Different Stans

Berdymukhamedov totally coopts a Turkmen singer — and his song.

Remember when Bruce Pannier of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty blogged about how shamefully Turkmen President Berdymukhamedov plagiarized a tune and sung it as his own during his birthday celebrations on TV?

It turned out the song that Berdy said he had penned himself, "For You, My White Flower," was in fact visible on Youtube back in 2009, sung by a Turkmen crooner named Dovlet Amanlykov, and called "On My Wedding Day".

I remember listening to both of the videos and thinking, wow, not only is the song exactly alike, the voice sounds exactly alike! How does he do it?

Well, it turns out that the reason they sound so alike is that the Turkmen leader may have actually had the same guy on stage while he was singing. Can you imagine?! This is what is revealed from another video uploaded in December from another time the president played "his" song.

Here's a clip from the 2009 video of Dovlet singing:

And here's a screenshot from the 2011 video where he is shown signing again, on stage, with Berdymukhamedov, apparently for a New Year's concert (there's a tree on stage):

Amazing!

Someone named ramzayi1 posted this video of Berdymukhamedov's concert on Youtube (see above) in December 2011 that has much more close-up footage, filmed right near the stage.

In the June version of the song, uploaded by the same user, ramzayi1 and published by RFE/RL, you see a lot of lights and smoke and a large screen of Berdy playing, but you never see what else is on stage. In fact, right when Dovlet in fact seems to come on (if you listen closely), the camera pans over the adoring fans in the crowd practically swooning to Berdy's song. This is all for state TV.

In ramzayi1's later version above, which he calls Turkmen president singing ver 2.0, you see the drummer playing a long "Drums and Space" type of Grateful Dead lead-in, then you see a paunchy Berdy in his chartreuse golfing sweater appear and strum along, and then you see him stand up at the end of the drum solo, and walk out on stage with his guitar, but his mouth isn't moving. Yet singing is coming out!

The camera then pans to a plump-faced fellow in a red bow-tie — that's Dovlet! It has to be — not only does it look like him, it's clear that it's his voice (when you compare to the 2009 video).

Then what the Turkmen president does is lamely sing along in a duet. That seemed like dubbing when you couldn't see how it was put together; now you see what it actually is.

Much of rahayi1's footage even blocks out Dovlet — there's a large New Year's tree and other decorations in the way.

Now why did the Turkmen president bring Dovlet on stage for the New Year's concert, after stealing his song? (And did he even have him on stage in June?!)

Probably because it got to be such a meme among Turkmen music-lovers, who manage to see Youtube at least in small numbers despite it being blocked entirely in their country, that he had to think up something to account for himself!

So Dovlet is doubly coopted — his song is taken, and then he is brought on stage to sing an unacknowledged duet with the president — that he may have also sang in June. The lamer, older voice of the president can be heard in the forced duet. So sad!

Well, this is weird, a Turkmen boy in a contest of tongue-twisters in Russian and English.

You get a glimpse of life in the Turkmen school, where both Turkmens and Russians are studying together and not all in the complete regulation uniforms.

This is from br3itain, the same person who uploaded the clip of the graduation ceremony in Abadan — you wonder what he was doing there.

Neweurasia's Annasoltan has a gripe about the pan-Turkic Eurasia Star song contest — she feels it was badly organized and a "a lost opportunity to experiment with electronic direct democracy."

I can't really speak to the organizational issue, I don't know if this has anyything to do with any antipathy of any kind that the Turkmen government has to its chief trading partner (now after China) and regional soul mate, Turkey.

You can see Berdymukhamedov's mug beaming in most of the beginning of this over-produced video, and I imagine the authorities had the whole thing very locked down. Those choreographed kids in the national costumes/uniforms come out smiling like puppets, and then Sohbet Kasymov, a fifth-year student of the Department of Theater Art of the Institute of Culture of Turkmenistan, comes on to sing one of those saccharine tunes that sounds part Bollywood, part Turkish YouTube crooner, with some Turkmenistan national stuff in there somewhere….I think. It's good to remember that Turkmenistan is, well, a Turkic country and has songs like this.

He isn't my favourite — there are other Youtube artists from Turkmenistan that I think are more lively but he's accomplished and a credit to his nation.

But I do want to say that "direct democracy" is not something to praise unconditionally. Of course, the sectarian left at Neweurasia love that sort of thing — as we know Christopher is very enamored of all things cyberspace (I sparred with him over Jeff Jarvis).  "Direct democracy" — especially in authoritarian settings — has a lot of built-in problems — manipulation, lack of information, lack of informedness, etc.

I do think people in Turkmenistan have more cell phone and Internet than we imagine and even more satellite dishes than we imagine because people just often find a way. Yes, a terrible blow was struck when 2.4 million people were turned off MTS. But some got turned back on even with crappy Altyn Asyr, and now Hyundai has signed a deal with Turkmenistan for carriers.

I've been surprised, once I began scanning news with Scoop.it, just how many Twitter Four-Square check-ins there are coming out of Ashgabat, and not all by ex-pats. What are they using to reach the Internet? Like any of these countries (starting with Russia), there is a wired elite that makes use of these things. We heard that some service was turned back on for the anniversary or the annual oil and gas conference — did it stay on?

Surprised there are even…a dozen people. Not to get carried away here. The total views on our Turkmen Eurasia Star winner? 267. 267!!! And that's probably mainly people abroad.

Contrast that with Bilbil Orazowa — a popular Turkmen singer who has 3,262 views on one tune today. (Watch for Berdy's mug in this one, too, towards the end.) 

Even so, what's important about the Eurasia Star contest or anything that gets people interested in international music is that people at least feel more connected to the rest of the world and they might increase their use of YouTube and then look for other things on Youtube — that is, if they can even access it (we're told it's blocked in Turkmenistan, yet people do manage to upload things to it, you can see them.)

Whether or not they actually can "vote directly" and help reinforce "the tyranny of who shows up" is less important as a "democracy building" caper than people finding and sharing things they genuinely like.

(P.S. Turkmenistan on YouTube has its unexpected little joys. Here's Willie Nelson set to pictures of a young Turkmen's romantic pictures of his beloved.)