Russia and Eurasia Programme paper: 2012/02
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- 7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 29 Uzbeks were alarmed that his activist stance would backfire. 117 Given this history, government and international efforts to encourage the equal participation of Uzbek minorities in the political life of the country could be equally counter-productive at this point in the republic’s history. As one Uzbek politician put it to me, Batyrov ‘chose the wrong time’ to raise the issue of Uzbek civil rights: ‘Kyrgyzstan was poor, it had had two revolutions, it was unstable [...] when the country is developed, richer, only then.’ 118
Summary There has been intense international interest in the 2010 violence and its aftermath, with numerous different forms of policy intervention. Their common aim is the promotion of peaceful ethnic relations to enable the long-term maintenance of a thriving Uzbek minority in Kyrgyzstan. This is laudable. However, by failing to properly understand the trajectory of Kyrgyz nationalism, these policies misdiagnose the problem and propose solutions that are either unrealistic or potentially dangerously counter-productive. Laurent Goetschel and Tobias Hagmann outline how, with the end of the Cold War, a ‘peacebuilding’ agenda became integrated into the policies and programmes of bilateral donors, multilateral institutions and NGOs. They argue that these agencies have rarely defined what they mean by peace, seldom involved local communities in defining what peace is, and ‘deliberately excluded local actors that do not share its geopolitical worldviews.’ 119 Donor-led interventions, they continue, often ignore or elbow out local concepts of peace and how it is produced, and thus become ineffective or irrelevant. This is clearly observable in Kyrgyzstan: foreign organizations have failed to understand Kyrgyz (and to an extent Uzbek) concepts of peace, and thus failed to grasp social dynamics and the feasibility and implications of proposing models for political development devised elsewhere. Considering the condition of Bedouin minorities in Israel, Oren Yiftachel argues that Israel is an ‘ethnocratic’ regime, which presents itself as a democracy yet whose main project is the ‘ethnicization’ of the social, economic and political life of the country in favour of the titular nation. 120
equal citizens, but on creating conditions for the survival of their group in the state until such a time as they can seek full civil rights. 121 In comparative work in Sri Lanka, Nihal Perera argues that most subordinated classes in history have not been afforded the luxury of open, organized political activity, yet often manage to create their own conditions for survival. 122 The condition of Uzbeks in Osh is analogous. The current trajectory of exclusive Kyrgyz nationalism and the patronage structures of Kyrgyz society mean that equal participation in a multi-ethnic state is not possible for the time being. That goal of inclusive nationalism needs to be kept alive, and the critique of injustices that prevent it needs to be maintained. But in the meantime, international organizations need to find other ways of supporting Uzbeks and of promoting good relations between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks. Some measures along these lines are proposed in the final section.
117
As one Uzbek put it to me: ‘People here can’t forgive Batyrov. If he comes to Cheremushka [an Osh Uzbek neighbourhood that saw some of the worst anti-Uzbek violence in June 2010] we’ll kill him before the Kyrgyz do. He was seeking his own interests, hoping to be governor of Jalalabad by siding with the temporary government, and see what happened to us. He should never have got involved with the Kyrgyz politics.’ Conversation, Uzbek farmer, Osh, 11 October 2010.
118
Interview, local Uzbek elected politician, Kora-Suu region, 15 October 2011. Although this person is a rival of Batyrov’s, I do not have records of his position before the violence.
119 Goetschel, Laurent and Hagmann, Tobias (2009), ‘Civilian peacebuilding: peace by bureaucratic means?’ Conflict, Security & Development, Vol. 9, No 1, p. 58.
120 Yiftachel, Oren, and As’ad Ghanem. (2004). ‘Understanding “ethnocratic” regimes: the politics of seizing contested territories’, Political Geography, Vol. 23.
121 Yiftachel, Oren (2009), ‘Critical theory and “gray space”: mobilization of the colonized’, City, Vol. 13, No 2.
122
Perera, Nihal (2009), ‘People’s spaces: familiarization, subject formation and emergent spaces in Colombo’, Planning Theory, Vol. 8, No 1.
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 30
This paper has considered the aftermath of violence between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, and the conditions required to stabilize inter-communal relations. Because of the sense of injustice among Uzbeks and the apparent impunity of many perpetrators, further violence is possible (given further political instability) and on a scale potentially greater than before. There are multiple reasons for the June violence, including economic hardship, the burgeoning of organized crime, political turmoil following the April 2010 overthrow of President Bakiev, and the poor preparedness and discipline of the security forces. Without discounting these, this paper has examined one factor, the importance of Kyrgyz nationalism, for understanding responses to what occurred. Analysis has shown that among all echelons of Kyrgyz society some version of the belief is widespread that the leadership of Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbeks, with shadowy external support, were, under the guise of advancing civil and linguistic rights, secretly plotting to dismember the Kyrgyz state by seeking autonomy or secession. I am aware of no convincing evidence for this, and it is only explicable by understanding the trajectory of Kyrgyz nationalism. Nationalism is here not understood as an irrational and aggressive force, but as the political ideology holding that the world should be divided into territorial states each representing a nation. With independence thrust upon them, Kyrgyz elites found themselves having to make a place for their new country within this framework. However the Soviet system had ill-prepared them for it as they were systematically disadvantaged through the structures of education that denigrated Kyrgyz language in favour of Russian. Demographically and economically, the Kyrgyz occupied marginal positions in the country’s two urban centres, Bishkek and Osh. At the same time, the Soviet policy of favouring ‘titular majorities’ in political administrations created an expectation that Kyrgyz should be in leading positions in the country, when they were palpably not. Against a backdrop of poverty and deep social malaise in a country sandwiched between stronger and richer neighbours, these factors produced a Kyrgyz nationalism that is profoundly insecure about its survival, an insecurity focused on issues of internal unity, geopolitics and language. This insecurity presents particular problems for the Uzbek minority. Kyrgyz national imaginations are framed by concepts of ‘unity’ and ‘concordance’ that refer to particular political concepts derived from a specific narration of Kyrgyz history and a particular understanding of Inner Asian tribal organization and leadership models. According to this, the prosperity of the nation depends upon its constituent elements being loyally united behind a leader. Projected forward, this translates into the idea that for Kyrgyzstan to survive the present crisis and prosper, its class, regional and ethnic groupings must loyally unite behind the idea of a state that is marked by ethnic Kyrgyz language, culture and symbols. Through this lens, the Uzbek minority was seen as an existential threat to Kyrgyz statehood – and one supported by the schemes of foreign governments and powers for their own geopolitical interests. This accounts to some degree for the context of the June 2010 violence, and to a significant degree for the subsequent mistreatment of Uzbeks and antipathy to foreign interventions such as the Kyrgyzstan Inquiry Commission. In order to stabilize ethnic relations and secure a decent future for Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan, it will be crucial to address these concerns about Kyrgyz statehood. This means addressing the three main issues underlying insecurity about Kyrgyzstan’s future – internal unity, geopolitics and language. It can be argued that after the dissolution of the Soviet Union a Central Asian federation might have been more desirable than five independent republics, and it may well be that a future union along the lines of the European model would work better for the region’s inhabitants. But for the time being at least, the ideology of nation-building based on the pre-eminent role of the titular ethnic group is the inescapable context that frames Kyrgyzstani politics. The challenge is not to identify errant nationalists within Kyrgyzstan and oppose them: it is to help Kyrgyz nationalism develop an ideology and practice that is more inclusive than exclusive of minorities. This argument requires qualification and caveats. The causes of the violence in and since 2010 are multiple, and solutions must also be multiple. These will include creating economic opportunities, and massive overhaul of the police and justice organs to create a properly functioning legal system that prosecutes both physical harm and incitement to racial violence and discrimination. Reconciliation will require truth-telling, apology, a thorough and open inquiry, and equal Yüklə 0,74 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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