CINEMA AS BRANDING - Tourism in Central Asia: Cultural Potential and Challenges - page 184

unrealized plan: to have Kazakhs to adopt a sedentary way of life. Switch-
ing thoughts to himself, he adds: “there is nothing more bitter in life than
to be a ruler of a tiny frail realm” (ibid).
At the time of Ablai, during the 18th century, mobile pastoralism was
a major source of livelihood and identity among the Kazakhs who held
it as a pledge of commitment to their ancestors. Bukhar zhirau takes Ab-
lai's idea as a sign of his ultimate betrayal of the people he was sworn to
protect. This episode completes the dramatic logic of the narrative ending
with Bukhar zhirau's reflection on the generations of Töre who were bred
on the Kazakh soil but nevertheless remained distant strangers. Ablai was
one of them: he had the strength to overcome the great odds but respected
his own wishes only, just like his notable Mongol forebear from whom he
inherited his title.
In sum, revolving around his ambivalence, the story has drawn an in-
tense imagery of Ablai as a gifted politician and a committed leader; and,
on the other hand, a cruel and insecure man who uses his power and his
sword against his enemy as much as against his own people. Ablai's po-
litical legacy dies with him, destroyed by his house rivals and Russian
colonial encroachment; his predicament, however, has formed a screen for
addressing timeless issues concerning the meaning of power, identity, and
loyalty that helped to cover his very appearance in history with mystical
glaze. In the 1860s, Valikhanov admitted his bewilderment with Ablai who
during his lifetime “acted against freedom in a despotic manner;” and yet,
“managed to wrap up his deeds in such a way that his descendants would
regard him as a saint” (1985: 116).
In the 21st century, not many Kazakhs would attribute such spiritual
quality to Ablai. At the same time, after centuries of continuous cultural
and political change, his idea of sedentarization can also show his abil-
ity to visualize the pressure for historical change. The departure of the
society from the experiences of pastoral nomadism in the early twentieth
century as part of the colonial project was destructive as was the subse-
quent unbinding from socialism during the end of the century. Yet, the pain
of sedentarization and post-Soviet transition speaks of the ways in which
these processes were orchestrated from the outside and not of the change
per se . “Change need not be devastating to a culture,” Morantz argues,
“particularly when [it] … is directed from within the culture” (2002: 23).
But, where do we draw the line between power and political ambition,
and, on the other hand, popular desire, culture, and identity by which the