Do you desire to end up in paradise after your death? For a Finnish Christian this is a difficult task, because we have to try to live all our lives well without harming others.
If you happen to live in Turkmenistan this goal is much easier to achieve. Late president of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov had a very practical solution: you just have to read the book he wrote, Ruhnama, three times a day.
This is not a joke. In March 2006 dictator Niyazov was recorded as saying that he had interceded with God that any student who reads the book three times a day automatically gets into paradise.
This powerful propaganda epos is a bizarre combination or controversial history, stories, poems and autobiography. It gives spiritual and moral guidance to the nation, and many people consider it as a stone base of art and literature of Turkmenistan. Some think it is an addition to the Koran.
Before Niyazov died in 2006, Ruhnama was implemented in school teaching and it was an obligatory part of driver’s license. This was possible, because after two decades in authority president Niazov had built a personality cult with odd regulations. He for example forbade ballet and opera as foreign vanity, and banned car radios in the name of traffic safety.
But why should Finnish or any other countries’ PR professionals know anything about Ruhnama? Answer is: because this book can bite you in your ass if you aren’t careful. Turkmenistan has been one of the most closed countries, and any foreign company that wanted to make business with Turkmens and get hands on the vast oil and gas reserves, had to translate Ruhnama into their own language.
Over four years ago a Finnish electrical engineering company Ensto almost did that. At the last moment Ensto changed its mind and refused to translate Ruhnama. It lost a very profitable deal.
If you don’t believe, look at the YouTube sample from home page of Finnish rewarded document Shadow of the Holy Book.
Here is an ethical question all PR professionals should ask themselves. We are taught to adjust into host country’s circumstances and teach tolerance to managers, but where is the line when circumstances become impossible to tolerate? Can our company prop up an arbitrary dictator because that is a national custom?
Nowadays Niyazov’s book’s translation is no longer demanded, because he died and Turkmenistan has a new president. New president, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov started a reform which doesn’t progress very fast.
Turkmenistan is still one of the most closed countries in the whole world. There is no free press. There is a very limited and controlled internet access all over the country. Students who want to study abroad may never get further than the airport. Does this sound like a country in which you would like to operate? I don’t know about you, but for example our national jewel Nokia does.
Some of the sources I used for this article:
Turkmen President Fails to Fulfil internet Pledge. Institute for War & Peace Reporting.
Sajari, P. 2008. Nokia käy kauppaa Turkmenistanin diktatuurihallinnon kanssa. Helsingin Sanomat 27.2.2008.
Halonen, A. Personal opinion in Helsingin Sanomat 4.3.2008
Niemi, K. 2006. Diktaattorin oikuissa oli myös johdonmukaisuutta. Helsingin Sanomat 22.12.2006.
A very good posting!!! It's a good reminder for all of us that although we are used to Western style democracy and PR,sometimes even tend to take it for granted, there are still countries like Turkmenistan...
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