Turkmen President Issues Eccentric Cycle of Life Decree

ASHKHABAD, August 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov has introduced a new cycle of life in Turkmenistan, according to which old age begins at 85 and the 62-year-old leader is living through an “inspirational” phase.

Turkmenistan’s eccentric autocrat has issued an order dividing life into 12-year cycles, the Turkmen press reported Wednesday, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Childhood will continue until the age of 13, while from 13 to 25 Turkmen citizens will be considered adolescents, after which they will be youthful until 37 and then mature, the presidential decree states.

Among other age cycles, the Turkmen president has ordered that the period from 49 to 61 be dubbed the prophetic phase while the inspirational stage will continue from the ages of 61 to 73.

This period of life would apply to Niyazov, who is president-for-life in this Central Asian state, which borders on Afghanistan and Iran, said AFP.

Old age, meanwhile, will begin at the age of 85 and any Turkmen who lives until they are 97 will reach a stage named after the founder of the Turkmen nation, Oguzkhan.

Earlier this month, Niyazov introduced a new calendar in Turkmenistan, which renamed the 12 months of the year after national heroes, his deceased mother and himself.

According to the BBC’s online news service, Niyazov proposes to rename January Turkmenbashi after his official name, which means Head of all the Turkmen.

Other months will be renamed to honor famous Turkmen poets and writers, it said.

He also wants the seven days of the week to be renamed, with uplifting phrases such as Young Day for Tuesday and Spirituality Day for Saturday, said the BBC.

Niyazov, wants to call the month of April “Mother”, but a speaker at the council suggested to him that he names the month by the full name of the president’s deceased mother, Gurbansoltan, which the president said he would consider, said the BBC.

Many people on the streets of Turkmenistan seemed unperturbed, but others were bitter regarding their leader’s latest plans.

“This is a joke, the entire civilized world lives by the same calendar but Niyazov decides to set us apart once again,” one man told the AFP news agency. “It seems like he lives on another planet.”

On Thursday, August 8, the Turkmen People’s council called for the eccentric leader to remain in power until his death, rejecting Niyazov's proposal to step down and hold elections in 2010, said the BBC. He was made president for life in 1999.

Niyazov has several schools, cities, airports and even a meteorite named after him, reported the BBC.

In Turkmenistan, almost every large building carries either a giant portrait or a golden bust of the man who now styles himself Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great. Turkmenbashi means “leader of the Turkmen”, said the BBC.

The BBC added that in the past two years, a book written by the president has become a required part of school and university curricula.

The book, Ruhnama, is a 400-page blend of history, myth and philosophy meant to bolster a spirit of national consciousness among ethnic Turkmen, who make up nearly 80% of the country’s five million population.

According to the BBC, in Ashgabad’s handful of bookstores, Ruhnama has pushed almost everything else from the shelves, while state-run television is used extensively to popularize the president’s work.

No government official’s office is complete without a copy of Ruhnama, usually displayed prominently on the desk. Whatever people might think of the book in private, public criticism of the work would be unthinkable, it said.

“Human rights groups say alternative views of Turkmen history are now effectively banned. According to the 2001 U.S. State Department Report on Human Rights Practices in Turkmenistan, teachers are discouraged from bringing many alternative works into the classroom,” said the BBC adding that several writers, poets and historians have been placed on a blacklist, because their views of Turkmen history differ from the government line.

In a report published by the Washington Post on July 8, the writer says that every denomination of the money bears the portrait of Turkmenbashi the Great. So do local brands of vodka and tea, while the national television network constantly superimposes a small, golden profile of the “Dear Father”, neatly placed in the upper right-hand corner of the screen.

“A gilded statue of Turkmenbashi the Great towers over downtown Ashkhabad, turning with the desert sun, so it always lights his face. Every student in the country studies his book, the Ruhnama. Every government office has a weekly study hour to discuss Ruhnama; the Foreign Ministry meets Wednesdays at 5:30,” said the Post.

Niyazov is one of the United States’ new allies in Central Asia. Turkmenistan made its territory available for the transshipment of U.N. humanitarian aid to neighboring Afghanistan, and offered its airspace to the United States, but Niyazov’s foreign policy - “permanent neutrality” - precluded any direct participation in the war. The United States is less involved here than in the other four “stan” republics of what was once Soviet Central Asia.

According to the Post, Niyazov has cut mandatory schooling from 10 years to nine, for reasons even his own officials cannot explain.

There are virtually no textbooks in the country’s primary and secondary schools, according to teachers and foreigners. Niyazov banned all the Soviet-era texts, but new ones have not been produced to replace them. “All that happens in school now is singing songs and reading ‘Ruhnama,’” according to one source familiar with the education system, said the Post.

Primary education is further undermined by using students to harvest and plant cotton, after oil and gas the country’s top export. Last year students were out of school, picking cotton, from September until late December, and again for four to six weeks this spring, the paper said.

The number of places in Turkmenistan’s colleges and universities has been cut to 3,000 a year, less than half what it was in Soviet times. No higher degrees have been granted here in years. Paying bribes to win admission and then pass exams is described by participants in the system as ubiquitous, it added.

The Post said that a high percentage of apartments in this city have satellite dishes that bring in uncensored information from Turkey, Russia and the world. (On the other hand, the internet is inaccessible to most Turkmen.)

Niyazov has ruled the country since he was appointed Communist Party chief in 1985 when it was still part of the Soviet Union, said the BBC adding that he quickly developed a personality cult surrounding himself, suppressing legitimate political opposition.

He has spent vast sums of money on lavish palaces and statues of himself, despite the country’s increasing poverty.

Much of the cash for such grandiose projects is thought to stem from deals involving Turkmenistan’s rich oil and gas reserves.

Similar to Niyazov, the Libya President Moammar Al Qaddafi, has published his own “Green Book” which several media outlets quote from and which is also studied at schools.