Viktor Bout, Esperantist of Dushanbe

Author: Ben <benk@tilde.team>

Wed 14 Dec 2022 03:33:36 PM +05

Within the past week, the United States and Russia exchanged two high-profile prisoners in a deal that I am sure all of my readers are familiar with. In exchange for basketball star Brittney Griner, Russia received Viktor Bout, a notorious arms dealer and ethnic Russian native of Tajikistan.

Regarding the ethics of the deal, I am not so inclined to question it. In the United States there has been some moral outrage that Viktor Bout was too big and bad to give up for a lowly basketball player. It's not my intention to weigh all the possible moral implications of it, but on the US side the focus seems to be placed more on evaluating the two based on what they did for a living than other factors.

There is also the fact that Griner had done almost nothing wrong, whereas Bout's crimes are of a serious nature. In spite of this, I personally did not feel outraged that Bout was released for a few reasons that I'd like to explain.

Firstly, I don't deny that Bout committed crimes. I am not familiar with the details of his career as an arms dealer, but I really have no doubt that he has broken many laws in his career. In terms of whether what he was doing was good or evil, selling weapons, in and of itself, is likely a bad thing.

That being said, while I disapprove of his past dealings, I find his villification to be excessive and distasteful. There are evils far greater in the world, including the dealings of the states which held him accountable for his crimes, particularly the United States, whose arms deals are no secret and have arguably resulted in greater human suffering than whatever Bout was doing. There is no need to go into detail about this, but in recent times I have been very saddened by the case of Saudi Arabia's wanton destruction of Yemen.

Also, it's worthwhile to understand the life and times of Bout, how he was a gifted and ambitious man trained to be a soldier by the USSR, which suddenly ceased to exist, leaving Bout with little prospects or opportunity in life other than to use the training and skills that he was given. Forced to survive in the chaos of post-Soviet collapse, I wonder what choices he had in order to escape abject poverty.

When the United States had Bout apprehended, he had been invited on false pretenses to sell weapons to FARC rebels in Colombia. This was supposed to prove that Bout was seeking to harm the people of the United States, even though, ironically, the US government was a client of his only a few years prior in Iraq. I will let the reader determine for herself what "Americans" were doing in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Colombia.

To summarize it bluntly, I just don't think he was such a bad guy. I think he was caught for breaking the law and was handed down punishment. That's fair. (Griner, on the other hand, was faced with a grave injustice.) At the time of his release, Bout had served nearly half of his sentence, and I find it unlikely that he will cause further harm after his release.

But what of my personal connection to Viktor Bout? I have never met him, but we were both students of Dr. Firdaus Shukurov and members of the Association of Esperantists of Tajikistan (AET). Dr. Shukurov, a dear friend of mine, taught Bout Esperanto when he was just a teenager in the 1980's in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, where they both were born. A few days ago, Firdaus clarified these details for me when I asked him about Bout. He mentioned that Bout was so bright that he was able to speak Esperanto after (supposedly) two lessons, and that he was an active and talented member of the association.

At the time of Bout's arrest in 2008, the Esperanto association, namely Dr. Shukurov, wrote a letter in his defense. I have read the alleged contents of this letter online and felt that there was some level of naivety in it. Speaking as a teacher and mentor myself, one senses the tragedy of a teacher in disbelief of his most promising student having gone astray.

I first learned who Bout was years ago while sitting with Firdaus in the kitchen of his old Soviet apartment near the Dushanbe opera house and looking through old photos of the Esperanto association. Among them was a picture of him and Bout sitting together, and Firdaus pointed to him and said who he was. (I had no idea.) I recently asked him for a copy of this photo, but he seemed not to know where it was.

In any case, I was much disappointed to learn that Bout was locked up in a US prison. (Again, not to say that he didn't deserve it.) I thought perhaps there was a chance to invite him back to Esperanto and its humanitarian ideals. I could not have imagined that Bout would be freed only a few years later and in such circumstances as this.

Sadly, I doubt he cares for either Esperanto or Tajikistan as much as I do. The Esperanto association in Tajikistan has a rich and storied history, most of which will pass away when Dr. Shukurov dies, as he is the last living remainder of it. From beginning to end, it was his life's work; I only became a member of the association in 2015 after learning Esperanto on the Internet and contacting him by phone. He and I met for tea weekly for some time before I moved to Iran to pursue my degree in Persian language and literature. I had been living in Dushanbe since the year before as a result of having pursued a career in Persian and subsequently marrying a Tajik national.

When I came to Dushanbe it was still the old Dushanbe. The ghost of Soviets past haunted everything in the city. Now it is hardly recognizable. I taught Esperanto in Dushanbe for about a year and a half. There was some hope of revitalizing the association, but neither Firdaus' nor my students are anywhere to be found. Between us are now only shared memories of life in this beautiful city of Dushanbe and a past that can never be regained. Earlier this year I watched as Dr. Firdaus, impoverished and in need of money, sold the Esperanto garden to a relative who had no idea of its value.

What a profound sadness it is to think back on those hopeful days before all the tragedies of missed opportunities and wasted potential. An Esperantist is literally one who hopes by profession. We do not simply hope, but we dedicate ourselves to hoping.

My connection to Bout is only sentimental. In spite of the vast separations between us and how far he's left his past behind, I regard him with a feeling of kinship that can only be shared by the Esperantists of Dushanbe, who were only ever a handful of people on Earth, and our numbers are dwindling.