The religious factor in the reification of “neo-ethnic” identities in Kyrgyzstan

Abstract

This paper studies how religions, Islam in particular, play a part in the attempted reifications of “neo-ethnic” identities in Kyrgyzstan, a Turkic-speaking republic with a nomadic tradition and a Muslim majority (Hanafî Sunni Islam). In a context characterized by brutal transformations (decline in living standards, widening social inequalities, etc.) and by an increasingly failing central state whose autocratic rule appears ineffective, Islam intervenes as a paradoxical resource that is subjected to contrary uses. The traditional social link between collective identity and Islam is in fact reinvested ideologically within the framework of the new state construction. As a result a key question is what function the re-emergence of religion on the Kyrgyz political scene fulfils, especially considering broad disenchantment with politics. Islam is first re-emphasized as a national element by the authorities and, in the process, it becomes the subject of a drive towards territorialization that aims at erasing any transnational and/or pan-Islamist dimension from this universalist religion. Yet Islam and ethnicity are reinvested again in a new mode, the mode of subjectivization of religious belief, which gives rise, outside state control, to overlapping and often contradicting Islamic identities.

Keywords:

• Kyrgyzstan
• Central Asia
• Islamism

Notes

The majority of Muslims in Central Asia are Sunni of the hanafî rite, like in Afghanistan and throughout the Indian subcontinent. The Hanafî have distinguished themselves throughout the centuries by a great tolerance towards practices that are foreign to Islamic jurisprudence. The antagonism between the Hanafî and the Hanbalî in terms of their practices of Islam as well as of their ways of thinking has shaped the history of Islam in Central Asia throughout the modern period. See Dudoignon (24–25).

On the evolution of Sufi brotherhoods in Central Asia, their losing ground against movements of the ikhwânî kind, inspired from the Muslim Brothers, see Dudoignon (52–54).

Kyrgyz society is the victim of acute political tensions. Kyrgyzstan was generally thought to be an exception in post-Soviet Central Asia: the political system that had been set up around President Askar Akayev was then described as a “pocket of democracy” in the authoritarian environment of Central Asia. However, if we rely on emic representations (i.e. based on the concepts specific to the social actors under study), the credibility of politics has been largely undermined, despite the March 2005 “Tulip revolution,” which led to a change of power: Askar's Akaev's northern power base was replaced by Kurmanbek Bakiev's power, a native of the southern Jalalabad region; the redistribution of power within the government has thus granted more space to personalities coming from the south of the country. However, the “Tulip revolution” has not modified the relationship between state and society. Political life in Kyrgyzstan is increasingly defined by the hypertrophy of the presidential power and the domination, in spite of a formal multi-party system, by a single party, the party of the presidential apparatus, Ak Jol, which holds 70 of the 90 mandates in the Kyrgyz parliament. The growing authoritarianism can be felt, among others, in the tightening of public liberties, in the multiple constitutional and legislative revisions, in the arrests and elimination of certain opposition figures and figures of influence through gangland killing within the politico-economic circle. Eighty-nine assassinations have occurred since the “Tulip revolution” of March 2005.

The process of monopolizing resources and the takeover of the state by organized crime groups have contributed to the further impoverishment of an already weakened population and has increased the resentment towards the politico-economic elites that have illegally grown rich.

According to Eric McGlinchey (“Islamic Revivalism”), the Islamic revivalism taking place in Kyrgyzstan has “its roots in local communities rather than in Islam's perceived anti-colonial, anti-Western, or anti-secular orientation” (4). The author thus considers the proliferation of new religious groupings as “a response to an autocratic regime that has been ineffective in its efforts to control religion and to provide basic public goods […] To compensate for the state's failure, a diverse collection of Islamic organizations and institutions – local mosques, Hizb ut-Tahrir, the Kamalovs’ various religious and business groupings in Osh and Kara Suu, and even the Diyanat, the Turkish government's spiritual board – are stepping in and providing the food, shelter, and education that the central government cannot” (9). Moreover, “the heightened importance of these mutual assistance groups raises the profile of Islam, thereby attracting more believers and greater involvement and dedication on the part of community members” (3–4).

This (re)appearance of Islam can first be seen at the institutional level. If before 1991 there were 39 mosques in Kyrgyzstan, now there are 2000. Among these, 1611 are legal, i.e. they are “registered” to the Secretary of Justice and they are under the authority of the Spiritual Direction of the Muslims of Kyrgyzstan (muftiyyat). Every year, it is estimated that the building of around 30–40 new mosques is started.

The Kyrgyz state, following its Central Asian neighbours, has in fact reasserted the secular nature of the regime and bans religion from politics.

See Peyrouse on this subject.

Indeed, the different Central Asian leaders have sought to subordinate Islam to the new independent states by “nationalizing” it. To do this, the religious apparatus has been thoroughly reorganized in an attempt to exclude certain elements from it: before independence, some of the theologians within the religious apparatus had indeed adhered to a neo-hanbalî reformist tendency.

Muratalï Jumanov Ajï, who is a loyal figure to the power, suffers from a lack of legitimacy for many Muslim believers: his theological knowledge is considered as being very superficial; the corruption scandals especially concerning the organization of the hajj have also undermined his credibility, among other things.

This new Law on Religion, among other things, advocates a ban on children being involved in religious organizations; a ban on “aggressive action aimed at proselytism”; a ban on the distribution of religious literature, print, and audio-video religious materials; and de facto compulsory re-registration of all registered religious organizations. The 12 January announcement on the presidential website indeed trumpets the fact that 200 adult citizens living permanently in Kyrgyzstan will now be required before a religious community can apply for state registration, compared to 10 under the current Law. It states that 10 registered religious organizations will be needed to form a “religious association.”

Maradjan Khamidov, personal interview (in Russian), Osh, 11 July 2007.

Over the years, the Kyrgyz government, like the other governments in Central Asia, has set up an extreme schematization of any form of religious or intellectual and social non-conformism by likening it to an opposition and systematically treating it as “fundamentalist.” The Kyrgyz state is trying to set itself up, in spite of its delegitimization and its loss of credibility with an important part of the local population, as a defender of the social peace against the movements that are generally lumped together under the term wahhabî, movements which would not have, according to the authorities, any other aim but to “encourage interethnic hatred” and would pursue political objectives to weaken the new Central Asian states. The political authorities regularly use the excuse of a possible threat to democracy and to the stability of societies in transition. On this subject see Peyrouse (“Islam in Central Asia” 246; Khalid). One should note that the term “wahhabî” does not seem to apply to Muslims alone but also to the new foreign movements (most of them Christian) denounced as “sects.” On the use of the term and its political exploitation, see McGlinchey (“Constructing Militant Opposition” 1–31; “Islamic Leaders” 123–44).

On this question see Peyrouse (“The Rise of Political Islam” 245–60).

On this subject see, among others, the unification announced by two prominent opposition leaders, namely Tursunbay Bakir uulu of Free Kyrgyzstan who presents himself as a “true” Muslim and Nurlan Motuev of the Kyrgyz Patriotic Party, and the subsequent creation of the Kyrgyzstan Muslim Union which is using religion to cement the appeal to nationwide protests against the corruption of the elites in power and the misuse of resources. These politicians emphasize conservative values (they call for the need to restore religious values to public life in order to have a more ethical society. Bakir uulu had, for example, drafted a bill that would outlaw abortion; another proposal was to decriminalize polygamy, etc.) and seem to be ready to use religious slogans in the political arena.

Over recent years there has been growing interest in religious studies, particularly their pursuit in various external Muslim countries. Recent statistics on the number of Kyrgyzstani citizens studying Islam in these Muslim countries are: in 2004–2005, 185 Kyrgyz citizens were undertaking studies at Al-Azhar in Egypt, 76 in Turkey, 51 in Pakistan, 41 in Saudi Arabia and 20 in Russia. See Toktogulova (88).

Maksat Topchubaev, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 31 July 2007.

Kengeshbek Maltaev, personal interview (in Russian and in Kyrgyz), Osh, 12 July 2007.

Kengeshbek Maltaev, personal interview (in Russian and in Kyrgyz), Osh, 12 July 2007.

On this issue see the case of Kazakhstan (Kuchkumbaev 221).

Maksat Topchubaev, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 31 July 2007.

Maksat Topchubaev as well as other young imams desire, above all, such a dialogue in order to have a better knowledge and, consequently, to take up the “pedagogical methods of the Baptists to attract people toward religion”: “We want to have their pedagogical methods; it is rather a work to organize seminars; we want to learn that from the Baptists to attract people toward Islam” (Maksat Topchubaev, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 31 July 2007).

Maksat Topchubaev, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 31 July 2007.

These mutual denunciations are intensified by the fact that there is no centralized Church in Islam, everyone being granted the right to discuss Islam and belonging to one apprehension on another.

See Toktogulova (83).

On this subject see Svetlana Jacquesson, oral presentation during the seminar of Jean-François Gossiaux at the EHESS, 22 Nov. 2004.

Those of the right wing, comprising the Bugu, Cherik, Jediger, Mongoldor, Sarïbagïsh, Sayak and Solto, and those of the left wing, comprising the Basïz, Chong Bagïsh, Kutchu, Munduz and Saruu, can be traced back to a common ancestor, Dolon.

Nowadays, this denomination regroups lineages that are considered to be “non-Kyrgyz” since they are not related to Dolon's sons.

We are indebted to Svetlana Jacquesson for this information. On this subject see Jacquesson op. cit. We thank the author for giving us her manuscript prior to its publication.

They also play an important role in the ideological assertion of political legitimacy.

Kengeshbek Maltaev. Personal interview (in Russian and in Kyrgyz), Osh, 12 July 2007.

Maradjan Khamidov, personal interview (in Russian), Osh, 11 July 2007.

Kengeshbek Maltaev, personal interview (in Russian and in Kyrgyz), Osh, 12 July 2007.

Laruelle and Peyrouse add on this subject: “What for example proves this is the multiplication of neo-brotherhoods (Tablighis, Suleymani) whose recruitment methods stress individual adhesion (without relying on social networks or family links) and utilize eminently modern propaganda methods” (28).

The term “Kyrgyz” designates members of the eponymous “ethnic group” while the term “Kyrgyzstani” puts the emphasis on citizenship.

The term “davachi” designates a person who is preaching through the da'wa, an Arabic word meaning the “call” (to religion), or davat in Kyrgyz.

Ramza, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 29 July 2007.

Kudaybergen Moldoev, personal interview (in Kyrgyz), Narïn, 1 Aug. 2007.

Roy (87). “Are religion and culture interchangeable?,” asks Olivier Roy, “Can Islam be experienced outside a culture? Or do we call ‘culture’ what is only the set of explicit standards of a religion?” (77). And the author adds that “[…] this de facto separation between the religious experience, politics and culture, that is to say secularization, is little by little being imposed on traditionally Muslim societies” (87).