Kyrgyzstan between democratization and ethnic intolerance

Abstract

The international community has expressed great concern about the treatment of the Uzbek minority in the south of Kyrgyzstan and has called on the majority community to make major efforts to improve the situation. The article compares the treatment of minorities in Kyrgyzstan with analogous situations in the Balkans and contends that, given the European-style ethno-national state model and democratic political system that have been adopted by independent Kyrgyzstan, such calls are unrealistic.

Keywords:

• Kyrgyzstan
• nation-state development
• inter-ethnic relations
• Osh “events”

Notes

1. For a variety of reports, both local and international, relating to the June “events” (as they are euphemistically referred to in Kyrgyzstan), see http://www.knews.kg/ru/action/17469/ (accessed 3 December 2012). Local commentary regarding the report, even by members of the government, was frequently negative and included a parliamentary resolution to declare the international report's Finnish author persona non grata in Kyrgyzstan.

2. For a general study of the relationship between democratization and ethnic/national conflict, see Snyder (2000). See also Diamond and Plattner (1994).

3. To be sure, there is no absolute scale for measuring the strength of national identification (as opposed to other possible sub- or non-national choices that each individual has at his or her disposal), so claims about weak intra-Kyrgyz national identification are necessarily impressionistic. Nevertheless, for anyone who has observed, first-hand, national identification in, say, Balkan countries, the relative weakness of Kyrgyz national identity appears striking.

4. Complaints about the inability and/or unwillingness of ethnic Kyrgyz (let alone minority groups) to use the official state language can be found quite frequently in the Kyrgyz public sphere. See for example Shainazarova (2012).

5. For detailed information from the 1989 census, see the statistics on Demoscope Weekly (http://demoscope.ru/weekly/ssp/sng_nac_89.php?reg=11, accessed 3 December 2012).

6. For a consideration of the causes of the 1990s violence, see Asankanov.

7. For a discussion on the role of nationalism in the breakup of the USSR, see Ronald Grigor Suny (1993). Suny writes: “The differential effects of Soviet rule on various nationalities ranged from the destabilizing pressures of Russification, demographic and linguistic, in the republics of the West – Ukraine, Belorussia, and the Baltic – through the more effective consolidation of national cultures in Transcaucasia, to the least transformed countries of Central Asia, where native political elites and privileged intelligentsias were neither antagonistic one to the other nor particularly confrontational toward Moscow” (158–59).

8. In her book Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity (1992), Liah Greenfeld succinctly lays out the theoretical and practical differences between civic and ethnic nationalism. See particularly pp. 3–17.

9. On the difficult and unstable balance between efforts to develop national cultures and to retain central authority in the USSR, see Martin (2001). See also Brubaker (1996, esp. Chapter 2).

10. In this he stands in stark contrast to the leaders of newly democratic or semi-democratic states in former communist Eastern Europe, as described by Tismaneanu (1998).

11. The English translation of this text is grammatically quite creative; it will be reproduced here in all its idiosyncrasy.

12. In the words of Johannes F. Linn, the economic collapse of the post-Soviet states “was probably an unprecedented phenomenon during peacetime in recent economic history; it amounted to a contraction twice that of the Western economies during the Great Depression” (Economic (Dis)integration Matters: The Soviet Collapse Revisited, http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2004/10/russia%20linn/200410linn.pdf).

13. In this respect, Kyrgyzstan did not differ much from other post-Soviet republics. The only ones which were able to recover relatively quickly from the post-Soviet collapse were those that, like the Baltic states, received substantial European assistance, or those which, like Kazakhstan and Russia, were able to exploit large reserves of natural resources, particularly oil and gas.

14. Surveys conducted by the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) illustrate the lack of success that the Akaev regime had in convincing Kyrgyz citizens that the state was developing in a positive direction. According to the IFES survey of 2001, for example, 64% of citizens surveyed were dissatisfied with the current situation in Kyrgyzstan (a slight improvement from the 1996 survey, which found 71% dissatisfied); 66% of respondents rated their economic situation as bad or very bad, again a slight improvement from 1996; 50% of respondents reported being “not too” or “not at all” interested in politics; and 65% of respondents agreed with the statement: “People like you have little or no influence on the way things are run in Kyrgyzstan.” Furthermore, according to the survey's executive summary, “On the whole, Kyrgyzstanis are extremely dissatisfied with the performance of the government and do not exhibit a great deal of confidence in any public institution or personality.” See http://www.ifes.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Survey/2002/126/Kyrgyzstan_Report_Print.pdf (accessed 3 December 2012).

15. For official census data from 1999 and 2009, see http://www.stat.kg/stat.files/din.files/census/5010003.pdf (accessed 3 December 2012). Trends are similar in the other former Soviet Central Asian Republics. Kazakhstan, in the Soviet period, was even more ethnically diverse than the Kyrgyz SSR. There, in 1959, Kazakhs made up barely 30% of the population, while Russians comprised almost 43% (non-Muslim Europeans all together made up almost 60%). Here, too, things were changing even before the breakup of the USSR. In 1989, Kazakhs made up 40% of the population, while Russians had dropped to 38% and non-Muslim Europeans all together to about 50%. The most recent 2009 census indicates that Kazakhs now make up 63% of the population, while Russians have dropped to 24% and non-Muslim Europeans to a bit under 29% of the whole.

Currently, Turkmenistan is about 77% Turkmen, with Russians making up only 7% of the population (down from 17% in 1959). In Uzbekistan, Uzbeks make up a bit over 71% of the population, while Russians stand at 8% (down from 13.5% in 1959). And in Tajikistan, Tajiks make up 80% of the population, while the Russian population, which measured over 13% in 1959, has dwindled to almost zero (Uzbeks make up the only sizeable minority, at 16.5%, down from 23% in 1959).

16. Obviously, at least in the case of Kyrgyzstan, I disagree with the notion that the ethno-national model of state consolidation is a function of specifically European economic and demographic conditions. Jeffrey Herbst states this position succinctly: “The European experience does not provide a template for state-making in other regions of the world. As S. E. Finer has noted in his monumental work on the history of government, ‘the development of states in Europe is – in world-historical perspective – highly idiosyncratic.’ Many other regions of the world share the African experience of having significant outlying territories that are difficult for the state to control because of relatively low population densities and difficult physical geographies” (2000, 22). In my view, what inclines elites to ethno-national solutions to state-building problems is rather the idea of the state that they find “natural.” In Kyrgyzstan, the idea of the national state derives from the idiosyncratic national policy of the USSR, which was in its turn inherited from continental European models. As a result, despite its geographical position on the world map and its demography, Kyrgyzstan behaves as a “European” state, at least when it comes to ethno-national consolidation. David Laitin recognizes this anomaly in the post-Soviet world in his book Nations, States, and Violence (2007).

17. For a discussion of the gradual rise of ethnic nationalism in Kyrgyzstan, see Laruelle (2012). While I do not disagree with Laruelle's overall description of the arc of Kyrgyzstan's development, I do disagree with her belief (one which appears to be shared by the vast majority of “international observers”) that there is some flaw in the logic of this development, that Kyrgyzstan could or should have taken the path of multi-national, multi-ethnic state building. Thus, Laruelle states in her conclusion: “What thus dominates today is the illusion that the more Kyrgyzstan becomes the state of the Kyrgyz in terms of identity narrative, historical references, language policies, and marginalization of the minorities from decision-making, the more it will be able to succeed in constructing itself as a state.” The problem is that this is not an illusion but rather a reality, at least according to the European mental models of the nation and state that dominate the thinking of Kyrgyz (and Uzbek) educated elites.

18. I am not making a philosophical point here, but an empirical one. Nor, by the way, am I claiming that ethnic solidarity is somehow “natural” while liberal political solidarity is “artificial.” Both forms of organization are “invented” and need to be inculcated; the question is which of them is easier to inculcate. And here the evidence indicates overwhelmingly that, in the context of states denominated after the majority population, it is easier to inculcate ethnic than political solidarity.

This is not to say that it is impossible to create a multi-ethnic or multi-national state. Speaking generally, such states can and have been created under the following circumstances:

1. in empires, as long as the dominant ethnic group is willing to play referee and does not try forcibly to assimilate minorities to itself

2. in places where the indigenous population has been more or less exterminated and replaced by immigrants

3. in former British colonies where the model of citizenship is based on individual relations to the state rather than rooted in the relations of ethno-national groups to the state

4. in states in which individual ethno-national groups can live autonomously, more or less segregated from other groups and paying relatively little heed to the central state (however, this version, which is typical for multi-national European states, is currently quite unstable as countries like Belgium and Spain face stronger and better-organized autonomy/independence movements from minority populations)

5. in states that have achieved national consolidation around a single ethnic group, once minority populations have dropped below the level at which they are considered a potential threat to the majority population.

   For a study of sub-state examples of successful multi-ethnic societies, see Meyer and Brysac (2012).

19. This mixing should not be confused with what is known today as multiculturalism, however. Various ethnic groups lived side by side and warily tolerated each other's presence in the Ottoman Empire, but they were well aware of their differences and were not inclined to mutual affection, cultural mixing, and so forth, although a certain amount of hybridity across cultures did nevertheless occur during the long centuries of Ottoman rule.

20. On the subject of Turkish migration from the Balkans, see Brubaker (1996), 152–56. The percentage of minorities that can be tolerated in a successful European state varies widely, but even in contemporary Western Europe serious tensions arise when any individual minority population approaches the 20% mark (Catalonia being the borderline case here) and appear to be insoluble above that point (think Belgium, for example).

21. The classic study of these processes is by Hobsbawm and Ranger (1983).

22. Because they do not need to be elected, autocratic leaders can choose not to rally the majority population around ideas of the nation. On the link between democracy and ethno-nationalism in the Balkans and Eastern Europe, see Tismaneanu (1998).

23. A representative view of received Kyrgyz wisdom about the epic can be found in the following quote by the modern Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aitmatov: “Эпос ‘Манас’ - это прежде всего несравненное, непревзойденное художественное творение, созданное эстетическим гением кыргызского народа на почве и на основании реальных событий, фактов, героических личностей, и которое от века в век, от сказителя к сказителю отшлифовывалось, отчеканивалось, очищалось, избавлялось от лишнего груза, от чужеродных тел, поглощая в себя все новые и новые, органически необходимые компоненты-новообразования, и, наконец достигло сегодняшних недосягаемых высот своего совершенства” [The epic Manas is first of all an incomparable, matchless artistic work, created by the esthetic genius of the Kyrgyz people on the basis of real events, facts, and heroic individuals. From age to age, from teller to teller, it was edited, perfected, cleaned up, and debarrassed of unnecessary material and foreign imports, while simultaneously it incorporated newer and newer organically necessary components and innovations in order to reach its current state of unsurpassable perfection] (http://www.eposmanas.ru/?page=1, accessed 3 December 2012).

24. Akaev's reading of the work follows the same ambiguous logic as his pronouncements regarding Kyrgyzstan as simultaneously a national state of the Kyrgyz and a liberal state of citizens. The fullest explication of his thinking on the role of Manas can be found in his book Kyrgyz Statehood and the National Epos “Manas” (2003).

25. The current Kyrgyz president, Almazbek Atambaev, generally holds carefully to the Akaev “internationalist” line of interpretation, especially when he is in front of international audiences who are sensitive to nationalist rhetoric. Thus, in his speech at the opening of the monument to Manas in Moscow, he declaimed: “Манас для кыргызстанцев – это и эпос, и философия, и поэзия, и история, и энциклопедия жизни и мудрости народа. Манас относится к шедеврам, которые обретают как бы наднациональное, общечеловеческое значение и составляют сокровищницу мировой цивилизации. Не зря «Манас» внесен ЮНЕСКО в список памятников мировой литературы” [Manas for the Kyrgyz is an epic, and a philosophy, and poetry, and an encyclopedia of the people's life and wisdom. Manas is one of those chefs d'oeuvres that takes on supranational, universal meaning and becomes a treasure of world civilization. It is fitting that Manas has been placed on UNESCO's list of monuments of world literature] (quoted on the site http://kant.kg/2012-02-24/almazbek-atambaev-pamyatnik-manasu/ 4 February 2012, accessed 3 December 2012). In front of local audiences, however, he is more inclined to focus on ethno-national issues. Thus, in his speech at the 20th-anniversary celebrations of the Republic at which the newest Bishkek Manas monument was unveiled, he told the audience: “Мы давно уже обращались к ученым за ответом, что же нам делать, а оказывается, все эти ответы есть в эпосе «Манас». Мы забыли, что мы - единый народ и наше будущее в единстве. Если мы не будем едины, то не станет кыргызского народа” [A long time ago we asked some scholars what we should do, and it turns out that all the necessary answers can be found in the epic Manas. We have forgotten that we are a single people and our future is in unity. If we are not united, then the Kyrgyz people will disappear] (see http://www.knews.kg/ru/society/2366/, 31 August 2011, accessed 3 December 2012).

26. It is hard to gauge the veracity of this assertion, but it accurately captures the belief of almost every Kyrgyz with whom I have spoken regarding the situation in the south of the country before 2010.

27. In general terms, this was the tenor of the report of the Kyrgyz Parliamentary Commission on the Osh “events.”

28. For a rather even-handed description of how events in the south swung out of control, see Radnitz (2010).

29. For commentary on this telling omission, see Kupper (2012).

30. See for example “Kyrgyzstan: Language and Media Still Sensitive Subjects in Southern Regions” (2012). See also the interview with anthropologist Morgan Liu from 15 October 2012 entitled “Interview: Anthropologist Says Uzbeks’ Model for Life in Kyrgyzstan Destroyed.” http://www.rferl.org/content/interview-anthropologist-says-osh-uzbeks-model-for-life-kyrgyzstan-destroyed/24739957.html (accessed 3 December 2012).

31. Pieter van Houton (1998) has proposed a model to understand the relationship between the majority population, the minority population, and the “reference state” for the minority population in ethnically divided states. He notes that the presence of a strong reference state (such as Russia for Russian minorities in the former Soviet republics) discourages violence against minority populations because of the expectation on the part of the minority that the reference state might intervene to protect the minority. He does not consider cases such as Kyrgyzstan, however, where the reference state – Uzbekistan – is strong but apparently has no interest in protecting its co-ethnics in a neighboring state. But his conclusions about what tends to happen when and if a strong reference state with a willingness to protect its co-ethnics does emerge (the majority in the neighboring state must either moderate its treatment of the minority or face potential interstate conflict) are relevant to possible future developments in Central Asia.