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.)
