Rather strangely, 10 of 21 customer reviews of “Murder in Samarkand” have been removed from amazon.co.uk, including most of the longest and more interesting ones. They have not disappeared in chronological order. In fact the one thing the ten had in common is that they were all five star. The overall rating has therefore unsurprisingly dropped. Anyone have an explanation?
I confess to being chuffed that the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Helen Clark, has named Murder in Samarkand as her Book of the Year.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/print/4334781a6442.html
Meantime, Nadira’s performance of The British Ambassador’s Belly Dancer has its thirteenth performance at the Arcola tonight. Like all the previous twelve, it is sold out. The audiences’ responses have been enthusiastic, while the critics ranged from bemused to hostile.
So who has got it right? The paying public or the critics? We may get more of a chance to decide when it transfers to the West End, at the Arts Theatre from 4 February. (Box Office 0870 060 1742 or http://www.ticketmaster.co.uk/event/22004023B319A92D?camefrom=CFC_UKAFF_NEWS_LDNP&m3_data=ej0xMDc2fHA9NDEwMHxhPTkzODU&brand=uk_thelondonpaper ) In line with my (rather biased) opinion that bloggers are important, we are offering a limited number of free tickets to bloggers in the first week, on condition that they will blog about the show. That does not mean blog uncritically – we are interested in honest reactions.
If any bloggers are interested, please email me at [email protected], including the URL of your blog and the date you would like to go. I will try to organise a ticket for you.
The NYT does not seem very impressed by Dirty Diplomacy:
By TARA McKELVEY
Published: December 9, 2007
A diplomatic posting to Tashkent may not sound glamorous, but it has been an important assignment in recent years. Craig Murray, who served as British ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, explains in “Dirty Diplomacy” how the country has played a crucial role in the war on terror. Thousands of American troops have been stationed at the Karshi Khanabad air base, known as K2, and in 2002 American officials approved $140 million in aid for Uzbekistan. Murray found himself caught between geopolitical considerations ?” the strategic partnership between Uzbekistan and the United States and Britain ?” and his concern for the people living under a despotic leader. In his memoir, he incorporates political argument as well as personal reflection.
In 2002, Murray is a chubby 43-year-old Scot prone to wearing kilts. He will make a big impression on people. A Turkish diplomat says: “You are different. You just refuse to play by their rules. You tell them to their face what you think. You know, you would be surprised at some of the people in this town who admire you.” A former Tory member of Parliament calls him “fearless.” A former Australian foreign minister says he is known to be “the best-informed ambassador in Tashkent.” Girls like him, too. The hot-looking women in his posse ?” barmaids, belly dancers, a piano student, a Tatar nanny ?” are continually jumping up, giggling, grinning “fetchingly” and looking at him “with wide eyes,” bosoms heaving. It helps, Murray says in a passage about his “sexually predatory” lifestyle in places like Central Europe and Africa, where he lived previously, that he has more money than “anyone whom they might normally meet.” To his credit, he respects boundaries. When an Uzbek dancer refuses to sit at his table in a nightclub, a government official offers to “compel” her to join them. Murray demurs. “A true British gentleman,” the official says.
Clearly, the bar is not high. Nevertheless, Murray has standards: he believes torture is wrong, and he speaks out against it. He finds disturbing evidence of abuse in Uzbekistan: a University of Glasgow pathology report shows one man “died of immersion in boiling liquid” after being seized by the authorities. Post-mortem photos of an 18-year-old Samarkand resident reveal similar marks: “The right hand looked like cooked chicken.” In addition, Murray writes, “one technique was widespread throughout the country ?” they would strap on a gas mask and then block the filters. I presume that the advantage of this was that it would suffocate without bruising.”
Uzbek officials seemed to use coercive techniques routinely during investigations, he says, yet there was little outcry from the Americans or the British. The executive director of Freedom House, a Washington-based organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties, tells him in 2003 that the group has decided to back off from its efforts to spotlight human rights abuses in Uzbekistan. The shift in policy occurred, she explains, because some Republican board members (in Murray’s words) “expressed concern that Freedom House was failing to keep in sight the need to promote freedom in the widest sense, by giving full support to U.S. and coalition forces.” Meanwhile, British officials insisted that information from coercive interrogations was valuable and that relying on it did not violate the United Nations Convention Against Torture. “That is my view of the legal position,” a Foreign Office legal adviser tells Murray in London. “I make no comment on the morality of the case.”
Murray is furious ?” and continues to investigate abuses, interviewing an 84-year-old woman who was “beaten mercilessly with clubs” and meeting with human rights activists. One of them tells him she repeatedly tried to visit her son after he was sentenced to death. Finally, she was taken to a waiting room. “Then she heard a single shot,” he writes. “The guard returned and told her, ‘You won’t see him now, we’ve just shot him in the head.’ ” These stories are interwoven with accounts of a tumultuous extramarital affair (Murray’s mistress was staying with a G.I. in a Sheraton, where, he tells us bitterly, she made “a determined attempt on the world oral sex record”) and dubious anthropological findings: “In Uzbekistan bread itself is treated as holy. … You must not swear or argue in the presence of bread.” And: “British journalists are decent people with perhaps the strongest ethical code of conduct of any profession.”
Unfortunately, the book is a mess. It elicits two reactions: First, it’s great that someone is telling the truth about Uzbekistan. Second, it’s too bad the someone is Murray, who seems to give the same weight to girlfriend troubles as to arbitrary arrest and detention. Still, he manages to present startling facts about Uzbekistan: More than 99 percent of its trials end in conviction. At least 7,000 people are in prison for religious and political beliefs. This grim reality could be altered, he says, if Westerners worked for systemic reform.
Murray eventually faced charges of sexual misconduct and wrongdoing ?” stemming from a campaign against him that seems politically motivated ?” and was fired. For some, it was a foregone conclusion: during an investigation of “murder and violence against small farmers” in “a pretty little town,” Murray met with the manager of a collective farm. “I don’t suppose you will come back,” the manager says. “Nobody ever does. Tomorrow evening you will go away, and I will still be in control here. That is what matters.”
This seems to be an accurate observation ?” and it is heart-rending.
Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at The American Prospect, is a frequent contributor to the Book Review and the author of “Monstering: Inside America’s Policy of Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/09/books/review/McKelvey2-t.html?ref=review
Sadly the liberal intelligentsia in the States tends to be dull and balls-achingly politically correct, so what Harry Barnes sees as
his typical blend of seriousness and enjoyment.
http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2007/11/undiplomatic-diplomat.html
is to the worthy Tara McKelvey “a mess”. If you are involved in politics in the US, you must never admit your home life is less than perfect. Interestingly, it is a long-term theme of Tara’s reviews to complain that memoirs contain too much mess and focus on the personal life of the memorialist.
http://www.mediabistro.com/galleycat/lit_crit/tara_mckelvey_bane_of_memoirists_58961.asp?c=rss
I wonder if her desire for life to be clean, sanitised, depersonalised and not “A mess” results from some underlying psychological problem? Or maybe she’s just very boring.
Never Were Truer Words Spoken:
Anyway, buy the book. If for no other reason than Murray deserves some form of income after the way he has been fucked over by his employer, the British government.
http://szekely.blogspot.com/2007/12/murder-in-samarkand.html
That quote is from a very good review by somebody re-reading the book after having visited Uzbekistan. I especially like the bit where he commends me for not pretending to be likeable! I have been saying in interviews that I dislike autobiographies which always appear to be written by people who are perfect themselves but quick to point out the faults in others. Our friend in Csikszereda has found a pithier way to say the same thing.
He is right about my needing the money, too. Christmas is upon us, and you might like to think of those who would benefit from knowing the truths contained in Murder in Samarkand about the world we live in. Give the truth for Christmas!
Certainly one of the most interesting and thoughtful critiques of Murder in Samarkand has been posted by Harry Barnes on his blog. For those who don’t know, Harry is a recently retired, long-serving Labour MP. He represents strongly the origins of that party as an organisation dedicated to improving the lot of working people, both in the UK and worldwide. His perspective casts new light across several aspects of the book, including this extract:
In particular, I found Craig’s description of Claire Short’s visit to Tashkent when she went to Chair a conference of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development to be highly revealing.
Claire did a fine job in standing up for human rights against the Uzbek regime. As soon as she returned home she resigned her post as Secretary of State of Overseas Development over the Government’s involvement in the invasion of Iraq.
I had been amongst those who criticized Claire for not resigning earlier when Robin Cook went. Yet what she stood out for in Uzbekistan was of great importance and is a justification in itself for the delayed resignation. Her period at Overseas Development was also one of the limited avenues of achievement of the Blair Government.
http://threescoreyearsandten.blogspot.com/2007/11/undiplomatic-diplomat.html
A comment on a couple of Harry’s points. yes, of course I oppose political violence by state and other terrorists. I am not a closet al-Qaida supporter, or even al-Qaida denier.
Secondly, I am indeed no socialist. But I am only “the strongest possible advocate of privatisation” in the context of Uzbekistan, where state ownership of pretty well everything is a device used ruthlessly by the elite to exploit an enslaved population. In a developed economy like ours, I believe that natural monopolies should be in public hands, as should essential services like health and education.
Direct observation has convinced me that public services are best delivered by public organisations. The so-called efficiencies of privatised provision of public services are a myth, with any beneficial effect more than outweighed by the removal of public resources as private profit, and the skimping and shoddiness on the service designed to increase those profits.
In developing economies, I am completely opposed, for example, to IFI pressure to privatise and charge for water and other essential human needs. But I think purely commerial activity is best conducted by individuals and companies in market conditions, and there should be plenty of space for it..
I would be lying if I said I was not disappointed by the failure of Dirty Diplomacy so far to garner any major reviews in the United States. But it continues to be appreciated in small niches, like the St Paul’s American Asian Gazette :
The book often reads like a travelogue as Murray tells about his compelling travels through the country, and he also publishes previously secret memos and letters add meaning to his stories. It is an appeal to the global community to enter the hot debate over what policies and actions are acceptable in the name of security. Despite the occasionally distracting portrayal of himself as a Lone Ranger defying the evil regime and exposing the wrongs perpetuated by the complicity of others, his tale is powerful and adds a meaningful voice to the growing global call for social justice.
http://www.aapress.com/artsnews.php?subaction=showfull&id=1193960988&archive=&start_from=&ucat=6
Not entirely complimentary, but again nice to know that someone there read it. Meanwhile a very good bit of writing coming from Middlesborough:
First, take a look at pictures of Usmanov. That man appears to have no DNA. The blueprint for his being seem to be the seven deadly sins. In fact, I’d bet each cell in his body positively pulsates with greed, lust and avarice. Have you ever seen such drooping bulldog jowls, tiny pin eyes squinting out of a heaving mountain of rubbery flesh and huge murderous meaty hands other than those not behind bars?
This scientific conclusion is based on solid objective evidence. That is, I once spent a couple of hours in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan, and I can unreservedly state that it’s a gangster state. The officials that I had the er. interesting fortune of meeting wore black leather jackets, thick gold chains hung off their necks and their fingers were braced with even more gold.
Occasionally you read a review from someone who really “gets” what I am trying to do, and it gives you a lovely warm feeling inside. For me, that feeling is redoubled when that person is writing from somewhere I have never heard of. So here is a review from the Kingston Observer (that’s Kingston USA, not Jamaica). No. I don’t know where it is either. But I’m definitely going to go there one day now.
Before the torture scandals of Abu Ghraib became public, there was the matter of the prisoner who was boiled to death in Uzbekistan. Craig Murray, the former British ambassador to that country, learned of this tragedy and exposed it, urging the British government to distance itself from U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. propped up the repressive Uzbek regime with half a billion dollars yearly in exchange for the use of an air base. For his trouble, Murray was harassed mercilessly by his own government and ultimately forced out of his position.
By his own unvarnished admissions, Murray enjoys a drink or more and he is a serial adulterer now living with his Uzbek lover, Nadira, in London, but his morality is surely greater than the sum of those two parts. He’s like the Bill Clinton of the British foreign service, messy on the personal side, brilliant and compassionate on the other. He no doubt exposed his own flaws to snatch the opportunity from his political foes. Well done and bravo.
Murray traveled the Uzbek countryside, consulting with British businessmen and ordinary Uzbeks whose lives are a torment. Growing cotton is a major industry in the country, and at harvest time, university students and hospital patients who are ambulatory are sent to pick the crop.
The political and judicial issues, however, are what landed Murray in his own vat of hot water. His description of a trial he attended is horrific since even the witnesses are tortured to produce the desired testimony. According to Murray, the post 9/11 rage resulted in the practice of sending prisoners to countries like Uzbekistan where human rights is an unacknowledged concept. Muslims are tortured in the name of the war on terror. When prisoners are executed their families are charged for the bullets. The hideous irony, of course, is that the dictator Saddam Hussein received justice at the end of a rope, while Uzbek President Karimov got a fat check from the U.S. Ultimately, Karimov embraced Mother Russia and tossed us out.
By turns unbearably sad and raucously funny, this book is a must read by a man with courage in spades and an acute sense of perspective and humor. Dirty Diplomacy is an extraordinary book.
http://kingstonobserver.com/moxie/columnists/nancy/books-by-nancy-october-20.shtml
Publisher’s blurb for new book –
In this prequel to Murder in Samarkand Craig Murray asserts that once the red soil of Africa gets into your blood, you are in thrall to the continent for the rest of your life. Returning in 1998 from heading the Political and Economic sections of the British Embassy in Warsaw, Craig becomes Deputy Head of the Africa Department of the FCO. Within two weeks of taking up the job suave, controversial, ex Guards officer and mercenary commander Colonel Tim Spicer walks into Craig Murray’s office. Murray does not like what he finds and reports Spicer to Customs and Excise – and creates the Arms to Africa Investigation that is the first big crisis of Tony Blair’s government. Suspended from duty, grilled by the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee, then quickly despatched sideways to Ghana as Deputy High Commissioner. Murray next finds himself caught up in nightmarish and extremely dangerous face to face negotiations with Foday Sankoh and the murderous rebels of Sierra Leone, famous for mutilating children and pregnant women and hacking off the limbs of thousands of victims. After negotiating with Sankoh and Charles Taylor, now both facing war crimes tribunals, Murray miraculously emerges with a peace deal that saved the lives of tens of thousands, only to have his thunder stolen by Jesse Jackson in a hilariously comical episode.
Strongly commended by Robin Cook and loaded with obscure African honours, Murray then launches into arranging a State Visit for the Queen to Ghana which is part of his strategy to massage perpetual ruler Jerry Rawlings out of office. Outwitting the Rawlings regime in a series of astonishing set pieces, including canoe borne trips to obscure villages personally to supervise voter registration, Murray delivers free and fair elections that enable the opposition peacefully to take power, and Murray becomes a national hero in Ghana. But his public statement that British companies have been involved in corruption in Africa draws down firm censure from the FCO and he is despatched to remote Uzbekistan in order, his bosses hope, that he will never be heard of again….
Told with Murray’s customary style and panache, this near incredible story points up many of the paradoxes of Western involvement in the Africa which Murray loves so deeply. Readers of Murder in Samarkand will enjoy again the alternation of impish wit and moral high mindedness, high jinx and stunning flashes of political insight. And, as ever with Murray, there are several lovers and a variety of alcoholic beverages on the way, as well as green mambas, cerebral malaria and a mischievous Ashanti ghost…
The US edition of Murder in Samarkand has finally hit the shops, under the title of Dirty Diplomacy. Be warned that it is basically the same book, and I do not recommend you to buy both.
Dirty Diplomacy is however a different cut from an original manuscript. So while slightly shorter than Murder in Samarkand, it includes some passages which were not in the UK version, and is less heavily censored because of the protections for freedom of speech in the US.
Here is a pre-publication review from Booklist, a library and bookseller trade magazine:
Dirty Diplomacy.
Murray, Craig (Author)
Oct 2007. 368 p. Scribner, hardcover, $26.00. (1416548017). 958.70.
Must diplomacy involve duplicity? Murray, an energetic and forthright British diplomat, moved his family to Tashkent in 2002 with high hopes for fostering progress in Uzbekistan. But he soon discovered that under the dictatorial rule of Islam Karimov, thousands of political and religious prisoners were being held without trial, many tortured and murdered. Murray sent urgent communiques to his superiors, then began speaking out. A hero to the oppressed, he was viewed as a traitor in London and Washington as both administrations courted Karimov as an ally as the war in Iraq got under way.
Forced to leave his post in 2004, Murray now boldly details Karimov’s crimes against humanity, his own wild and risky adventures, and the chilling and unconscionable actions of the UK and the U.S. Writing with brio, chagrin, and conviction, Murray admits that as a whiskey-loving, kilt-wearing skirt chaser, he is no paragon. But his determination to stand up for human rights makes him a man of conscience well worth listening to. And he is one helluva storyteller. An electrifying read; watch for the movie.
?” Donna Seaman
This one is from Publishers’ Weekly
Although the subject matter is dead serious, the picaresque subtitle reflects the defiant wit at the heart of this highly revealing memoir by the colorful and prominent former British ambassador to Uzbekistan. Murray’s brief term (2002?”2004) belies his influence as a scrupulous administrator who, whatever his personal failures (and he’s refreshingly up-front about them), proved incorruptible in pursuit of social justice in a nation suffering under a sadistic regime. In addition to competence, wit and considerable daring, Murray displayed a rare integrity in Tashkent that stood out among his counterparts, which was precisely what got him into trouble with both dictator Karimov’s brutal totalitarian state and with his own government, which eventually resorted to an eye-opening campaign to oust him. A deluge of bureaucratic and personal information occasionally blurs the focus in this book, but Murray uses the full weight of his ambassadorship to hold a key ally of the U.S. accountable for deep-seated economic corruption and human rights abuses?”including pervasive use of torture?” and runs headlong into some of the fiercest contradictions in the war on terror. (Oct.)
Those are trade reviews; since publication last week, one newspaper review so far from the New York Post
BATTLING FOR HUMAN RIGHTS, ONE MEMO AT A TIME
By STEPHEN LYNCH
October 14, 2007 — Legend has it that the road connecting Afghanistan to Uzbekistan leads the region in car accidents, as truckers emerging from burkaland catch their first glimpse of Uzbek women in miniskirts and veer off the road.
Sounds like a country America can get behind!
And indeed we have, as is illustrated tragically, and often comically, in “Dirty Diplomacy” by Craig Murray, who served as Britian’s ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002-05.
Murray argues that because of the Uzbek administration’s support in fighting the Taliban, and providing a friendly environment for oil companies, the U.S. looks the other way when it comes to Uzbekistan’s human rights abuses and economic neglect of its own people. In short, we’re supporting a tyrant – President Islom Karimov – to battle Muslim extremists (as compared to Iraq, where we chose Muslim extremists over a tyrant).
The ambassador’s outrage peaks soon after his arrival, when he attends a dissident trial in a kangaroo court, and the witness, presented with six men from which to pick three criminals, selects the wrong three. The judge, outraged, tells him to chose again.
From that moment, Murray decides to take action, in the best way the British know how – memos. He hopes to shame the rest of the diplomatic corps, his own meager embassy staff and the Uzbekistan government into doing what he believes is right.
As a travelogue, “Diplomacy” is fascinating, serving as a good introduction to a region most Americans don’t know a lot about. Murray rightly notes that it was the Soviet Union that made a mess of things, purposely drawing lines for Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan that had little bearing on the actual ethnic makeup of those countries (as British cartographers did in the Middle East). The folly is when the U.S. – or anyone – clings to these artifices too strongly. What we learned in geography (or didn’t, considering the study of test scores) isn’t as permanent as we’d like to believe.
In Uzbekistan, rallies for reform often come in the form of Islam, which scares the West now more than Communism. But Murray argues that many innocent believers are being swept up in Karimov’s anti-terrorism efforts.
The failing of “Dirty Diplomacy” is Murray’s self-aggrandizing description of his crusades against injustice. After all, besides driving his country’s state department crazy, alienating his staffers and ending his marriage, he walks away with nothing but his righteous indignation. Uzbekistan is still run by Karimov. The crackdown goes on.
The hope, of course, is that by packaging that indigation into the story of a “Scotch Drinking, Skirt Chasing … and Thoroughly Un-repentant Ambassador,” as his subtitle states, Murray can get the U.S. to recognize how it’s hurting itself.
By supporting Karimov’s regime, we may be driving more Uzbeks into the very arms of those we hope to defeat. If his dictatorship falls, will it be replaced by Western-friendly democrats? Or will it be the disgruntled Muslim dissidents, bearing a grudge?
Blowback’s a bitch.
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142007/postopinion/postopbooks/one_man_takes_a_stan.htm
Which is not bad considering it’s a Murdoch tabloid. And here comes Playboy!
Dirty Diplomacy:
The Rough-and-Tumble Adventures of a Scotch-Drinking, Skirt-Chasing, Dictator-Busting and Thoroughly Unrepentant Ambassador Stuck on the Frontline of the War Against Terror
By Craig Murray
Scribner, 384 pages, Hardcover$26.00
Reviewed by Frank Marquardt
Don’t be misled by Dirty Diplomacy’s subtitle. As Britain’s ambassador to Uzbekistan from 2002 to 2004, author Craig Murray mostly drank vodka, chased only one woman and failed to bust any dictators.
On this last point, it’s not for lack of trying. Soon after taking up his post, Murray is shown pictures of a corpse of a man who, prior to being immersed in boiling liquid, was beaten around the face and had his fingernails ripped out. That event provided the inspiration for the British release of the book’s more accurate title: Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador’s Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror. Murray attempted to expose the country’s human rights record, in which people are falsely accused, imprisoned and tortured, and women are routinely raped by the police.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the party line. British officials, standing side-by-side the Americans, seemed more intent on recognizing Uzbekistan’s progress toward freedom — of which there has been arguably little — than its transgressions in the area of human rights. America’s reasons for championing Uzbekistan, in turn, seem to have had a lot more to do with the U.S. desire to maintain an airbase in the country than any actual action by the Uzbekistan authorities to create a more democratic country or free market economy.
Defying the diplomats at home got Murray into some trouble, setting off a media storm in Britain; higher-ups tried to remove him under a set of trumped-up charges. At first, Murray prevailed, remaining in Uzbekistan, but eventually he was forced out. Dirty Diplomacy offers his side of the story. As an inside view of the work of an ambassador, it’s interesting; as an indictment of British and American hypocrisy in their so-called “War on Terror,” it’s damning. The irony, for America at least, came in May 2005, when Uzbek police killed an estimated 700 protestors, and soon after evicted the American airbase. Hardly diplomatic — but dirty, indeed.
http://www.playboy.com/arts-entertainment/reviews/books/dirty-diplomacy/dirty-diplomacy.html
Unfortunately my talk at the Edinburgh Book Festival sold out weeks ago, but I shall be appearing at the Forum Theatre in Malvern on 3 October at 7pm, in support of Amnesty International.
You can buy tickets online here
http://www.malvern-theatres.co.uk/
Or call the Box Office on 01684 892277
Hope to see you there.
I commented on the BBC’s first class production of Robin Soans’ excellent and thought provoking play, Life After Scandal.
http://www.craigmurray.co.uk/archives/2007/08/life_after_scan.html#comments
I didn’t like the portrayal of my character; not in the script, which used my own words, but in the acting. What follows is a further comment I added, but I thought should be brought up to the top of the blog.
I heard it again this morning because Nadira was listening for the first time. I am now a bit more annoyed by the silly voice – like Charles Hawtrey with a lisp. The words were genuinely my own, and devalued by the petulant and childish voice in which they were delivered.
I think partly what annoyed me was that I do indeed have a congenital speech defect, and there is always a tendency to portray anyone with a speech defect as slightly ridiculous. Just because you cannot pronounce properly does not mean that your words do not have serious intent. I don’t mind the defect being reproduced, but not as evidence of unseriousness.
I can’t pronounce r or th. The condition is known as disarthria (which must have been some doctor taking the….) I also can’t distinguish between beer, bare and bear.
People often think that not pronouncing r is an affectation. When I try the result is just a mess, and I often have embarassing conversations where people can’t understand me. My name is particularly unlucky in the circumstance. It would not be at all natural for me to change the mess of my attempted r into a w, but if I did so people would perhaps understand better what I am trying to say. Roy Jenkins was always accused of his w for r being a deliberate affectation, and I suspect it was only in that sense, that it was the nearest sound he could consciously make that people readily understood.
I don’t mind now, but I was horribly conscious of this as a teenager and young man. I think it was the remembrance of the constant mickey-taking, some kindly meant, that made me so sensitive to my portrayal in this radio version of the play.
That aside, the play really is good. Here’s the link again:
I do love discovering reviews of Murder in Samarkand by real people. Not that formal MSM reviewers aren’t real, but it is really pleasant to get the views of people who just bought a copy, and this is one of the wonderful things the internet makes possible.
Anyway, this is a review by someone who goes by the Nomiker “Shewhomust”, presumably after the Rider Haggard character.
Craig Murray: Murder in Samarkand
Spoiler: it was the government who did it. And now we’ve got that out of the way, I can talk about Craig Murray’s book without worrying about premature disclosure.
Oh, and a disclaimer: those who know me will not be surprised to hear that he had me on his side as soon as I read the epigraph:
We travel not for trafficking alone;
By hotter winds our fiery hearts are fanned:
For lust of knowing what should not be known
We take the Golden Road to Samarkand.
Like many of its readers, I came to the book already knowing that Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan between 2002 and 2004, was horrified by the corruption and brutality of the regime there, defied the British government to say so, and found that their response was not to examine his allegations but to attack him personally. I anticipated a grim and worthy read, after which I would be a better informed, if not a better, person; and grim it certainly is. My mind shies away from the photographs of dead bodies, with their smashed skulls and flesh boiled from the bones, and considers instead the less dramatic oppression of everyday life, the lack of law, the systematic corruption, the destruction of any economy the country may have, the influence of drugs barons and warlords.
Depressing reading, but not as bleak as it might be, for Murray is good company. His blog (syndicated to LiveJournal) is a mixture of press clippings and general news, but his personal entries are lively and entertainingly written. But I digress: he quotes a Sunday Telegraph article about rival screenplays for a proposed film of his book. The unsuccessful contender was David Hare:
Hare saw it as an essentially tragic tale and wrote a completely serious script, but it swiftly became clear that the film’s director, Michael Winterbottom, did not share his vision. He wanted to turn it into a farce, starring his old chum Steve Coogan.
Murray seems entirely happy about both interpretations, equally pleased with his stirring speeches, his rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan and his snappy one-liners: when, at the height of the SARS epidemic, a member of staff of the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development – the text is peppered with initials, but a key is provided) e-mails to ask whether she should wear a face-mask at a forthcoming conference, he e-mails back: “I don’t know – how ugly are you?” This is not what I normally understand by the adjective “diplomatic”.
Tragedy, comedy, romance – but the narrative also uses the familiar crime fiction device of the unreliable narrator. By this I mean not that I doubt Craig Murray’s version of events, but that I was constantly aware that there were things he was not telling us. The elephant in the room is this: what caused this career diplomat to throw away his remarkably successful career? Or, if the answer to that question is too obvious, by what process did he decide that this was the battle he was prepared to fight to the death? No process of realisation is described, no gradual decision; instead the story proceeds a step at a time, I did this and then I did that. It is like reading fiction, interpreting the motives of a fictitious character, and although it feels impertinent to be speculating about a real person in this way, it restores an element of suspense, of uncertainty: I knew how the story turned out but I did not, after all, know what this would mean for the hero.
Impossible to round this off into a neat conclusion: do I summarise the book as a ripping yarn, and present myself as shallow and trivial? Or do I emphasise the appalling nature of the subject matter, and deter potential readers? Better not…
On BBC Radio 4 at 9pm tomorrow Friday 3 August, the BBC is broadcasting a production of Robin Soans’ Life After Scandal. I feature as a character in this piece of verbatim theatre, much as I did in Soans’ excellent Talking to Terrorists, though presumably this new play focuses somewhat on what Nadira and I did since.
For those not in the UK, or in reach of a radio, I believe you should be able to listen on BBC Radio 4 live on the internet.
My appearance at the Edinburgh Book Festival sold out pretty well immediately. That is good in some ways, but a shame for all those still trying to buy a ticket. I am contacting the Festival to see if we can’t switch to a larger venue, or repeat it.
I received this email today. It is a bit disjointed below because I have removed any detail that might help the Uzbek government identify the sender. It really cheered me up on a morning when I needed it badly!
Dear Craig,
I was going to buy your book ‘Murder in Samarkand’ on the way home in Books etc a week ago as I heard a lot about it lately but unfortunately they did not have any in their store. Today I asked my friend to find it for me and luckily he found it in Waterstones. When I came home the book was waiting for me. I started reading the book and suddenly after about 30-35 pages I noticed my friend staring at me with a really surprised expression on his face”..I was crying, I had proper tears in my eyes. I was amazed that your book is so well written that it made me go through a lot of things in the past that I had back home in Uzbekistan.
Let me tell you a little bit about myself, I come from …, my name is …, (this is my English name, the Uzbek one is hard to pronounce) and am ”. I now have been in the UK for … I live in …. …made me learn a lot of stuff including English. It is amazing place despite quite a few downsides. I did my degree back home in but never managed to find a job in this field as all political places like Ministries etc are mostly … I had a pretty good job and life back home but overall cultural, political and economical strain made me run away at least to have some break and live a stress free life for a little while.
I can not remember exactly now but I think I saw you quite a few times on the TV. I might be wrong but I think you could speak Russian pretty fluently. Things did not change a lot since you left Uzbekistan. Everything is almost the same unfortunately. I am really sorry for all bad things you had to go through in Uzbekistan. I wish it was a place that I could be proud of. All educated people were aware of what was going on when you suddenly had to leave Uzbekistan.
I would like to thank you for writing a book about this completely lost and forgotten part of the world.
Warm regards and many thanks for your wonderful book,
Rather a nice reader reaction to Murder in Samarkand this morning:
I am not one who has that innate ability to plough through endless books but a casual accquintance recommended your book so I bought it to read on holiday. I couldn’t put the thing down and believe me, that is a first. Most books take me weeks to read but I finished yours in four days. I knew this government was corrupt and devoid of any moral fibre, but the extent to which you have shed light on it, stuns me. I knew Blair was lying the moment he said in a televised debate prior to invasion of Iraq that the war wasn’t about oil. I have read a few other books about 9/11, the War on ‘Terror’ and the Iraq War and most of it needed to be taken with a pinch of salt, but your book struck a chord from the off and I had no reason to doubt or disbelieve the validity of your account. Anyone who doesn’t smell a rat with this government’s foreign policy (and domestic policies for that matter) needs their head examining.
Meantime, A Mighty Heart continues to garner stellar reviews in the States prior to its opening on Friday. A fun spat in the US when Fox News were banned from the premiere. Michael Winterbottom is now filming Genova in Italy with Colin Firth, and plans to start shooting Murder in Samarkand with Steve Coogan in February. Shooting will run from February to June to capture the range of extreme continental Central Asian weather conditions experienced in the book.
Robert Spain has posted on Unlock Democracy a review of the House of Commons Public Administration Committee’s report into political memoirs, and of the books of Christopher Meyer and Lance Price:
Thirdly is the involvement of politicians in the approvals process. The written submission of Craig Murray details the efforts of the foreign office to, effectively, prevent him from telling his side of his ‘ very public ‘ dispute with the government. He also states that he was told that the question of whether he would be allowed to publish his book was put to the then foreign secretary Jack Straw. This led to the bizarre situation of a politician being asked whether to approve publication of a book undoubtedly critical of himself (Memorandum by Craig Murray, ev 105 ‘ 7 ). By contrast, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, whose book was likely to be less controversial, defended the right of a minister to veto such a project, even though he had suffered from this himself (question 291).
http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/?p=908
Unfortunately, he only seems to read the more boring memoirs and hasn’t read Murder in Samarkand. For that reason he hasn’t quite fully taken on board how illiberal the committee’s recommendation that the government use copyright law to stifle memoirs really is, and especially the government’s successful move to use copyright law to block the publication of documents released under the Freedom of Information or Data Protection Acts.
I just received a very nice letter from Noam Chomsky. I am so proud and excited, I am going to blog it, as there is nothing especially personal in it.
MIT
May 16, 2007
Dear Mr Murray,
I have a feeling I may never have written to thank you for sending Murder in Samarkand, which I actually enjoyed reading, between shudders. I was reminded of that oversight as the accolades were pouring in for Blair’s unwavering dedication to human rights. It really is a remarkable achievement, what’s recorded, and the record.
You might be interested in an article in the Christian Science Monitor, May 15, by Michael Jordan, called “Less free speech in Uzbekistan since Andijan massacre.” It describes how the country “that Washington had enlisted in its War on Terror had since clamped down on dissent,” unlike before, when it was a US ally, and it was all apparently just fine.
Sincerely,
Noam Chomsky
Murder in Samarkand has sold remarkably well for a book that has been almost entirely confined to a single spine-on copy, on the bottom shelf of the politics department. To date it has sold about 15,000. But given that, for most readers, the material it contains is eye-openingly explosive about the behaviour of government in the Bush/Blair “War on Terror”, that is not anywhere near the potential. That is especially so as all fifteen customer reviews on amazon.co.uk so far (some under paperback and some under hardback) have been five star.
In today’s book market, it is only really possible to sell more if you get in to the front of house promotions in the chain bookstores. I have been working desperately at that for a year. So you might imagine that this cheered me up. My publisher has just sent me this email:
” I’m very pleased to report that continued sales efforts have resulted in Murder in Samarkand being selected for Waterstone’s 3 for 2 Summer Reading promotion. This means that in the top 260 Waterstone’s branches, the book will be displayed in the promotional area at front of store. Waterstone’s have reordered over 900 extra copies to ensure greater visibility. This, coupled with the 3 for 2 offer, will increase sales, which continue to repeat well across the board. The Waterstone’s promotion started on 17 May and runs for one month. If sales are good, it will continue beyond mid-June.”
With John Reid musing about a State of Emergency to round up “suspects”, to virtually no media outcry, I think it is never more urgent to get over the naked and shocking truth about the “War on Terror”; the poor intelligence it is based on, the underlying agenda of its supporters, and the harsh machiavellianism of the government. I think, from readers’ reaction, that Murder in Samarkand gets that through to people’s hearts and minds, through a personal story, in a way that distinguished academic or journalistic surveys don’t always achieve. That is not to decry the other excellent books out there, particularly Moazzam Begg, Robert Fisk and Stephen Grey.
Which is rather nice. I do hope they go on to discover Murder in Samarkand, which may disillusion them a bit.
Time for change’s Journal
Tribute to a Hero: Craig Murray
Posted by Time for change in General Discussion
Mon May 21st 2007, 11:00 PM
Our world is in desperate need of heroism today ‘ and no kind of heroic action is in greater demand today, in my opinion, than speaking out against the numerous abuses and crimes of the presidential administration of George W. Bush, which poses the greatest threat to world peace and world civilization of our current era.
Of the numerous crimes against the American people, the American Constitution, and international law committed by the Bush administration, the one that scares me the most, with the possible exception of his illegal preemptive invasion of Iraq, is its treatment of its prisoners. I’ve discussed my opinions on this issue numerous times, but that is not the purpose of this post. Suffice it to say here that I consider the Bush administration’s treatment of its prisoners to represent one of the darkest chapters, if not the darkest chapter in the history of our nation. Indeed, I consider it to be a manifestation of evil. And that is why I feel the need to pay tribute to a man whose heroic efforts perhaps did as much or more to expose these abominable medieval horrors than any other.
Craig Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from the summer of 2002 until October 15, 2004, when he was suspended from his post for his heroism ‘ that is, for speaking out and fighting against the horrors that he witnessed in his capacity as ambassador, as well as for exposing the role of the United States in perpetrating those horrors.
Stephen Grey, of Amnesty International, who himself was instrumental in exposing the CIA’s rendition program, describes how Craig Murray did something very similar, in his book, ‘Ghost Plane ‘ The True Story of the CIA Torture Program’. I’ll begin my description of Murray’s heroism by providing some background on the country that he was assigned to.
21st Century Uzbekistan
Islam Karimov had been the dictator of Uzbekistan since prior to the break-up of the Soviet Union. Grey describes the repressiveness of his rule:
Karimov’ still boiled some of his prisoners alive’ He was also proudly repressive. Back in 1999, he said: ‘I am prepared to rip off the heads of 200 people, to sacrifice their lives, in order to save peace and to have calm in the republic.’ He boasted of executing about a hundred people a year. More than six thousand political opponents were locked in his jails. Threatened by the revival of Islam, he ordered a huge crackdown on religion’ Tortures were said to include ripping out fingernails, pulling teeth, electric shocks, suffocation, and rape.
U.S. Collaboration
Because of the severe religious repression many Muslims fled Uzbekistan and ended up in Afghanistan, where they resided by 9-11-01. That set the stage for collaboration between Uzbekistan and the United States in pursuit of its ‘War on Terror’: The U.S. paid tens of millions of dollars to Uzbekistan in aid. American forces in Afghanistan would capture the displaced Muslims, who may or may not have been fighting for the Taliban, or they would simply take Muslims into custody after being handed them by bounty hunters; the U.S. would then ‘render’ their prisoners back to Uzbekistan or send them to Guantanamo Bay; Uzbekistan would either force their prisoners to confess to various al Qaeda plots or torture them; and they would turn over the ‘intelligence’ thus received to the CIA.
What did Uzbekistan and the U.S. have to gain from this relationship? Who can say exactly what motives lurk in the minds of torturers like Karimov, Bush and Cheney. I can only speculate: Karimov received lots of money and the legitimacy of U.S. support and was aided in his goal of having more prisoners to torture ‘ I suppose as an example to his population to help maintain his stranglehold over them. And we got more ‘intelligence’ for our ‘War on Terror’, as well as use of Uzbekistan for military strategic purposes.
Craig Murray blows the whistle
In his role as ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray saw continual evidence of the horrors that were perpetrated there. At first it was in the form of accusations of those who had been tortured ‘ and one had to consider the possibility that the accusers were not being truthful. But then Murray began to see more tangible evidence, such as photos. On September 16, 2002, Murray sent a telegram to his superiors:
“U.S. plays down human rights situation in Uzbekistan. A dangerous policy: Increasing repression combined with poverty will promote Islamic terrorism. Support to Karimov regime a bankrupt and cynical policy.”
Read whole article:
http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Time%20for%20change/182