Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/04/30/turkmenistans-eccentric-dictator-built-a-self-glorifying-12m-phallic-marble-monstrosity-called-the-neutrality-monument.html
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John Oliver did an amazing piece on him a few years ago. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9QYu8LtH2E
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I remain eternally gobsmacked that Trump didn’t run a whole shitload of projects like this. I reckon he’ll indulge himself with plenty of gold statues of himself if he manages to make it back into the White House…
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I was surprised (but thankful) that Trump didn’t try to have Denali carved into his likeness.
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When he visited Rushmore and “joked” that he would like to be up there, his Cult members started seriously pushing the idea of making it happen. If the worst happens and he is elected, they will start carving on the day of his coronation.
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Oliver’s episode was about Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, who was President from 2006 to 2022. Certainly an eccentric dictator, but not the same eccentric dictator as his predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov, who was the one that had this built.
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They can’t, simply because there isn’t anywhere stable to put another president.
I know, that won’t stop them, and Trump isn’t stable either.
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Honesly $12M is a lot less than I would expect for some grandstanding self-glorifying monument like this. You can easily blow multiple times that amount on a fancy house in many American cities.
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Berdimuhamedow moved the “Monument to Neutrality” to the suburbs.[2] The president appointed Turkish construction firm Polimeks, which had initially constructed it, to carry out the dismantling and movement of the arch.[4] The removal of Niyazov’s golden statue was completed on 26 August 2010,[5] although it was then placed back after the monument was moved. The statue no longer rotates, but the viewing platform is still usually open for visitors. There are elevators inside the “legs” of the monument.[6]
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Or possibly the Tropico loading screen?
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I don’t know that it looks that much more phallic than any other round tower though. Like, maybe less than say the Salesforce Tower. At least this one has a wide base to make it look like a rocket instead.
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There’s a distinct vein of cynical appeals to international law principles by leaders with…troubled…records.
It makes sense: if you are at the top of the heap locally being in favor of ‘sovereignty’ and the importance of respecting a nation state’s internal affairs is just being in favor of having no external critics.
The really motivated ones will go further and elaborate a position where any appeal to universal principles, like those pesky ‘human rights’, is actually just another manifestation of the various universalist claims often used to make imperialism look less shabby; and that any criticism of them on such grounds is more or less indistinguishable from brits in pith helmets saying nasty things about the locals in preparation for crushing them and stealing their stuff.
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Is he the one who started the national Melon Day (second Sunday in August)? So still plenty of time to get all your melon cards, plan your melon costumes…
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True, but this was built in 1998, at a time when Turkmenistan wasn’t exactly flush with cash. The GDP per capita was less than $2000.
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And Niyazov built plenty of other self-glorifying monuments.
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