“Although they are an illegitimate government, let’s sit at the negotiating table.  I would like to warn those who are now hunting for me: don’t be contract killers, because this will only bring huge tragedy to the country.  We will drown in blood if they opt for physical elimination. If they use force, then those people surrounding me will not let it happen, and this will mean bloodshed.”

The opposition-cum-sitting-power has likewise upped their rhetoric, laying the deaths of this past week directly on Bakiev’s shoulders.The envoy’s remarks came as thousands of people gathered at Ata Beit cemetery in Bishkek on April 10 for the funeral of 16 people, who died in bloody clashes between antigovernment protesters and security forces earlier this week.

Roza Otunbaeva, the head of Kyrgyzstan’s self-proclaimed new cabinet, and members of her team also attended the funeral.

Addressing some 10,000 mourners, Otunbaeva blamed the deaths on the government of Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev who fled Bishkek in the aftermath of the protests.

I’m afraid of where this is heading.

“Let them try to seize me. Let them try to destroy me. I think this will lead to a great deal of bloodshed, which no one will be able to justify,” Bakiev said. “Those who are causing unrest in Bishkek now are trying to divide the country into the north and the south. That should not be allowed to happen.”

Add to this mess those stories mentioned in the comments here and elsewhere, and it becomes increasingly confusing.  A Peace Corps Volunteer serving in Naryn reports relative calm, analysts look for Russian and American puppetry, and even the unflappable folks at Eurasia.net have posted two strangely opposing stories (though you may agree that their premises are not mutually exclusive):

Kyrgyzstan wants to be neutral between Russians and Americans

Kyrgyzstan wants to suckle at the teat of the Great Russian Mother Bear

One assumes the next story will be:
Kyrgyzstan would like to continue to suckle at America’s teat, as well…

In any event, I have a story of non-sequitur goodness, though related to Manas:

US Charity from Utah arrives at Manas ‘just in time’

It’s not a revolution – Joshua Keating

Kyrgyzstan’s Analog Revolution – Evgeny Morozov

Keating’s piece does include this fair representation of events:

Outside observers have fallen into this trap before, Quinn-Judge, who was Time magazine’s Moscow bureau chief from 1996-2006, noted. “The ‘Tulip Revolution’ wasn’t a revolution. It was we journalists who called it that, or at least allowed our editors to call it that, who are to blame for that distortion of history.”“It was a fairly well-crafted, concerted extra-constitutional reshuffle of the government whereby some key former members of the government pushed out the government.”

Quinn-Judge says the discontent with Bakiyev’s government that led to today’s events has been building for weeks, and was driven less by political repression than by bread and butter issues.

I understand that the Tulip Revolution had little in common with the other color-coded movements, but wouldn’t the events in Kyrgyzstan today be more like the “real thing?”  I don’t assume that the Russian Revolutions (yes, more than one) of the teens of the twentieth century were devoid of violence and senseless looting.  Some journalists point to the looting and say, “Not a Revolution,” that it’s being fueled more by hungry thugs looking to steal flatscreens from the parliament hall.  Might that just be the consequence of the failure of the rule of law?  That failure itself IS the revolution’s beginning, no?

Morozov’s piece accepts that it is a Revolution, and also that it is as I said – more like the real thing.  However, part of his evidence goes in direct opposition to Sarah’s piece – targeting the lack of social media and networking buzz.

In short: why is there no Twitter revolution in Kyrgyzstan? Becuase there is no one to hype it up.

I am in agreement, but I think we should be more suspicious of those situations that ARE hyped up, like his model of the Iranian Election twitter blow up.  Look to Tehrangeles and the Californian Iranian population first.  The same might be said of any and all newsworthy Armenian stories.  Not that there is no news, but that the news does not proclaim itself on FOX, MSNBC, CNN, etc.  The news that is important to its viewers – that is the stuff that makes the news crawler and commentary shows.

What Kyrgyz diaspora is going to come to the defense of the situation?  Perhaps the hordes of Kyrgyz workers in Russia – but they might be too busy dodging punches from Russian nationalists.

Morozov goes on to remind us of his expertise…

I’ve also omitted any discussion about the regional dimensions to this revolution, for the example, the split between Kyrgyzstan’s North and South and how both regions were communicating with the capital, and how what happened in each reinforced/undermined developments elsewhere. I’m well aware of that.

Well aware, but not sure it has anything to do with your article’s thesis?  If someone wanted to comment on whether or not these events were a Revolution, they’d better go back to 1991 at least, and chart the rise and fall of various power zones in the region, and in the various oblasts inside the country itself.

I myself am waiting to see Kazakhstan’s and Uzbekistan’s reaction to this — and mayhaps Tajikistan’s as well?

For the last time, people.  This is not only an ecological problem – this is a political problem.  Unless the UN wants to repeat the idiocies of the international community of the 1990s, pouring millions of Western tax dollars into the coffers of exceedingly corrupt political systems, they need to watch out.  And I understand that this lake might indeed be a “shocker for Ki-moon” as the story relates, but whose fault is that?  It would be similarly not-news-worthy if Glenn Beck dropped a reference to the disappearing Aral Sea – “this just in, folks – Socialism Kills Nature!  I found these pictures on the internet!”

[If you are reading this on Facebook, you're not seeing the picture I'm referring to - head to peaceclog.wordpress.com]

I’m not sure if this means I have a future in photoshop ahead of me.  No, no, this is not a real picture – I just imagined Glenn Beck in front of his Blackboard, and then it was one step to have him turn into my 10th grade “Global Issues” teacher, ranting about the undeveloped world’s burden on the back of the West in front of maps of Asia and Africa.  Kindred spirits all.  [Shudder]

Below the jump you’ll see a little piece of text I produced per request of some folks working in the Indiana school system.  With all the talk of Texas School Board stupidity and loss of education funding across the country, I thought Registan readers might be slightly heartened to hear that Indiana has included some “Central Asian” talking points in their Social Studies educational standards.  The problem is that there’s very little written in current text books – which is where the university system is asked to step in and offer some help.

I wrote the following “narrative” about the Aral Sea at the request of a teacher resource group – the folks with pedagogical experience – in order that they might create some lesson plans and focused one-day, one-week, and longer term lessons for teachers of 9th and 10th grade Social Studies classes.  For those unfamiliar with the US’s educational system, our national standards are only one part of the puzzle.  There are also state standards, and sometimes even more specified district standards.  We generally do not have “History” and “Geography” and “Civics” classes like I witnessed in Europe and Asia, but more integrated subjects considering the relationships between Geography and History, etc.  What this means is that most American citizens cannot tell you how much ocean front property Arizona has [trick question] but probably can spout off a couple reasons for the redrawing of maps before and after wars in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Don’t worry – they aren’t taking my word alone on this matter, and this narrative was written using quite a bit of scholarship.  This is merely the “narrative” form, not the scholarship form.  Your comments and cuss words are, as always, welcome.

The Aral Sea: Need To Know

_The desiccation and disappearance of the Aral Sea is one of the greatest ecological disasters ever attributed to human error.  However, the truth of the situation defies a simple explanation.  There were many players involved, none of whom easily characterized by single driving motivations.  The purpose of this narrative will be to give a brief overview of the primary factors acting on the Aral Sea, including a brief introduction to the long-term history of the Aral Sea.  This should allow the reader to gain some perspective of both the severity of the situation and its relative place in history.  In other words, instead of serving as a simple yet terrifying cautionary tale, the Aral Sea’s current situation can teach students of the wide-ranging effects caused by ignoring the consequences of actions seeking to alter the balances already existing in nature.

Where is the Aral Sea?

The Aral Sea, or the large dry seabed where the Aral Sea used to be, can be found in Central Asia.  It lies is a large depression, not far from the lowest point in Central Asia – the depression near the Caspian Sea.  These two seas – the Caspian and the Aral – were joined in antiquity, both being originally connected with the Black Sea and the World Ocean through the Mediterranean Sea.  The climate in Central Asia is severely continental due to its distance from the oceans, separated from the tropical floodplains of India by the mountains of the Roof of the World, including the Pamir Mountains of Tajikistan and the Himalayan Mountains of northern India and Nepal.  Central Asia is separated from the heavily populated agricultural lands of eastern China by the deserts of western China and the Tien Shan and Altay mountains.  The Mediterranean climate is blocked from entering Central Asia by the Caucasus ranges and the lower Elburz Mountains of northern Iran.  The only clear elevation from Central Asia lies to the north, the great steppe stretching from Mongolia to Hungary, broken up by the Ural Mountains and the mighty Volga river of European Russia.  North of steppe lies the taiga, and beyond that the inhospitable permafrost of the Siberian tundra.  The political and cultural isolation of Central Asia, then, can be interpreted as a consequence of its geographic isolation, lying inside a horseshoe of mountainous and desert terrain stretching thousands of miles from China to Russia, dipping down to northern India and Iran in a gigantic letter “U.”

The isolation of the Aral Sea is compounded by its landlocked status.  Central Asia is like a giant bowl in many ways.  In most places in the United States, for example, rain water and runoff from agriculture eventually flows through streams, lakes, and rivers to the Atlantic, Pacific, or Arctic Oceans.  In the case of Central Asia, only in north and east of Kazakhstan do rivers flow to the Ocean across thousands of icy miles of taiga and tundra to the frozen Arctic.  In most of Central Asia, the only exit for water is through evaporation, as water will only flow into deserts to disappear beneath the sands or into one of several salty lakes, the largest of which is the Caspian Sea, the world’s largest lake.  All of the area’s lakes that lack outlets are salty, though to various degrees.  The Aral Sea at its 1960 level was fresh enough to support various species of fresh and salt water fish, though today only brine shrimp can survive in the southern remaining sections.  Lake Balkhash, in eastern Kazakhstan, is half fresh and half salty.  In the half closest to the Ili River, the source of the majority of its inflowing water, the lake’s water is fresh enough for drinking.  In the northeastern half, however, the rate of evaporation and lack of outflow have resulted in much saltier water, supporting a very different ecosystem.

Origins of the Aral Sea

The Caspian, Black, and Aral Seas were once interconnected, at some point in the distant past.  They are all fossils, the remnants of a vast shallow sea covering much of Western Asia.  The Tethys Ocean existed for millions of years, until shrinking into two parts about 90 million years ago.  These seas separated Eurasia from Africa – the Tethys Sea and Para-Tethys Sea.  The Tethys see connected the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, flowing through and covering much of modern-day Iraq, Jordan, Israel, and Syria.  The Para-Tethys lay to the north, connecting the Caspian, Aral, and Black Seas by covering southern Ukraine and Russia, and the Caucasus.  Both the Tethys and Para-Tethys were connected to the World Ocean, which meant they had salty water and many ocean-specific species of fish.

At what point the Aral Sea finally separated from the Caspian is unknown.  The Caucasus Mountains separated the Caspian-Aral from the World Ocean.  From that point onward the two seas became increasingly salty, though the Caspian has retained a steady level thanks to the inflow of the Volga River, the largest river in Europe.  The Aral Sea similarly maintained a relatively low level salt thanks to the inflow of the two largest rivers in Central Asia – the Amu and the Syr.

Lifeblood of Central Asia

The Aral Sea, once separated from the Caspian Sea, was completely dependent on inflow from its two major feeder rivers.  Most of Central Asia is exceedingly dry, and the area around the Aral Sea is no different, receiving less than 4 inches of rainfall every year.  The two rivers of Central Asia both rise from the mountains of the Roof of the World before snaking across the deserts towards the Aral Sea.  They have been known to scholars throughout history, and Alexander the Great famously crossed the Amu on his march of conquest towards India.  At that time, the rivers were called the Jaxartes and Oxus by the Greeks.  For this reason, some historians still refer to Central Asia as Transoxiana, meaning “land beyond the River Oxus.” After the Arab Conquest and the rise of Islam in Central Asia, the two rivers were named Sayhoun and Jayhoun, two of the four rivers flowing from Paradise.  Today the rivers are known by their Persian names Syr Darya and Amu Darya.  “Darya” means “river” or “lake” in Persian.  The Amu Darya has been referred to as the “River Ocean,” because of the vast amount of water that it carries.  In short, it is the lack of water reaching the ends of their course, especially from the Amu Darya, that has caused the disappearance of the Aral Sea.

Aral Sea throughout History

Due to its reliance on the inflow of glacial melt-water from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, the Aral Sea has changed shape more or less continuously through history.  Another factor to consider is the appearance and disappearance of rivers connecting the Aral Sea to the Caspian Sea.  One such river existed recently enough to be mentioned in historical sources, and it can be found on satellite images.  The Uzboy River flowed across the desert between the Aral and Caspian Seas, allowing navigation by small boat between cities on the Caspian and the large caravan cities of Central Asia.  This loss of inflow, as the Uzboy was a branch of the Amu Darya, caused the Aral Sea to shrink significantly.  Contrariwise, when the Uzboy dried up, there was a significant increase that flooded the lowlands and wetlands around the shore of Aral Sea.  This gives rise to the reason for the Aral Sea’s name, as ‘aral’ means “island.”  The shallow areas of the sea were a patchwork quilt of thousands of low islands, many large enough to be used as pasturage for sheep and other livestock.

There is evidence of the changing sea shore on the dry lake bed today.  Remains of cities and mausoleums (burial places) have been found in areas that in 1960 were under 60 feet (18 meters) of water.

The Aral Sea 1960 – 2010

Beginning in 1960, the loss of water to the Aral Sea from over-cultivation of the desert became noticeable to scientists working in the Soviet Union.  The Aral Sea at that time was located entirely inside one country (the USSR), though on the border between two of its Union Republics: the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic and the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic.  Both were run by local Communist Party members loyal to Moscow.  From 1960 to 1970, the level of the Aral Sea fell by an average of 7 inches (20 cm) each year.  However, the rate increased dramatically from 1970 to 1979, when the water fell by an average of 22 inches (55 cm) each year.  In the 1980s, the final decade of the Soviet Union, the Aral Sea continued to flee its shores at the unbelievable rate of 33 inches (85 cm) per year.  Part of the reason for the increased shrinkage was the increased rate of evaporation as the water became increasingly shallow and warm.

The loss of the Aral Sea was not a surprise to Soviet scientists and development planners, who considered it a doomed sea.  The water was to be used for productive purposes, though the local people were not educated about this official opinion.

What, then, was lost with the Aral Sea?  For beginners, a thriving fishing industry and two major port towns left without their businesses –  Moynoq in the south and Aralsk in the north.  Today they are in two different countries, but when the Aral Sea still reached their shores, they were both important towns in the Soviet Union.  They are now broken ghost towns in the independent Republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, respectively.

With the loss of the Aral Sea, the climate in the region has become markedly more severe, with winter temperatures commonly dipping below negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit and Celsius, and summer temperatures nearing 130 degrees Fahrenheit (50 degrees Celsius).  The winds that used to bring cooled air from the sea now carry dust and salt from the dried up lake bed, and even carry some other poisonous chemicals.  The reason is that as the water dried up, it exposed all the chemicals that had flowed in the Aral Sea from the agricultural run-off; pesticides, fertilizers, herbicides, and other chemicals used to grow more cotton in increasingly salty and infertile soil.  This poisonous dust is thought by doctors to be the primary cause for the human cost of the Aral Sea’s disappearance: the highest rates for lung disease in the entire world are found near the vanished Aral Sea.

Moreover, the Eastern shore of the Aral Sea between the Syr Darya and Amu Darya deltas used to be home to a unique ecosystem of jungle-like forested lands, home to deer and large carnivores, including a species of tiger.  The tigers were hunted to extinction, and the deer and other creatures have lost 100% of their habitat as the area became desert.  Naturally, all species of fish and other wildlife native to the Aral Sea have disappeared, though some river fish have been reintroduced in areas where dams have created small lakes on the Aral Sea’s bed.

What killed the Aral Sea?

We have seen how the Aral Sea has changed over time because of shifting river beds and geologic changes on the Earth’s surface.  But what made the sea disappear altogether?  Even though it seems different, it is essentially caused by the same factors – not enough water from the rivers, the Amu Darya and Syr Darya, is reaching the Aral Sea.  The short answer to the question above is water management and irrigation, though many people prefer to blame simpler ideas like Cotton or the Soviet Union.  They also played a part.

Central Asia’s population depends on, and has always depended on, irrigation for almost all of its agriculture, as most of the land receives insufficient rainfall to grow food crops.  For this reason, irrigation in the region dates back to prehistoric times.  Archaeologists have found the remnants of complex piping systems in the older towns and cities, including indoor plumbing and mass-produced clay pipes for small farm irrigation.  In other words, irrigation itself is a part of the history of the region, and should not be considered the sole cause of the loss of the Aral Sea.

The problem, then, is one of degree, of severity.  Irrigation to grow food crops pulled very little water from the region’s rivers, and increased cultivation of the desert land actually improved the climate as more trees and green cover helped to stop the extreme temperature shifts often found in deserts.  Two other ingredients were added, though, which spelled the doom of the Aral Sea: Cotton and the Soviet Union.

Cotton has long been grown in the region, but it was the worldwide cotton shortage of the mid-19^th century caused by the American Civil War which caused the Russian Empire to consider planting more cotton in the area of Central Asia that had recently been conquered.  Cotton requires a lot of sun and a lot of water to grow well.  With irrigation, Central Asia was the perfect place for cotton cultivation.  It remains so today, with Uzbekistan still in the top three cotton exporters – though it is far behind in overall cotton production.  In fact, its high export rate also reflects the fact that it sells only the raw materials, forcing Uzbekistan to import finished products like clothing when it could be producing them itself.

The Soviet Union arose from the ashes of the Russian Empire early in the 20^th century.  In the 1930s, collectivization reached Central Asia from Moscow.  Collectivization was the centralizing and gathering of all privately-owned land, especially farms and factories, into humongous state-owned, state-controlled farms and factories.  Instead of a patchwork of food and cotton farms run by private individuals with carefully maintained irrigation networks, the Soviet Union built gigantic farms with nothing but cotton, supported by large unlined and poorly maintained irrigation canals.  These canals lost as much as half of their water before reaching the crops and were sometimes so large that ships could use them to navigate, adding to the pollution from agricultural chemicals.

This change was not popular with the farmers, but it could not be stopped.  The central government in Moscow made a lot of money, and rewarded the local governments that controlled the farmers.  This system is largely still in place today, especially in Uzbekistan, which is why the Aral Sea has continued to shrink.  The government continues to be the sole benefactor of this system, paying pennies for each pound of cotton that it sells to foreign factories at very high profits.  Although Uzbekistan proclaimed itself a democracy at its independence in 1991, there is no separation of powers, and President Karimov has been in power since before the fall of the Soviet Union.  In other words, his transition from First Secretary of the Communist Party to President of independent Uzbekistan was not a difficult one, as little changed in the country.

Finally, it should be said that the international community has attempted reforms and conservation plans in the region.  These, too, have served to enrich Karimov’s regime, as corruption and embezzling have funneled these international aid funds into government pockets.  Change in the Aral Sea is unlikely to precede change in Uzbekistan.

This film’s premise is laudable – that we shouldn’t be afraid to die, and that death isn’t just a part of life, but actually a rebirth.  It mixes all manner of religious imagery to get that point across – basically everything but Judaism, Islam, and Kazakh Shamanism make an appearance, religiously speaking.  That’s all well and good, and I’m willing to admit that director Aronofsky paid close attention in that Comparative Religion course he took in school.  But the story isn’t just poorly told — it’s horrid.  If you watch closely enough to follow the threads, pulled apart as they are by flash-cuts and costume changes, you’re rewarded with the most confusing picture of history ever created.  In short, not one of the historical settings is plausible in any way.  The film takes an arbitrary number of years and divides the players – 500 years, in this case – between scenes in 1500, 2000, and 2500 years after the birth of Christ.  The roles are essentially the same – Hugh Jackman as the hard-working hero who ceaselessly fights death, and Rachel Weisz as the dynamic female interest, at first afraid of death, than embracing it, and finally only existing as hallucination to Future Hugh.  Let’s break them down:

1500 AD – Spain and New Spain

Real Queen of Spain

This is just bizarre beyond the words.  The director mentions in the commentary that the set is Seville and New Spain – aka, Spain and Central America.  Jackman and Weisz play a Conquistador and a reigning Sovereign, respectively.  Right off the bat, someone with a little background in world history can see that the Spanish set, the palace of  “Seville,” is copied exactly from the famous mosque-turned-Cathedral in Cordoba.  It wouldn’t take much to change the plot to

match the discrepancy, but if you just don’t care, let the art department do what they want.  As for New Spain and the Conquistador, this is supposed to be 1500 AD – and New Spain doesn’t come into existence for another 30 years.  In 1500 the very first contact between Spain and the New World hadn’t even happened, as Columbus first reaches Honduras in 1502, and he was no Conquistador, as the character in this film is named.

The Queen is apparently Isabella I (Isabel in Spanish), though she would have been almost 50 in 1500, so it’s shocking to see her played as young, beautiful, and

alone on the throne.  In the film, the King is absent, and the Inquisition is being managed by the church against Spain, and Isabella is afraid to confront the church, lest all of Europe turn against her.

Real Rachel Weisz

In Real Life, none of that is true.  Isabella herself called for the Inquisition, though she was not alone.  The rest of Europe

wouldn’t have cared either way, considering this was after the Reformation and the spread of Protestantism – it was this very fact that pushed the Pope in

Rome to allow the Inquisition of the recent Converts in the first place.  Isabella I was a devout Catholic and considered herself as one of its most powerful defenders.  With the reconquest of southern

Spain from the Muslims, she forced the expulsion or conversion of all the non-Catholics.  The issue a

t hand was that Conversion was too easy, and too easily faked.  It was the Converts that made Isabella and others nervous, as these former Jews and Muslims retained their power and wealth, without truly adhering to the laws of the Church.  Whether or not that was true would make a much better movie, I think.  Were the Inquisitors driven by greed for the wealth an

d importance of the Converts, or merely concerned with the state of their souls?

Can you tell which one was actually Queen of Spain?  Both claim to portray Isabella I, circa 1500.

2000 AD – Somewhere in America

This is the least annoying part of the movie, but I know enough of medical studies to seriously doubt any University or Pharmaceutical Company would fund research headed by a doctor so personally involved with the subject.  Jackman as the doctor repeatedly jeopardizes what is clearly years of work and millions of dollars in research, due to the sensitive nature of his wife’s terminal cancer and the “miracle cure” he is trying to prepare.

2500 AD – In space, en route to Xibalba, the Mayan Underword/Afterlife [really]

This was the weirdest piece of the movie, but the least distressing – it’s the future, right?  Can’t knock the future.

In the future, we'll all live in Desktop Backgrounds.

In any event, it’s clear that Aronofsky didn’t get what he wanted, either.  Originally the film was to star Brad Pitt opposite Cate Blanchett, which I think would have made the movie even more memorably awful.  That fell apart, so he got Jackman and his real-life lover Weisz instead.  If you want to see what truly awful film-making looks like, see this film.  If you’re woefully ignorant of Spanish History, you’ll probably only be slightly annoyed, instead of royally pissed off.  I didn’t even get to the portrayal of conspicuous minority figures in the supporting/traitorous roles… sigh…

I bet I would have liked this movie 10 years ago.  Hey… isn’t that the last time I saw an Aronofsky film?  And I loved it.

They gave us corn, turkeys, and pumpkins, and we gave them smallpox blankets and whiskey.

More depressing is that it turns out she was only quoting this cute little video.  I’m not sure if she knew she was quoting it, but still.  This caused me to stop working with my conversation partner and snap out the words, “That’s a hoax.  Maybe you don’t know, but that never happened.”  And I realize that this is one of those things that most people are happy to accept without critical analysis of the proof.  Should someone show me proof counter to what I’m about to share with you, I will happily recant.

First, let me state my hypothesis.

The Smallpox Blanket method of germ warfare is a hoax, supported by desires but not facts.

Yes, the indigenous population of the Americas was largely wiped out by European action, both conscious and accidental.  Disease was, by most accounts, the most lethal of those things brought from Europe.  It’s a very modern, and I would suggest anachronistic [ie inappropriate for the time period], idea that these actions can be termed “germ warfare” or even “genocide.”  It’s more realistic to consider the sad trudge of history as a series of nonsensical actions accomplished by people living the best they can with very incomplete information.  In hindsight, historians have a nasty habit of infusing reason and forethought into the heads of those people living in the moment, but anachronistically.  We long to see logic and continuity where little or none, in reality, actually exists.  The Russian Empire is a fantastic example, where historians assume some kind of continuity from one tsar to the next.  In reality, just like in our crazy day-to-day lives, most people are just making it up as they go along, albeit to the best of their ability, and within the realm of precedents and norms they have accepted.

The depopulation of the Americas happened.  The Native Americans were on the receiving end of centuries of war and political maneuvering for the gain and profit of incoming populations from the Old World, and then for the gain and profit of their now native-sons, the inhabitants of the United States and other territories, colonies,  and independent states of the Americas.

But was it engineered?  Was it a genocide?  I’d argue that no, it wasn’t.  Genocide and ethnic cleansing are phrases tossed around easily.  Rather like blaming the Black Death on the Jews of Medieval Europe, it is putting agency and motive retroactively in the hands of the population that seemed to gain by the death of the unfortunates.  Complicating matters, at least in the case of the indigenous population of the Americas, was the lack of substitute animal milk, which had a profound negative impact on the growth and recuperative abilities of their populations in difficult times. [1]

Now, did the incoming Europeans know about the Smallpox contagion and its ability to live outside the body?  Not really, though their is proof that at least some British officers wanted to somehow pass the disease on to their native adversaries.  You can read the exchange, out of context, at the Straight Dope.  It involves two different exchanges – that between General Amherst and Colonel Bouquet during the Siege of Fort Pitt, as well as a journal entry from the militia leader of the city around Fort Pitt, Pittsburgh.  This occurred during the French and Indian War.  The British colonists were attempting to fight incoming French soldiers and their Indian allies, some of whom had recently been allied to the British.  It was the recent switching of sides, accompanied by the slaughter of unarmed settlers, that so upset the General.  He viewed the traitorous Indians as subhuman, and wanted to construct a way to give the Indians smallpox without putting his own men at risk.  This is the age-old problem of smallpox and similar germ warfare – the boomerang effect.

However, the same sources utilized by the Straight Dope version of the story have been also put to work in a defense[2], pointing out that while blankets were given by the militia leader to visiting natives, the journal points out that it was out of concern for the cold weather, and that they were “good” Indians still allied with Fort Pitt, people the British colonists would want to stay healthy.

It should also be mentioned that Bouqet was not certain whether the blankets would succeed in spreading smallpox.  Blankets are not traditionally considered  a path of contagion.  This is actually understandable, as medical tests have shown cloth is a very poor vector.  Smallpox is caught, like the common cold, through the nose, and even sleeping with the blankets would not necessitate infection.

According to the U.S. Government’s book Medical Aspects of Chemical and Biological Warfare, the smallpox EEV is highly stable and can retain its infectivity for long periods outside the host; however, sunlight and air greatly reduce the viability of virus particles. Smallpox is highly infectious when spread by aerosol, but infectivity from contaminated cotton bedding is infrequent (Bull. WHO 1957, 16:247-254), because the virus must enter through the nose to create infection. Thus, although it is certainly not impossible for a blanket to carry smallpox, transmission by blankets would be inefficient at best.[3]

Thus, it is much more likely that smallpox spread through human contact.

One epedemiologist has even suggested that an unknown, but probably large, portion of the death of indigenous populations during the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica was a native strain of hemorrhagic fever. [4]  This is controversial, considering it is only a few years old and flies in the face of the standard interpretation of 80% fatality at the hands of Spanish-born smallpox and other diseases.

So, where did all the madness about genocidal US leadership making it Army policy to hand out smallpox blankets to Native Americans in the Western territories?  It has actually been part of oral history in the area that smallpox was brought to the West by white settlers, not at the hands of army agents.  However, starting in the early 1990s, Ward Churchill, former professor of ethnic studies at the University of Colorado, began publishing articles, first under pen names, and then under his own name, claiming that the 1836 smallpox epidemic of the Plains Indians was a planned genocide controlled by the Army.  Mr. Churchill made a splash in the national press after 2001 with a paper claiming that 9-11 was a response in kind from the world in return for the injustice of American foreign politics.[5]

As an aside, allow me to quote the Wikipedia article on Mr. Churchill, pointing that this is a man of conflicted personal identity with little continuity in his personal claims.  He is either unconcerned with the facts in the face of his political arguments, or deeply troubled and unstable.

In 2003, Churchill stated, “I am myself of Muscogee and Creek descent on my father’s side, Cherokee on my mother’s, and am an enrolled member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians.” In 1992, Churchill wrote elsewhere that he is one-eighth Creek and one-sixteenth Cherokee. In 1993, Churchill told the Colorado Daily that, “he was one-sixteenth Creek and Cherokee.” Churchill told the Denver Post in February 2005 that he is three-sixteenths Cherokee.

The United Keetoowah Band clarified that Churchill was never an enrolled member, but was awarded an honorary associate membership in May 1994, as were Bill Clinton and others;  honorary associate membership recognizes assistance to the tribe, but does not indicate Indian ancestry or enrollment. The Keetoowah Band states that Churchill still holds the honorary associate membership, that it hasn’t been rescinded, and that the Keetoowah Band stopped recognizing such memberships in 1994.

The Rocky Mountain News, in 2005, published a genealogy of Churchill, and reported “no evidence of a single Indian ancestor” [of Churchill's]. The News reported that both of Churchill’s birth parents were listed as white on the 1930 census, as were all of his other known ancestors on previous censuses and other official documents.  However, it confirmed that there had been a longstanding belief in Indian ancestry in Churchill’s family[6].

To finish this article, let me point you to a brilliant essay that reads like a polemic, but is really nothing more than a point-by-point refutation of every assertion ever made by Churchill in the way of Native American genocide.  The author, Thomas Brown, had been the recipient of professional attacks by Mr. Churchill, and was publishing a public account of the claims made by Churchill, while checking Churchill’s sources and debunking his arguments.  Thomas Brown is a professor of sociology.

In this analysis of the genocide rhetoric em- ployed over the years by Ward Churchill, an ethnic studies professor at the University of Colorado, a “distressing” conclusion is reached: Churchill has habitually committed multiple counts of research misconduct–specifically, fabrication and falsifica- tion. While acknowledging the “politicization” of the topic and evidence of other outrages committed against Native American tribes in times past, this study examines the different versions of the “smallpox blankets” episode published by Churchill between 1994 and 2003. The “preponderance of evidence” standard of proof strongly indicates that Churchill fabricated events that never occurred– namely the U.S. Army’s alleged distribution of small- pox infested blankets to the Mandan Indians in 1837. The analysis additionally reveals that Chur- chill falsified sources to support his fabricated ver- sion of events, and also concealed evidence in his cited sources that actually disconfirms, rather than substantiates, his allegations of genocide[7].

1. Fernand Braudel, The Structures of Everyday Life: The Limits of the Possible, New York: Harper & Row, 1981; 36. See also: Jared Diamond, Germs, Guns, and Steel.

2.T.J. Nelson (July 27, 2003). “Smallpox, Indians, and Germ Warfare“.

3. Ibid.

4. Rodolfo Acuna-Soto; David W. Stahle, Malcolm K. Cleaveland, and Matthew D. Therrell (April 2002). “Megadrought and Megadeath in 16th Century Mexico“.

5. Churchill, Ward.  Some People Push Back.

6. See the Article: Ward Churchill

I took my camera along, and I decided that some of the pictures would make wonderful computer background wallpapers to remind us all of what a joy the fall can be.  You’ll find four computer resolutions available, including my own super wide screen version, 1600 x 1200.  All pictures are property of me, Michael Hancock, lovingly donated to the internet, though I would love to get credit!  The scene is lovely Brown County State Park, including Strahl Lake.

There are four of each, going from small to large.  In other words, the first is 800×600, the second 1024×768, the next 1280×1024, and the last 1600×1200.

The title of my previous post at Registan.net, Our Other Perennial Theme, has several layers of meaning. In my fatalism, I consider it perennial not just because I also covered it last year, but because we are likely to continue to cover the issue. That’s what “authoritarian government” means. In other words, if Karimov was the type to be swayed by public opinion, he wouldn’t be where he is today. He may be swayed by economic opinions, but that’s a tougher row to hoe. Unlike poverty or blindness, this is not an unstoppable part of the human condition – a person should be able to imagine a future without Uzbek children picking cotton. Then again, that is something much easier for Americans to visualize than for Uzbeks, in my opinion.

In any event, there is a rally planned for October 14th, and if you’re in the area, I think it would behoove you all to go and see what happens. Here is the scoop, from the AFL-CIO blog –

Earlier this month, the U.S. Labor Department included cotton from Uzbekistan on a list of goods produced by forced and child labor. Each year during the three-month harvest, Uzbek authorities shut down hundreds of schools, hospitals and public offices. Along with the children, thousands of teachers, doctors and public administrators are forced into the fields.

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) has joined with AFT and a broad range of organizations in the United States and Central Asia to call for an end to forced child labor in Uzbekistan. You can act today to stop this shameful practice by signing a petition here.

All supporters who sign the petition by Oct. 2 will have their names put on a special cotton quilt that will be unveiled at a rally in front of the Uzbek embassy in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 14. To get more involved in this action, e-mail volunteer@ilrf.org.

As a child of Flint, Michigan, I have a pretty personal relationship with labor unions, probably as close as one can be without being an active member. The same people that brought you and I the weekend are trying to muster some political muscle and stop child labor in Uzbekistan. It is a noble goal, though I again assume that it isn’t 100% altruism at work. Their own story again states that children from 6 to 15, and only children from 6 to 15, are responsible for the Uzbek cotton harvest. You might think this is splitting hairs, but that’s just not true. But I admit this is an academic point for those most incensed about this issue. It remains that anyone working in Uzbekistan under the age of 16 is now doing so illegally.

The US Department of Labor put out a list of child labor exploiters, and Kohl’s has followed the lead of other US retailers in ending its contracts with Uzbekistan, as reported on Fergana.ru.

Following in the steps of other retailers and clothes-makers throughout Europe and the United States, Kohl’s voided its Uzbek contracts earlier this month. This company owns more than 1,000 stores in 49 states. It is known as one of America’s 500 largest businesses and one of 30 top sellers of accoutrements.

Allow me to make one point in here, relevant to issue as a whole. Much has been said about Uzbekistan’s ginormous cotton crop, being either number 2, or number 3, or number 6 in the world. Let’s take a moment to do a brain exercise, and then really look at the numbers. First off, how does Uzbekistan harvest its cotton? By employing an army of young people to hand pick the cotton, put it in bags, and then process it back at the collective farm cotton gin. How does the United States harvest cotton? With all-in-one harvesters that drive over cotton fields and leave processed cotton modules in their wake. How will this effect productivity? So, Uzbekistan is definitely not competing with the United States [number later], but what about exporting, not production? Is that really something to be proud of? It implies you are producing more than you need – but don’t Uzbek people wear cotton clothing, also? Why not build more textile factories, and buy their own cotton cheaply, and then sell clothing on the world market, or at least for themselves? The economics make very little sense, and the environmental and health costs are staggering, to say the least.

So, the numbers:

According to the National Cotton Council, the top producers of Cotton are: China [25.3 million bales], India [20.5 million bales], the US [19.2 million bales], Pakistan [11.7 million bales] Brazil [7.2 million bales], Uzbekistan [5.5 million bales], and Turkey [3.2 million bales]. Thus, Uzbekistan is not really in the running for effective and monumental production of cotton, making slightly more than Turkey, and only one fifth of the top producer, one quarter of number two.

To make things more complicated, the leading cotton exporters in the world are actually the US and India, ahead of Uzbekistan, according again to the National Cotton Council. So, if the US is exporting cotton, Uzbekistan is in direct competition with them, and this is one more way for the US Government to protect US cotton farmers. Call me a fatalist or a cynic, but as someone that has spent some time with Uzbeks in Uzbekistan, dated an ex-cotton picker, has written at length about the deplorable aspects of Karimov and company, I’m not trying to defend anything in Uzbekistan. I’m merely explaining why things haven’t changed up to this point, in my opinion.