The War Diaries

A Hindu temple along Serangoon Road, in the heart of Singapore's Little India. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

Singapore- After finally moving on from KL, I’m passing though Singapore’s Little India for a night en route to Bali. Little India (Little Tamil Nadu) is probably the most sanitized Indian neighborhood on the globe and not bad for it. Tamil is one of Singapore’s four official languages along with Malay (also the national language), Mandarin, and English, sometimes referred to as Singlish in local jargon. I’d read in the Wikitravel entry on the city state that Malaysian newspapers are banned here and purposefully grabbed one in KL the bring through customs hoping to stir something up but it was allowed in or not noticed, a bit of a disappointment. I ditched my gum in KL but more because it was old than trying to start something here. As I don’t have much going on at the moment, I’m going to plug a really great article trilogy by Brasilero wildman Pepe Escobar on Asia Times about I time that I know well with photos by Jason Florio of pre-9/11 Afghanistan.

Tajikistan's reconstructed massive Buddha lay in state at the National Antiquities Museum. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

In an undated 1960's era photo, Soviet archaeologists unearth Tajikistan's sleeping Buddha. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

Dushanbe- I took a quiet stroll through Tajikistan’s Museum of National Antiquities this morning after a friend here told me about a giant sleeping Buddha there in what I guessed would be the incredible Hellenic-Buddhist fusion of the now long gone Bamiyan Buddhas that once stood in the wind swept Hazarajat. So for 15 Somoni (just above $3) and covering my filthy New Balance’s with those surgical cover things, I toured the museum which had everything on display from neolithic adze’s to Tajikistan’s Persian-Islamic period. But it was all about the giant Buddha. What we mostly know about Tajikistan is some of its Soviet-period history and maybe a little about its five-year long devastating civil war (1992-1997). I want to get a little more insight into the country’s pre-Islamic history to get a better picture of where it fits into regional history and present day geopolitics. Ancient trade and cultural links have tendency to mirror post-Soviet revived present day ones and for this reasoning, a quick study of the museum’s pieces was in order. On the second floor, the Buddha lay in nirvana in his “sleeping lion” position in all of his reconstructed glory. This hulking 13 metre-long sculpture was discovered near Qurgonteppa in the country’s south, wedged in between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan (see map).

Seeing this made me think of the legend of the mega sleeping Buddha believed to be hidden somewhere in Afghanistan’s Bamiyan described by Xuanzang, the first Chinese backpacker, in 630 AD.  In September, 2008 a 19 metre Buddha was discovered near where the two standing ones were demo’ed in March 2001. Not quite 300 metres, but still, not too shabby. Large parts of the Tajik Buddha did not survive the centuries but were artfully reconstructed to give one a good idea of the ancient sculptor’s original vision. The museum had a lot of interesting pieces to say the least. Here’s another one, a scabbard of a griffin that looks to be of ivory.

Zzzzzz... ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

©2010 Derek Henry Flood

The labels in the museum were mostly in Russian and Tajik and not extensive to say the least. But I had much better luck than Asia Times columnist Pepe Escobar in 2001 who was in Dushanbe just before the museum opened and was unable to see this piece of nirvana.

On a totally unrelated note, I have a new piece in today’s Asia Times:

An elderly Uzbek man votes at Mikhail Frunze school #24 in Sunday's referendum on the future of the interim government in Kyrgyzstan. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

Osh- I have a new piece in today’s edition of Asia Times titled “Kyrgyzstan Votes “Yes” Amid Death, Fear” on Sunday’s quietly successful referedum vote here in southern Kyrgyzstan’s deadly ethnic jigsaw puzzle here in the Ferghana valley.  Secuirty was heavy here in the country’s troubled, second largest city and there were no incidents that I know of but that may be because people here are exhausted more than anything.

A Kyrgyz soldier inspects vehicles in the destroyed Uzbek section of Osh's central market. Note the footwear. ©2010 Derek Henry Flood

New York- My former editor and colleague at Asia Times Online, Charles McDermid, has an article today with local Suleimani-based reporter Rebaz Mahmood on the fourth and perhaps ultimate death sentence for “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, the most brutal enforcer of the al-Anfal campaign in northern Iraq in 1988. Charles is now working in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and is gearing up for coverage of the Iraqi general elections to be held on March 7th by the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (which is meant to coincide with the “Status of Forces Agreement” referendum on the future of U.S. troops in the Republic of Iraq). Almost seven years after the United States military and its allies tried to erase the legacy of Saddam Hussein by destroying Iraq in order to try and save it, or remake it into a pro-Israel, emasculated Arab client state of neoconservative folly, the legacy of Ba’athism and Halabja continue to haunt the politics of this shattered post-Ottoman successor state.

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