The Most Hated Woman in Uzbekistan Can Do Anything

Gulnara stuntin' at some party.

Gulnara Karimova’s bio reads like someone who suffers from delusions of grandeur, severe multiple-personality disorder, and a strong desire to become an international pop star all at the same time. Not only is Gulnara “the single most hated person” in Uzbekistan according to U.S. embassy cables, she’s a screenplay writer, a University professor at the University of World Economy and Diplomacy in Tashkent, a Fashion designer, a Telecom magnate, and crucially, daughter of the first, current and only president of Uzbekistan – a country regularly labelled a totalitarian state by international watchdog groups and diplomats alike. She holds 2 BAs, 2 MAs (including one from Harvard) one LC (Fashion Institute of Technology), and one PhD. Laugh her off all you want as the Uzbek James Franco on speedballs, but her existence says a lot about the face of modern totalitarianism and the return of the personality cult.

Uzbekistan’s resident Twit-lebrity, her round-the-clock retweets of adoring messages from sycophants might remind you of say, anyone with a Twitter account – with the bizarre twist that the desired responses seem to be ensured through the spectre of an iron fist regime that has searched high and low but can find nary a fuck to give. How else can you explain the effusive fawning over her duet with Gérard Depardieu, a musical oeuvre that by all objective accounts was less graceful than the French star’s airplane aisle pissing debacle? One example:

Translation: Thank yooouuuuu for the clip of NEBO MOLCHIT [the duet w Depardieu] JJJJ I reeeeeeally reeeeeeally liked it JJJthank youuuuuu :-*

Twitter is also a great forum to have an honest exchange with the Uzbek pop star from a safe physical distance, and an occasional exchange can be witnessed showcasing subtle dissent from within the country. For example, this cryptic exchange between Uzbek independent news agency Harakat.net (@News_Uzbekistan) and Karimova:

Translation: News_Uzbekistan @GulnaraKarimova I think that blocking me is not constructive, you also need to associate with the opposition in order to help the people.

Gulnara Karimova @News_Uzbekistan and how does this seem like blocking your tweet?! Only let’s not forget, that we tweet at each other when we want to and for ourselves.

It’s all very surreal, if only because our associations with totalitarianism are so archaic: jackboots in lockstep, grainy megaphones, distinctive facial hair, berets. What if for today’s modern despot, a shout-out on social media is the new floor-scraping bow or obedient salute – and blocking on the same forum is the new firing squad (possibly complemented by an actual firing squad IRL)? And who doesn’t secretly hope that it is, if only because it would give the unbearable lightness of online interaction some much-needed gravitas while breathing new life into personality cults – arguably the most fun part of dictatorships? To use a jarring comparison with the most infamous totalitarian leader, it is well known that one of the key sources of Adolf Hitler’s frustrations was his failure to be appreciated for his art. What if he had just amassed enough power to compel a horde of people to “like” his Instagram feed and called it a day?

To be fair, the adoration Karimova receives from her acolytes online can also be explained to some degree by the traditional Central Asian clan system. In this system, regime stability depends on informal pacts made between kin-based groups of around two to twenty thousand. Clans are basically loyalty networks linking elite and non-elite members of society, with elites using the power of the clan for political support and non-elite members relying on elite members for influence in getting jobs and obtaining goods and services like education. Karimova is pretty much at the dead center of this system, as Islam Karimov at the end of the Soviet era was known for being an in-between guy of sorts for clan relations. So even though the Uzbek fashion house Czar is a figure that inspires terror in her subjects, there is a teensy bit of room to consider that the giddy praise she receives from Uzbek citizens on public forums could be just as inspired by the mutual back-scratching dynamic of traditional clan relations than from pure fear.

Whatcha lookin' at Gulnara?

Still, when it comes to harnessing the trappings of iron-clad rule to indulge artistic whims, Karimova should probably join forces with Ramzan Kadyrov, president of the Chechen Republic (part of Russia). Kadyrov, son of a former Chechen president and former Chechen rebel himself, is an aficionado of Chechen daggers and sports cars, and known for dancing clumsily at weddings “with his gold-plated automatic stuck down in the back of his jeans.” Jean Claude Van Damme knows what I’m talking about. In 2011 the Chechen leader flew Van Damme, Hilary Swank and a number of other celebrities to enjoy a laser show and sword dancer extravaganza on the occasion of his 35th birthday. “I love you Mr Kadyrov!” said Van Damme at the end of his speech, showing that all it takes is a free ticket to a laser show to win over the Muscles from Brussels.

Imagine what the two could accomplish together – Karimova would get Kadyrov to put more of his hilarity on blast using social media (he has recently authorized Instagram photos of him fondling baby deer at his estate) and Kadyrov would get Karimova to associate with more hilarious celebrities. The result: two powerful, ego-driven aesthetes in cahoots – like so many art school kids splashing their suburban worker bee parents’ salaries around, but with many more millions of dollars at their disposal and militiamen at their bidding.

Karimova and Kadyrov’s whole deal seems pretty familiar – even banal, as kids breaking off from the values of a comfortable upbringing with connections because they “just want to dance!” is a tired cliché. But does that endear them to us, or does it make us hate them more? Does it make them seem less or more dangerous – as artistic visions have been known to run roughshod over others, even in situations where the artist’s actual power extends only as far as distributing drink tickets received for a gig? In the East and West, the answers often rest on the opinion of whether the artistic vision in question is awesome enough or not. I’ll leave that up to you to decide.

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