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Notes on Tajikistan

mattlakeman.org

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Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#171

Post by lykahb »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #27
rvense wrote: post #6

An amazing place. I visited twice about 15 years ago and have many fond memories of it, but mostly when I think about it I'm filled with sadness, because the people there deserve so much better. They're constantly knee-deep in corruption, both street level and just the very blatant kleptocratic presidential family. There's a lot of ethnic Russians, both expat workers and ones that didn't manage to leave after the col…

> ones that didn't manage to leave after the collapse of the Soviet Union > openly racist towards ethnic Tajiks Makes me wonder, maybe something happened between ethnic Tajiks and ethnic Russians between Soviet Union collapse and the present.

Most Russians hold racist views. It doesn't change if they are expats. As a result of the colonial conquests, Russia is a multiethnic state. But the minorities have never been fully accepted. The govt balances between suppressing the far right and managing it for its own purposes.

This wiki article has plenty of references, with many pointing to the racist actions by the senior officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Russia

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#172

Post by dyauspitr »

loeg wrote: post #115

The whole thing is great and worth reading, but I wanted to highlight this anecdote: > I asked about the criminal justice system and I was told there wasn’t much of a formal one. My companion explained that most matters were handled internally by families. For instance, if a 20-something got in a fight with another 20-something and the cops got involved, the police would most likely contact the families and let the p…

Honestly that’s kind of nice compared to our “one mistake and your life is ruined forever” system but I guess it all comes down to how violent their country is and if those tactics actually work.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#173

Post by surfingdino »

mkoubaa wrote: post #116
surfingdino wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alas, religious people always want an exception to secular rule of law and in some countries in the West managed to carve out exceptions https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/applying-sharia-l...

Secular law allows it's citizens discretions for settling family disputes and inheritance. Religious people often use that discretion to use religious rules from their religion. Nonreligious people benefit from the same discretion. This is not an exception from secular law, all secular laws continue to apply.

There should be a principle that secular law of the country overrides religious laws if the outcome is less favourable for the affected.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#175

Post by resolutebat »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #19
rvense wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There has been, as far as I know, one single case of tourists being attacked (and killed) by militant Islamists, which happened a few years ago. So statistically it's probably safer than a lot of places. There is significant resistance to the regime under the surface, but everything is still held together by an aging, kleptocratic authoritarian. So in some sense it's a volatile place, and the situation could obviousl…

Good perspective, thank you for sharing :) I think I originally saw my concern in this "The World's Most Dangerous Places" book which is probably incentivized to exaggerate a little bit ( https://www.amazon.com/Robert-Peltons-Worlds-Dangerous-Place... )

That book dates back to 2003, only a few years after the Tajik civil war ended.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#176

Post by kergonath »

protomolecule wrote: post #97
ddulaney wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the people who are left are the ones who cannot leave. This is a pretty common pattern: there's a portion of the population that is mobile and can freely move around, and the rest of the population is stuck in place for one reason or another. When Venezuela went through its instability a couple years ago, about 20-30% of the population left [0]. Syria had 30-40% leave [1]. Ukraine had about 15% leave the country,…

Ones who stayed likely to have relatives who moved to work in Russia and are sending money back.

This does not make day-to-day life any less bleak, though. Now they still face the same issues, but on top of it they depend on others’ charity for their income. Surely there are cultural differences and family ties make the pill easier to swallow, but still.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#177

Post by kergonath »

brnt wrote: post #143
protomolecule wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

[flagged]

You can, in fact, be fighting for liberty and be a brutal murderer. You can even be fighting for liberty one day and a brutal dictator the next.

Hiding genocides under the carpet because they are done by the former colony or satellite is not great.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#178

Post by DEADMINCE »

blast wrote: post #167
DEADMINCE wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He's not punching down or hiding behind an ethnic identity, he's mocking the idea of someone being upset over a parody/mockery/comedy.

He absolutely was punching down. He used his high status to mock a low-status (in the West) ethnicity, and shamelessly used selective editing to make everyone other than himself look like a bigot and an asshole. When rightly criticized for this, he acted like he was the victim. It was an awful display which has not aged well and will look even worse over time.

I'd say that's a minority opinion, not especially supported by facts.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#179

Post by kergonath »

dyauspitr wrote: post #172
loeg wrote: post #115

The whole thing is great and worth reading, but I wanted to highlight this anecdote: > I asked about the criminal justice system and I was told there wasn’t much of a formal one. My companion explained that most matters were handled internally by families. For instance, if a 20-something got in a fight with another 20-something and the cops got involved, the police would most likely contact the families and let the p…

Honestly that’s kind of nice compared to our “one mistake and your life is ruined forever” system but I guess it all comes down to how violent their country is and if those tactics actually work.

No, it is not “kind of nice”. That’s how you get blood feuds and honour killings. It might be better than a thoroughly corrupt police force, but it is not the rule of law.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#180

Post by dyauspitr »

kergonath wrote: post #179
dyauspitr wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly that’s kind of nice compared to our “one mistake and your life is ruined forever” system but I guess it all comes down to how violent their country is and if those tactics actually work.

No, it is not “kind of nice”. That’s how you get blood feuds and honour killings. It might be better than a thoroughly corrupt police force, but it is not the rule of law.

That’s not a given. Some cultures have worked out not to involve the law all that much without devolving into blood feuds and outright violence. The first ones that come to mind are Southern India and SE Asia that don’t have a lot of police presence and their societies have low levels of violence. I just don’t know if Tajikistan is one of them.
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