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Perhaps the news of President Niyazov's death and 'legacy' in Turkmenbashi may put current arguements into perspective ....
OBITUARY:
"Analysts say Mr Niyazov's legacy is grim: education, healthcare, society generally have crumbled under his rule. Poverty remained rife in the energy-rich country.
"President Niyazov was in effect the state and what he decreed on any subject, from politics, to culture to science, was absolute law"
"He renamed months and days in the calendar after himself and his family, and ordered statues of himself to be erected throughout the desert nation. Cities, an airport and a meteorite were given his name."
"Mr Niyazov was intolerant of criticism and allowed no political opposition or free media in the nation of five million people."
"His laws became increasingly personal. It was forbidden to listen to car radios or smoke in public, or for young men to wear beards." 
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