Latest news with #Soviet-inspired
Time of India
4 days ago
- Politics
- Time of India
Being The ‘Wrong' Kind Of Chinese
Diversity still survives Xi, but it's getting tougher After reporting from China for seven years, in 2022 American journalist Emily Feng found that her luck had run out. She would not be allowed back in. For years officials had been telling her why she, in particular, should 'tell the China story well'. Because she was inherently Chinese. Never mind that she had been born and raised elsewhere. She shouldn't be hanjian, or race traitor. How this conception of Chineseness tyrannises its subjects both inside the mainland and across the diaspora, is what her book Let Only Red Flowers Bloom: Identity and Belonging in Xi Jinping's China is about. In the 1950s, a sweeping Soviet-inspired project sorted China's population into 56 officially recognised ethnic groups. Deng reforms loosened the iron grip of this classification on what job you did and where. Then came Xi, fearful that social splintering would end the Chinese communist project like it ended USSR. His antidote: Recasting a diverse nation into uniformity. Feng tells the stories of 12 very different individuals to drive home how tormenting it can be when your country allows 'absolutely no opportunity or outlets for incorrect thinking or viewpoints to spread'. The Chained Woman | In 2022 a TikTok video went viral showing a woman shivering in an earthen shed, a metal chain tethering her neck to a wall. One official version said she was the mother of eight children, aged 23 to 2. A book of photos also came to light. It documented villages outside Guangzhou, where buying and chaining women, while forcing them to bear multiple children, even reselling them, is common. It suggests, there are chained women all over China. Both the initial video and this book were 'quieted' by the authorities. But many families still keep searching for the chained woman. She might be the person they themselves lost years ago, to traffickers who make hay out of draconian reproductive policies. The Model Minority | Growing up in Inner Mongolia, Adiya saw few Han Chinese. The sinification of subsequent decades he compares to the feeling of a frog slowly boiled alive. By middle school, all-Mongolian PTMs would be in heavily accented Mandarin. He found it surreal: Who were they all playacting for? When he ditches his Beijing job to return and teach Mongolian language, it was only time before they came after him, finding him to be an agent of 'hostile foreign forces'. He had some luck, though, and now lives in Canada. The Diaspora | Chen Weiming got out of China, with a mission to push democracy at home. As he set up his sculpture park in California, a wealthy American patron, Matthew, helped him. Its centrepiece was CCP Virus, about Party culpability in the global pandemic. When this was burned down, FBI revealed that Matthew was actually a former Florida prison guard and part of a bungled, Chinese state scheme to arrest Chen's work. Matthew had been paid $100,000 and his Long Island based Chinese handler $3mn. The book ends with Chen's triumphant opening ceremony for CCP Virus 2.0 – in the presence of Feng and motley others. They had all taken different paths to get to that dusty Mojave Desert far from China. Yet each of them that day was thinking of China, the one they had known and the one about which they still dreamed. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Jordan Times
22-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Jordan Times
Less Soviet, more inspiring: Kyrgyzstan seeks new anthem
Renowned composer and head of the department of musicology and composition at the Kyrgyz National Conservatory, Balasaguyn Musayev, who participates in a competition to create a new national anthem for Kyrgyzstan, attends an AFP interview in Bishkek on April 4 (AFP photo) BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Kyrgyzstan is getting rid of its Soviet-inspired national anthem and has launched an unprecedented public contest to find an alternative. The mountainous Central Asian country adopted a new anthem in 1992 after independence from the USSR but it is largely based on the Soviet-era one. The government says the anthem fails to accurately represent the young nation descending from the ancient history of the nomadic Kyrgyz people. The Kyrgyz were incorporated into first then Tsarist and then the Soviet empires and the country still retains a strong Russian influence. 'Winning this competition would be a huge success,' said Balasaguyn Musayev, a 36-year-old composer and one of hundreds who have submitted entries for a new national anthem. Speaking during a rehearsal at the music conservatory in the capital Bishkek, Musayev said it took him a month to find inspiration and then he 'wrote the music in two days'. 'The new anthem must be better than the previous one in every way. Otherwise people will wonder why we changed it,' Musayev told winner of the contest was due to have been announced in April but the contest rules were modified and it is now unclear when an announcement could be expected.'State in our own right' Soliciting ideas from the public is a rarity in Central Asia, where Kyrgyzstan's more competitive political system is an exception among its authoritarian neighbours. On a global scale, a complete change of the national anthem without a radical change of the political regime is also exceptional. In recent years, Australia, Austria and Canada have replaced some words in their anthems to promote greater gender and ethnic inclusivity. Kyrgyzstan's unusual decision is part of a series of measures to overhaul state symbols taken by President Sadyr Japarov, who has been in power since 2021. Following a constitutional reform in 2021 that strengthened his powers, Japarov changed the sun on the Kyrgyz flag at the end of 2023 so that it no longer resembled a sunflower, arguing that this would strengthen national sovereignty. He has achieved a number of successes in his time in office including boosting economic growth and fighting corruption but rights groups are concerned about growing pressures on civil society. Japarov has said that the anthem's lyrics about the Kyrgyz people being 'on the road to freedom' does not reflect the country's historic reality after more than three decades of independence. 'Are we going to sing for another hundred years that we have just become independent? We have a state in our own right now, and we need to write an anthem that will inspire young people and future generations,' he said last year. Officials have also been critical of the current anthem for other reasons. Parliament speaker Nurlanbek Shakiyev said it was so bad that 'birds fly away' when they hear it. He said the next one should 'stimulate the country towards development' and be 'easy to sing'. But Nurzhyguit Moldoyar, a 25-year-old composer and vocalist who has also submitted an entry, said the current one was already 'a masterpiece'. 'The bar is very high,' he said, adding that he would not have wanted to change the anthem. He said he hoped the winner would be selected based on 'the feelings felt when listening to it, the musical novelties and sincerity'.
Asharq Al-Awsat
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Less Soviet, More Inspiring: Kyrgyzstan Seeks New Anthem
Kyrgyzstan is getting rid of its Soviet-inspired national anthem and has launched an unprecedented public contest to find an alternative. The mountainous Central Asian country adopted a new anthem in 1992 after independence from the USSR but it is largely based on the Soviet-era one. The government says the anthem fails to accurately represent the young nation descending from the ancient history of the nomadic Kyrgyz people. The Kyrgyz were incorporated into first then Tsarist and then the Soviet empires and the country still retains a strong Russian influence. "Winning this competition would be a huge success," said Balasaguyn Musayev, a 36-year-old composer and one of hundreds who have submitted entries for a new national anthem. Speaking during a rehearsal at the music conservatory in the capital Bishkek, Musayev said it took him a month to find inspiration and then he "wrote the music in two days". A poet friend wrote the text. "The new anthem must be better than the previous one in every way. Otherwise people will wonder why we changed it," Musayev told AFP. The winner of the contest was due to have been announced in April but the contest rules were modified and it is now unclear when an announcement could be expected. Soliciting ideas from the public is a rarity in Central Asia, where Kyrgyzstan's more competitive political system is an exception among its authoritarian neighbors. On a global scale, a complete change of the national anthem without a radical change of the political regime is also exceptional. In recent years, Australia, Austria and Canada have replaced some words in their anthems to promote greater inclusivity. Kyrgyzstan's unusual decision is part of a series of measures to overhaul state symbols taken by President Sadyr Japarov, who has been in power since 2021. Following a constitutional reform in 2021 that strengthened his powers, Japarov changed the sun on the Kyrgyz flag at the end of 2023 so that it no longer resembled a sunflower, arguing that this would strengthen national sovereignty. He has achieved a number of successes in his time in office including boosting economic growth and fighting corruption but rights groups are concerned about growing pressures on civil society. Japarov has said that the anthem's lyrics about the Kyrgyz people being "on the road to freedom" does not reflect the country's historic reality after more than three decades of independence. "Are we going to sing for another hundred years that we have just become independent? We have a state in our own right now, and we need to write an anthem that will inspire young people and future generations," he said last year. Officials have also been critical of the current anthem for other reasons. Parliament speaker Nurlanbek Shakiyev said it was so bad that "birds fly away" when they hear it. He said the next one should "stimulate the country towards development" and be "easy to sing". But Nurzhyguit Moldoyar, a 25-year-old composer and vocalist who has also submitted an entry, said the current one was already "a masterpiece". "The bar is very high," he said, adding that he would not have wanted to change the anthem. He said he hoped the winner would be selected based on "the feelings felt when listening to it, the musical novelties and sincerity".
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Less Soviet, more inspiring: Kyrgyzstan seeks new anthem
Kyrgyzstan is getting rid of its Soviet-inspired national anthem and has launched an unprecedented public contest to find an alternative. The mountainous Central Asian country adopted a new anthem in 1992 after independence from the USSR but it is largely based on the Soviet-era one. The government says the anthem fails to accurately represent the young nation descending from the ancient history of the nomadic Kyrgyz people. The Kyrgyz were incorporated into first then Tsarist and then the Soviet empires and the country still retains a strong Russian influence. "Winning this competition would be a huge success," said Balasaguyn Musayev, a 36-year-old composer and one of hundreds who have submitted entries for a new national anthem. Speaking during a rehearsal at the music conservatory in the capital Bishkek, Musayev said it took him a month to find inspiration and then he "wrote the music in two days". A poet friend wrote the text. "The new anthem must be better than the previous one in every way. Otherwise people will wonder why we changed it," Musayev told AFP. The winner of the contest was due to have been announced in April but the contest rules were modified and it is now unclear when an announcement could be expected. - 'State in our own right' - Soliciting ideas from the public is a rarity in Central Asia, where Kyrgyzstan's more competitive political system is an exception among its authoritarian neighbours. On a global scale, a complete change of the national anthem without a radical change of the political regime is also exceptional. In recent years, Australia, Austria and Canada have replaced some words in their anthems to promote greater gender and ethnic inclusivity. Kyrgyzstan's unusual decision is part of a series of measures to overhaul state symbols taken by President Sadyr Japarov, who has been in power since 2021. Following a constitutional reform in 2021 that strengthened his powers, Japarov changed the sun on the Kyrgyz flag at the end of 2023 so that it no longer resembled a sunflower, arguing that this would strengthen national sovereignty. He has achieved a number of successes in his time in office including boosting economic growth and fighting corruption but rights groups are concerned about growing pressures on civil society. Japarov has said that the anthem's lyrics about the Kyrgyz people being "on the road to freedom" does not reflect the country's historic reality after more than three decades of independence. "Are we going to sing for another hundred years that we have just become independent? We have a state in our own right now, and we need to write an anthem that will inspire young people and future generations," he said last year. Officials have also been critical of the current anthem for other reasons. Parliament speaker Nurlanbek Shakiyev said it was so bad that "birds fly away" when they hear it. He said the next one should "stimulate the country towards development" and be "easy to sing". But Nurzhyguit Moldoyar, a 25-year-old composer and vocalist who has also submitted an entry, said the current one was already "a masterpiece". "The bar is very high," he said, adding that he would not have wanted to change the anthem. He said he hoped the winner would be selected based on "the feelings felt when listening to it, the musical novelties and sincerity". aj-bk/dt/giv
