Russia and Eurasia Programme paper: 2012/02
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- Bu səhifədəki naviqasiya:
- 3. UNDERSTANDING NATIONALISM IN KYRGYZSTAN.
- Kyrgyz historical political imagination
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 11
In Kyrgyzstan’s 2011 presidential election, a soundbite used by the eventual victor, Almazbek Atambaev was ‘don’t divide among yourselves!’ (bolynbygylo!), and the headline slogan of one of his rivals, Kamchybek Tashiev, was ‘The nation won’t be divided, and the land won’t be sold’ (el bolynboit, jer satylbait). For a competitive election in a country at peace with its neighbours, such prevalence of the fear of disunity might appear odd. However, being deeply resonant of post- nomadic sensibilities, it is the key to understanding contemporary Kyrgyz nationalism and to explaining attitudes to and treatment of the Uzbek minority before and after June 2010. It is also therefore crucial to averting future violence. The study of nationalism has been one of the staple topics of academic Central Asian studies in the past two decades. Most Western studies have critically engaged with the nation-building projects of the governments of the newly independent republics, faulting them for the inauthenticity of their use of history and their ethnic exclusivity in post-Soviet contexts where many ethnic minorities live. 28 In popular commentary on Kyrgyzstan, ‘nationalism’ is used as a pejorative term to mean an intolerant, chauvinistic prejudice that Kyrgyzstan belongs primarily to the Kyrgyz, a feeling that has blinded Kyrgyz society to its abuse of Uzbeks and is an impediment to the creation of a progressive state that affords minorities full civic rights. Drawing on inter-disciplinary scholarship this paper considers nationalism differently, as a political ideology holding that the territorial and national units should be congruent. 29 The raison d’être of a nation-state is therefore, in the first place, to express the character and defend the interests of the nation, usually associated with a dominant ethnic group. In Central Asia, this has meant the ‘titular’ nation: thus state legislation in the Kyrgyz republic has, for example, promoted the use of the Kyrgyz language, given preferential access to citizenship for ethnic Kyrgyz migrating from abroad, required that the president be fluent in Kyrgyz, adopted a flag with explicitly Kyrgyz ethnic symbols on it, and so on. These processes of ‘nation-building’ are manifestations of the broader ideology of nationalism. It is mistaken to view such an ideology as essentially chauvinistic. Kyrgyzstan was ‘born’ into a world of nation-states and, despite the advocacy by a few luminaries, such as author Chyngyz Aytmatov, of a broader Turkestani confederation, it would have been difficult to buck the trend of worldwide decolonization and create a non-national state. Indeed, although nationalism is readily associated with war and strife, it has also been the vehicle for progressive social change. In Europe, the idea that the state was not the monarch’s plaything but represented a nation of equal citizens was inextricable from the emergence of democracy and the impetus for social justice through wealth redistribution by taxation and ‘public’ funding of social goods such as health and education systems. As Leah Greenfield argues, ‘nationalism, in short, is the modern culture,’ a humanistic worldview based on the principles of popular sovereignty and egalitarianism. By allowing individuals to invest their dignity in their nationality, it creates the idea that tasks such as farming, industry, teaching, art or sport are ennobled by being done ‘for the nation.’ Likewise, she argues, its principle of equality of national membership means there is nothing strange in the daughter of provincial greengrocer becoming the prime minister of Britain (Margaret Thatcher), or the son of a single mother unhappily remarried to an Arkansas garage mechanic becoming US
28
See for example Schoeberlein-Engel, John (1994), ‘Identity in Central Asia: Construction and Contention in the Conceptions of ‘Ozbek’, ‘Tajik’, ‘Muslim’, ‘Samarqandi’ and other groups.’ PhD. thesis, Harvard University; Akbarzadeh, Shahram (1996), ‘Nation-building in Uzbekistan’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 15, No 1; March, Andrew (2002), ‘The use and abuse of history: “national ideology” as transcendental object in Islam Karimov’s “ideology of national independence”’, Central Asian Survey, Vol. 21, No 4. 29
Stephan Nikolov defines nationalism as a doctrine emerging in the 18th and 19th centuries along with the rise of the nation-state, which ‘refers both to doctrines and political movements that maintain that a nation (usually defined in terms of ethnicity or culture) is entitled to a sovereign or at least autonomous political community, rooted in shared history, culture, religion, custom, and common destiny.’ Nikolov, Stephan (2008). ‘Nationalism and warfare’, in Lester Kurtz (ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace & Democracy. 2nd edn (London, Academic Press), p. 1315. REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism www.chathamhouse.org 12 president (Bill Clinton) – neither of which would have been thinkable before nationalism, where aristocratic succession was the norm. 30
In the parts of the world that Europe colonized, nationalism was a key ideological mobilization for decolonization. A recent academic study claims that among Kyrgyzstani intellectual elites and the general public, national ideology ‘is considered to be a fundamental element of statehood – a means for achieving regime legitimacy and effective state building.’ They regard national ideology as not something to be dismissed, but rather as ‘the idiom in which concepts of freedom, responsibility, and a just social order […] are formulated and contested.’ 31
acknowledge that there are multiple forms of nationalism, multiple ideologies and strategies of nation-building. Almost all forms place the language and culture of one group – or occasionally two or three – as central to the state-building project: but they vary greatly according to how inclusive or exclusionary they are in their attitude to minorities. Some forms of nationalism enable ethnic minorities to maintain their own cultural, religious and linguistic practices while facilitating their economic, social and political participation in the state as equals. Other forms are less accommodating of difference, less willing to accept the effective participation of minorities, and less likely to safeguard their rights. These forms of nationalism are sometimes called ‘civic’ versus ‘ethnic,’ with the implication that the former is inclusive and good but the latter exclusive and thus bad, but in practice these categories fail to work analytically and normatively. 32
ordering political life in Kyrgyzstan for the foreseeable future. All serious Kyrgyz politicians are nationalists, to some degree or another. The key analytical question is ‘why does Kyrgyz nationalism take certain forms?’ and the overarching normative policy question is ‘how can it be reworked to limit its negative effects on minorities and to enhance the common good in the republic?’ Or put more simply – ‘how can Kyrgyz nationalism/nation-building become more inclusive?’ Kyrgyz historical political imagination In discussing the ideology of nation-building – as Kyrgyz politicians and commentators are wont to do at every opportunity – two recurrent words are birimdik, meaning unity, and yntymak, meaning cooperation, harmony and concordance. Their negative counterpart is bolynoo, meaning division. It is common for politicians the world over to call for ‘unity’ after elections, disasters etc., but these words have specific meaning and distinct resonances in Kyrgyz nationalism, figuring a conception of pre-Tsarist tribal history. Group formation among the Turkic tribes (uruular) of Inner Asia was a dynamic pattern of fission, fusion, shifting alliances, genealogical manipulation, realignment, redefinition and renaming. Strong ‘tribal confederations’
(uruu soyuzdar ) 33 would survive and expand, weak ones would buckle, and the essential quality of a good leader was skill at uniting disparate entities and maintaining that unity.
34 In such a state, the people would enjoy prosperity – hence a saying oft-cited by Kyrgyz
30
Greenfield, Liah (2005). ‘Nationalism and the mind’, Nations and Nationalism, Vol. 11, No 3. See also Agnew, John (2003). ‘Nationalism’, in Duncan, James, Johnson, Nuala and Schein, Richard (eds), A Companion to Cultural Geography. (Oxford: Blackwell). 31
Murzakulova, Asel & Schoeberlein, John, (2010). ‘The invention of legitimacy: struggles in Kyrgyzstan to craft an effective nation-state ideology’, in Sally Cummings (ed.), Symbolism and Power in Central Asia: Politics of the Spectacular (London: Routledge). 32
Brubaker, Rogers (1999). 'The Manichean myth: Rethinking the distinction between 'civic' and 'ethnic' nationalism', in Kriesi, H., Armingeon, K., Slegrist, H. and Wimmer, A.(eds) Nation and National Identity: The European Experience in Perspective. (Zürich, Rüeger), pp. 55-71. 33
See Osmonov, Oskon and Asankanov, Abylabek (2001). Kyrgyzstan Tarykhy: Eng Bayyrky Doordon Azyrky Mezgilge Cheyin. [History of Kyrgyzstan: From Early Times to the Present] (Bishkek, Erkin-Too), p. 62. 34
The literature here is vast, but two good statements of this argument are Bastug, Sharon, (1999), ‘Tribe, confederation and state among Altaic nomads of the Asian Steppes’, in Korkut Ertürk, (ed.) Rethinking Central Asia: Non-Eurocentric Studies in History, Social Structure and Identity. (Reading: Ithaca), 77-109; Sneath, David, (2006), ‘Imperial statecraft: arts Yüklə 0,74 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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