Organised Enthusiasm in Turkmenistan
Behind the cheering, quiet resentment at being forced to turn up and applaud government.
Organised Enthusiasm in Turkmenistan
Behind the cheering, quiet resentment at being forced to turn up and applaud government.
People in the Central Asian state of Turkmenistan say they are sick and tired of being corralled into demonstrating their public spirit and loyalty to the regime.
Whenever a cheering crowd is needed for some national celebration, or when President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov or foreign dignitaries make an appearance, “volunteers” are corralled into service.
The same happens when extra labour is needed for public works such as cleaning the streets or planting trees, or for the all-important cotton crop, when people are sent out into the fields to weed and pick.
A visit that Berdymuhammedov paid to the northern province of Dashoguz in mid-May is a case in point.
Residents were instructed to form a welcoming crowd of several thousand people. To be ready in good time for the president’s plane touching down at nine in the morning, they had to be up with the birds,
“The children and others gathered to greet him had been waiting since four in the morning,” said a local teacher, who was up all night organising pupils for the event. “We were left emotionally and physically exhausted. This waste of our private time is completely unjustified.”
At least this was summer, unlike the minus-20 temperatures of a freezing-cold February day when Berdymuhammedov arrived to inaugurate a new textiles factory.
“By the time the president’s car appeared over the horizon, people were very cold and were just about ready to greet him with expletives instead of jubilant cries and greetings,” said a civil servant forced to join the welcome party.
When Berdymuhammedov came to power in 2007 following the death of Saparmurat Niazov, he announced a programme of reforms. Although he rolled back some of the worst policies thought up by Niazov in areas like health and education, he has done little to create a more liberal political and social climate.
Public displays of enthusiasm are very much a holdover from the Niazov era, designed to create an impression of public engagement in state policies. As well as ideology, there is an economic subtext as well. Using communal labour to clean the streets or bring in the cotton harvest saves the government a lot of money in wages.
There is a lengthy list of public holidays for which people have to turn out – Water and Harvest Day, Melon Day, Carpet Day, to name but a few.
“They come up with something new for us every day,” said a language student in the capital Ashgabat. “One day we have to come in sports gear to take part in a walk along the Path of Health, and the next we have to wear festive dress to form a cheering crowd at the opening of a site inaugurated by the president.”
These communal activities leave little time for actual study, she added.
Refusing to take part is not really an option, especially for public-sector workers who cannot afford to be sacked given the difficulty of finding other employment. Anyone who dared to protest would find themselves in even more trouble, and could well be questioned by the secret police and blacklisted as a troublemaker, making it hard to travel abroad or find work.
So everyone complies. Managers at government offices, health centres, universities and libraries say they are constantly being ordered to suspend classes so staff can attend events that are of little relevance to them.
A librarian in Ashgabat said the mix of compulsory events and free labour contributions was eating into her private life as well as work. Most recently, she and her colleagues had to close the library and go out to plant trees.
Other public sector workers resent having to contribute money to pay for things like the seedlings they will then have to plant.
“There’s no end to these activities and collections. How long can we take it?” said a lecturer at a teacher-training college.
Tajigul Begmedova, head of the Turkmen Helsinki Fund for Human Rights based in Bulgaria, says the only thing that might make the authorities stop and think would be if people stopped complying, or tried to challenge the authorities’ coercive methods through the law. Neither would be an easy route to take.
(Names of interviewees withheld out of concern for their security.)
This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.
