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Abstract
Every generation bears the ineluctable stamp of the strategic historical experiences to which it has been exposed. In this sense, the history of Post-Communist Central Asian youth has been a unique one. Although “Central Asian” is a construct encompassing highly diverse cultures, it does connote a collective that underwent the same historical experience, i.e. life under the now-gone Soviet political system. In that respect, “Central Asian” is comparable to the notion of the “melting pot”, and in the original Soviet-era melting pot, young people were valorized as the “Great State of the Future” and were brought up in an environment that shaped them according to the so-called “Moral Code of Communism”. However, when the Soviet Union disintegrated, many Central Asian young people saw their world turned upside down, as their status reduced and their financial and political future became uncertain. In this paper, I have attempted to examine and explore this dilemma, which confronts the majority of young people in contemporary Central Asia, particularly in Uzbekistan.
Notes
1. In 2015, 47 percent of Uzbekistan’s population will have been born after the Soviet collapse, which will be larger than the total country populations of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in 2015, and just two million less than the total population of Kazakhstan … Calculations are based on the United Nations World Population Prospects, the 2008 Revision. The full population dataset is available online at: http://esa.un.org/unpp/[accessed 21 November 2011]. See also (McGlinchey Citation2009).
2. I acknowledge that there is a considerable debate on the notion of “transition” among the international community of scholars, concerning whether the idea of characterising many post-Soviet states as transitional is still valid, however, that is not my focus of analysis here (see Dadabaev Citation2007).
3. A Soviet shop where milk was given free to children.
4. On average, education budgets throughout the Central Asian countries declined by 50 percent from about 1991 to the end of the decade. In fact between 2005 – 2010, an average expenditure on education in Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan was 5.9, 2.8 and 3.5 percent of GDP respectively (see United Nations Country profiles 2010).
5. See also Ivanov (Citation2009).
6. Under Joseph Stalin, the Cyrillic alphabet was imposed on Uzbekistan. In post-independence, however, President Karimov insisted on reinstating the alphabet with the intention that Latin script is revived. Such practice, made the majority of academic texts and general educational materials redundant, which consequently led country suffer from a dearth of educational publications and has a cavernous gap in schooling (Corless Citation2010).
7. Interview with Tashkent student (Uzbekistan, March 2003), documented in: ICG Citation2003a, 11.
8. Modelled after the Komsomol-a Soviet youth organisation, the Kamolot is an uzbek youth organisation. Kamolot’s target age group is 14–30 and there are about 4.5 million active Kamolot members of this age group (McGlinchey Citation2006, Citation2009). Mostly these members are college and university students.
9. Even the Soviet education system was more placid than the current Uzbek one. At times faculty members used to express opinions in opposition to their superiors without any apparent fear of reprisal and corporal punishment and threats to frighten children were prohibited (see Stuart Citation1959).
10. EBRD (Citation2005) quotes surveys showing 19 percent in 1998.
11. Figures are from US Census Bureau. 2005. Online Available at: http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/idbsum.html [accessed, 25 March 2011].
12. See “Uzbek Border Row Introduces New Element of Tension in Central Asia.” Available at: www.eurasianet.org [accessed 14 June 2010] and see also IRIN News (2004) “Tajikistan: National Conference on Human Trafficking Opens in Dushanbe,” 4 May.
13. Interview with a Tajik sociologist, Saodat Olimova, documented in: ICG 2003, 33.
14. Kazakhstan’s summary “democracy score” has deteriorated every year since 1997 and stands at 6.29 (1 is best; 7 is worst) for 2005. Kyrgyzstan is at 5.64, having been as good as 4.65 in 1997. Tajikistan is at 5.79 and Turkmenistan 6.93. Uzbekistan stands at 6.43, having improved slightly from the previous year (see Goehring and Schnetzer Citation2006).
15. For example in Kazakhstan, the UNODC country office estimated that in the year 2000, out of 500 identified members of a criminal organisation, 160 were between 20 and 24 years old, 230 were between 25 and 29 and 42 were between 30 and 34. Additionally, there was already a pool of young recruits with 27 of the criminals aged between 15 and 19.
16. See, for example, Martha Brill Olcott’s testimony before the US Congress (Briefing 2002, 37).
17. Research evidences like the World Values Survey shows that in the backdrop of spectrums of corruption in bureaucracy and political institutions, and unemployment, religious institutions are increasingly becoming the most trusted institutions among young people in the 18–34 age group (NRC Citation2005, 396).
18. By 2003 the Hizb ut-Tahrir in Uzbekistan had attracted about 15,000 followers. In Kyrgyzstan its strength reached as many as 7000–8000 members by 2009. In Tajikistan, Hizb ut-Tahrir had more than 1000 members in the early 2000s. In Kazakhstan, the recent reports of the Kazakh security service allege unprecedented growth in the activities of the HUT. By 2004 some 11,000 pamphlets of HUT were seized in Kazakhstan (see Omelicheva Citation2010, 170). Recently the number of HUT followers in Central Asia can be much higher, but the authoritarian nature of Central Asian governments also complicates scholars’ efforts at data collection.
19. As of 2005, US State Department estimated, about 5000–5500 persons in Uzbekistan’s prisons that were accused of religion-motivated extremism or secular opposition (Spechler Citation2007, 191). Many journalists were accused of supporting an Islamist groups. Mostly their arrests followed the publication of their articles (see Corless. 2010. Eyewitness: Ania Corless on Uzbekistan). Even recently, Maxim Popov, an Uzbek HIV/aids campaigner, educator and a psychologist by training, who ran various youth programmes in Uzbekistan, was accused of “corrupting minors” for distributing booklets about HIV prevention in 2010 (see Fitzpatrick Citation2011).
20. Failed citizenship has various dimensions – young people turn to crime and religious extremism or can become marginalised or victims of violence (see World Bank Citation2007a).
21. For the most part by “cultural repression”, I mean curtailing of freedom of religion, speech, assembly and using digital space.