Tag Archives: by Sabrina Beaver

Broadcasting Nuance: An Interview with Rim Gilfanov

Profile

Rim Gilfanov is the head of RadioLiberty’s Tatar-Bashkir service Azatliq, the only independent media in the Tatar and Bashkir languages available in Russia. In addition to English, he speaks Czech, Russian and Tatar. He has published several books, including Tatar Diaspora (1993) and Tatar Way of Reforming Islam (2003). Has written for publications ranging from the Kazan newspaper Donya to Al-Jazeera. He has been quoted in the Moscow Times, the Atlantic, and other publications. Gilfanov has given lectures at think tanks and universities and has met with members of Congress to discuss Russian democracy and minority rights. Imagine my surprise when my inbox pinged with an answer to my amateur request for an interview, or even just a general direction: “Your idea seems interesting, we can do it.” 

 

Having successfully navigated the Prague-Boston time difference and having found a time for the interview, I was surprised at how easily conversation flowed. I was immediately struck by his enthusiasm to share his work and passion and his openness in discussing the path that lead him to RFE/RL Prague headquarters. Gilfanov started listening to RadioLiberty’s service while he was in secondary school during perestroika. This experience of realizing that “someone else, some foreign power cares about your language, which was in jeopardy in your own country” shaped his future path and helped carve out his identity as a “real Tatar.” While at Kazan University pursuing a degree in sociology and political science, Gilfanov worked as a stringer for RadioLiberty in the 1990s, a time of political change and ideological tumult in Russia. He joined the RadioLiberty team officially in 1993, moving to Munich, and later to Prague, when the headquarters were relocated.  

 

“This is my dream job actually.” Even after 29 years of experience in journalism Gilfanov’s enthusiasm for engaging with people regardless of their relative knowledge of Russia and Eurasia is evident in every aspect of his persona. Tatarstan, one of Russia’s 22 republics among 83 federal subjects, is rather unknown to most Americans. However, Gilfanov takes advantage of every opportunity to share the history and current circumstances of Tatars with his audiences. Of all the history and politics that he cites in his regular spiel to interlocutors, the fact they find most surprising is that the Tatar language is nothing like Russian. People “think that in Russia, everything should be close to Russian. . . but it’s completely different.” Tatar is a Turkic language belonging to the Altai family.  

 

The Tatar language and the various barriers to its instruction and usage are among just a few of the minority-related issues that Gilfanov and other journalists and advocates have addressed in recent years. According to Gilfanov, globalization and technology crowd out spaces that were originally pockets for smaller regional languages. Even in the countryside, where Tatar and regional languages were once integral to daily life, Gilfanov sees the younger generation trading in their use of Tatar for Russian, English, or another global language. 

 

As if the trials of globalization were not enough, the Tatar language has faced political attacks from inside Russia. Though Russian law upholds the idea of space for minority groups and officials claim that they try to defend these languages, Gilfanov sees another view emerging that diversity undermines the unity of the state. This quest for unity, and the homogenous population it envisions pit minority and republic languages such as Tatar, Bashkir, and Chechen against a broad russifying agenda coming from Moscow.  

 

Gilfanov’s job on a day-to-day basis is to support broadcasts and news coverage in Tatar and Bashkir that address issues not covered by state-owned or state-restricted news channels in Russia. However, the Tatar-Bashkir service, along with the Georgian and North Caucasus services, supported in part by American aid, are at risk of being cut by Trump’s new 2020 budget proposal. According to Gilfanov, this would be a “poor gift to Putin because it will give him a hand in building this new totalitarianism and russification policy.”  

 

Despite the numerous threats to the Tatar language and identity, Gilfanov remains hopeful and optimistic, even at times upbeat. Rather than succumbing to the cynicism that might be expected, perhaps justifiably of journalists focusing on minority rights in Russia, Gilfanov, though never sugar-coating the reality of minority groups, remains positive, stressing the importance of taking opportunities to talk with people, particularly young people, about Tatarstan. At the end of our conversation, Gilfanov mentioned a trip he recently made to Florida Atlantic University to attend a seminar. Students who had never heard of Tatarstan were genuinely curious and asked what they could do to get more involved. “I didn’t expect that kind of interest from young people, students. . . I was touched, really.” He answers their queries in this way: “Just being interested in the politics and events in certain regions is the biggest contribution you can make.” 

On the Primacy of Geography

Op-Ed

Americans’ lack of knowledge related to geography and world events has become a bit of a joke that in today’s political climate has stopped being funny. Last year, the crew of a late-night talk show went around New York City, asking Americans to label a country on a blank world map. Not a specific country, just any country out of 195 recognized states. There were more than a few awkward silences. This is one of many examples that, especially since the 2016 election, have given the rest of the world something to laugh about. These people on tv may not represent the average American. However, recent events have shown a harsh light on the degree to which Americans are uninformed about world events, and the response has been the equivalent of an indifferent shrug.

The picture doesn’t improve when you turn to statistics. Two surveys conducted in 2006 and 2017 by National Geographic and the Council on Foreign Relations found that in 2006 three-quarters of young Americans (aged 18-24) thought English was the most widely spoken native language in the world. It’s not. It ranks behind both Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. Three years after the beginning of the war in Iraq, only 37 percent of young Americans could locate that country on a map despite the attention it was getting in the media. In 2017,  a survey of 75 geography-related questions showed an  average score of 55 percent among American college students, who would be scurrying to office hours with their tails between their legs if that score counted towards their GPA.  

The problem isn’t that Americans can’t properly label a blank map or know the difference between temperate and continental climates, since a policy of forcing middle schoolers to do just this hasn’t resulted in a more aware public. The problem is geographic illiteracy- a lack of knowledge that signals, more troublingly, a lack of interest.

If you don’t know where Guatemala is on a map, chances are you’re unaware that in 1954 the United States backed a coup in Guatemala that sought to overthrow a democratically elected president with left-leaning policies. The violence and civil war that followed in Guatemala has had huge implications for immigration flows from Central America today. Knowing the location of Guatemala is the first step in grappling with complex ideas like immigration that will be at the center of 2020 debates. But you wouldn’t know this if you didn’t know where Guatemala was.

The truth is, politics don’t stop at the border; having regional context is an increasingly integral part of understanding an issue. Take Yemen, which is currently the site of the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. The same Americans who couldn’t locate Iraq when we were fighting a war there probably can’t locate Yemen now. This makes it unlikely that the average American is aware that the civil conflict in Yemen and the resulting scourges of malnutrition and cholera are exacerbated by actions of other governments vying for power in the region. It’s equally unlikely that these same Americans know that the U.S. supplied weapons to Saudi Arabia that played a role in this crisis until the senate voted against the policy in March.

This lack of understanding of basic geography becomes increasingly dangerous in a democracy where we vote for leaders who are tasked with responding to emerging situations. But instead of embracing their democratic responsibilities, it seems as if middle-class Americans, many of whom were central to the outcome of the 2016 election, are willing to evade this duty and to avoid grappling with the implications of bringing an individual to power who is equally indifferent. Engaging with the context and geography that shapes the realities of millions of people who have no say in the outcomes of these elections has become merely a nuisance. The danger isn’t limited to citizens: if you’re indifferent to the location of Syria, you’re liable to accept political and economic analysis from politicians who themselves can’t locate Syria.

Americans can afford to be ignorant, because geopolitics has little discernible effect on our daily lives. We don’t see our lives as directly impacted by a failure to engage in a larger international conversation. We are largely buffered from many of the effects of crises happening in the far-off amorphous regions that lie beyond our borders. Why bother? We can pawn off this engagement on other people.

This is a shame, because geography is a subject that has no age limit, and no prerequisite. It doesn’t require enrollment at a top university, or late nights hitting the books. It requires only curiosity, and perhaps a sense of global citizenship. We are living in a world rife with big complex problems, but turning our backs to these issues gets us no closer to solutions. There are areas for incremental progress in our own lives and communities. We need not bear the burden of these global issues alone, but in choosing to engage, we are taking one small step towards understanding the issues and forcing our leaders to understand these issues too. So if you find that you’re ready to reengage, feel free to start with the survey linked above. Don’t worry about your score. The bar is exceptionally low. There are no failing grades.

A Future Unclear

Movie Review: "Ida"

In contrast to the Poland of 2013, which oozed economic potential and seemed to eager to further relations with NATO and western partners, the picture of Poland in 1962 that Pawel Pawlikowski paints is much more bleak. The film’s black and white frames pull the viewer back to a post-war communist Poland, where the collective memory and national identity of the Polish people is complicated and questioned through the story of Anna (Agata Trzebuchowska) and her aunt, Wanda (Agata Kulesza).

In the days before taking vows to become a nun, Anna is sent by the mother superior to meet her only living relative, who reveals that Anna is a Jew named Ida Lebenstein whose parents died during the war. Ida and her aunt set off across Poland to find where Ida’s parents are buried, starting with the village where Wanda and her sister Roza grew up. Their journey uncovers fragments of  Wanda Gruz’s past life as a state prosecutor where she was known for sending “enemies of the people” to their end. The film draws a comparison between the faithful, innocent, naive Ida and her life-hardened, bitter aunt who regularly engages in nights out, heavy drinking, one-night stands, and smoking. It is through this pair of characters that Pawlikowski presents his inquiry into the history and identity of Poland.

What is remarkable about “Ida” is the numerous and overlapping contrasts that Pawlikowski weaves into the film. Not only are the personalities and lifestyles of Wanda and Ida at odds with one another, but the two represent larger societal chasms. The most visibly obvious of these is generational. Wanda was witness to the war and remembers the invasion, occupation, and liberation as lived personal experiences. Ida, on the other hand, is part of the generation that grew up in its shadow of the war. Yet another contrast is that of ideology. Ida is a devout Catholic, and adheres to a tradition that has been an important part of Poland’s history. Although Wanda was once an active and proud member of the communist party, her idealism was dashed as the party betrayed the people’s revolution. This highlights the third of the film’s contrasts, that of devotion. In contrast to Wanda, who has lost her devotion, Ida remains pious, reading her bible and saying her prayers even as Wanda looks on condescendingly.

Both women are reflective of political and cultural sects present in Polish society. In this way, the tension in their interactions and the challenges they face are representative of the same challenges to identity and tension between sects that existed in Poland in the post-war years, and perhaps persist today. The days of traveling and the weight of what the pair might discover create an environment in which these ideologies and ways of life are set to clash. In the hotel room, when intoxicated Wanda mocks Ida’s devotion to the church, Ida pulls the book from her aunt’s hands and places it under her pillow on the farthest side of the bed from her aunt. Though this scene is the most confrontational between the two, the tension is set up much earlier, as Wanda asks while still in her apartment “And what if you go there, and you realize that there is no God?” However, while the heaviness of their potential discovery creates the atmosphere for this clash, it also forces each to confront a shaking reality that ultimately blurs these demarcations.

The setting of the film presents contrasts of its own, including the interplay of different cultural influences in everyday life. Wanda’s previous involvement with the Communist party is a reminder of the political and social influence of Russia in Poland in the post-war period. However, at a bar in the hotel where the two stay during their journey, a young musician, who takes an interest in Ida, plays and discusses the music of Coltrane. Though the film is set in the sixties, the possibility of outside influence, even through the iron curtain, calls Poland’s identity once more into question. Context, dialogue, and action are in short supply; silence is plentiful. “Ida” is a relatively short film filled with long moments. Following the conclusion of dialogue, the camera stays focused within the frame seconds longer than necessary in terms of the narrative. The tension from the scene, whether it is a result of grief, guilt, or anger, persists in the moments after the action of the scene concludes. It is the pauses, these prolonged silences, that cultivate the heavy, inescapable bleakness that pervades Pawlikowski’s film. The use of silence, in tandem with shots of the convent, the rundown home of Ida’s parents, Wanda’s apartment, and the Polish countryside create an image of a Poland that is peaceful but disturbingly stagnant.

In this aspect as in others, Pawlikowski’s film rests on the belief that viewers will read in between the lines and grasp the indirectly delivered themes and motifs of the film. This reliance on cultural and political knowledge contributes to the sense that the film belongs to the 1960s despite its 2013 release. In fact, the film runs for 15 minutes and 3 seconds before the word wojna – war – is ever uttered, which is surprising since the action of the film is derived from understanding the tragedy and legacy of this event. The film “Ida” conforms to artistic norms of post-war film in terms of subject, cinematography, and the innate ability to question the political reality while creating art within the bounds of censorship. Sound, for much of the film, is diegetic, which is common in films of the early sixties. Like other film of this era, “Ida” focused on the cost of the war and the impact on individuals in ways that earlier film didn’t allow, fitting in with the black and white films of the late-50s and early-60s and after the Polish October (1956). Though the film itself makes no ideological claim, its subtext calls into question the systems of both organized religion and communism.

Pawlikowski’s juxtaposition of numerous contrasts, the links to past film, and the intersection of multiple components of Poland’s history results in a gray zone, not only in reference to each character’s place in society, but also in reference to Poland itself. Catholicism, Judaism, and Communism intermingle in Pawlikowski’s consideration of Polish identity. At the end of the film, viewers understand the choices and identities of Ida and Wanda. What Pawlikowski does not venture to answer, and what he leaves hanging in the final sequence, is the identity of Poland. After complicating viewers’ perception of Poland’s history and people, he leaves his viewers once again with silence, forcing them to find his message in frames not seen and words not said. The image of Poland is one of people immersed in gray uncertainty. They are neither fully aligned with the eastern bloc, nor with the western. It is clear that Catholicism plays a significant role in Poland’s identity, but the place of both Judaism and Communism is more uncertain. Poland has experienced tragedy and stagnation, and there is little hint of what is yet to come.

Our Own Worst Enemy

Letter to the Editor

To the Editor,

It’s not often that you laugh reading an Op-Ed on Russia, but that’s precisely what I did when I read Marc Bennetts’s Don’t Blame Journalists for Bad News Coverage on Russia, (Op-Ed July 3). Bennetts pokes fun at western media, its consumers, and its critics, while showing how the image we have of other countries gets negatively skewed with stories of natural disasters, humans rights violations, and political concerns.

Not all of the blame falls on the heads of journalists. It’s hard to produce positive stories that grip us in the same way that more grave ones do. As Bennetts puts it, there are “only so many articles that can be written on the transformation of Gorky Park.” He suggests that for a more palatable view of Russia, we turn to travel guides, but I disagree. We should be able to get this type of coverage from the media, and we can—if the public demands it. In a media environment where clicks determine revenue, responsibility for balanced coverage falls equally if not principally on viewers. Ask and you shall receive. If we really wanted to read about art exhibits in Kazan, such articles would be on the front page of the Washington Post. Yet the front page remains mostly devoted to politics.

Coverage dominated by hurricanes, war, and famine is more a reflection on our society than it is on the media. Instead of revealing a media industry that lies to us, coverage paints a picture of a society that is somehow both globalist and isolationist. The attention we pay to longer-term issues in other parts of the world lasts about as long as a news cycle. It’s we who maintain and foster the monolithic image of other cultures that is so prevalent. If we want more nuanced coverage, we have to demand it and consume it where it is available.

While there is no simple solution to this matter, the information is out there. There are publications that don’t foster the mentality that “if it bleeds it leads”, and that offer nuance and depth to their coverage of other cultures. Find them. Support them. Share them. The sustentation or destruction of the monolith is in your very capable hands.

It’s All Fun and Games

Feature Report
Kok-Boru final match between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan

Welcome to the third World Nomad Games. On the northern shores of Issyk Kul, just outside of the small city of Cholpon-Ata, Kyrgyzstan, more than 1,920 athletes from 74 countries gathered to compete in a variety of games that harken back to a shared and glorified past of the nomadic peoples of Eurasia.

The World Nomad Games, first held in 2014 in Kyrgyzstan, seek to reestablish the cultural link between historic nomadic traditions and the modern identity of Turkic and post-Soviet states. The 2018 event showcased 37 different competitions, including the famous kok-boru.  Kok-boru, now a steady provider of gold medals for Kyrgyzstan, was traditionally a competition intended to prepare young men for the trials of battle. Kok-boru is played on horseback in which the objective is to move the body of a goat into a corresponding raised goal. It requires strength and balance, as well as the ability to control the horse as the rider scoops the goat off the dirt pitch. Imagine a rougher version of polo.

Opening and closing with massive ceremonies of more than 1,500 singers, dancers, and actors, the games welcomed tens of thousands of spectators and numerous heads of state. The arena sat opposite a colorful backdrop that represented the mountains of Kyrgyzstan and backed up against the deep jewel blue of the world’s second largest saline lake. While there was a wide variety of participants from around the world, most of the tournament’s serious competitors were nomadic Turkic peoples from Eurasia, Eastern Europe, and Anatolia. The next games are set to be held in Turkey next year.

The games have received relatively little coverage by Western media outlets. What did get reported was either a short summary of official details, such as those offered by U.S. government-sponsored Radio Liberty, or a feature piece such as the one run in the New York Times (“Horse Wrestling. Bone Tossing. Dead Goat Polo. Let the Nomad Games Begin.”) The New York Times article was less cringe-worthy than its title suggests, but nonetheless portrayed an idyllic image of nomadic traditions bound to titillate for the upper-middle-class cultural voyeur. However, neither type of reporting discussed the significance of the World Nomad Games in the context of the political and social milieu of present-day Central Asia.

The World Nomad Games, at least those held in Kyrgyzstan, take place in a region of the world where states and their identities are actively being crafted, influenced, and challenged both from within and from abroad. The traditions celebrated here are traditions that were discouraged, if not outright repressed, during the seven decades of Soviet rule.

Like the Olympics and the World Cup, the games cannot and do not exist outside of the political sphere. There is often more at stake in a match than the first-place medal. In some cases, this is recognition—a wrestler requesting to be introduced as an athlete from the Altai Republic of the Russian Federation or another with Bashkortostan written in blue Cyrillic on the back of his white jacket. At other times, the games are a display of patriotism and nationalism, and a test of superior skills between nations whose old conflicts have not been entirely resolved.

Outside of the platform they provide for confronting issues of ethnic minority rights, recognition, and border disputes, the games reflected the inescapable influences of the outside world that grow ever more prevalent as that world grows more connected.

It was at the games that I first saw a pan-Turkic flag, an image of a unification movement that defies current state structures and traditional colonial powers. Pan-Turkism, encouraged by Turkey and its allies, has gained traction in Central Asia since gaining independence. However, the influence of Turkey was far from the only tangible evidence of outside interests. The games were sponsored by Gazprom, a Russian natural gas giant with ties to the Kremlin and whose name figured prominently on the indoor sports complex. USAID sponsored multiple programs during the week-long tournament, and multiple infrastructure projects that made the games possible would have been extremely fiscally difficult for Kyrgyzstan without Chinese aid.

A ticket to the World Nomad Games is an opportunity to immerse oneself in the culture and traditions of Eurasia. It’s a chance to practice Russian with the Kyrgyz gentleman in the next seat. It’s a moment to enjoy a shot of vodka with the guest-house owner before heading to the arena for the kok-boru final. It’s an occasion to dance with near strangers to musicians from Kazakhstan, from Yakutia, and from Tajikistan.

But it’s also an opportunity to take stock of who-all is making the most of their respective opportunity. Humanitarian groups, political movements, businesses, and yes, formalized states are all vying for the attention of viewers everywhere. The rules, if so strong a word can be used, are neither collectively recognized, nor accepted with equal willingness. The days of relative peace in which to grapple with domestic struggles are lost to those states that came to be in the era of the 24-hour news cycle. Kyrgyzstan and its siblings, situated in a region deemed strategic by multiple world powers, represent the perfect place to play a strong hand.

There are many games being played in Central Asia. Not all of them are as straightforward as kok-boru.

 

 

 

 

 

Kholodets: A Labour of Love

Blog Post

Kholodets (ru: Холодец), a new year’s dish, is a labour of love. It’s ingredients are simple and include the patience of a devoted individual. Its preparation is often accompanied by a cacophony of chopping, pouring, and clattering noises, a shifting display of ingredients, utensils, and dishes,  and a constant stream of national music crackling from the old radio on the windowsill in the appropriate post-soviet language. Before the cooking even begins, the cook chops an assortment of onions, carrots, and garlic en masse. She adds them to the largest stock-pot available along with peppercorns, bay leaves, and other spices. The meat, which by this point has already been carefully selected on the merits of its cut and fat consistency, follows the vegetables. She adds just enough water to cover the ingredients and puts the lid on the pot.

The tedious process of preparing a traditional kholodets requires at least five and up to eight hours on the stove before she begins the last, and arguably trickiest phase of the process. During this metamorphosis, she attentively watches over the pot, and carefully skims off any fat or foam that rises to the top.

Hours later, she removes the individual pieces of meat and filters the remaining broth. She then allots a small portion of meat to each one of an assortment bowls, and covers them with a generous amount of broth. She leaves the brimming bowls of kholodets to set overnight and finally retires from the kitchen.

During the hours of anticipation, the smell of meat cooking in a bath of onions, garlic, bay leaves, and peppercorns wafts into every corner of the apartment. The smell whisks away remaining memories of cheeks stung and feet numb from the sheets of ice, driving wind, and brown slush of a meteorologically inconsistent December.

Kholodets is a labour of love that demands endless trips across our small soviet-style apartment to retrieve meat and produce stored in the fridge on the balcony. It requires chopping those vegetables on a white-painted table, which is a couple of inches too low to be convenient and which, though up against the far wall of the kitchen, is still only two feet from the counter. It necessitates stacking bowls waiting to be filled everywhere including on the reliable but ancient microwave in the corner whose buttons are labeled in Russian and Chinese.

Kholodets is a labour of love, and the only dish in the post-Soviet kukhnya that I have to make a concerted effort to keep down.

It is a wobbly, fatty, meat-based, jello-like concoction that floats at the top of your stomach like oil floats on water. It is served cold and mixes poorly with the American pairing  of chilled water and dinner.

The result of all of this chopping, shredding, stirring, seasoning, pouring, and filtering is a dish that could have come out of an article in a 1950s women’s magazine on how to host a superior dinner party. But please remember what 50s cuisine entailed.

Unlike the synthetic gelatin of the bright-red strawberry banana jello that colored my Midwestern American childhood, the wobbly motion does not come from a small fun box in the bakery aisle. The bouncy, jiggly movement of kholodets rather is caused by the breakdown and later reformation of collagen in the cartilage and tendons of the carefully selected cuts of meat mentioned above.

The week before winter exams, it was this infamous classic that Bekbolot, my host father carried into the dining room and sat down at my place at the table. I looked up, recognizing it immediately.

–Kholodets.

-Ah. Good. You know it.

-Of course. How could I not.

-Cholpon is eager for you to try it. She started yesterday. She made this from scratch.

And indeed, she had. I had heard the cacophony, seen the shifting display on the table, and breathed in the savory aroma rolling out of the kitchen. I steeled my nerves and cut into my dinner. The gel gave little resistance, and I picked up the first nearly perfect cube and placed it in my mouth. I swallowed. I took a bite of black bread, and quickly followed it with another bite of kholodets before I lost courage.

-Does your mother make it often at home?

–Kholodets? No, we don’t really eat that much Russian food at home.

I finished my dinner shortly afterward, and rushed to my room to nurse my now churning stomach. But it did not end there. We had kholodets the next day, and for breakfast the day after that. I was dying. Never had I missed plov so much. Or pelmeni. Or oromo. Or borshch. Or manti. There simply were not enough pryaniki in the world to ever let me forget the taste of my allotted portion of kholodets.

My Midwestern American rearing had taught me to always be gracious, to finish the food on my plate, and to always give my compliments to the cook. So I did. And the other exchange students rolled their eyes and sighed as I came in day after day with tales of my gastronomic woes. Eventually the madness ended, and my intestinal trauma faded into the background. Now, months later and miles away from the nearest serving of kholodets, the memory of that chilled jiggly bowl of despair brings only warmth.

Kholodets is a labour of love. Sometimes for both parties.