History
�The Energy of Kazakhstan�, a magazine-appendix to THE GLOBE presents the announcement of the article �Impostors On The Throne� by Tursun SULTANOV. You may read the full variant of the article in the third number of �Kazakhstan Energy� which is being sold in the Supermarket �Ramstore�, at �Texaco� filling stations, in �Yubileiny�, near CUM, as well as in hotels The Regent Ankara and Hyatt Regency/Rachat Palace.
�Impostors On The Throne�
by Tursun SULTANOV
Western observers have said the new leaders of Central Asia appear to be transforming themselves into old fashioned khans rather than modern presidents. In Western ears the word �khan� is associated with the brutal powers of Kublai Khan and Genghis Khan. In Central Asian traditions, however, the khan, shah, sultan, or kagan also has its shining ideal.
Medieval sources say a khan must care for his subjects and his army �as a mother takes care of her children.� The subjects and the army in their turn must regard the ruler as �their father�, obey him, serve faithfully, and shed their blood to sustain his reign. The power of a khan, shah, sultan was traditionally considered the assurance of common prosperity, stability and law and order in a society.
From the time immemorial ambitious people have craved the power of the throne, and have sought it with reckless disdain for law, traditions, sensibility, fear of earthly punishment and judgements from Heaven. Since few can claim a throne by law or birth, history records the success and failures of many imposters.
The father of history, Herodotus (born in 484 BC), wrote about a magician (priest) Gaumata who came to the throne by passing himself off as Kir�s son Smerdis (Bardya in Persian) in 522 BC when Smerdis�s elder brother the Persian king Kambis was on a campaign against Egypt. Smerdis, who was killed secretly shortly before that, looked very much like Gaumata.
The magician Gaumata not only strongly resembled Smerdis in appearance but also had the same name. Unlike Smerdis -the true successor to the throne - Smerdis the magician had no ears. King Kambis ordered to cut them off for some offence. As fate willed the earless magician became �the king of kings� and the true king Kambis died under strange circumstances on his way home from Iran where he learned his throne had been seized.
The false Smerdis reigned for seven months. He led an isolated life. He never left the palace nor did he receive any nobles. The court began to suspect they were dealing with an impostor. Otan, one of high officials in Persia, decided to satisfy his suspicions.
His daughter Fatima was Kambis�s wife and lived in the king�s harem, which belonged now to Smerdis. Otan used a reliable person to ask his daughter whether it was Kir�s son Smerdis she slept with.
The woman answered that she did not know since she had never seen Kir�s son Smerdis before. When Otan received such a response, he grew even more suspicious.
He sent Fatima this message: �My daughter! You are of noble origins and must therefore venture on a dangerous act. If your husband is not Kir�s son Smerdis but the one I think, he will pay for sharing a bed with you and ruling over Persia. He must not go unpunished. Do the following. When he is soundly asleep, feel his head. If there are ears, you can be sure you sleep with Kir�s son Smerdis, if not - with the magician Smerdis.
Fatima did what she was told and easily discovered that her husband had no ears. No sooner had the day begun than she sent a trustworthy person to inform her father about the discovery.
Otan promptly called his friends among which was Darius, the son of the king�s governor-general Gistasp, and told them everything.
They were shocked to hear the terrible news. At Darius�s suggestion, they decided to attack the magician immediately and went to the palace with determination. Being unaware of their intentions the guards let the Persian nobles in with due respect. The plotters rushed into the king�s chamber and found there two brothers: the magician Gaumata-False Smerdis and the magician (priest) Patisif whom the king Kambis left in charge of his palace when he left for Egypt.
The two magicians tried to defend but the nobles killed and beheaded them. The noble plotters brought the heads outside and announced the kingdom�s redemption. According to Herodotus, �The Persian people consider this day the greatest holiday and celebrate it solemnly. They call the holiday �beating of magicians�.
That story is one of the earliest records of a political impostor. The story of the False Demetrius is well known in the Russian history. Mahmud ibn Hidayatallah, the author of the Nacavat al-asar, related the appearance of political impostors in the state of Sevefidy after the shah Ismail the Second had suddenly died in 1577. There have been khans-impostors in the medieval and modern history of Central Asia. Remarkably, political impostors in Central Asia of the period in question claimed to be Genghis Khan�s direct descendants or his relatives at least.
The book of the famous Arabian traveler of the fourteenth century ibn Batut contains a touching story about one man�s misadventures. He gave himself out to be Genghis Khan�s descendant Tarmashirin-khan who ruled in Central Asia in roughly 1330-1334. He arrived in Sinda�s land (the Lower Ind) in the mid 1330-s.
The author of Musahhir al-bilad tells the Karakalpaks passed a look-alike for the sultan Abd al-Gaffar and put him on the throne in Turkestan. He conquered some cities in the Syr Daria area and made Tashkent a capital. Shortly after that the rightful possessor of that land the Kazakh Khan Ishim-sultan went to war with the False Abd al-Gaffar and killed him.
Ishim-khan set off with his army from Alatag region. On the way his warriors captured a prisoner for interrogation who related the details about Abd al-Gaffar. Ishim-khan attacked his camp at dawn when Abd al-Gaffar was sleeping. Awakened by the clatter of horses�; hoofs and people�s noise, he ran out of the tent in fear. Immediately Ishim-khan emerged and �stabbed his huge saber in the enemy�s belly�.
In 1687 after the death of Anusha Khan, the son and successor of Chivy khan-historian Abulgazi, his son Ernek ascended the throne. According to the historian Munis living in Horesm at the end of XVIII-beginning of XIX centuries, the young Ernek Khan was a bold handsome man loving entertainment and pretty women. �Every night after the evening prayer,� writes the historian, �he would ride a fast horse with two mahrams (close friends) from Ak-Sarai to Hivak to enjoy rosy-cheeked girls and was back before the sunrise.�
The womanizer fell off a horse and mortally wounded himself on his way back from one of such love adventures.
His mother Tokhta-hanym, who was a Turkmen woman from the south outskirts of Horesm near Dargan, hastened to bury the khan before the news spread. She went to Dargan to her father�s house where her elder brother lived.
He had a son who was Ernek Khan�s age and looked like him. Having passed her nephew for Ernek Khan, she spread the rumor he had visited his Turkmen relatives and was now returning home. Thanks to that trick, the young Turkmen man managed to bring a thousand fellowmen in Chivy. After he invaded the city, he began to persecute Uzbek people living there.
Some of them left for the Aral Sea and made up an army of the Kongrats, Mangyts, Kangly, Kypchaks and Hoja-ellies. After killing the imposter they executed Tokhta-hanym by dragging her behind their horses. This event took place in 1106/1694-95.
The whole version of the article you will find in �The Energy of Kazakhstan� # 3.
Bakhytzhamal Bekturganova, President of ASaP
Almaty, Aug 18
11-20 of August, 1999
690 persons were questioned,
including grown ups � 551persons
What happened
In 1995 the new Constitution of RK was approved (the second one after Kazakhstan became independent). The new Constitution stipulated the priorities of the state construction: socially oriented market economy, legal state, and democracy.
Swearing to the new Constitution and announcing himself a guarantor of its steadiness, the President of the country firmly promised to the Kazakhstan population to protect their interests and constitutional rights.
What is happening
It is the 4th year after the trust credit was given to the President. According to the results of the poll in the southern capital, the evaluation of the President�s activity is as follows:
Which of the President�s promises given to the population of Kazakhstan�
(% in the column)
| Fulfilled | Was not fulfilled | |
| Socially oriented market economy | 30.4 | 16.6 |
| Constitutionally guaranteed rights and freedoms of the population | 19.6 | 16.8 |
| Social protection of the population | 0.0 | 17.5 |
| Establishment of democratic principals | 15.2 | 16.4 |
| Everybody�s equality before the law | 0.0 | 17.3 |
| Freedom of speech | 34.8 | 15.4 |
A sociologist, if he pretends to be objective, should ground his conclusions on concrete figures even when he does not agree with them.
How do you think, with what does the Kazakhstan Institute of Strategic Researches subordinate to the President deal with? (in %)
| Production of cosmetics to decorate information to be passed to the President | 19 |
| Working out of the national strategy of the development of Kazakhstan | 17.9 |
| Solving tasks which are quite not strategic ones (�researches of the Moon�s influence on a broom�) | 9.5 |
| Sociological polls | 6.8 |
| Collection and distribution of rumours and thoughts | 4.1 |
| Problems of national security | 0.7 |
| It�s difficult to answer | 46.9 |
Until there is a hope that the President of the country receives misinterpreted information and does not have the total data on the situation faced by the people, the President still has a reserve support. This is indirectly proved by the answers to the next question:
Do you believe that the President�s promises given to the population will be kept? (in %)
| Yes | 0.0 |
| No | 77.9 |
| It�s difficult to answer | 22.1 |
22.1% is though a weak, but still a chance for the present President to introduce the order in his environment and to restore the population�s trust to himself.
What will happen with Kazakhstan in 2000? (in %)
| The population�s standard of life will stabilise | 0.0 |
| The crisis will be deepening | 53.8 |
| A social resentment | 15.6 |
| Everything will be the same | 7.5 |
| Mass resentment and protest actions | 9.7 |
| The government will be changed | 3.8 |
| It�s difficult to answer | 7.5 |
| Others | 2.2 |
Michail SERGEEV
ALMATY, August 19 (THE GLOBE)
It is known that 8 years ago in Moscow some members of the party�s nomenclature structure tried to make a coup d�etat and dismiss Michail Gorbachyov from the post of the President of USSR elected by the nation. How would the events have developed in the former USSR, if members of SCEE had seized the power? THE GLOBE asked this question to the recognised expert-politologist Sabit Zhusupov, the director of the Kazakhstan Institute of Social-Economic Information and Prognoses.
If the SCEE had won, initially there would have been a regime of the rigid dictatorship in the country. Then, in my opinion, they would have tried to restore the USSR�s borders. These actions could have result in big-scale conflicts. It is known that by that time the three Prebaltic republics had already left the influence zone of Moscow.
If the Byelovezhsky agreement had not been signed, possibly, we would have been witnesses of the further evolution way of the development of the soviet state (confederation structure of the country), which was actively promoted by the first (and the last) President of USSR.
Due to the fact that putsch people were aimed to take force measures governing the country, most probably, this would have prevail in their policy, taking into consideration the centrifugal trend of that time, finally this would also have become Gorbachyov�s variant, but with more significant defects.
We had three scenarios of the development: the rigid policy of SCEE (according to the worst traditions of the CPSU, which were based on force methods); a radical scenario (a variant of a sudden sovereignty of all soviet republics, which now we are passing through); and the intermediate variant of Gorbachyov, which, to my mind, would have been the most optimal one. Our today�s separation from each other does not help our progress, as far as economic reforms are concerned. I believe that the main condition of successful realisation of reforms in the Central Asian region is consolidation, but not opposition, which we may observe now. I think finally we will come to Gorbachyov�s variant of the development, as this is a key variant, to which we may come by different ways. Unfortunately, the current situation demonstrates that we have not chosen the most optimal variant.
Erkanat ABENI
ALMATY, August 19
(THE GLOBE)
The new system of social self-defence of the strata of the population with a small income based on self-repayment will help pensioners and other vulnerable groups to survive, the chairman of the Innovation Information Fund announced on Thursday in Almaty.
According to Nurlan Amrekulov, the population with small income will be helped owing to reduction of their consumable minimal coefficient. The chairman said that that conception consisted of three phases, including establishment of distributors� network on supplying and distributing foodstuffs. This network will seek and select companies-producers, optimise economic links, minimise expenses towards production, delivery and distribution of the products. It also is to minimise the number of intermediates and, thus will reduce prices for people with a small income.
Mr. Amrekulov emphasised that at the initial phase the project would require a donor�s support. �Of course, a few producers may response to the call for help poor pensioners, but I am sure that enterprises will be interested in the final result (sale of products due to reduction of their prime cost,� Mr. Amrekulov said.
According to the chairman of the Innovation Centre, he repeatedly applied to the government with a request to consider and support this conception, but with no response.
It is required to reconsider the tax legislation to guarantee tax privileges to enterprises, which will supply products to the socially vulnerable groups of the population, to abandon or reduce VAT to 5 to 10%, Mr. Amrekulov believes.
The chairman stated that all sponsors� and any other aid would be controlled y the Observation Trusteeship Council headed by the leader of �Pokoleniye� movement Irina Savostina.
Nurlan Amrekulov said that some definite work had been already fulfilled. There are some agreements with rural producers and it is planned to open soon a wholesale shop in the Bostandyk district in Almaty.
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