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
Under such conditions, minorities focus not upon the struggle for full participation in the state as
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
7. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
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