Category Archives: Central Asia
Confucius Peace Prize Year Two
Last year when I was living in Shanghai, I posted about the advent of the Confucius Peace Prize in response to Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. Well, ladies and gentleman, it’s been a year since then and so the Chinese government has named the second recipient of the prize. I’ll let this NY TIMES article explain… drum roll please…
By EDWARD WONG
Published: November 15, 2011
BEIJING — The Chinese committee that awarded this year’s Confucius Peace Prize minced no words in honoring the winner, Vladimir V. Putin, prime minister of Russia.
It praised his decision to go to war in Chechnyain 1999.
“His iron hand and toughness revealed in this war impressed the Russians a lot, and he was regarded to be capable of bringing safety and stability to Russia,” read an English version of the committee’s statement. “He became the antiterrorist No. 1 and the national hero.”
Not only that, it applauded him for “acting as the propagandist of current political events” while still in high school, and for being selected to join the K.G.B. while in college, “which made true his teenage dream of joining the K.G.B.” Much later, of course, came the “large-scale military action towards the illegal armed forces in Grozny, Chechnya.”
So went the announcement by a group of 16 patriotic scholars awarding what they call their second annual “grass-roots” peace prize. Four members of the group, the China International Peace Studies Center, held a news conference on Sunday in the Fragrant Hills Park west of central Beijing, but there was curiously little reporting in the Chinese news media about the award. Then word spread over Twitter on Tuesday that Mr. Putin, who had engaged in wars in Chechnya and Georgia, had won the prize, which has been steeped in political intrigue in recent months.
“Those wars were righteous wars,” Qiao Damo, the self-described co-founder and president of the Confucius Peace Prize committee, said in a telephone interview. “Mr. Putin fought for the unification of his country.”
In fact, the campaign in Chechnya led to a stream of human rights abuses by Russian and pro-Russian Chechen security forces, including rape, torture and murder, numerous human rights organizations found at the time.
Mr. Qiao also said that the committee, which had voted for Mr. Putin from among eight nominees, valued his opposition to war. “He was against the NATO bombing of Libya,” Mr. Qiao said.
The award was first given out last year as a rejoinder to the Nobel committee’s decision to give the Peace Prize toLiu Xiaobo, an imprisoned dissident writer. Mr. Qiao said this year’s ceremony would be held on Dec. 9, and organizers hoped to hand a gilded statuette of Confucius, the Chinese sage, to Mr. Putin, along with a certificate. The award announcement did not mention any cash prize.
The winner last year, Lien Chan, a Taiwanese politician, said he had never heard of the award when contacted by foreign journalists. He did not show up at the ceremony, even though the prize came with the equivalent of $15,000 in cash. Instead, a young girl with no relation to Mr. Lien accepted a statuette and a bundle of bills.
When asked about the award on Tuesday, Dmitri S. Peskov, a spokesman for Mr. Putin, told a reporter in Moscow: “We have only heard about the award from the press. We do not know much about the prize.”
Besides Mr. Putin, candidates for this year’s Confucius Peace Prize included Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft; Angela Merkel, Germany’s chancellor; Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president; Kofi Annan, the former secretary general of the United Nations; Yuan Longping, a Chinese scientist; Soong Chu-yu, a Taiwanese politician; and a Tibetan boy named by Chinese officials as the Panchen Lama after the abduction of a candidate supported by the exiled Dalai Lama.
Mr. Putin received nine of the 16 votes cast, Mr. Yuan six and Ms. Merkel one, Mr. Qiao said.
Among the 16 voting committee members was Kong Qingdong, a professor of Chinese literature at Peking University who has boasted widely that he is in the 73rd generation of Confucius’ lineage. Mr. Kong is also famously known for cursing at a Chinese journalist on Nov. 7, which has prompted editors at Xinhua, the state news agency, and students at Peking University to demand Mr. Kong’s resignation.
Meanwhile, a founding member of the committee, Liu Haofeng, said in a telephone interview that he had split off from the group and planned to start a new award with the help of Americans, the World Harmony Prize.
The Culture Ministry has berated the original prize committee for claiming to hand out last year’s award in the name of the ministry.
As for a new competing prize associated with the Culture Ministry, the Confucius World Peace Prize, an announcement posted last month on the ministry’s Web site said the group that had proposed the award had decided not to distribute it.
Nikolay Khalip contributed reporting from Moscow, and Mia Li contributed research from Beijing.
Giles Duley Exhibit
I found myself in London on Thanksgiving day, blissfully wandering the city I inhabited for far too short a time. My dear friend suggested we head to an exhibit of Giles Duley photography at the KKOutlet. Giles is a photojournalist from London who began working in the entertainment industry and now focuses his work on humanitarian themes particularly in conflict states. While in Afghanistan, Duley stepped on an IED and had to have both legs and one arm amputated. He is a miraculous example of survival and openness. A New York Times piece quoted him saying: “I thought, ‘Right hand? Eyes?’ ” — he realized that all of these were intact — “and I thought, ‘I can work.’ ” That’s passion.
I’ve been sitting here trying to sum up my feelings on Duley’s work. My words don’t seem to do it justice. It’s incredibly real, alive, haunting, hopeful, tragic. I went to search his website in an attempt to express myself better. There is a quote at the very beginning of Duley’s bio. This, I think, encapsulates very clearly why his work is indeed renowned:
“These photographs remind us of our humanity and of the need for understanding and compassion if we want a peaceful world and a just one. The great English poet John Donne once wrote, ‘No man is an island…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.’ What he said in words, Duley’s compelling photographs tell us in pictures. They are a must for anyone who values the unity, tragedy and potential of the human condition.”
Giles Duley Self Portrait
To support Giles and his work, check out The Giles Duley Fund.
Watch: Love Crimes of Kabul
Of the over one-hundred prisoners in Badam Bagh Women’s Prison in Kabul, Afghanistan, half are there for “moral crimes” including premarital sex and running away from home. Love Crimes of Kabul focuses on the stories of three of those women (or girls!) and how modern ideas of love and marriage in traditional Afghan society landed them in jail.
In a society dictated by strict Sharia Law, the access alone that was granted for this filming is remarkable and unprecedented. Written and directed by Iranian-American filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian, Love Crimes of Kabul sheds light on the human side of the female story in Afghanistan. Often we see war on the news and hear of female oppression, but rarely do we see women unveiled, speaking up and so candidly as they are in Eshaghian’s film. She does a remarkable job of transforming what one would assume to be a very heavy, depressing piece into a lively, relatable and moving film. Eshaghian and the crew found working in Afghanistan and the prison intensely taxing, but, fortunately for the viewer, presented a subject that is so inaccurately and under reported.
“Some of the young women’s modern ideas about attraction and relationships conflict with more traditional Afghan ways. They giddily describe their boyfriends as having desirable attributes (good looks, intelligence, etc.), yet marriage in Afghanistan is traditionally a set of financial agreements and transactions between families or tribes. Since marriage is the only way to avoid prolonged jail time, much pre-trial time is spent negotiating terms of marriage between their otherwise reluctant families.
Kareema, 20, is a tenacious and fearless Hazara whose striking beauty belies a strong survival streak. When her boyfriend Firuz got her pregnant and refused to marry her, Kareema voluntarily confessed their behavior to authorities, knowing her only hope of avoiding ruin as an unwed mother was to leverage conservative laws to her advantage. By getting Firuz as well as herself imprisoned, she has more chance of securing him as a husband, as marriage is his only chance of release. If he won’t comply, she faces years behind bars.
Aleema, 22, a fiercely independent woman with a quick temper and acid tongue, ran away from an abusive home and took refuge with a stranger named Zia. When Zia tried to sell Aleema to an undercover cop, both women were arrested. Forced to share a trial, they’re now involved in a bitter power struggle. Zia demands Aleema marry her son as retribution for getting her locked up. Aleema knows Zia could never afford the dowry of a virgin bride, and only wants her because a “shamed” woman like Aleema will be the ultimate cheap deal.
Sabereh, 18, is a wide-eyed, innocent young woman who was turned in by her father, who found her in a closet with a 17-year-old boy. Though her virginity is proven intact by court doctors, accusations against Sabereh build in intensity, and it is obvious that her boyfriend’s resistance to marriage will consign her to the cruelest fate.
A female guard at the Badam Bagh Women’s Prison in Kabul observes disdainfully that the prison is full “because these days women are given too much freedom.” The reality of women’s rights in the country is much different. With courtship, marriage and sex strictly controlled by an ideology of honor, a young girl can be arrested and jailed simply for falling in love, or running away from home, both of which are seen as akin to adultery.
Though transgression can bring ruin to an entire family, and both men and women can be arrested, women are seen as particular threats to the fabric of society, and must be punished if they stray. As a social worker explains to Aleema, “A bad husband is better than no husband…None of this would have happened if you had a husband and a nice home.”
LOVE CRIMES OF KABUL concludes as the three subjects receive Afghan justice for their “crimes,” along with explanations for the rulings. Asked what will happen if people in Afghanistan are allowed to act on their desires, one judge replies, “Society’s order will be ruined.” (repost from Robert Seidman)
Volunteers Needed!
The Alliance for International Women’s Rights needs volunteer teachers to work with individual women in Kandahar, Afghanistan via Skype. Primarily ESL/EFL work. Please contact me if you would like more details or CLICK HERE for more info.
The Alliance for International Women’s Rights is a “non-profit organization with a mission of supporting women leaders and future women leaders in Central Asia. [They] do this by creating connections between Central Asian women and professionals in developed countries who would like to use their skills to further women’s rights.”
AIWR was found by another Princeton in Asia Alum, Lisa Herb. Lisa taught at Assumption University in Bangkok, Thailand with PiA and spent two years in Mongolia. She attended Cornell’s Law School and studied with them in Paris. Check out this Anti 9-to-5 interview with Lisa.
AIWR is currently working in Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. For the women in Kandahar, getting to the center alone involves much risk. They deserve the support of solid (and interesting!) female educators. This is an extremely worthy cause and organization. If you are qualified or know anyone who is, please consider applying!
