by Ruslan Tukhbatullin
24 hours passed after “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” had launched its own fan page in the new Turkmen social network before the entire network was shut down for “maintenance works”.
After that the webpage of “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” disappeared and our web address was included in “the black list”.We have had an opportunity to experience firsthand how the Turkmen Internet censorship works.
A few months ago there would have been nothing surprising in this incident as the Internet in Turkmenistan is a quite a loose phenomenon.It supposedly exists, but not in the modern sense of this word.
The restrictions are the first things that a user of the Turkmen Internet is confronted with ranging from the speed and connection fees, which might reach a quarter of an average salary, at a very low speed of 2 Mb/s; the ban on access various web resources, including any independent sources of information which at some time have criticized the Turkmen authorities, to popular foreign social networks, messengers, VPN applications which can be used to bypass restrictions and even github, which is the most important resource for software engineers.
The most barbaric example of the Internet censorship are unannounced checks of telephones among school students and public sector employees by law enforcement officers and representatives of the National Security Ministry, who search for those who try to bypass the restrictions or have access to “undesirable information”.
Those who are found to have unauthorized software or messages of a “provocative nature” in their phones are threatened with job dismissals in the best-case scenario, and even criminal charges, despite the fact that “Chronicles of Turkmenistan” is not aware of any actual conviction cases.
In fact, they are not needed as intimidated residents tell each other, and also inform us, on “absolutely reliable information” where an acquaintance or a relative “got a prison sentence for “liking” a post”.
However, nobody has confronted this firsthand.
Despite this, we still have vague hopes for some weakening after “digitalization” has become a new trend in Turkmen politics.
Bet-coin
In February 2018 the President of Turkmenistan came up with the idea, which reminds us of an episode from the satirical TV series Southpark, where cartoonish Canada decided to earn big money on the Internet Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov called for increasing the contribution of “information and communication technology sector” in GDP.
It is not quite clear what the President meant by “the digital development of the economy” but soon afterwards the Turkmen state-run media outlets had published reports about the launch of various Internet services in Turkmenistan.
For instance, the development of “digital tourism” from 2019 onward, which apparently implies online booking and purchase of tickets, travel packages and hotel reservations in Turkmenistan, online taxi application the analogue of foreign Uber and yandex.taxi, the Internet-based trading facility, the analogue of Aliexpress which is being set up by “Turkmenpost”, the online booking service for city bus routes, and, finally, the online sale of airline tickets.
Not all resources are fully operational, but residents can get a taxi and book bus tickets.
Regrettably, the experiment with the social network turned out to be a failure.
Education in the morning, money in the evening
Originally the idea of “economy digitalization” stemmed from the request by the head of state to draw up a concept for digital education in February 2017.
In its turn, the need for education reform surfaced following the attempts to “diversify” the economy, which had been the previous trend.
Turkmenistan, with its falling energy prices and the monopolization of Turkmen gas imports by China, started urgently searching for alternative ways of replenishing the budget.It appears that the country needed to cut off hydrocarbon exports and focus on selling byproducts, the cost of which can be kept at quite a low level but can be sold at a price which is much more expensive than the raw material.
For instance, Turkmenistan intended to sell electricity, produced at gas turbine electric power stations and make petrol and fertilizers by processing natural gas.
It is most likely that at this stage Turkmenistan faced a shortage of qualified specialists capable of organizing technology intensive manufacturing.
Those students who earned their degrees overseas were reluctant to return to their home country, whereas those who decided to pursue career opportunities in Turkmenistan were confronted with the problem of nostrification as their diplomas were not recognized by the Education Ministry.
Instead of attending classes, the majority of students from local universities spent their time waving flags at endless festivities and got their credits and passed exams for participating in these events.
It is quite challenging to foster the development of science in a community which is isolated from the outside world and which has a shortage of highly qualified teaching staff.
It is impossible to restrict Internet access to the minimum the library with thousands of self education resources and tools and yet expect scientific breakthroughs from people who, from early childhood, are taught not to demonstrate any initiative or express a dissenting opinion.
There is the example of China with its “great” firewall and despite this, its science and economy is making good progress, but the driving force behind progress is not “harassed business” which contributes to the growth and development of the economy, science and, consequently, education.
State-run stores, state plans and even government-established prices still exist in Turkmenistan.
The Turkmen digitalization in education is being implemented in a contradictory manner.On the one hand, the head of state orders providing residents with Internet access and digitalizing books, but on the other hand he is extending the library building which students are urged to attend and use the paper-based card files as if progress stopped 30 years ago.
Nevertheless, the logic behind solving the problem of budget revenues was apparently correct although this was done backwards: no money < no diversification < no specialists < no education < no Internet access (digitalization). It appears that in the end they hit a brick wall.
Despite the fact that the government is on the brink of a major economic collapse, it seems that the attempt to reform and modernize the economy will end in the same manner as previous initiatives to boost manufacturing, business and the fight against corruption.
The government and officials will make a fuss by giving the impression of intensive efforts undertaken but at the end of the reporting period the numbers needed to demonstrate success will be falsified.
A few years from now it will be reported that the maximum connection speed will be increased to 3 Mb/sec, a new social network and a new messenger will be launched.
The head of state will not see the expected improvements and increased budget revenues, and will again replace Cabinet members with poorly-qualified specialists and focus on the newest trend.
However, even if all failures and problems could have been previously compensated with revenues from gas exports to pretend that nothing is going on, this opportunity is now no longer available.