Spirituality and anti-Western rhetoric in Uzbekistan in the early 2000s: the consequences of international misrecognition

ABSTRACT

References to the spirituality-morality (ma’naviyat) of the Uzbek people increased substantially throughout the course of Islam Karimov’s years in office as the President of Uzbekistan. Uzbek values were presented as qualities springing from the country’s supposedly unique civilizational heritage, cast as something distinct from “Western” civilizational norms and practice. This source of distinctiveness, however, soon gave way to a type of exclusionary discourse in the early 2000s, centered on clearly differentiating Uzbekistan from the “West.” This essay provides a lens through which to understand the phenomenon, arguing that international recognition of status partly accounts for the rise in the particularly anti-Western variant of Karimov’s rhetoric. Authorities in Uzbekistan, not unlike in Russia, built their foreign policy on the need to secure the country’s (allegedly) important status in the international arena; anti-Western rhetoric arose as a response to misrecognition, as it evaded appeals to equality of status and legitimized growing isolationism. The essay reviews the origins of that rhetoric, the meaning of recognition, and the backdrop against which anti-Western moralizing rhetoric arose in Uzbekistan’s international engagement. It also concludes with a brief assessment of how that rhetoric might affect (or not) the foreign policy of Uzbekistan’s new president, Shavkat Mirziyoyev.

KEYWORDS:

• Uzbekistan
• foreign policy
• rhetoric
• spirituality
• civilization

Acknowledgements

The author is grateful to Alina Jasina and Masatomo Torikai for comments, and to Naomi Teles Fazendeiro for helpful editing. Fundação de Ciência e Tecnologia, a Portuguese scholarship foundation, has also been crucial in supporting my postdoctoral research at the Centre for Social Studies at the University of Coimbra.

Notes

1. Beyond the relationship to the East, however, Karimov also took Uzbekistan’s SM to be a product of the Silk Road, which “linked the heart of Asia with the Middle East, Europe and Africa” (Karimov 1992b, 58–59).

2. Some of these events have been reported over the years, such as the government criticizing the way Uzbek pop stars present themselves in Uzbek videos. See reports in Eurasianet (2016, 2017).

3. See some of the cultural demands made by Birlik, particularly with regard to language in the 1989 “Charter of the Birlik’s People Movement” (Charter 1992).

4. See “Constitution of Uzbekistan,” http://www.ksu.uz/en/page/index/id/7; accessed 1 September 2016.

5. For reports on the massacre, see Akiner (2005), ICG (2005), and HRW (2006).

6. The Soviet Union pushed for a system of indirect representation at its UN General Assembly delegation. The Uzbek SSR was represented eight times during the period. However, neither Ukraine nor Belarus figured in that system of indirect representation for the reason that they were already directly represented at the UN General Assembly.

7. The speech written before Karimov´s death was made available in the end of August. Karimov was already gravely ill on September 1st, Independence Day, and would then die the next day.

8. See Teles Fazendeiro (2017a, 2017b) for a detailed discussion of the origins of Uzbekistani pleas for equality of status.

9. For data on Uzbekistan’s main trade partners over the years, see Asian Development Bank (2010). For trade data in more recent years, see Asian Development Bank (2017).

10. For some references to these debates and whether and how the United States should be involved in Central Asia, see Talbott (1997) and Brzezinski (1997).

11. For details regarding the attempt on Karimov’s life, see Polat and Butkevich (2000).

12. On these events and the reactions to which they gave rise, see Eurasianet (2004a, 2004b).