Thus Spake Salim

A letter by a dear colleague:

Dear All,

I have received latest news from the Tajik service being away from you. Looking from outside I should say that these news are regrettable.

Two members of the team are leaving us in a very climax of our progress and successes.

Massoumeh has changed the Tajik service very much in all dimensions, from the programming to our working space design. Maybe she was wrong giving us to much freedom and democracy in doing our job, speaking openly, stepping out of the «borders». She is a Westener, but we are Easterners with certain oddities. She was the rare type of bosses who clearly separate professional and personal relations. Sometimes I was not behave as a good person to her (Sorry, Massoumeh), but it had never been affected our relations as the team members, the same was with others. She taught us not to gain a credit by playing the role of a close aide-de-camp, giving equal chances to everyone and cementing our team. I will miss her daily post-broadcast notes that were giving me an example of good and energizing judgment. We all see her as a pattern of Friendly Soft Power.

Shafkat is surely a noble representative of the young Tajik generation with his own singularities and a large portion of «fresh blood» poured into the body of our team. However, sometimes the fresh blood causes allergic overreaction. He shocked us by his energy, knowledge, open mind and dress fashion. Unlike me he was not afraid of the microphone flying as a free bird on air. He has attracted many Tajik youth, who are trying to write as he in their e-mail messages as we all witnessed. Tajik papers have been reprinting his stories, causing discussions in Tajikistan. However, he was made us uncomfortable by his independent mind and stubborn resistance not to be like everyone, when he do believe he is right. I have been feeling myself much younger talking to him and I will miss this feeling too.

Let us to wish both of them all the best in their journey, if Shafkat did not changed his mind to stay in the team for sake of his listeners. Sorry.
sa