It’s hard to classify Ted Rall’s new book, Silk Road To Ruin. The subject is clear: the central Asian countries ending in -stan. But the presentation doesn’t fit one single format. Part of the book is travel writing; Rall has made at least five trips to the region and each trip gets some coverage here. But another part of the book is a state of the region overview of each country, as well as a couple of chapters on the environment and geopolitical context. Not only that, sprinkled liberally throughout are some of Rall’s editorial cartoons and short graphical stories about the region and his trips. The local Barnes & Noble classifies this as current events
but no single category seems sufficient to me.
My own knowledge of the region comprising Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, and the Xinjiang Uyghur (Uighur) Autonomous Region of China is pretty limited. There was a Kyrgyz student at the University of Idaho in 1994-1995 that I knew. I know that Tashkent was at one point a sister city to Seattle, though I have no idea if that relationship continues today. I’ve heard the names of each of the local dictators at one point or another. There are a few other random facts I probably knew. But all in all, pretty limited.
Nevertheless, my attention is drawn to this area. I’ve had a fascination with trying to learn about lesser known areas of the world for a long time. Let other people visit France, England, Ireland, Italy and the other forebears of American civilization. I want to see India, South Africa, and central Asia, among other destinations. I’m not a glutton for punishment. I’ll not likely go to central Asia anytime soon. But I want to know what’s there.
Central Asia will be geopolitically important for some time, despite the relative lack of prominence in American news. Several countries in the region sit on substantial oil and natural gas fields. The others sit on the landlocked routes that pipelines must take out of the region. And if you look at a map of the region, there’s a relatively small area where most of these countries tangle together spaghetti-like just north of Afghanistan. A determined insurgent group can cause havoc in all of these countries easily by gaining a foothold in this small region. And some do.
Ted Rall writes about the politics of the region, not just the geo-politics. You’ll get the meet the strongmen of each country. None of them are ruled by governments selected by truly free and fair elections. The closest is Afghanistan, and until 2005, Kyrgyzstan. Rall introduces folks to Sapamurat Turkmenbashi
Niyazov, late (as of December 2006) of Turkmenistan, Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan, Sharipovich Rakhmonov of Tajikistan, and Nursaltan Nazabayev of Kazakhstan. Of these, Karimov in Uzbekistan is particularly brutal. He personally ordered and monitored a crackdown on a demonstration that resulted in nearly 1,000 deaths by conservative estimates. The massacre received only minimal coverage in the West and only minimal protest by our supposedly attentive-to-human-rights governments. The U.S. in particular made polite paper protests so as not to disturb the use of Uzbekistan territory for Afghanistan military operations. Unfortunately for us, even that was too much and Uzbekistan terminated our use of a base on their soil. According to Rall, we are to be out of there by this month. I haven’t kept up on the latest developments, so I don’t know if Uzbekistan followed through on the eviction.
Nevertheless, we’re botching the job in those countries according to Rall. We’re not really making the dictators happy. And we’ve lost the substantial support we used to have among the peoples of central Asia. Rall predicts a powderkeg and we’ll have little influence when it blows.
Despite the attention to the geopolitical, Rall also includes a lot of travel writing. He includes a detailed set of recommendations on how to negotiate military checkpoints, set up mostly for the purpose of shaking down travelers. Foreigners with wads of cash often get the worst of these hassles: robbed, raped, and stranded miles from nowhere. Sometimes it results in even worse treatment. He also describes in detail some of the sporting events
the locals play. Particularly, I liked his chapter on and descriptions of buzkashi, a vaguely polo-like sport where horsemen carry a dead goat to a goal area. There are no real teams though, and almost anything is fair game to get the player carrying the goat to drop it. Whipping your opponents horse? Go for it. Blinding your opponent (permanently)? That’s allowed! Using your whip to bloody or remove the ear of an opponent? Not a bad strategy at all. Shooting an AK-47 at the other horses or riders? It’s considered unsporting but technically allowed. People die in the games and people are frequently hurt seriously. But the winners can walk away with carpets, cars and even goats. Horsemen from multiple countries travel for these competitions.
Another slightly less bloody but no less brutal sport is kyzku. In this game, men chase a woman and try to kiss her. If one manages to do so, he wins the right to marry her, and there are even occasionally tents set up for consummating such marriages on the edge of the field. Now, this sounds fairly sexist at first, but after reading you will likely change your mind. First of all, the game takes place on horseback. That makes kissing much tougher. Second, the woman rider may use any and all means at her disposal to prevent kissing attempts. Unwanted men frequently come away bloodied and maimed from this game. Rall writes of one woman who had fended off 100+ attempts in a row over the years. The men come out of this much the worse for wear! Coincidentally, I read this book in a coffee house in Seattle’s Wallingford neighborhood. A man sitting in the chair next to me saw the title and asked if it was about central Asia. He’d spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kyrgyzstan. So when I reached this part of the book, I asked him if he’d witnessed this sport. He said he had and that it was quite amazing. However, he did say that most kyzku bouts are pre-planned these days. The men don’t enter the arena if they don’t have an idea that the female competitor will let them have their kiss. I suppose that takes a bit of the excitement away for random spectators, but it’s still a hell of a way to effect a proposal. You might think she’ll say yes, but if not you get much worse than a slap in the face! That’s a hell of a risk and in a way, I think a lot more romantic than getting on one knee in a swanky Italian restaurant in a posh urban neighborhood.
Title: Silk road to ruin: is central Asia the new middle east?
Author: Ted Rall
Imprint / publisher: NBM Publishing
Publication date: August 2006
Format: Hardcover (9.3 in. x 6.4 in.)
Length: 304 p., including bibliography
ISBN-10: 1-56163-454-9
ISBN-13: 978-1-56163-454-5
Subject: Rall, Ted — Travel
Subject: Asia, Central — History — 1991- — Comic books, strips, etc.
Subject: Asia, Central — Economic conditions — 1991- — Comic books, strips, etc.
Subject: Asia, Central — Politics and government — 1991- — Comic books, strips, etc.
Subject: Asia, Central — Description and travel — Comic books, strips, etc.
LC Classification: PN6727.R35 S56 2006
