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Kazakhstan’s ‘golden man’ has a message for America
16 Nov, 2021 18:26
(R) The Statue of Liberty in New York City, US, July 20, 2020. © REUTERS / Carlo Allegri
By Tara Reade, author, poet, actor and former Senate aide, author of Left Out: When the Truth Doesn't Fit In. Follow her on Twitter @readealexandra
For many Americans, the US will always be a place that others can only admire and envy. The harsh reality, though, is that not everyone is really hankering for the type of oligarchic democracy that has evolved in Washington.
The inability to judge others by anything but our own standards means we’ve often written off other countries and other ways of life. Worse still, our politicians have imagined a world in which ‘good’ must triumph over ‘evil’, and where those we disagree with are hell-bent on destroying our way of life. When the curtain is pulled back, however, it is easy to see how much bigotry is directed towards countries like Russia and others from the former Soviet Union, which don’t, in fact, want or seek a war with the West.
Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan
One filmmaker opening the door for people to look at things in a different light is Ukrainian-born Igor Lopatonok, now a US citizen living in California. Recently, I sat down with him on my podcast ‘The Politics of Survival’ to understand what drove him to produce movies like ‘Snowden’, about the eponymous whistleblower, ‘Ukraine on Fire’, and other productions along with Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone.
Their latest feature documentary, ‘Qazaq: History of the Golden Man’, was recently shown at the Asian World Film Festival in Los Angeles, detailing the life of Nursultan Nazarbayev, who governed Kazakhstan for nearly three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union.
According to Lopatonok, “we will destroy ourselves unless we have a balance of power.” The film, he argues, demonstrates how “emerging nations like Kazakhstan show the importance of Eurasian economic development to provide that balance.”
This is the kind of balance that his collaborator, Stone, gets endlessly panned for – approaching his interview subjects, who have included Russian President Vladimir Putin, with a neutral, non-typical Western lens. However, our discourse is so polarized that anything but outright hostility to leaders like Putin and Nazarbayev looks like sympathy.
‘Qazaq’ has been no different, with critics blasting it as fuel for Nazarbayev’s “cult of personality.” Stone hit back, telling the Guardian, “I’m not going to come over and lecture these people about how to run their country and how to run a democracy.” He added that he views Nazarbayev as something of a “tribal chief” managing a difficult country. “It doesn’t work [berating him]. Democracy barely works in the US.”
Lopatonok is also keen to rebut claims the pair are too soft on leaders who are decried as autocrats in the West, but went even further, arguing that “to call democracy the best way to govern is wrong historically and factually.” It is clear, he argues, that there are other ways “to resolve different views and conflicts peacefully, respect for human dignity, the freedom to act, speak and think freely, as long as it does not stop others doing the same, equality before the law, safe and secure community.”
“The US is failing on all five fronts,” he insists. “But I believe, and I got it from my interview with the first President of Kazakhstan, that people will be looking for a new way of governing now more than ever because of this failure,” Lopatonok said. “We can’t call the US’ form of governing a democracy.”
The 2020 US election campaign cost about $14 billion, becoming the most expensive election in American history. This money was spent, Lopatonok said, “to elect Joe Biden, who is unfit to be president of this country, this is a tremendous failure.”
So, while he denies his films are overtly sympathetic to one side of the argument, the Ukrainian-born director believes casting a light on how things are done elsewhere helps dispel the myths that prop up our own struggling systems. In his view, films like ‘Qazaq’ or ‘Snowden’ are important because “the reality we are given by the mainstream media is constructed by the media,” which is not, he claims, “reporting the news, but creating it. It has nothing to do with reality.”
That reality “is not black or white you; need the full picture. We want people to decide for themselves and develop their critical thinking.” Lopatonok said.
But as well as grappling with the legacy of Nazarbayev, who was one of the longest non-royal leaders of any country in the world, the film shows a fascination with Kazakhstan as a crossroads between East and West. The world’s largest landlocked country, it has become an increasing focus for investment and diplomacy, bordering both China and Russia.
In the opening shot, Stone and Lopatonok show the vast steppes from an eagle-eye view, before soaring over the futuristic capital of Nur-Sultan, itself named in honor of Nursultan Nazarbayev. Stone’s interview centers on the long-time former leader’s life, from childhood to his time in office, which saw him strike a careful balance between the great powers in the West and East. According to him, the country’s focus is on economic and social development, rather than playing geopolitical games.
In that, there’s something for us all to learn, and it’s hard not to hope that the American conversation moves away from and rejects the kind of neoliberal hysteria that has led to such hostility towards the eastern hemisphere. Suspicion can give way to a more objective view of other countries, if we want it to. And the US will only benefit from breaking free of its ingrained xenophobia.
Military junta charges ousted leader Suu Kyi with election-rigging
16 Nov, 2021 07:36
Sixteen Myanmar ex-officials, including deposed State Counsellor Aung San Suu Kyi and President Win Myint, have been slapped with new charges related to the 2020 election by the Asian country’s military junta.
This week, 15 officials, including Suu Kyi, were charged with crimes related to the alleged rigging of the 2020 vote, , the national election body announced on Tuesday. Other targets of the accusations include ousted President Win Myint and the chairman of the election commission.
The November 2020 general election was won by Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy (NLD). On February 1, the country’s powerful military, which ruled as a dictatorship before a shaky transition to a representative democracy a decade earlier, launched a coup, deposing the civilian government. The military claimed the election was rigged in favor of the NLD and against the party they supported. The NLD side denied the claims while international observers said the election was mostly free and fair.
Suu Kyi has been in custody since being overthrown. She is currently being tried for flouting Covid-19 restrictions during campaigning. She was also charged with a number of crimes, from illegal importing of radios to corruption and sedition. The 76-year-old, who spent years under house arrest, faces decades in prison, if convicted.
The military coup was met with resistance by NLD supporters, to which the junta responded with a crackdown. Observers who are critical of the military claim as many as 1,250 people have been killed and over 10,000 arrested over the months of confrontation.
Many lawmakers from the NLD formed a rival government, which in September declared a “people’s defensive war” against military rule. Suu Kyi refrained from commenting on the escalation.
Dozens of soldiers feared injured & killed in new
Armenia-Azerbaijan fighting
17 Nov, 2021 10:18
By Layla Guest
Several Azerbaijani soldiers have been wounded or killed in the latest round of skirmishes on the country's border with Armenia, Baku's Ministry of Defense has claimed amid fears clashes will undermine a Moscow-brokered ceasefire.
In a press release issued on Wednesday, Azerbaijani military chiefs announced that seven of their troops had died during combat operations on the shared frontier as a result of what it has described as “Armenian provocations.” A further 10 servicemen were also reportedly injured in the fighting.
The Armenian side also announced it was dealing with an unknown number of casualties. The Ministry of Defense in Yerevan said on Wednesday that one of its servicemen had died, but revealed communication had been lost with a further two dozen, and that their fates are currently unknown.
According to the statement, Armenia has now lost a significant amount of its military equipment, including vehicles and armored carriers deployed to protect the border. Yerevan has also said two of its combat posts came under Azerbaijani control after a firefight.
Both nations have confirmed that the situation on the Azerbaijan-Armenian border has stabilized since reports of clashes on Tuesday. The defense ministers of both Yerevan and Baku held calls with their Russian counterpart, Sergey Shoigu, after fighting broke out in an effort to prevent tensions flaring further.
Shoigu called on the two former Soviet republics to put an end to any activities that risk exacerbating the situation. Moscow later announced that fighting had been paused.
Skirmishes broke out on Tuesday, with both sides accusing each other of the provocations. Yerevan alleged Baku’s troops had invaded its territory and captured several of its servicemen, as well as a handful of points across the frontier.
Azerbaijan, however, vows it was acting in self-defense, hunting for Armenian anti-tank weapons that purportedly shot at its posts over the weekend.
The incidents have created fears of a resumption in all-out conflict, which saw the two nations wage a short but bloody war last year over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh, a de jure part of Azerbaijan historically controlled by the ethnic Armenian majority. Russia brokered a deal that saw an end to the fighting and deployed peacekeepers. The pact also forced Yerevan to sign over swathes of territory to Azerbaijan, including most of the lands held by Armenians since a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
Russia obliged to defend Armenia in case of war with Azerbaijan – Yerevan
17 Nov, 2021 13:27
By Layla Guest
© AFP / ARIS MESSINIS
After a series of firefights and fatalities reported on the country’s border with Azerbaijan, Armenia has said it expects Russia to step in and help prevent a return to all-out conflict that threatens the Moscow-backed ceasefire.
The secretary of the national security council, Armen Grigoryan, claimed that Azerbaijani forces had entered Armenian territory “as an act of aggression” on Wednesday. “In 1997, Armenia and Russia agreed to mutually help each other in such cases,” he said. “In this regard, we turned to Moscow.”
When asked to explain what kind of assistance Yerevan is requesting, the official said that it hopes to arrive at a resolution through diplomatic channels. If this is not possible, however, “then it is necessary to solve the problem by military means.”
Azerbaijan announced on Wednesday that seven of its servicemen died during combat operations and that 10 had been injured. Yerevan, meanwhile, has reported one fatality, but said that it had lost communication with 24 of its personnel, who are still unaccounted for.
The situation at the Azerbaijani-Armenian frontier has stabilized since reports of skirmishes on November 16, according to both sides. Russia’s Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu implored the two former Soviet republics to stop any actions which could worsen tensions. Moscow subsequently announced there had been a pause in fighting.
Both sides have both pointed fingers at one another for the latest clashes, with Armenia accusing Azerbaijan of invading its territory and taking numerous soldiers prisoner, as well as capturing installations on the border.
Azerbaijan has claimed that it was acting in self-defense, however, looking for Armenian anti-tank weapons that had allegedly shot at its positions across the frontier.
The clashes sparked concerns over a resumption of full-blown conflict, with both nations having fought a bloody war last year over the disputed province of Nagorno-Karabakh. The region is a de jure part of Azerbaijan, but has been run in recent years by the ethnic Armenian majority.
A Moscow-brokered deal ended conflict in the region and saw peacekeepers sent there. The agreement also required Yerevan to sign over a significant amount of territory to Baku, including most of the lands held by Armenians since a bloody conflict in the early 1990s.
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