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Onward,
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Weekend
Edition
November 4 / 5, 2006
Is Central Asia the New Middle East?
Silk
Road to Ruin
By JOHN HOLT
Who are the Stans. What are the Stans?
Where are the Stans and what in the hell are they up to?
These are questions I never
considered asking, let alone considered implication wise until
I read Ted Rall's Silk
Road To Ruin.
The Stans are Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,
Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and to a lesser extent Afghanistan
and wanna-be member the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region that
really is an integral part of China. The Stans are all Central
Asian countries, an area that is little-known and barely covered
by the media, who's more much interested in covering manufactured
wars in Iraq and Lebanon, and, rising with a bullet, an invasion
soon to be coming right down Main Street Iran . What the Stans
are up to is a more difficult question to answer and involves
politics, oil (perhaps a synonym for politics), history and geography.
Rall has visited the Central
Asia region a number of times, on his own, with his wife (they
must have a real strong marriage based on the conditions described
in the book), as a tour guide for a group of volunteer travelers
(read naïve and/or deranged) and with friends.
To say that conditions are
difficult would be an understatement. Poor bordering on inedible
food, countless border checks/shakedowns, bad roads and constant
violence make a visit to this esoteric part of the world an adventure
for the knowledgeable, tough and slightly crazed. Admittedly
Rall travels off the beaten path, so the conditions he encounters
are not totally representative of the entire region, that boasts
fine hotels, restaurants and cultural icons in the larger cities.
But consider this from a chapter
titled "Good Eats:"
Thanks to the trip's previous
gastronomic attacks I had already migrated from my loosest to
tightest belt loop. (I subsequently borrowed an awl to punch
new holes.) I had become accustomed to shitting at least once
an hour ...
How much worse could things
get?
Let's just say, "worse:
Our waiter broke our dehydrated
reverie with a flourish. "voila he answered, depositing
two covered plates on the plastic checkered tablecloth covering
our plastic table ...
But what stone cold food it
was!
"What is it," I asked
Alan not expecting an answer ...
Alan picked up his (skewer)
and sniffed at it. "Sawdust, mixed with urine," he
guessed ...
Then we scanned the perimeter
of the patio." The waiter's still not here," Alan said,
flinging his meatpod at the dogs a second before I did the same.
The ravenous beasts ran up
to our offerings, tongues dangling, paws bleeding from glass
cuts. Then something terrible happened.
Alpha Male took a small bite.
A puzzled expression crossed his face. He let out a horrified
yelp and ran off at full speed, his front paws swinging between
his back ones as his comrades followed himBear in mind that these
animals were at death's door, scavenging for sustenance in blazing
heat.
The above gourmandish experience
was typical of all but a few meals in the region, and hotel accommodations
were just as good--rooms with beds without mattresses, hordes
of savage mosquitoes, large rates, leaking roofs. Perhaps what
one should expect in the true middle of fourth world nowhere?
Rall mixes these sometimes
darkly humorous riffs with cartoons, some over 15 pages long,
and chapters described each country from politics to geography
to religion to the populace. Each country has a sidebar treatment
of one page complete with map and pertinent facts. There are
also numerous black-and-white photos, most taken by the author
and his wife, and many courtesy of the US Department of Defense.
The mix of narrative, sidebars, cartoons and photos is visually
intriguing and helps make a complicated subject much easier to
comprehend, to digest.
Rall, 43, is a syndicated editorial
cartoonist and columnist for Universal Press Syndicate. Author
of the award-winning To Afghanistan
and Back: A Graphic Travelogue,He was a Pulitzer
Prize finalist and two-time winner of the Robert F. Kennedy Journalism
Award. He frequently travels to and writes about Central Asia.
The values of Silk
Road To Ruin are many, chief among them are thorough descriptions
and analysis of the political and cultural dynamics of an area
few of us are familiar with, let alone have ever traveled to.
And chapters like "Lenin Lives," "Checkpoint Madness,"
"High Anxiety," "Eco Hell" and the aforementioned"Good Eats"take the book out of the realm
of political science ennui and into the sharp, if not dust and
windblown, terrain of educated adventure travel. Rall clearly
loves this part of the world as evidenced by the sections of
passionate writing, the thoroughness of his research and the
numerous trips he's made to the region.
Here's an example from "High
Anxiety," a chapter on "The most dangerous highway
in the world," the Karakoram Highway, KKH for short:
Here the highway runs anywhere
from five hundred to a thousand feet above the river. Glaciers
turn the mountains wet and slick, releasing saturated buildups
occasionally in the form of mudslides. Downed power lines crisscross
the road; our bus drove right over sparkling high-tension wires.
I lifted my feet off the floor. Missing guardrails and Telephone
poles--and small Muslim tomb markers topped with a crescent moon--offer
mute testimony to those who came before and never left.
One of the more stunning revelations,
and there are a number of these, in the book concerned Kazakhstan,
a country with newly-discovered oil reserves that well most likely
exceed those of Saudi Arabia. The problem is that Kazakhstan
is landlocked, far away from any sea ports, so lengthy pipelines
need to be built. And guess what? Three of the most logical routes
run through Afghanistan, Iran and along the northern border of
Iraq. I'm trying to recall where we've been engaged in wars recently
and where we may be headed next. Perhaps there's a pattern showing
her or there.
Rall also devotes a chapter
to a regional sport called Buzkashi, an activity that makes the
NFL seem like badminton. The object of the endeavor is for a
horseman to pickup a decapitated, blood-drained and gutted goat
(a sheep or calf carcass may be substituted) soaked in salted
water the night before and race past a defined goal line. The
only problem is that there are dozens of other mounted maniacs
armed with quirts and whips turning the whole thing into a bloodbath.
Men are blinded, crippled, maimed and killed. Twenty-two participants
lost their lives during the semi-finals one year. Prizes include
televisions, dishwashers or "A brand new car!" Usually
a luxury Russian Volga that seats nobody comfortably. The finest
and fiercest games are played on the outskirts of Detonable,
the capital of the Republic of Tajikistan. A quaint variation
on Buckish practiced in the northern provinces substitutes a
decapitated and disemboweled human for the goat. There many subtle
nuances and variations to this ancient sport that Rall delineates
with the precision of a true aficionado.
My only minor complaint, and
it's not Rall's fault, is the poor line editing of the book.
There are a number typos, words left out or used twice (as in
"the the"),
The bottom line with Rall's
Silk
Road To Ruin is that this is an inspired work written
with accuracy, wit and passion about what is already becoming
and extremely important corner of the planet.
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