local word of mouth that some police officers/soldiers have defected, but can't be verified.

Well the Kazakh government is obviously pulling a leaf from Poroshenko's (or really just any autocrat's) book and trying their damnedest to delegitimise the protesters by spinning them as foreign-sponsored terrorists and/or bandits and/or uncontrollable rioting mobs.

That doesn't mean that Putin's government is interested in parroting those words or that it won't try to play nicely with the protesters should they successfully pull off a coup.

Edited by KnitTie on Jan 6th 2022 at 5:23:25 AM