Boy, nothing is too silly to be real. A year ago, I touted Afghanistan as the next Switzerland—landlocked, mountainous, resource-free, ready to serve as an intermediary for those around it (link).
I don’t think I was being more than half flip, but okay, I was being flip. Hah, shows what I know: set aside Afghanistan for a moment, it turns out that the (former) president of neighboring Kyrgyzstan had essentially the same idea—to turn his country into “the Switzerland of Central Asia.” So recounts Martha Brill Olcott in Central Asia’s Second Chance (2005)—“a financial center, a transport hub, and a popular destination for international tourists” (41). Olcott continues:
Cynically, it can be argued that Akayev was probably turning necessity into advantage, as he sought to distinguish his country and its leadership from that of other states in the region. Lacking the wealth of may of its neighbors, Kyrgyzstan had little more than the personality of its president to serve as a magnet for attracting Western investments, loans, or grants in aid. (id.)
Hello, cynically? Sounds like a perfectly good plan to me—you play the hand that’s dealt you. Unfortunately, Akayev got a bit previous with some of the opposition and they chased him out; he is now (oh, the humiliation!) a math teacher in Moscow.
Well, I still think it’s a good idea. On second (or maybe third) thought, there may be an even better candidate for the role. That would be Kashmir—war-torn between India and Pakistan, but with a strong banking/financial infrastructure (and, so they say, one of the prettiest places on the planet, to boot). Now, if only they could get that silly religion business behind them. Of course, the Catholics and Protestants might have said the same thing in their time…
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