-- June 15, 2002 --
Hello everyone,
Free press? Déjà vu. When three representatives of the
Committee to Protect Journalists finished their visit to
Uzbekistan on 10 June, nobody was surprised by their conclusion
that the government's recent decision to officially abolish
prior censorship (at least nominally) has had little effect.
In a statement, the delegation led by CPJ board member Peter
Arnett (of CNN & AP fame) noted that editors have been warned
they will be held "personally accountable for what they
publish" and that authorities still "encourage self-censorship
by threatening critical journalists with imprisonment."
They also pointed to litigation against journalists in "politicized
courts, harassment by police and security forces, arbitrary
implementation of media regulations and politically motivated
tax inspections."
"At a practical level, nothing has changed," CPJ program
director Richard Murphy said.
CPJ found continuing obstacles to objective, professional
newsgathering as well as punishment and sanctions for what
is broadcast or published.
(In fact, my friend Josh Mechleder, the country director
for Uzbekistan of the USAID-funded media training organization
Internews, told me of a couple of recent incidents in which
reporters and editors were disciplined for publishing articles
on sensitive topics.)
At the end of the trip, the CPJ delegation drew more than
70 people -journalists and others, including three of my
students -- to a news conference in the National Press Centre.
There, Alex Lupis, the CPJ program coordinator for Europe
and Central Asia, noted, "Government officials are afraid
to speak on the record and share information with journalists,
so it's very hard to have any influence on government policy."
And Arnett put it bluntly: "As far as the press is concerned,
we've found a very dark picture."
#
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Kokand Madrassah Cemetery
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On a recent day trip to Kokand in eastern Uzbekistan's
Ferghana Valley, the interim Peace Corps medical officer
and I had the unusual opportunity to visit the Narbutabey
Madrassah.
This Islamic academy was built in the late 1700s and is
still actively used by Muslim boys and young men who study
the Koran and Islam. Because it's a "working" madrassah,
it's usually off-limits to non-Muslims, especially women,
but we were shown around, and could see and hear men and
boys praying in the mosque and in their study cells. We
also were allowed to wander around the adjacent cemetery,
crowded with mausoleums, and learned how the bodies are
interred wrapped in white cloth without coffins.
It is the places like this where tourists and visitors
generally don't go that often tell the best stories about
the real lives of real people.
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Kokand Madrassah Cemetery
|
One tombstone had a picture etched on it that shows a young
soldier who died in 1988, presumably during the Soviet war
in Afghanistan. This was particularly poignant, given the
Soviet Union's ultimate failure in Afghanistan and America's
ongoing military actions there. I wonder what thoughts passed
through his family's minds when the U.S. began bombing and
sending in troops.
#
It didn't take long to figure out my massage therapist's
professional training, although she speaks no English and
I speak virtually no Russian. In her playpen, Tatiana obviously
took great pleasure in tearing the arms and legs off her
dolls. By elementary school, she was doing the same thing
to neighborhood pets. By secondary school, she was honing
her thumb-gouging skills on the eyes of innocent lambs.
Then she hit her stride - winning a coveted spot on the
USSR national women's wrestling team and, after her Olympic
success, moving to the WWF pro wrestling circuit where she
perfected the full-nelson, half-nelson and body slam. And
like disciplined karate experts - whose hands are as callused
and blunt as hammers -- she willingly endured years of pain
from repeatedly sticking her fingers into a pencil sharpeners
to hone them to fine but powerful points.
Alas, Tatiana grew a bit too slow for competition, so she
became a heavy construction equipment operator - preferring
the bulldozers and front-end loaders without power steering
so she could further build her upper body strength. Unfortunately,
she must have lost part of her hearing along the way. That's
why she can't hear the cracking sound as individual fingers
and toes are yanked from their sockets in sequence.
I know she's achieved success, based on the framed certificate
on the wall confirming her graduation with honors from the
KGB Academy of Torture, mastering all the pressure points
and able to ply her trade without leaving visible bruises
- as for psychological bruising, that's different. The academy
is also where she learned to peel the skin off the vertebrae,
one by one, and to use a wooden meat tenderizer to play
the human ribcage like a xylophone. Fortunately, she's well-enough
behaved to take off her leather jackboots before stepping
on my back, shoulder blades and the insteps of my feet.
For the first month, I thought the word she mutters several
times each session was "attack," an appropriate enough choice
given the circumstances. But with my glacially advancing
knowledge of Russian, I realize that it's only "tak," meaning
so.
I am proud of myself, however. No matter how bad the pain,
I've never volunteered more than my name, Fulbright rank
and Hotmail password. At the end of each session, Tatiana
says a prayer in Russian, mentioning my name several times.
Is it also a prayer asking my forgiveness?
And I thought my Russian language tutoring sessions were
painful.
#
Speaking of tutoring, my extremely marginal Russian (a
remnant of the one semester I took in college 35 years ago)
appears to be improving, but it's all relative. For example,
an employee at the Embassy's public affairs section told
me that when I answer the phone, my "Allo," sounds like
a Russian speaker's. The new public affairs intern complimented
me on my Russian when he overheard part of my weekly lesson
- but interns obviously need to curry favor with everyone.
Also, I was able to more or less figure out what the gas
company inspector making his rounds wanted and to answer
such incisive questions in Russian as my surname and the
number of people in the apartment. My tutor told me that
was good but criticized me for opening my apartment door
to a stranger, even one in uniform with an official-looking
ID. Tak.
