She cocks her head to the side in confusion. Her eyes shine with a charming look, and she starts to squeak in a high-pitched voice, “Please, Alisher, let’s make this work!”
I still have it under control. That was a planned move to see if she cares about me. I still need to identify what she wants in me—in an unlikely scenario that a girl would love me for my personality. The trigger worked perfectly—that strategy was successful just as I planned. Now it’s my move. I hold my hand out to her. “Take my hand, take it like you’re my girlfriend.” She accepts it. I continue my sequence, “Give me a hug.” Wonderful! She follows the orders like my employees do. Before the final step of taking her home, I whisper in her ear, “I would never break up with you.”
Caroline giggles and kisses my lips. I wonder if she understands that this is all just a joke to me? Her kiss gives me physical pleasure, but that natural high ends quickly. There’s no passion, almost as if I am kissing a piece of cold turkey. After she’s done with her play, she whispers in a high-pitched voice, “Let’s drive to your place for some drinks?”
I grab her ass and give it a hard squeeze. “Sure, why not?” Her body goes rigid, but I ignore her signals and move my hand towards her groin. She lets out a slight gasp and pushes my hand away.
When I am one of Forbes’ Top Young Billionaires, women let me whatever I want. But she would not admit that, so instead, she says, “You’re not entitled to my body.”
“Of course,” I say. But I know her type. Women like her enjoy power and the promise of power. I am both of those to her.
Her face is vibrating with a grimace. I’ve seen that face dozens of times before; sometimes from women wracked by an intense orgasm and sometimes from women appalled by my nature. I can only assume she’s disgusted by my actions, but apparently, her greed and lust for the top win over, as she still follows me out to my Ferrari.
We spend the rest of the evening at my mansion. By the time the sun sets, we’re tearing each other’s clothes off like wild animals. And like wild animals, we fuck. I’m pretty sure she already broke skin with her nails on my back, and her lips are full of passion. Yet, I don’t feel any emotion from this piece of plastic embracing me. My heart is burning with emptiness. A hole is piercing through my chest.
When I usually bring such women home, I feel full of life, masculine and virile. I mean, this is what success is, right? It made me feel relieved and confident, no longer the virgin perpetually stuck in the friendzone. After all, I might be a lovable person, a person who could be seen as an attractive man who matters—not just a random mistake of nature. Yet, there’s a problem of depending on women to validate my worth; perhaps these one-night stands are no longer what I genuinely need.
It wasn’t always like this.
I close my eyes and remember the days long past. Once upon a time, I saw women not as trophies to match my Ferrari and riches, but as someone to give and share compassion and understanding. I spent my childhood in my hometown of Alakala, the biggest city of my homeland Dalabistan. This country is located in Central Asia between Russia, Kazakhstan, China, and Mongolia. The name literally means “land of the steppe dwellers,” and our country is covered with vast steppes and valleys near the Tien Shan mountains. Our closest neighbors, the Kazakhs, are considered savages in my country, but I personally believe that Kazakhs are largely misunderstood by my people and are quite advanced and cultured. After all, how did they end up with a better economy and resources with a smaller amount of land than Dalabistan?
I dive deeper into my memories. Instead of Caroline, I see the dark hallways of my school, a Dalab-American School. Back then I considered a “good day” to be a day without being bullied. The thing is, for all of my eleven years at this school, I heard things like, “There, that broke dick comes again!” Even though my school was an international school with American teachers and many foreign students, most of the student population was Dalab.
The Dalab society is divided into two castes—the Three Elite Tribes and the Fourteen Commoners Tribes. Only members from the Three Elite Tribes could become President—or in the past, a Khan, a Sultan, or an Imam. The law has always favored the Elite Tribes. Even today, a Commoner who kills a member of the Elite Tribe will always get life in prison without parole. In contrast, a member of the Elite Tribe would only get a nine thousand aldan fine, about three US dollars, for committing the same crime against a Commoner—if he would even get caught. The Commoners cannot enjoy many rights the elites do—it is even enshrined in the Constitution of the Republic of Dalabistan:
Article 14, Part 3: We believe in equality for all.
Note: this does not apply to the members of the Fourteen Commoners Tribes. Legal discrimination on the basis of tribal origin and/or political views (including, but not limited to disagreeing with President’s vision for progress) is allowed and embraced by the society and the government.
Ten years ago, I honestly did not expect to be able to get to a great university like Dreamhouse University in Los Angeles. Since Dreamhouse University is one of the most selective and best in the world, there was no other option except failure. I remember my father, Kaisar, telling me, “Try your hardest. You must succeed. There is no option for failure because if you fail to get into Dreamhouse on a scholarship, you will get into a poor university for ‘savage tribe children.’ You’ll have no opportunities for the future. Work for your future now because Dalabistani society is cruel and unjust and cares only about your bribes and the tribe you are from.”
The day I got accepted to Dreamhouse Class of 2007 was the happiest day of my life. This enabled me to study with smart students, young men and women from other countries who did not judge by my tribe, and get to know legitimate professors, something that would be very unlikely for a man from a Chamyr tribe.
I desperately needed to escape the Dalabistani society where people judge me not for my abilities or moral character but for my tribe that I come from. If I wasn’t accepted into this renowned American university, I would have perished in Dalabistan, seeing my abilities decay and stink like rotten meat lying around near a highway without any use.
The Chamyr tribe is one of the Fourteen Commoners Tribes that lives in the Right Wing of Dalabistan. This tribe is very conservative and nationalist, placing Dalabs above everything and Allah above all. However, my experiences at the international school helped me shape a more understanding view of the world. Even though my tribe controls Alakala and is one of the largest, the ultimate authority and most lucrative positions still belong to the Three Elite Tribes: Shyngys, Atasty, and Janbek. Shyngys is the tribe that used to have power during the Dalab Khanate’s days in the Middle Ages, before the Russians came to conquer Dalabistan, Kazakhstan, and other Central Asian countries. Their power comes from the fact that all of its members are descendants of Genghis Khan himself. Because of that, they enjoyed power until Russians and Soviets completely stripped their authority in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
At that moment, the Janbek tribe was the most prominent tribe in Dalabistan politics. Since they were loyal supporters of the Bolsheviks, they eventually rose to controlling the Dalab land while obeying Moscow. Kairat Rakhimov, one of the greatest leaders of the Dalab Soviet Socialist Republic, was a Janbek. However, in December 1980, he was replaced by Volkan Babayev as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Dalabistan. People loved Rakhimov for many of the great things he did for the people during his tenure. He stood up for the Dalab SSR against ceding several lands to the Russian SFSR as the orders from the Kremlin stated. He voiced his disdain for his republic’s low economic development compared to the other Central Asian Soviet republics. He built oil rigs and mining factories that still feed most of Dalabistan’s GDP today. However, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union needed their loyal gullible member of nomenclature. As a result, they picked Babayev.
Kairat Rakhimov died of a heart attack soon after he was sacked. This was the final straw for the common
Dalabs who saw their heroic elite leader they cared about die as a martyr from the Soviets’ arms. These young students went to the streets and squares of Alakala—my hometown and the former capital of Dalabistan. However, the response was quick.
The Soviet KGB agents and police brutally suppressed these peaceful protests. Thousands of young students were killed, raped, and arrested. Those protesters who didn’t get arrested spent their entire lives facing misery and contempt from others. Even though I was born in 1986, six years after such events, the legacy still remains in the Dalabs’ collective memory. These protests only helped Volkan Babayev, a member of the Atasty Elite Tribe, to rise to power and get access to Dalabistan’s entire natural resources for himself, his family, and his tribesmen.
After Dalabistan became independent from the USSR in 1991, Volkan Babayev quickly became the President of Dalabistan. Some Shyngys tribesmen started to question Volkan Babayev’s legitimacy to power and didn’t believe in his propaganda. Despite being removed from power by the Soviets, Shyngys tribesmen remained an influential upper class during the USSR days as the advanced intelligentsia of the Dalab society, shaping its culture.
After Babayev’s rise to power, they launched oppositionist political parties and newspapers to challenge the “usurping regime” of Dalabistan. Several of them went on the streets with urges to stimulate democratic reforms, protect human rights and liberties, and fight corruption and tribal inequality. A little bit more, and they were in the making of a successful non-violent rebellion to drive Volkan Babayev out of power to reform Dalabistan into a progressive social democracy. As a result, Volkan Babayev started to purge so many Shyngys men and women. He jailed and executed them for treason. Moreover, he only hired loyal Atasty and Janbek tribesmen into the Parliament, Ministries, Embassies, and his party named the Democratic Party of Dalabistan. Spoiler alert, the party is not democratic because it wins the elections with 600 percent of votes for the Democratic Party of Dalabistan and for Volkan Babayev while eliminating virtually all competitors who either endorse the Democratic Party or get arrested for extremism.
In 1991 Volkan Babayev ordered the move of Dalabistan’s capital from Alakala to a newly built city of Yeniorda, meaning “New City” in the Dalab language. That process was scheduled to be completed by 1996 and burdened many Dalabistanis, but it did not stop Volkan Babayev from accumulating even more power and wealth for himself and his parasitical family.
In 1992, Volkan Babayev decided to play with people’s destinies and steal the revenues of lucrative oil fields, plentiful uranium mines, abundant coal mines, and rich iron ore reserves from the people were not enough. So, in similar fashion as Saparmurat Niyazov from the brotherly nation of Turkmenistan, Babayev proclaimed himself as “The Great Khan of All Dalabs,” turned Dalabistan into a de-facto monarchy that still calls itself “a republic,” renamed the capital after himself, Volkan, and spent a quarter of the country’s GDP on his lavish coronation as The Great Khan. In addition to that, Volkan Babayev’s biography was a compulsory separate subject to learn in schools and universities. Luckily, my school was exempt from that requirement since it was foreign-run. In every city, he ordered to place large golden statues of himself, rename all the main avenues, and put large portraits of Volkan Babayev on the streets and in every workplace. I still remember having him stare at me during my classes, walks outside, or soccer matches. Every moment his portraits stared at me, I felt threatened with him watching me and my actions. These were the moments when I realized on a daily basis that I need to escape Dalabistan. I could only escape Babayev’s watchful eyes by moving away from Dalabistan. For myself. For my family. For my late mother. And the only way I could do it is by getting accepted into a top university abroad. Otherwise, I would have perished in Dalabistan and in our dysfunctional society. If that was the case, I would prefer to perish an honorable death than live such a humiliating life like that.
Of course, all of these measures of cults of personality drained the resources so much that it took a ridiculous amount of enslaving debts from China and other countries. Debts that had to be paid back.
Instead of forcing the Three Elite Tribes to cut down on their caviar supplies and yacht fleets, in 1992 our corrupt government resorted to increasing taxes from the Commoners Tribes. They sent state-sponsored racketeers to rob the Commoners’ houses for any precious materials for sale. They stabbed my mother Zhansaya during that raid when I was only six years old. I know her only from a few photographs and my father’s stories about her. My father remembers the scary times when he, my little brother Kuanysh, and I were hiding with our Chamyr-tribe relatives in Chamyr Aul village right after the raid, longing for safety and peace in the middle of the steppes and valleys under the tall mountains.
Losing my mom in such a way made me realize that Dalabistan is not a country for life. I needed to escape from this toxic environment before it would kill me and the rest of my family. I studied hard and started a business just to avoid returning to the same toxicity of my country. I was afraid for my life, and later I only had more reasons to add up to my fear.
The Commoners Tribes were expected to inherently be inferior to the members of the Three Elite Tribes in all spheres—occupations, education, income, pension size, achievements, life expectancy, and so on. The Commoners live in poverty or lower-middle-class at best, while most of the Three Elite Tribes live in extravagant luxury. Mostly due to stealing the country’s oil, gas, uranium, coal, copper, and zinc mines and selling them to foreigners.
Of course, these conditions are very unendurable. Many foreign peers at my school and university asked me the same question, “Alisher, if things are so bad and there is a serious tribal and class segregation in the twenty-first century, then why is nobody changing things?”
The answers are simple: fear and autocracy. Despite the inhumane life of the Dalabs from the Commoners Tribes, protesting the government could be even worse than living in these conditions. My mind shifts to 2001 when my classmate Bolat, a member of the Shyngys tribe, campaigned and urged others to resist tribal inequality at our school. He made bold statements like, “We shall overthrow this dictatorship and inequality now!” in the school hallways and hung promotional posters in the classrooms for recruiting new volunteers for his protests. He, just like I anticipated, was killed during the 2001 protests in Alakala by the police. That day Babayev ordered police and soldiers to violently suppress any protester in the city center by any means possible.
The government blocked the Western news outlets, and local TV stations did not cover the protests at all. I did not even hear about any of these events. I learned about Bolat’s death only three days later when our school’s director delivered a eulogy over the loudspeakers at the beginning of the day and told us to stand up for a minute of silence in his loving memory. I did not feel safe. I felt that I am being watched 24/7 by Volkan and his regime. Whenever I wanted to share my true thoughts and anxieties and passions with others, I had to be always on the go to change conversation, hide my notes, and pretend that I am working or having apolitical conversations about sports or peaceful gossip. I was doing that so that I would not have any unnecessary suspicions and interrogations, because Babayev’s men are skillful at using one minute piece of evidence against me after they successfully make mountains of violent claims out of a molehill of information they can find. The daily anxieties of keeping my mouth shut, my head down, flying under the radar in order to not be caught doing something that could raise questions drove me crazy. My throat contracted. My heart was sinking. My cheek muscles pushed tears from my eyes but there were no tears left. I must leave Dalabistan right after graduating.
Volkan Babayev has ruled our country since 1980. He is known to put his relatives in high-ranking positions and comes from the Atasty Elite Tribe. Nearly seventy percent of all government officials come from this tribe. However, in their policies and actions, they are more concerned about filling their pockets than serving their people. Whene
ver Dalabs rebel against such inequities, they are always quickly and brutally suppressed. Fast forward to October 2003. I turned on the TV after arriving from my Dreamhouse University’s freshmen dining hall. On the BBC, I witnessed the anchor announcing,
“Let’s get to the breaking news of the hour: a large strike of workers in the mining and oil industry of a small town Munai in western Dalabistan is currently being purged by the police. Eyewitnesses claim that the police are firing at the striking laborers demanding better pay, improved working conditions, and resolving long-standing tribal issues. State officials report that the situation is already under control and that the riots are dissolved. As a result of the clashes, at least 70 workers of the mines and oil rigs were wounded. There are no reports of deaths as of now. We will keep you updated as the story develops.
“Local residents of Munai say that the authorities are trying to control the media reports, we are hearing that the internet and mobile communications are being jammed by the Dalabistani government to prevent the spread of information.
“The president of Dalabistan, long-time dictator Volkan Babayev, has swiftly declared the State of Emergency in Munai. A night-time curfew and restriction of movement have been introduced with this act.
“It is important to note that protesting the President of Dalabistan and striking are prohibited under the Dalabistani law, and these crimes are punishable by lifetime imprisonment. International organizations have frequently noticed significant human rights violations in this country, ranking it as one of the world’s most repressive regimes next to Turkmenistan, Eritrea, and North Korea.
“Dalabistan, a former Central Asian Soviet republic, is marred by a severe form of tribal segregation between the Three Elite Tribes and the Fourteen Commoners Tribes, as well as authoritarianism and corruption.”
The Outcast Presidents Page 2
