The Asia Times has a story from right before the bombings, suggesting that Uzbekistan might have been considering sending troops to Iraq in exchange for American aid. Could the recent attacks have been connected to this report?
By the way, in the year 1401 Tamerlane--known in Uzbekistan today as Amir Timur, a national hero along the lines of Alexander the Great--occupied and destroyed Baghdad with his Mongol army, ancestors of today's Uzbeks.
Saturday, July 31, 2004
Israel Urges Global Crackdown After Uzbekistan Bombings
From Haaretz :
"Israel urges global crackdown on attackers.
"Israel called for a concerted international drive to root out those behind the series of bombings.
"'The world is confronted with a wave of terrorism,' Pazner said. 'There is an absolute need to unite all efforts to combat this scourge.'
"'An attack has been carried out in Uzbekistan against American and Israeli targets, meaning three different countries are hit today by the same people who hate democracy and freedom. It is obvious there is a need for a concerted effort against them,' Pazner said.
"In a statement released on the United Nations' web site, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the attacks. 'Targeting of civilians and diplomatic missions is a crime that cannot be justified by any cause,' he said.
"In the past 35 years, there have been numerous attacks on Israeli missions around the world, including a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 28 people, among them four embassy personnel, and wounded some 300 others.
"In 1997, two embassy security personnel were wounded in an attack in Amman, and in 1999 around 100 rioters broke into the Israeli Consulate General in Berlin, brandishing clubs, hammers, and iron bars. Israeli security guards shot dead three of the rioters after they took a woman hostage and also tried to seize weapons."
"Israel urges global crackdown on attackers.
"Israel called for a concerted international drive to root out those behind the series of bombings.
"'The world is confronted with a wave of terrorism,' Pazner said. 'There is an absolute need to unite all efforts to combat this scourge.'
"'An attack has been carried out in Uzbekistan against American and Israeli targets, meaning three different countries are hit today by the same people who hate democracy and freedom. It is obvious there is a need for a concerted effort against them,' Pazner said.
"In a statement released on the United Nations' web site, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan condemned the attacks. 'Targeting of civilians and diplomatic missions is a crime that cannot be justified by any cause,' he said.
"In the past 35 years, there have been numerous attacks on Israeli missions around the world, including a 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 28 people, among them four embassy personnel, and wounded some 300 others.
"In 1997, two embassy security personnel were wounded in an attack in Amman, and in 1999 around 100 rioters broke into the Israeli Consulate General in Berlin, brandishing clubs, hammers, and iron bars. Israeli security guards shot dead three of the rioters after they took a woman hostage and also tried to seize weapons."
AFP on Uzbekistan Bombings
The French perspective.
Interestingly, AFP has more on the Israeli angle, explicitly connects the bombings to the trials of Islamist fundamentalists arrested for the March 2004 bombings, and quotes "human rights" activists -- who sound sympathetic to the bombers' cause...
Interestingly, AFP has more on the Israeli angle, explicitly connects the bombings to the trials of Islamist fundamentalists arrested for the March 2004 bombings, and quotes "human rights" activists -- who sound sympathetic to the bombers' cause...
Burt Herman on the Uzbekistan Bombings
Here's Burt Herman's AP story. Herman is actually based in Tashkent. I met him while teaching there, and found him to be knowledgeable.
The New York Times on Uzbekistan Bombings
Here's the NY Times story--from Moscow and Jerusalem --since they don't have a correspondent in Tashkent.
Friday, July 30, 2004
The Apprentice
It is more than a memoir. It is more than a cookbook. It is more than a philosophical guide. It is Jacques Pepin's The Apprentice: My Life In The Kitchen.
This celebrity chef's memoir is a fascinating blend of recipes, philosophical musings, and personal anecdotes. Most intriguing to me was Pepin's account of his falling out with the faculty at Columbia University, who many years ago would not permit him do a doctoral dissertation on the role of food in French culture, saying it was not an important enough topic. Pepin dropped out, much to Columbia's loss, I think.
Pepin helped establish a department at Boston University. He was DeGaulle's chef, worked for Howard Johnson's, owned his own restaurant, "Le Potagerie", and finally became the television chef who replaced Julia Child on PBS. His early accounts of cut hands, burnt fingers, and pranks in French kitchens, as well as the link between cooking and culture--he cooked for Jean Paul Sarte, he knew Genet, etc.--make this book of interest even to readers who are not "foodies."
Finally, the book is a form of Franco-American romance, about the love-hate relations between the two cultures, from D-Day to today, and the marvellous synthesis that can take place when the best of one is combined with the best of another. For example, Virginia's Smithfield Ham makes an excellent Prosciutto, served sliced thin...
This celebrity chef's memoir is a fascinating blend of recipes, philosophical musings, and personal anecdotes. Most intriguing to me was Pepin's account of his falling out with the faculty at Columbia University, who many years ago would not permit him do a doctoral dissertation on the role of food in French culture, saying it was not an important enough topic. Pepin dropped out, much to Columbia's loss, I think.
Pepin helped establish a department at Boston University. He was DeGaulle's chef, worked for Howard Johnson's, owned his own restaurant, "Le Potagerie", and finally became the television chef who replaced Julia Child on PBS. His early accounts of cut hands, burnt fingers, and pranks in French kitchens, as well as the link between cooking and culture--he cooked for Jean Paul Sarte, he knew Genet, etc.--make this book of interest even to readers who are not "foodies."
Finally, the book is a form of Franco-American romance, about the love-hate relations between the two cultures, from D-Day to today, and the marvellous synthesis that can take place when the best of one is combined with the best of another. For example, Virginia's Smithfield Ham makes an excellent Prosciutto, served sliced thin...
Thursday, July 29, 2004
Rural Greece Under the Democracy
Victor Davis Hanson reviews Nicholas F. Jones's Rural Greece Under the Democracy:
"Throughout his argument Jones touches on some of the key social and economic controversies of the last twenty years of Hellenic rural studies. He rightly reaffirms the view that rural Greeks often resided on their farms, or at least in clusters of small homesteads, rather than commuting from nucleated centers to distant plots. This is an important distinction if one believes in a uniquely rural culture as the basis of the city-state. "
"Throughout his argument Jones touches on some of the key social and economic controversies of the last twenty years of Hellenic rural studies. He rightly reaffirms the view that rural Greeks often resided on their farms, or at least in clusters of small homesteads, rather than commuting from nucleated centers to distant plots. This is an important distinction if one believes in a uniquely rural culture as the basis of the city-state. "
World Chess Champion Returns to Uzbekistan
FromChessBase.com - Chess News:
"Where is Rustam Kasimdzhanov? Normally he lives in Germany, but we could not reach him there. So we contacted our friends in Uzbekistan, who confirmed: Kasim is paying the country of his birth a visit. And receiving a hero's welcome."
"Where is Rustam Kasimdzhanov? Normally he lives in Germany, but we could not reach him there. So we contacted our friends in Uzbekistan, who confirmed: Kasim is paying the country of his birth a visit. And receiving a hero's welcome."
Arafat's Empire of Corruption
An exploration of corruption in the Palestinian Authority , from Ha'aretz:
"In the eyes of much of the world, the long spasm of Palestinian violence was fueled solely by fury over occupation. But the bottomless well of rage also tapped years of grass-roots resentment over graft in the Authority, which in the eyes of its constituency had sapped, diverted, misspent and squirreled away fortunes; funds which could have helped meet the humanitarian needs of more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"How widespread is corruption in the PA, and how deeply rooted? "
"In the eyes of much of the world, the long spasm of Palestinian violence was fueled solely by fury over occupation. But the bottomless well of rage also tapped years of grass-roots resentment over graft in the Authority, which in the eyes of its constituency had sapped, diverted, misspent and squirreled away fortunes; funds which could have helped meet the humanitarian needs of more than three million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
"How widespread is corruption in the PA, and how deeply rooted? "
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
More Daniel Pipes on the 9/11 Commission Report
Daniel Pipes has some good things to say about the 9/11 Commission report:
"Finally, an official body of the American government has come out and said what needs to be said: that the enemy is 'Islamist terrorism--not just 'terrorism' some generic evil.' The 9/11 commission in its final report even declares that Islamist terrorism is the 'catastrophic threat' facing America.
"As Thomas Donnelly points out in The New York Sun, the commission has called the enemy 'by its true name, something that politically correct Americans have trouble facing.'
"Why does it matter that the Islamist dimension of terrorism must be specified? Simple. Just as a physician must identify a disease to treat it, so a strategist must name an enemy to defeat it. The great failing in the American war effort since September 2001 has been the reluctance to name the enemy. So long as the anodyne, euphemistic, and inaccurate term 'war on terror' remains the official nomenclature, that war will not be won.
"Better is to call it a 'war on Islamist terrorism.' Better yet would be 'war on Islamism,' looking beyond terror to the totalitarian ideology that lies behind it.
"Significantly, the same day that the 9/11 report was published, July 22, President Bush for the first time used the term 'Islamic militants' in a speech, bringing him closer than ever before to pointing to the Islamist threat."
"Finally, an official body of the American government has come out and said what needs to be said: that the enemy is 'Islamist terrorism--not just 'terrorism' some generic evil.' The 9/11 commission in its final report even declares that Islamist terrorism is the 'catastrophic threat' facing America.
"As Thomas Donnelly points out in The New York Sun, the commission has called the enemy 'by its true name, something that politically correct Americans have trouble facing.'
"Why does it matter that the Islamist dimension of terrorism must be specified? Simple. Just as a physician must identify a disease to treat it, so a strategist must name an enemy to defeat it. The great failing in the American war effort since September 2001 has been the reluctance to name the enemy. So long as the anodyne, euphemistic, and inaccurate term 'war on terror' remains the official nomenclature, that war will not be won.
"Better is to call it a 'war on Islamist terrorism.' Better yet would be 'war on Islamism,' looking beyond terror to the totalitarian ideology that lies behind it.
"Significantly, the same day that the 9/11 report was published, July 22, President Bush for the first time used the term 'Islamic militants' in a speech, bringing him closer than ever before to pointing to the Islamist threat."
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
The Democratic Convention
Haven't seen anything of the Democratic Convention here, but from reading accounts on the Web, it looks like they are doing a very good job in presenting a centrist image, "triangulating" in the way that Clinton did.
Andrew Sullivan says that Kerry is running to the right of Bush on the war issue. This was Clinton's strategy confronting Bush I, with regard to Yugoslavia. It worked then, and it may work now...
Andrew Sullivan says that Kerry is running to the right of Bush on the war issue. This was Clinton's strategy confronting Bush I, with regard to Yugoslavia. It worked then, and it may work now...
What Will Happen After Arafat ?
Writing in Middle East Quarterly, Barry Rubin discusses the possibilities:
"In these divisive circumstances, it is likely that the emergence of a new leader will take some years. During the interregnum, the likely outcomes would include deadlock, anarchy, or civil war.
Deadlock would mean the continuation of current policies with no one able to take any major diplomatic or political initiative.
Anarchy implies the lack of central leadership, with power held in different regions by various local authorities. Security agencies, radical opposition groups, independent Fatah militias, and other forces would work at cross-purposes. In some ways, that would not be very different from the existing situation. Gaza and the West Bank could drift apart from each other.
Civil war is the least likely option. This would mean a real battle between would-be rulers and factions for power. Palestinians have a tremendous fear of such an outcome and will do a great deal to avoid it. (Since moderation increases the likelihood of such conflict, it becomes even less attractive.)"
"In these divisive circumstances, it is likely that the emergence of a new leader will take some years. During the interregnum, the likely outcomes would include deadlock, anarchy, or civil war.
Deadlock would mean the continuation of current policies with no one able to take any major diplomatic or political initiative.
Anarchy implies the lack of central leadership, with power held in different regions by various local authorities. Security agencies, radical opposition groups, independent Fatah militias, and other forces would work at cross-purposes. In some ways, that would not be very different from the existing situation. Gaza and the West Bank could drift apart from each other.
Civil war is the least likely option. This would mean a real battle between would-be rulers and factions for power. Palestinians have a tremendous fear of such an outcome and will do a great deal to avoid it. (Since moderation increases the likelihood of such conflict, it becomes even less attractive.)"
The Winter Queen
There's still time to bring a copy Boris Akunin's The Winter Queento the beach this summer. I really couldn't put the book down. Don't be put off by the title, it is the name of a hotel in London which figures in the plot for about ten seconds. The Russian title, "Azazel," is much better, with the Biblical allusions that give this post-Soviet detective novel an extral level of significance. The orphanages at the center of this conspiracy reminded me of one of the key institutions of the Soviet Union, for good and ill. And the symbolism is potent. So the book is not only a ripping good yarn, it also provides keys to the post-Soviet psychology of Russia today.
Yeltsin biographer Leon Aron has written a marvellous essay about the Fandorin novels. While I might differ with Aron's characterization of Fandorin as a privatized hero--he is, rather, a government employee, a detective with a Gogol-like appreciation of the significance of rank not too dissimilar from Washingtonians concerned with their GS-levels--Aron's larger point about the meaning of post-Soviet literary sensibilities is certainly on target.
For, as Aron notes:
"The process that brought the Akunin books to the top of the Russian literary market may be described in terms of the Hegelian dialectic familiar to college-educated Russians (older than forty) from the compulsory courses in Marxism. First was the thesis: the increasingly stale classic canon on the one hand and propaganda trash on the other, both protected by censorship from competition or innovation. Then came the antithesis, a headlong plunge into a vat of forbidden fruit: the rediscovery of the banned serious writers and essayists (in Russia the list, dating from 1918, was very long) during Gorbachev's glasnost (1988-1990), followed by a quick descent into trash, typical of all fledgling postauthoritarian cultures. The synthesis occurred when the previously discarded national classic tradition had been retrieved, revived, and recast by an infusion of irreverence, experimentation, and occasional subversion..."
You can read the whole thing here.
Yeltsin biographer Leon Aron has written a marvellous essay about the Fandorin novels. While I might differ with Aron's characterization of Fandorin as a privatized hero--he is, rather, a government employee, a detective with a Gogol-like appreciation of the significance of rank not too dissimilar from Washingtonians concerned with their GS-levels--Aron's larger point about the meaning of post-Soviet literary sensibilities is certainly on target.
For, as Aron notes:
"The process that brought the Akunin books to the top of the Russian literary market may be described in terms of the Hegelian dialectic familiar to college-educated Russians (older than forty) from the compulsory courses in Marxism. First was the thesis: the increasingly stale classic canon on the one hand and propaganda trash on the other, both protected by censorship from competition or innovation. Then came the antithesis, a headlong plunge into a vat of forbidden fruit: the rediscovery of the banned serious writers and essayists (in Russia the list, dating from 1918, was very long) during Gorbachev's glasnost (1988-1990), followed by a quick descent into trash, typical of all fledgling postauthoritarian cultures. The synthesis occurred when the previously discarded national classic tradition had been retrieved, revived, and recast by an infusion of irreverence, experimentation, and occasional subversion..."
You can read the whole thing here.
Monday, July 26, 2004
Uzbekistan in the Kerry Column?
Has the Bush administration's recent aid cutoff to Uzbekistan pushed the Central Asian nation into the Kerry camp?
This item from The Argus would indicate that may be the case, based on a Kerry fund-raiser hosted by American expatriates...
(Thanks to Alisher of the Argus for the tip.)
This item from The Argus would indicate that may be the case, based on a Kerry fund-raiser hosted by American expatriates...
(Thanks to Alisher of the Argus for the tip.)
Sunday, July 25, 2004
Anne Applebaum on Vladimir Voinovich
She reviews Monumental Propaganda in the Washington Post today:
"Perhaps it is unfair, but I've long suspected that the work of the Soviet writers who were so adamantly admired and idolized by three generations of Soviet intellectuals would not stand the test of time. With the exception of a few poets with exceptional linguistic gifts, such as Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam, I fear most will be remembered in the same way we now remember, say, Etruscan sculptors. Whether officially recognized social realists, dissidents or emigres, Soviet writers were chroniclers of a peculiar, lost civilization, one whose bizarre morality and strange aesthetics will seem increasingly alien with time, not only to Westerners but also to a younger generation of Russians. Even the greatest Soviet writers -- the satirist Mikhail Bulgakov, for example, and the prophetic Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- may eventually seem obscure to their countrymen, simply because the society they described, with its layers of secrecy, propaganda, absurdity and cruelty, will become impossible to understand.
"Monumental Propaganda, the latest novel by Vladimir Voinovich, one of the best-known and best-loved Soviet emigre writers, differs from other satires of Soviet life in that it takes that irrelevance -- of ideas, of philosophies, of people, of morality -- as its theme... "
"Perhaps it is unfair, but I've long suspected that the work of the Soviet writers who were so adamantly admired and idolized by three generations of Soviet intellectuals would not stand the test of time. With the exception of a few poets with exceptional linguistic gifts, such as Anna Akhmatova and Osip Mandelstam, I fear most will be remembered in the same way we now remember, say, Etruscan sculptors. Whether officially recognized social realists, dissidents or emigres, Soviet writers were chroniclers of a peculiar, lost civilization, one whose bizarre morality and strange aesthetics will seem increasingly alien with time, not only to Westerners but also to a younger generation of Russians. Even the greatest Soviet writers -- the satirist Mikhail Bulgakov, for example, and the prophetic Alexander Solzhenitsyn -- may eventually seem obscure to their countrymen, simply because the society they described, with its layers of secrecy, propaganda, absurdity and cruelty, will become impossible to understand.
"Monumental Propaganda, the latest novel by Vladimir Voinovich, one of the best-known and best-loved Soviet emigre writers, differs from other satires of Soviet life in that it takes that irrelevance -- of ideas, of philosophies, of people, of morality -- as its theme... "
The Elian Factor
Remember Elian Gonzalez? His deportation to Cuba was probably the "tipping point" that gave Republicans control of the White House in the 2000 elections, as Cuban-Americans who had previously voted for Clinton switched sides or stayed home. Result: Florida was lost to the Democrats, and George Bush entered the White House. The issue was so emotional, that memories might affect the outcome of this year's Presidential contest.
Now Agustin Blazquez says the American Film Institute is blacklisting his new documentary film Covering Cuba 3: Elian , after a successful showing at the Miami Film Festival. Blazquez produced and directed o the documentaries "Covering Cuba", (which premiered at the American Film Institute cinema in the Kennedy Center); "Cuba: The Pearl of the Antilles"; "Covering Cuba 2: The Next Generation" and "Covering Cuba 3: Elian". You can watch a clip at his website.
It would seem a timely film, and therefore natural for AFI's Washington, DC audience. But no go. AFI won't show it.
Blazquez says the reason is political censorship by the federally subsidized organization, "which is illegal."
Here's the full text of Blazquez's press release charging the AFI with blacklisting, contrasting its refusal to show his film with the AFI's dumping an Orson Welles retrospective for Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11":
---
Agustin Blazquez, producer and director of documentaries, says of the decision of the American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland to show the newly released controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11:
“It is ironic that they will show this documentary after they rejected mine because they considered it ‘too controversial,’ and they don’t like to show ‘controversial films.’
“The AFI, which in 1995 showed my first documentary of the series COVERING CUBA at a sold-out screening at the Kennedy Center, this time told me after I had been waiting for an answer for eight months, that after viewing about 10 minutes of it, that this documentary [COVERING CUBA 3: Elian] was too controversial and they wouldn’t show it.
“Actually this boils down to what all Cuban American filmmakers and artists in general have experienced in the U.S., which is simply discrimination for political reasons, which is illegal.
“The fact that it is all right to show a highly controversial far-left, anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war, anti-U.S. military and anti-U.S. soldier film reveals clearly where the AFI’s heart is, in addition, of course, to making money off of a controversial film that generates curiosity.
“And, obviously, the offer of the film by Moore’s distributor to AFI was last minute. The Orson Welles films on the AFI’s schedule to be shown during the period Fahrenheit 9/11 is being shown were bumped. Besides the money they will rake in due to all the free publicity the film gets it will put its newly opened Silver Theater on the left-wing map.
“However, my so-called ‘too controversial’ documentary about the tragedy of the 6-year old boy Elian Gonzalez is censored and not allowed to be shown to the AFI’s audience.
“The AFI certainly has a double standard deciding which controversial films fit their political bias. Art and politics dance together at the AFI.”
Now Agustin Blazquez says the American Film Institute is blacklisting his new documentary film Covering Cuba 3: Elian , after a successful showing at the Miami Film Festival. Blazquez produced and directed o the documentaries "Covering Cuba", (which premiered at the American Film Institute cinema in the Kennedy Center); "Cuba: The Pearl of the Antilles"; "Covering Cuba 2: The Next Generation" and "Covering Cuba 3: Elian". You can watch a clip at his website.
It would seem a timely film, and therefore natural for AFI's Washington, DC audience. But no go. AFI won't show it.
Blazquez says the reason is political censorship by the federally subsidized organization, "which is illegal."
Here's the full text of Blazquez's press release charging the AFI with blacklisting, contrasting its refusal to show his film with the AFI's dumping an Orson Welles retrospective for Michael Moore's "Farenheit 9/11":
---
Agustin Blazquez, producer and director of documentaries, says of the decision of the American Film Institute (AFI) Silver Theater in Silver Spring, Maryland to show the newly released controversial documentary Fahrenheit 9/11:
“It is ironic that they will show this documentary after they rejected mine because they considered it ‘too controversial,’ and they don’t like to show ‘controversial films.’
“The AFI, which in 1995 showed my first documentary of the series COVERING CUBA at a sold-out screening at the Kennedy Center, this time told me after I had been waiting for an answer for eight months, that after viewing about 10 minutes of it, that this documentary [COVERING CUBA 3: Elian] was too controversial and they wouldn’t show it.
“Actually this boils down to what all Cuban American filmmakers and artists in general have experienced in the U.S., which is simply discrimination for political reasons, which is illegal.
“The fact that it is all right to show a highly controversial far-left, anti-American, anti-Bush, anti-Iraq war, anti-U.S. military and anti-U.S. soldier film reveals clearly where the AFI’s heart is, in addition, of course, to making money off of a controversial film that generates curiosity.
“And, obviously, the offer of the film by Moore’s distributor to AFI was last minute. The Orson Welles films on the AFI’s schedule to be shown during the period Fahrenheit 9/11 is being shown were bumped. Besides the money they will rake in due to all the free publicity the film gets it will put its newly opened Silver Theater on the left-wing map.
“However, my so-called ‘too controversial’ documentary about the tragedy of the 6-year old boy Elian Gonzalez is censored and not allowed to be shown to the AFI’s audience.
“The AFI certainly has a double standard deciding which controversial films fit their political bias. Art and politics dance together at the AFI.”
Saturday, July 24, 2004
The Guardian on the 9/11 Report
And The Guardian says the 9/11 report means trouble ahead for Bush...
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