DUSHANBE, March 20, 2014, Asia-Plus – President Emomali Rahmon is holding a traditional meeting with representatives of intelligentsia at the Opera and Ballet Theater in Dushanbe today and Asia-Plus has asked a number of local experts to voice their opinions about that meeting.
Ms. Oynihol Bobonazarova, a pioneer of the human rights movement in Tajikistan, noted that she does not expect any significant results from that meeting.
“The meetings have shown that they are nothing more than a one-man show. These shows are organized to the end that representatives of intelligentsia would praise the head of state,” Ms. Bobonazarova noted.
Tajik journalist Abduqayum Qayumzod also considers that there is nothing in such meetings for society. “Today, intellectuals who respect themselves should not attend such events,” the journalist noted.
“I have feeling that the only purpose of these meetings is to show people how “intellectuals” laud the president to the skies,” Qayumzod added.
Art critic Amal Khanum Gadjiyeva is sure that representatives of intelligentsia will raise only their own problems at the meeting with the president: repairs to their apartments, publication of new book, purchase of summer cottages, and so forth.
Leader of the Social-Democratic Party of Tajikistan (SDP), Rahmatillo Zoyirov, considers that such meetings mostly bring together persons, who actually do not fulfill any strategic functions of intelligentsia.
“To my regret, Tajik intelligentsia has split into two groups: intellectuals inside the government or close to the government circles and intellectuals outside the government,” SDP leader said.
We will recall that addressing the meeting, the president usually calls on the country’s intelligentsia to use all their opportunities to raise educational level of the population and promote improving living conditions in the country.
