Kazakhstan Comes to America

by CKR

The president of Kazakhstan, Nursultan Nazarbayev, is in the United States to talk with President Bush. Or at least I think so. Our US-centric media are reporting the visit via, for example, Vice President Cheney’s visit to Kazakhstan last spring.

I must declare some mixed feelings about this visitor from Kazakhstan and another one. I have felt that if I had visited Kazakhstan before I visited Estonia, I might have fallen love the other way around. Kazakhstan is a beautiful country, and I have had the privilege of working with some wonderful people there, generous and kind, capable and ingenious.

Kazakhstan was settled by the Russians much as western America was settled by Europeans. The people who lived there were nomads, moving with their herds. They were not so badly treated as the North American aborigines, but their way of life was severely modified by the invading Europeans. The population today is a bit more than half Kazakh, and a bit less than half European. Some Kazakhs remain in touch with their past, spending part of the summer in encampments. Political organization within Kazakhstan also reflects the three main hordes (that’s where that word comes from). While there, I learned that it is possible to think of Genghis Khan as one of the fathers of one’s nation.

The former capital city, Almaty, is almost European in feeling, with good bus service and lovely parks. Also a great central market. The steppe was glorious with flowers and plants, some very much like those of the high plains of eastern New Mexico, and birds in unimaginable numbers and variety.

Kazakhstan has a wide assortment of minerals, including petroleum. My friends told me that 87 of the 92 naturally-occurring elements are produced there. Soviet prospecting and mining was not always done with respect for the environment and the safety of people living nearby; drilling in some places brought up mineral-rich brine that poisoned the soil, like what is currently happening in Indonesia, although not in such enormous quantities. The Soviets also placed their first nuclear test site in Kazakhstan, west of Semey, and their space launch site at Baikonur, which is still in use.

President Nazarbayev declared independence from the Soviet Union when that move became inescapable. More importantly, he made Kazakhstan a nuclear-free zone, readily sending the strategic nuclear weapons stationed there during Soviet times back to Russia. He has joined with four other central Asian countries to form a larger nuclear-free zone. However, he has seemed to be moving away from democracy, and he has favored his family in governmental appointments.

Another visitor is scheduled to appear in our theaters in November. An internet friend whom I was visiting in real life introduced me to Borat. More mixed feelings. The visit itself had a lot of emotional overlay that I won’t do more than note. I found Borat to be very, very funny. Much of his humor has to do with bathroom activities and looking down women’s necklines, along with putting down the capabilities of Kazakhstan. But there’s enough self-deprecation and a refreshing naivety, along with the wildly zany unexpected, to redeem some of the predictable.

Borat is not really about Kazakhstan, at least not if you know something about Kazakhstan. The music on the trailer for the film is not Kazakh, but more generic Eastern European. Some of the locations and jokes sound more like undeveloped parts of Russia or other countries. And Borat’s accent and English usage don’t really correspond to what I know of Russian speakers or anyone else who’s started from another language than English.

But most Americans haven’t spent a month in an Almaty apartment, so they may pick up Kazakhstan jokes as the replacements for Polish jokes.

President Bush, meanwhile, has been invading countries to the southwest of Kazakhstan in order to bring democracy to them, or so he says. So it’s easy to criticize him for meeting with a president who seems to be less than democratic. This criticism seems to me to be beside the point. Bush is meeting with Nazarbayev because Kazakhstan is strategically situated and it has oil, possibly other minerals the United States would like to buy. This is realpolitik, despite Bush’s protestations of what he believes to be a principled approach to interactions with other world leaders.

It’s a good idea for heads of state to talk to others whose national interests might be different. Although the US news reports refer to Kazakhstan as a Muslim country, the image that this gives to American readers is misleading. Russian and Soviet dominance brought the Russian Orthodox church to Kazakhstan, and the Muslim tradition was weakened by the overlay of official Soviet atheism. During my stay two years ago, I saw a grand total of two women in hijab. So Kazakhstan potentially could play a moderating role in the Muslim world.

President Bush needs to be talking to more world leaders, not fewer. We can hope that he will listen to President Nazarbayev on nuclear weapons and religious freedom, the Muslim religion and environmental protection. Perhaps he can even learn something about getting along with neighbors with whom one doesn’t always agree.

Map: CIA World Factbook
Photos: Ascension Orthodox Cathedral in City Park (CKR)
The view from my apartment (CKR)
The main mosque in Almaty (picture postcard)

Comments

[marc anizan]

The BBC ran an interview with Kazakhstan's president the other day. If you can get a connect, it's well worth the view. Interestingly enough, the interviewer focused in on whether Kazkhstan might be headed towards a monarchy...the president's family easing into the role. The president said that would never happen! He waxed enthusiastically about democracy. There was also considerable time given over the country's need to have good relations with Russia, China and the US. There is an oil pipeline to China, another pipeline via Russia bringing Kazakhstan's oil/natural gas to Europe and a third line on the "American route" to Ceyhan (I believe!). The influx of humongous amounts of money is bringing on great change in the life and times of the people.

[Eddie]

Islam seems to thrive on its frontiers. Perhaps not so much in a missionary phase, but the Islamic communities seem to be more open to evolution of thought and policy as well as modernity's benefits and risks. Thank you for your first-hand observation from Kazakhstan.