Paul
Goble
Staunton, January 22 – Exporting natural
resources will never provide enough jobs for Tuvins and no outsider will ever
provide sufficient aid to allow Tuvins to have the future they deserve,
according to a Tuvin writer. And consequently, the residents of that landlocked
republic proud of being “in the center of Asia” must become an IT power like
other small Asian states.
In an article in “Tuvinskaya Pravda”
today, Boris Myshlyavtsev argues that in today’s interconnected world, the only
“commodity” that is truly competitive is the intellect, something whose
development “little depends on the attitude of the federal center [Moscow] with
regard to Tuva” (www.tuvpravda.ru/2009-11-16-12-35-10/7173------300-000--.html).
“Many countries,” he says, “which
have much lower levels of education than Tuva” nonetheless have become “major
suppliers of workers for the international intellectual market” and given that
there are only about 300,000 Tuvins in the world, there is a place “for each”
of them in that marketplace.
Engagin in such work “does not
require movement to another region.” But “even those who leave for a permanent
place of residence in Russia or abroad will continue to work for the
strengthening of the image of Tuvins as an intellectual people” and thus
promote “the broadening of inter-regional and inter-national ties of Tuvins in the
intellectual sphere.”
Tuvin culture, Mushlyavtsev
suggests, is fully capable of promoting the kind of values that will allow
Tuvins to take part in the IT world. The
“main limiting factor,” he suggests, is likely to be “the lack of faith of the
Tuvin people in the possibility of achieving such a bright future” for
themselves and their offspring.
What is needed to overcome that is “a
vision” of what is possible, a vision like that offered by Martin Luther King
in the United States and Lee Kwan Yu in Singapore, and one that reflects the
past experience of the Tuvins in achieving what others thought impossible, such
as the liquidation of illiteracy in the 1930s.
To achieve this goal of a Tuva
integrated into the IT world, the writer continues, it will be necessary not
only to convince Tuvins that it is possible but to change the country’s system
of education so that its products will be ready to participate in that
world. They need fluency in Russian and
English, skills in mathematics, and mastery of computers and the Internet.
“Plus,” he says, the younger
generation of Tuvins need “a deep knowledge” of the history of their own
people.
Myshlyavtsev outlines a variety of
specific steps he believes Tuva must take to achieve “a worthy future for Tuva
and Tuvins,” but he acknowledges that many in that republic will have their own
ideas and he invites them to take part in a public discussion of what looks
very much like the rebirth of a genuine national movement in a way and a place
few have thought possible.
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