Rahmon misses the 8 AM ride on the Migrant Express
Tajikistan, VideoblogOne Comment
On his way to this year’s United Nations summit, long-ruling president of poor Tajikistan, Emomali Rahmon, first stopped over in Moscow, then in Croatia. Hmmm it’s not really clear to anyone which national interests he was trying to bargain in either place, especially Croatia. Maybe he just felt like visiting a pleasant fellow, exchanging a few kind words, and ticking off one more country on his “countries visited” checklist. Is he under the impression that our tax money is his to spend on holidays?
But let’s get to the point: during one of the roundtables at the UN summit, Rahmon made a speech in the Tajik language emphasizing the importance of constructing hydropower plants. Okay, so I concede a positive outcome from this rather odd vacation/business trip, but let’s face it: the odds of anything good coming out from this speech are slim to none. For that matter, I highly doubt that this is anything more than a continuation of his evidently blind reading of newspapers and manifestly careless attitude with regard to the critical problems facing his nation these days.
It would have been better if instead Rahmon simply asked the other members of the roundtable to watch some videos from RFE/RL’s Tajik servive, Radio Ozodi. These videos show the real hardships faced by labor migrants and their sufferings on the Dushanbe-Moscow train. (You can watch part one of the documentary below, and follow the link to see the rest on YouTube. You can also read an article on Ferghana.ru about the train line here).
Maybe the video could have evoked real sympathy from Rahmon’s fellow national leaders. But then again, they may also have seen how he has wasted his 18 years in power reducing our proud, progressive, and creative nation into a herd of uneducated and cowed people forced out of their homeland.
It would be better if during a round table he and others would be asked to watch videos that Radio Ozodi (RFERL’s Tajik branch) put together about real hardships of labor migrants and their sufferings in Dushanbe-Moscow train. Maybe afterwards he would feel sorry for these people and would realize that during his 18 years in power how he could change this proud, progressive, and creative nation into a herd of uneducated and low self-esteemed people forced away from their homeland.
Hopefully, professor Akbar Turson mentioned about some of these unpleasant aspects on behalf of Tajiks residing in the US during his meeting with Mr. Rahmon. The country desperately needs changes and can’t take any more corruption, family control, and further degradation of education and health systems.
Migrant Express, Part 1 (Radio Ozodi)
See the rest of the Radio Ozodi documentary here.
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