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opportunities for ethnic minorities to advance in political and professional careers. It is important to
hold on to the ultimate goal of a society that enables all citizens to fully participate on an equal
basis. But this will not happen until insecurities about Kyrgyz statehood are addressed. The Uzbek
minority will not be safe in Kyrgyzstan until the Kyrgyz themselves feel that Kyrgyzstan is safe. The
suggestions below are not alternatives to securing justice and economic opportunities for all, but
rather are complementary. They are not alone sufficient to improve inter-ethnic relations, but they
are necessary.
Suggestions for Kyrgyz society
Kyrgyz society should pursue the goal of making Kyrgyz the primary language of public life
and inter-ethnic communication in Kyrgyzstan. This has been long since formally stated, but not
pursued with sufficient vigour. The Soviet legacy of splitting educational streams according to
language, with higher status attached to Russian, both hampers social cohesion and is no longer fit
for purpose in independent Kyrgyzstan. Making Russian an official language in 2000-01 was a
political move
123
that was ultimately counterproductive because it derailed efforts to
develop the use
of Kyrgyz, and excited false hopes and fears about the possible status of Uzbek. It is unreasonable
to expect minorities to attain everyday fluency in Kyrgyz until the Kyrgyz have done that first, and it
is unreasonable to expect most Kyrgyz to do that quickly. It is a goal to be pursued over
generations, through dedicated research into the production of materials to enable this to occur
based on comparative international experience. At the same time, the secondary role of some
other languages should be protected within given spheres: for example, Uzbek and Russian for the
upbringing at home and limited schooling of some minorities, as well as confessional use in places
of worship; Russian for regional trade, politics and scholarship; English for international trade and
scholarship, etc.
The central government in Bishkek and the municipal authorities in Osh and other parts of southern
Kyrgyzstan should involve Uzbeks and other minorities in the project of creating a national
identity to address concerns about national unity. This would involve, for example, routinely
inviting Uzbek (and other minority) community leaders to participate visibly at public ceremonies of
national and local significance. It would also include ensuring that Uzbek intellectuals have a
presence in the humanities sectors of higher-education establishments in Osh, and that they are
regularly invited to participate in public events and discussions in the media. This could be
furthered if the office of the President or the Academy of Sciences considered establishing a
multilingual and multi-disciplinary research institute to investigate, document and promote public
knowledge about the contribution of Uzbek and other minority groups to Kyrgyzstan and the lives of
those groups in the country.
The Kyrgyz government should prioritize the resolution of territorial disputes with neighbours
and promote the development of good border-management schemes that facilitate legitimate trans-
boundary activity in order to allay fears that territorial integrity is threatened.
The above measures are aimed at addressing the three primary reasons for insecurity of the
Kyrgyz national project. At the same time the central government should develop closer
communication channels with Uzbek communities in southern Kyrgyzstan. This is both to listen
to concerns and to promote awareness of initiatives that the central government is taking to assist
Uzbeks. The breakdown of Akaev-era patronage networks created a gulf between Bishkek and
Osh Uzbeks. The opening of Osh and Jalalabad branches of the Department of Ethnic, Religious
Policies and Interaction with Civil Society of the President’s Office would help in this regard.
The central government should acknowledge that issues in southern Kyrgyzstan have a Ferghana
Valley-wide dimension, and it should seek to develop its ongoing support of Kyrgyz in Uzbekistan
123
Kyrgyzstan is the only Central Asian state that grants official language status to Russian. See Landau and Kellner-
Heinkele,
Language Politics in Contemporary Central Asia, p. 150. In his struggle against nationalistic opposition, a
beleaguered President Akaev hoped that this move would shore up his support amongst national minorities. See Megoran,
‘The critical geopolitics of the Uzbekistan-Kyrgyzstan Ferghana Valley boundary dispute, 1999-2000’.
REP Programme Paper: Averting Violence in Kyrgyzstan: Understanding and Responding to Nationalism
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32
(i.e. through the scholarships it offers) into a bilateral arrangement where the Uzbekistan
government offers similar support to Uzbeks in Kyrgyzstan.
It should also continue to articulate a commitment to a future vision of Osh and Kyrgyzstan as
shared space. As well as narratives of conflict and competition, the ethnic history of Osh can be
narrated as one of coexistence of Uzbeks and Kyrgyz with similar religious and linguistic roots and
symbiotic economic relationships.
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Part of the reason for relatively good ethnic relations in the first
15 years of Kyrgyzstan’s independence was that President Akaev invested in this narrative. Part of
the reason for their deterioration since 2005 was the sidelining of this approach by his successor.
The Kyrgyz central and municipal administrations should maintain this particular narrative of Kyrgyz
nationalism. They should discourage, challenge (and if necessary prevent and punish) forces
inciting racial discrimination and hatred; and encourage the efforts of NGOs, neighbourhood
committees, schools, mosques, churches and other bodies to promote understanding and mutual
support.
The central government can also stress an ongoing commitment to inclusive, civic nationalism
and effective citizenship for all. Equal participation in the Kyrgyz state and equal access to justice
are impossible for Uzbeks at the moment, owing to the operation of patronage networks and the
current exclusionary trajectory of Kyrgyz nationalism. Nonetheless it is a constitutional ideal that
needs upholding until conditions change so that its attainment is possible. This entails not only
policy, but also rhetoric and slogans, symbolic politics (such as building statues and including
minority representatives at national events), and the regulation of hate speech in the media. The
protection of ethnic minority citizens from the extremes of nationalism is a crucial responsibility of
national as well as local government.
Suggestions for Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbeks
In the Soviet period, many Kyrgyzstani Uzbeks attained distinction in the scientific, political, and
cultural life of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. With independence, that is no longer an option,
and the old schooling system that prepared children for life in an Uzbek-language milieu rather than
a Kyrgyz-language one no longer serves them well. It also fuels Kyrgyz fears about Uzbek
loyalties, and exacerbates insecurities about Kyrgyz statehood. The upbringing and schooling of
young Uzbeks should primarily aim at equipping them to pursue a future in Kyrgyzstan. Eventually
the goal is to pursue the goal of realizing their full and equal constitutional rights. In the meantime,
the imperative is to maintain community life and presence.
Therefore Uzbek communities should set themselves the goal of attaining complete fluency in
the state language as a matter of the utmost importance. In doing so, Uzbeks should be proactive
in exploring with the Ministry of Education ways to redesign the Uzbek schooling system to
facilitate this. This will probably involve the increasing replacement of Uzbek with Kyrgyz as the
language of instruction for most subjects, but the maintenance of its special place for humanities
subjects such as Uzbek literature. This should not be done quickly or in response to hostile populist
pressure, for example by sacking ethnic Uzbek teachers and drafting in Kyrgyz staff who are
unqualified to teach children in their second language. Rather, it should be done slowly and
carefully by drawing on comparative international pedagogical expertise and in close cooperation
with national and local educational administrations.
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At present there do not exist the
materials,
expertise or resources to make this move comprehensively.
Eventually, it will be necessary to adapt the system of higher education in the institutes that
have served Kyrgyzstan’s Uzbeks accordingly. However the preservation of an Uzbek milieu at this
level will be important in humanities subjects. It will be crucial to maintain a viable community of
Kyrgyzstani Uzbek intellectuals able to elaborate what Neil Melvin calls ‘a distinct history of
124
See for example Megoran, ‘The background to Osh’.
125
My opinions here have been informed by interviews with two leading professional Uzbek educationalists in Osh, 16
October 2011 and 29 November 2010. It is important to note that there is a divergence of opinion amongst Osh Uzbeks.
Some feel the Soviet-era system of Uzbek language education in all subjects should be preserved; others that it should be
radically recast. I am persuaded by this second school of thought.