When people ask me why I specialize in a part of the world that most people have never heard of, I sometimes like to jokingly reply that it’s easy to become recognized as an expert because the competition is pretty thin. But so long as Ted Rall is taken seriously as a Central Asia expert, there’s simply no justice in this world. (Oddly enough, and 100% honestly, I wrote that sentence before taking a look at my last post on Rall.)
While Rall is a wonderful subject to bring up every now and then to get me frothing at the mouth, I only found the latest fascinating bit of his bizarre take on Central Asia while looking to see if there has been any update to news about the investigation into Jill Metzger’s disappearance in Bishkek. There has not been anything except for a couple conservative news sites passing on the rumor on what happened in Kyrgyzstan (that apparently appeared on the news), that Metzger ran off to get an abortion.
In my search for news on Metzger, I found this interview with Ted Rall by the editor of his new book, Silk Road to Ruin. Among the gems in there, is this strange description of Kyrgyzstan and what may have happened to Metzger.
Certainly, it’s possible that she was kidnapped by a criminal gang. Kyrgyzstan has disintegrated into chaos, anarchy and warlordism since the 2005 Tulip Revolution–which was backed by the CIA and deposed Central Asia’s only democratically elected president–and criminal gangs have taken residence in a way they never were able to under the regime of [Kyrgyz President] Askar Akayev.
It is fair to question whether or not anyone who characterizes Kyrgyzstan as a land of “anarchy and warlordism” has actually spent any time there or pays any attention to the country. He goes on to describe the country as one that has always been dangerous to a certain extent, and one in which anti-Americanism is on the rise “because the American role there was so pronounced in overthrowing Askar Akayev.” The rest of the interview shows off Ted’s prowess as a military expert, explaining how US military bases in the region are all about controlling oil and gas. In fact, he says that the base in Kyrgyzstan is so that we can hang the threat of overthrowing the government if it displeases up, which is a very strange government to overthrow if the US government wants to control the region’s oil — which, I hasten to add, is a goal it is doing such a horrible job of achieving that one wonders whether or not it really is a goal.
But I digress… The point is that this guy is so bad that publications, especially specialist ones, should be ashamed to carry him.
It is a successful interview though. Ted communicates to his core audience that he is ever-so-smart when it comes to Central Asia and hella-brave for braving such a dangerous land. The man wants you to know he’s got a huge brain and brass balls, so buy his comic book (and learn that Central Asia is too scary for you, as the reviewer from Australia did).
And we can see how his new book plays with that audience here. From the review:
Rall has visited the Central Asia region a number of times, on his own, with his wife (they must have a real strong marriage based on the conditions described in the book), as a tour guide for a group of volunteer travelers (read naïve and/or deranged) and with friends.
To say that conditions are difficult would be an understatement. Poor bordering on inedible food, countless border checks/shakedowns, bad roads and constant violence make a visit to this esoteric part of the world an adventure for the knowledgeable, tough and slightly crazed.
What follows is a description of food so bad that stray dogs will not eat it and hideous hotels that one expects to find in the “middle of fourth world nowhere.” Comments on the review note how ridiculous this is.
Sadly, the reviewer comes to the conclusion that Rall’s “educated adventure travel” is a good source of information on the politics and cultures of Central Asia full of “accuracy, wit, and passion”.
I have gone ahead and ordered a cheap, used copy of the book, will try to give it a fair shake (it should be quick what with all the pictures it is said to have), and write a review of my own.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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{ 9 comments }
We must have been in the wrong side of town.
Maybe those old people protesting outside the Kyrgyz White House were CIA.
I think the problem is that when Rall headed to Central Asia he accidently got of the plane in Darfur. Unfortunately, he still doesn’t realize where he was.
His suggestion that only “ethnic russians” commit muggings in Bishkek because the Kyrgyz “are a friendly people” is the crudest sort of racial stereotyping. Turn it round and then see how it sounds.
Central Asia is actually a rather staid place to travel – gastronomic delights may be rare, but in most places food is perfectly safe. Hotels are fine in the obvious tourist destinations. Border crossings are not very scary. Its not dangerous for foreigners, certainly less so than anywhere in Latin America, say. And the CIA doesn’t overthrow governments there, they just collapse through their own incompetence. But if we admitted all these banal facts, how would we sell our books/keep our UN/USAID/NGO hardship allowances/keep people reading our blogs? (delete as applicable).
“Rall has visited the Central Asia region a number of times, on his own, with his wife (they must have a real strong marriage based on the conditions described in the book), as a tour guide for a group of volunteer travelers (read naïve and/or deranged) and with friends.’
What the hell is a ‘volunteer traveler’? Did Rall coax some friends into a trip to Istanbul, only to find out they were going to Tashkent?
Descriptions as such about the food, dirt, etc. in Central Asia remind me of Tom Bissell’s “Chasing the Sea”. Woe is me, woe is you, woe is us. As pointed out above, that’s what sells books, magazines, etc. and keeps those UN guys driving the ‘nicest cars in town’ around Dushanbe and Tashkent (well, except the drug lords, of course) The modus operandi of Rall is similar to Bissell too; “let’s pick some far out place to vent our spleen and make it sound really bad, so everyone will feel sorry for me and make me a hero…meanwhile the locals just sit like idiots, in quiet desperation”. the more arrogant part about Rall is that he constantly criticizes both sides, as if any improvement is practically and morally impossible – which, again, only serves his own cause, perfectly.
i own a bound version of a single chapter from “silk road to ruin.” a friend gave it to me. ted rall was handing out copies at book expo–the big book publishers convention that my friend attends each year
anyway, the chapter was about turkmenistan. i thought it was entertaining and probably not too inaccurate. then again, with turkmenistan you really can’t make up a more bizzare police state.
as for how rall got to be recognized as an expert on central asia, when a place is as unknown as CA is to the general public it really doesn’t take much more than saying you’re from there. just because i spent 2 weeks in uzbekistan in 2003, i have relatives who call me with questions about virtually any country that ends with “stan.” actually, about half of my relatives still refer to where i visited as “pakistan.” outside of africa, there really is nowhere else in the world where the general public has so little clue. just because he’s been there, gives rall a lot more authority than he would have than if he say, visited france three times
i sometimes think about rall as a modern equivalent to richard burton, or one of the other victorian-era travelers to the “exotic east.” rall comes back publishing his wild tales of adventure. his books are presented as if they are an accurate portrayal of a place that the editors and publishers don’t know enough about to correct. and yet, like burton’s descriptions of the arab world, rall’s books really reflect rall’s own mind and prejudices than the societies he claims to be describing
Hmm, except that Burton was fluent in Arabic and Urdu and capable of passing himself off as a Sindhi on his pilgrimage to Mecca. His books are certainly full of wild fantasising but he’s a thousand times better than Rall.
I’ve found Rall’s depictions of Kazakhstan hilarious, but only because he seems to take them seriously. As an obvious American, I was able to live in a rather frightening ghetto for several months with no issues—local friends wouldn’t come to my flat, but I was never bothered. Similarly, if Rall found the food in Central Asia inedible, I wonder where exactly he would enjoy the food—I came to absoltely love shashlyk, laghman, samsa, and even byeshbarmak (I never became fond of akroshka, but that’s Russian anyway). The food is good—really, truly, yummy food.
Nathan, you’re right – the man is just an attention monger. But we knew that.
Nathan, Generally I’m pretty critical of Rall, but I just looked at his book at a Borders in DC, and I have to say that there is some very interesting stuff in it aside from the bad food and tourist complaints (some of which were funny, IMHO). For example, he says he was taken off a bus by a Taliban officer in Kashmir; he says the CIA backed the IMU; he says he fled Uzbekistan in 1999 after the Tashkent bombings because he thought the Karimov regime was about to topple; he says Islamists were involved in Kyrgyzstan’s “Tulip Revolution”; and so forth. I don’t know how much evidence he has for all his claims, but the book seems to have a lot in it, in addition to a travelogue–much of which contradicts some of the impressions given by his cartoons on Eurasianet. I haven’t read the whole thing, but would say that there is evidence in his book that there is a genuine threat from Islamist extremists in Central Asia. And coming from Ted Rall, that’s making a significant contribution to discussion of the region…