A Speech Not Quite at the UN

Excerpt from Of Strangers and Bees: A Hayy ibn Yaqzan Tale, by Hamid Ismailov, translated by Shelley Fairweather-Vega, (USA: Tilted Axis Press, 2019).

A Speech Not Quite at the UN

An Uzbek writer named Sheikhov is wandering the world in exile, when perestroika and the impending breakup of the Soviet Union are confusing his own thoughts of national identity more than ever. The secret goal of his wanderings is to find the ancient philosopher Avicenna, who, Sheikhov is convinced, is wandering the world, just like him. But he keeps getting sidetracked from that goal. In this short episode, Sheikhov has been invited to speak to a crowd of demonstrators at the United Nations building in New York City.

One time in New York I attended a demonstration at the United Nations building. That day, all us speakers walked up to that podium ready to either sink or swim. In those days of quickly shifting political winds, that truly required courage. Even the American Uzbeks admitted it, and they told me that nobody had ever agreed to do anything of the sort before. ‘What would be would be,’ I thought!

On that day, the warmer it got outside, the more people arrived. It would have been great if only the Uzbeks had come, or at least, say, Turkestani Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, although the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz never by any means describe themselves as Turkestanis – only the poor Uzbeks and Sarts do that. Yes, if Turkestani Sarts had been the only people there – but instead, all sorts of interested people started arriving. A Crimean Tatar. Two Turks. Three Ukrainian nationalists. You’ll never guess who it was who opened that demonstration. A German man! A German, who had been kicked out of Königsberg by the Soviet Army. After neither of the Germanies took him in, this little Führer created the Organization of Enslaved Peoples, and became its chairman. This man walked up to the podium, and he began to heat up and practically boil over. You’ve probably seen Hitler’s fiery speeches in the movies. It was just like that. We were almost ready to shout out 'Heil!' ourselves. This German spent half an hour weeping at our funeral, telling us all his terrible problems.

After him the Ukrainians stepped to the podium. They too had suffered, as it turned out. Interestingly enough, they had each experienced a different kind of pain: Every time one of them said one thing, another would interrupt him in their Ukrainian-accented Russian – 'No, Mikola, it wasn’t like that, it was like this!' – and then arguments would spring up among the demonstrators. It was a good thing the Crimean Tatar was there to break it up.

Apparently the Ukrainians distracted him, because he missed his turn and a Turk climbed up to the podium and set it trembling like risen dough, and with remarkable eloquence he began to sympathize with us and our sorrows. 'My friends!' said this Turk, with nary an introductory word. 'My aggrieved friends! Freedom to Turkestan!'

This must have been the spiritual leader we were waiting for, our sheikh, because a furious shout rose up and traveled around in a circle that reminded me of the ring in the Qadiri Sufi order. Naturally, we chanted in English. 'Turkestan free! Russia go home!' And we started marching stubbornly in a circle, like bulls digging a well, and we all entered into some sort of ecstasy. But while I walked in that circle, holding somebody’s hand, a thought was marching in circles in my brain: 'There goes your cover, Sheikhov! You’ve guaranteed your own arrest when you return to Uzbekistan!'

But that was only the beginning. Once our Turkish sheikh stepped down from the podium, none of the other friendly peoples there could bring themselves to take over, seeing that the Turkestanis had struck a particular tone, and due to that it was one of the Sarts who stepped up next – they’re a hospitable people, after all – and he had not forgotten, even in that ecstasy, to suck up, so he abruptly announced, 'Dear countrymen! Among us there is the most genuine countryman of all countrymen who have ever come from our motherland. Please, come up here, to the place of honour!'

By that time, thanks to our circle chants ('Huv-va! Huv-va!') a few of the highest windows in the United Nations building had opened up, and a crowd of tourists, photographers and ordinary passers-by had gathered. Everyone stood there and wondered what on earth we were demonstrating for. I walked up to that podium, thinking that if this had been ordained by God, then the outcome was also in God’s hands.

'Brothers!' I began. But somehow I could not find in my memory the oratorical style of Erkin Vahidov or Abdulla Aripov.

'Dear friends, brothers and sisters!' I tried again, and then stopped, flummoxed. Because I realized then that I sounded like Stalin giving a speech before the war. If I kept on in this vein, it was completely possible I would end up saying something like 'the invincible Red Army.' Which would be as good as jumping into a boiling cauldron.

We writers, you know, we understand the masses. That may be the reason that I suddenly felt sympathy for these countrymen of mine, young and old.  They had left behind their shops and their affairs for two hours, maybe even for the only two hours they could leave them that whole year, and here they were, in a completely alien country, worlds away, and they were worried about their nation, they were thinking of their people. I felt so much sympathy for them that tears almost came to my eyes.

'My dear ones!' said I. 'You and I are just a small sprinkling here. So our voices will not be heard behind those windows, and if they do hear us, nobody will listen or give it much thought. But in that place where I came from, there are twenty million of your people, and when the voice of an entire people rings in tune with your voice, then that voice will be heard by all. Whether they want to hear it or not!'

I spoke on and on. It turned out that we, too, had suffered quite a lot, only we hadn’t been paying attention.

The demonstration was over, the passion had died down, and we were standing around catching our breath, like neighbours steaming in a bathhouse. The people who had just been demonstrating, flaunting their bare nationalism, had now put their civilian outfits back on, and they looked like level-headed American citizens again, and off they rushed, some back to man their stores, to make up for the volume of commerce they might have missed in this time before Christmas, and some consulted with each other on what to have for dinner.

I also stood there, sad, on the windy square before the UN building, feeling that I had made that speech to myself, like a little boy left all alone after his circumcision ceremony. Then a very old man, very venerable, probably a hundred and two, walked up to me. 'You must be the nephew of Pasha-Khan-Tura?' he asked.

Although at that moment my thoughts were occupied with something completely different, he and I still managed to talk a little about this and that. 'Son,' the old man said, 'You surprised me with all those serious things you said. What do we Uzbeks need, after all? For our stomachs to be full, for business to be brisk, and... and.... well, take a look at that girl photographer over there! You think I have a chance? Yes yes yes, look at that figure! Why isn’t she snapping in two under that heavy camera she’s holding? I’m a hundred and two years old, you know, and I still can’t deny myself a little taste! All you need to do is eat well, then you won’t have any trouble below the belt!' And with those words, the venerable old man headed off, a youthful spring in his step, toward that girl photographer.



Hamid Ismailov was born in Kyrgyzstan to a deeply religious Uzbek family of Mullahs, Sayids, and Khodjas, many of whom had lost their lives during the persecution of the Stalin era. He received an exemplary Soviet education, graduating with distinction from both his secondary school and military college, and attained university degrees in a number of disciplines. He became a dissident writer and poet residing in the West. Critics have compared his books—including The Railway, A Poet and Bin-Laden, and The Dead Lake—to the best of Russian classics, Sufi parables, and Western postmodern works. In 2012, Ismailov represented Uzbekistan at the Poetry Parnassus in London, and until 2014 he acted as the BBC World Service’s first Writer-in-Residence. 

Shelley Fairweather-Vega is a professional translator of Russian and Uzbek based in Seattle, Washington. She translates poetry, fiction, and drama, with a special focus on the contemporary literature of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Fairweather-Vega holds degrees in International Relations and Russian, East European, and Central Asian Studies. As a translator, she is most interested in the intersection of culture and politics in modern history. To learn more, visit fairvega.com/translation.