I apologize in advance for this off-balance rant, but on nights when the Knicks drop 131 AND the Mets beat the Phillies before the hopelessness of early June seeps into my frail bones, these things are prone to happening.
How about the NY Times putting an article about Nursultan Nazarbayev, my great-great uncle and the only leader Kazakhstan has known since 1989, on the front page of the paper? In case you’re not an avid follower of Central Asian politics (if you’re my zero-to-one person audience who is, my bad for the detour), I’ll fill you in.
Turn my headphone up.
Nazarbayev was re-elected president of Kazakhstan this Monday, garnering 95 percent of the vote. This comes after he rebuffed the brownosings of certain Parliament members to make him President-for-Life, and then just President until 2020, but to placate these yutzes Nursie moved elections from the 2013 date up to April 2011. It’s unclear whether or not the folks pushing for the elimination of term limits and deification of Nazarbayev were put up to it by others or were just generally sycophants. The Times, being all Timesy, of course, could not resist talking about the country with a hue of quaintness:
“It is almost comical to consider campaigning against Mr. Nazarbayev in Astana, the gleaming city that he ordered built in the 1990s on the blank plane of the northern steppe, its skyline melding folk mysticism with science fiction.
At its central point, citizens can ascend to a large glass orb and place their hands in a golden cast of the president’s handprint, which they believe can grant wishes.
Kazakhs do not believe in unicorns, yetis, or that some gold ball in a tacky tower in a synthetic-feeling, culturally-meager city is going to grant their wishes. They’re normal human folk, not force-fed propaganda to the same degree their Turkmen neighbors are.
Yet the Times presents Kazakhstan as if they’re the Phoenix Suns of 2005 and 2006, or a horse than can only be ridden by one man. They don’t really say why, other than quoting the dean of history at Moscow State University saying that without Nazarbayev the whole system would fall apart within five years.
But why? Don’t autocrats replace other autocrats all the time? Can’t a guy like Kassym Tokayev, Chairman of the Senate, just take over the reins? Kazakhstan is an interesting situation, more so than the Times lets on–hold on to your hats and I’ll tell you more.
Polar Bear Colony 