Some (Further) Oppression in Kazakhstan

I must admit that I am not a terribly great fan of Hare Krishna adherents, but I view them much as Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy rates Earth: Mostly Harmless. I do remember them being a visible community in Almaty, but they certainly never got in anyone's way.

Therefore I find it somewhat shocking to read this latest news of a literal attack and destruction on a Hare Krishna community by local authorities in Kazakhstan. As this article points out, this heinous action seems to belie the Nazarbayev regime's claim that it is a religiously tolerant and diverse nation. Apparently some religions are to be better tolerated than others.

It reminds me very much of a sad discussion I had with a Kazakh student two years ago, upon my first arriving in my city where I worked. This woman was an ethnic Kazakh, with a very good command of English and who has since become a teacher in that town. We were talking about religion, and she stated that she considered herself non-religious, and that Kazakhstan should be tolerant of many religions. But she then followed this statement with a strong condemnation of the city of Uralsk, not far from us. The reason? Uralsk has a Russian Orthodox church in its city center, and Kazakhstan is supposed to be the nation of Kazakhs, and Kazakhs must be Muslim. Despite my protestations, she apparently did not get the complete contradiction in her viewpoints. And this was a member of the educated youth!

I am not trying to slam the people of Kazakhstan. Probably all nations grapple with issues of religious freedom. Nor, to press the point home again, will I say that I am a great friend of those who seek to publicly push their religion on others, especially through missionary activity (and, although I am probably by their own definition no longer Catholic, I still take some comfort that my religion of origin has turned from pure missionary work to social justice programs and inculturation). To be honest, one wonders how much politics have to do with this act. Pentecostal missionaries are much more widespread - and obnoxious - than Hare Krishnas, but undoubtedly Kazakhstani authorities realize that an attack on them would mobilize religious zealots not least in the United States.

However, at the end of the day, it is not the business of a government to act more violent and obnoxious than this religious groups. If the groups are behaving peacefully, and not attempting to undermine the society that they live in, then the state should allow them to openly live their lives and speak their piece. Debate and cohabitation is the best possible test for the rest of us and our beliefs.

The rightness or wrongness (on a religious level) of their acts is not for political authorities to decide or to punish. And this oppression does not just extend to persecution, but to legal restrictions on the voicing of religious opinions. Kazakhstan, much like other countries in the Middle East and its environs, places strong restrictions on any political organizations advocating a religious or ethnocentric point of view. While this may seem necessary for cohesion in a young and fragile state, the suppression of any such sentiments will only make them come back in worse versions (just ask Algeria and Egypt). The government of Kazakhstan would do well to stop meddling one way or another with religion and with Hindu converts and get about their sorely-neglected business of attempting to improve their people's lives.

Another 20th Century Figure Passes from the Scene

Whatever your opinion of Augusto Pinochet, it must be admitted that the nation of Chile, and perhaps the world, has turned a small historical corner with his passing at the age of 91. As the Economist relates, even those on the political spectrum inclined to agree with Pinochet and to appreciate his policies had come to see the General as something of an anachronism.

This appears to be a new problem of our age. With ever better health care and ever better scientific understanding, lifespans have increased dramatically. This has meant that a large number of world leaders (mostly from the World War II and post War generations) have remained on the scene long after their careers had either formally or effectively ended. Think of Ariel Sharon, Yasir Arafat, Ronald Reagan, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan of the United Arab Emirates, and these deaths have all been in the past couple years. Fidel Castro is also fading from the scene (with his slightly younger brother Raul waiting in the wings).

Old leaders from a previous era seem to have a habit of hanging around longer than, perhaps, for the good of any. Italian politics is especially noted for its gerontocracy. When one starts playing hisotrical games, however, one begins to wonder if history is slowing down these days, despite all the claims of the world speeding up. One often hears the lament that World War II vets are dying out every day, but who was lamenting the demise of Mexican War veterans in Theodore Roosevelt's years? John Kerry's and George W. Bush's Vietnam records were hotly debated in the 2004 election, but a century ago Civil War veterans had already faded from the Presidency (McKinley was an enlisted man, and the last Civil War officer-turned-President was Benjamin Harrison). Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson were children in the 1860's, but where are the Presidential contenders today who were mere children in the 1960's (I know Barack Obama meets these age requirements, but I am wondering where the more heavy hitting statesman of such an age are).

Granted, our lifespans have increased, but has our wait to a mature age also increased? Our lives seem faster these days, and our politics seem influenced by minute-by-minute changes on 24 hour news channels. Yet we still debate the 1960's and Vietnam, and glorify the living veterans of a war that ended almost 2/3 of a century ago. We seem to forget so much of our history, but at the same time it seems like we have trouble letting our history go.

With the passing of Pinochet in Chile, it seems that hopefully everyone in that country can be relieved that more than a little of their history has left them.

Energy Efficiient?

Today was bill-paying day for me, which is an unpleasant yet necessary act for all of us without capital liquidity. In any case, I was on the NStar website paying my electricity bill, and I found this little nifty graph, displaying the energy consumption in my apartment over the past year. We moved into our place in September, and from what I gather the apartment was more or less vacant over the summer for renovations. You can see an obvious difference in the electricity consumption before the summer and after September, almost by a factor of three!!!

Considering that this is the same base apartment, with presumeably the same number of people and the same appliances (which from what I can tell are not rated as anything specifically energy-efficient), this seems like an interesting experiment. What on Earth were these people doing that their energy consumption was three times as high? We watch television, use the computer and cook and wash our clothes. But we turn things off when we do not use them. Maybe someone can explain just how we manage to be more energy efficient than the average American, and why more people cannot achieve this.

Another Grand Design

My recent posts seem to have focused on the grandiose, dare I say baroque and extravagant, plans of world leaders. This latest one comes from my adopted second home, Kazakhstan. President Nursultan Nazabayev has decided to build a domed city in his pet project, the capital city Astana. Ironically, this is an idea that I had proposed to people during my time there (perhaps under an inebriated state). The climate of Astana faces 80 degree C swings over the course of the average year, and so I had thought that if possible one might as well just dome the entire capital. Apparently the Kazakhstani President will settle for a luxury neighborhood.

However, this idea, I must point out, is purely a stupid one. While building model cities is all well and good, at its very heart Astana is a Stalinist dream. The difference between it and Dubai is that Dubai actually accords some space to efficiently-run private business (Emirates Airlines and Dubai World come to mind), while Astana is President Nazarbayev's personal whim financed by state oil revenues dished out to contracters in a very post-Soviet fashion of corruption. Furthermore, the President believes that he can bully and cajole foreigners and locals alike into making his dream a reality, ie that Astana will be the "true" center of Kazakhstan, ie the national capital, largest city and business center ("not like Canberra", Nazarbayev's advisers have stated). This strategy has extended into even the attempt last year to force international airlines to fly into Astana rather than Kazakhstan's actual largest city, Almaty.

Like the steppe empires of Attila and Chingis Khan before him, I believe that this city of Nazabayev's, with all of its wonders, is nothing more than a modern Xanadu, that will vanish with his passing from power. Meanwhile, despite - or perhaps because of - all this oil wealth, Kazakhstan's teachers and doctors are among the nation's lowest paid professionals. Recently scores of children in the southern city of Shymkent were infected with HIV by incompetent healthcare providers. The education system is a disaster, lacking even a proper grading system (the Soviet grading system of 2,3,4,5 remains, but no one receives 2's - the worst - and bribes are paid for 4's and 5's). The cities of Kazakhstan are filled with banks and casinos, but few independent businesses, indicating to me that there is a lot of money sloshing around this economy but with no real purpose. Better to invest this money in strengthening Kazakhstan's future potential economy than to waste it on such unnecessary luxuries.