Thursday, August 9, 2007

TURKMENISTAN ON NPR

My coworker said she was listening to NPRs Morning Edition talking about Turkmenistan, so I looked it up. This guy is ridiculous. He invented his own religious text, the Rhunama, which you can buy on Amazon.com, which makes up one third of required education in Turkmenistan.




TURKMENISTAN


"In Turkmenistan, nearly six million people are still caught in the iron grip of an eccentric dictator who is no longer even alive. His name is Saparmurat Niyazov, but he called himself Turkmenbashi, or father of the Turkmen. Niyazov died last December and was succeeded by his personal dentist, but like so many things in secretive Turkmenistan, little is known about how that happened.


The Central Asian state has long been one of the most isolated countries in the world. This vast, gas-rich former Soviet republic is probably best known for a Stalinist cult of personality created by Niyazov, its first president. Stunts such as holding a press conference to denounce the phenomenon of lip-synching and re-naming the month of January after himself only added to his stature as something of an international joke." (npr.com) read more



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