Turkmenbashi

Oh, to be the subjects of a whimsical leader.

Cracks about the Bush Adminstration notwithstanding, American politicians' crazed lust for self-celebration rarely crosses over into the realm of the truly lunatic. Americans just don't think that much of their leaders, with some historical justification. And we tend to let them know. We get bored easily.

The citizens of Turkmenistan, however, have struck gold with their president-for-life, Saparmurat "Turkmenbashi" Niyazov. When he recently proposed renaming all the calendar months — including changing January to "Turkmenbashi" — only one member of the national council objected to the plan. That member proposed that one of the months, named generically "mother," should be named specifically after Niyazov's deceased mother Gurbansoltan. Turkmenbashi said he'd take it under consideration.

More recently, he redefined youth and age. All Turkmen up to the age of 25 are "adolescents." If you're 25-37, you're a mere youth. And if you're 97-109, you're an "Oguzkhan," for what that's worth. No word on what you receive if you outlive the system.

In Ashgabat, the capital, Turkmenbashi installed a gold statue of himself in the country's capital that rotates 360 degrees every 24 hours, to follow the sun. An unusually articulate American tourist told the BBC: "Here we are, slightly beyond the end of the world, we look around and see Stalin in Las Vegas. A very bizarre place." There's no Turkmenbashi Day per se, apparently, but it's likely the members of the national council would say that "every day is Turkmenbashi Day," if you're lucky enough to live in Turkmenistan.

The poignant thing about the old guy — recently prone to violence, and not above the occasional show trial — is that it's unlikely any of his wildly zany stuff is going to stick around. Go ahead and laugh. But, on a grand scale, the guy just does what many of us try to: Leave a mark.

On the beach of life, most of us tread lightly and leave light footprints. A few generations after we bite the dust, little will remain beyond some vague stories and a headstone. Others — painters, scientists, writers, musicians, architects, entrepreneurs — will stop and doodle in sand, trying to post a message that'll stick around for a while. A scant few of us will grab a sharp stick and spend our whole lives desperately scraping into the sand, trying to leave a mark that the waves can't touch.

Turkmenbashi's got a stick.

Stalingrad isn't Stalingrad anymore. The Jacobin Calendar of revolutionary France has long since fallen into disuse. And a half-century's worth of batty, Communist-era public-works projects are now nothing but dust and souvenirs. And while this whimsical leader's imprint may remain stamped upon his country for centuries, it's more likely that Percy Shelley's "Ozymandias" will be a more fitting epitaph:

I met a traveller from an antique land / Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone / Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand, / Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown, / And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command, / Tell that its sculptor well those passions read / Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,/ The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed; / And on the pedestal these words appear: / "My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: / Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" / Nothing beside remains. Round the decay / Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare / The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— James Norton (jim@flakmag.com)