A Plane Crash on Christmas Day and Kazakhstan in the Spotlight

26 December 2024
Leonídio Paulo Ferreira

 

On Christmas Day, a plane crash in Kazakhstan made headlines. Typically, an air accident secures its place in newspapers and even more so on television if there are visuals. This holds true even when the disaster occurs far away, as in this case, in one of the seven “-stans” or “stãos” in Portuguese. There’s no great mystery behind the meaning of “stan”; it’s simply the Persian word for “land.” Hence, Kazakhstan is “the land of the Kazakhs,” just as Tajikistan is “the land of the Tajiks,” and Uzbekistan is “the land of the Uzbeks.” 

It’s akin to “land” in Germanic languages, which also means “land.” That’s why, in Portuguese, we have names like Islândia (Iceland), Gronelândia (Greenland), Holanda (Holland), or Irlanda (Ireland). England, however, is not “Inglândia” because the Normans, after conquering it about 1,000 years ago, translated the name into “Angleterre” in French, which then served as a model for other Latin languages. 

I’ve been to Kazakhstan three times for reporting assignments and know the country deserves far more media attention than it receives. If we look back almost a millennium, it was from there that the bulk of Genghis Khan’s troops emerged—skilled Turkic-speaking horsemen who joined Mongol hordes. 

It was also in Kazakhstan that Stalin detonated the first Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, achieving strategic parity with the United States - a key factor in preventing the Cold War from turning into a hot or even fiery conflict. It was from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan that Yuri Gagarin embarked on the first manned space flight, and even today, launches to the International Space Station originate there. 

Kazakhstan is now a significant producer of oil and natural gas and the world’s leading uranium exporter, vital for Chinese nuclear power plants while also serving the United States as a customer. Nuclear cooperation with France is developing rapidly, especially following a series of regime changes in Africa that have jeopardised traditional uranium supply sources for French nuclear plants. Commercially, Kazakhstan’s geography grants it a central role as it is traversed by the so-called middle corridor of China’s New Silk Road. 

As the ninth-largest country in the world (and the largest landlocked nation), Kazakhstan has two powerful neighbours - Russia and China - with which it must maintain balanced relationships without becoming subservient to either. Since gaining independence in 1991, the country has pursued a multi-vector foreign policy, fostering strong ties with the United States and the European Union alongside its regional diplomacy. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine forced Kazakhstan’s multi-vector diplomacy to adapt. Western sanctions against Russia complicate Kazakhstan’s economy and place it under a form of scrutiny. Domestically, the presence of substantial Russian and Ukrainian communities necessitates ongoing diplomatic balancing to preserve ethnic coexistence. Kazakhstan benefits from having President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, a career diplomat, as the successor to Nursultan Nazarbayev, the architect of its independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. 

The plane that crashed belonged to an Azerbaijani airline. Azerbaijan is not a “stan” but an “ão” (in Portuguese linguistic terms), yet it too holds greater geopolitical significance than one might assume. A topic for another day. 

In journalism, proximity has always been a key criterion for news selection. A minor tragedy at home often garners more attention than a major disaster on another continent. Thus, we are naturally more attuned to events in Lisbon than to those in Aktau, the city near the site of the Azerbaijani plane crash while en route from Baku to Grozny in the Russian Caucasus. 

However, in an increasingly globalised world - where, for instance, Houthi attacks on ships off Yemen can raise the price of petrol or smartphones - it’s a mistake to ignore events in Colombia’s jungles, the Sahel, post-Assad Syria, or the “-stans.” This is not just an error for newspapers; it is particularly critical for decision-makers. Let us not forget that Al-Qaeda prepared the 9/11 attacks in a “stan”- Afghanistan. 

Reference: https://www.dn.pt/8428114805/nao-ignorar-os-staos-e-o-que-fica-longe/