The existence of ‘NGO aristocracies’ (for those interested, that has also been elaborated in detail in Olivier Roy’s, “Soviet legacies and western aid imperatives in Central Asia”, in: Amyn B. Sajoo (ed.), Civil society in the Muslim world: contemporary perspectives, I.B. Tauris and the Institute for Ismaili Studies, 2002, pp. 96-122). The same actually goes for international organisations (e.g. UNDP), though those tend to have %-age of children and relatives of regime cronies among their staff.

Besides, even if this does not has to be generalised, several of the concepts promoted IOs and int NGOs on the region are outright outlandish e.g. all these randy EU-funded consultants, NGOs promoting gay and lesbian rights (as if the people there have no other priorities!), etc… and it is true that many local NGOs are merely grant-grabbers (a situation that is not unique to CA btw).

That some NGOs are a cover-up for other activities (evangelist proselytizing in particular, eg. CAFÉ, CADA, … ) is correct as well. On the other hand, I find that so-called alliance between western(-funded) NGOs and ‘Islamists’ to be outright paranoid. If there is a link between western(-funded) NGOs and religion, it is to be situated more in the evangelist Christian sphere.

But what I would like to know is, what alternative you propose? The status quo? IMO, that is a dead-end, for the following reasons:

1) The regime in Uzbekistan is, essentially, a continuation of Soviet bureaucratic authoritarianism minus the social advantages of the Soviet system; so is the mentality and political culture of its ‘elite’; is other words, its main reference framework is Soviet (or Soviet-feudal); yet even if Sovietism undoubly had its postive achievements and advantages, in the end, it showed to be a complete failure. As such, it is basically dead as a project for the future.

2) They may see “the modernizing achievements of their brand of socialism—built by their parents and grandparents, not by some abstraction–threatened by medieval religious fanaticism”, today the question is to what extent that what they see is rather the illusion and façade, of modernism (that is also very Soviet: a lot of bluff, façacde, smokescreens, white elephants)? I mean, let’s stay serious: in 15 years’ time, the positive achievements and social capital of the USSR have been largely squandered by the Soviet native compardore elites that stayed in power after 1991 as well as by the IFI (general impoverishment including intellectual; falling social indicators; neo-feudalism; child labor; the ‘general bestialisation of society’ as one CAsian friend put it, …).

3) The regimes and their power elites are shrewd enough to buy survival time by playing off everyone against each other (US, Russia, China) in a region with many conflicting interests. Yet in the end that is also going to bring their downfall. Precedents galore: what they basically do was done already, at other times and in other contexts yet along bang the same mechanisms, by the Mobutus and Siad Barres of this world. It’s a game where the jackals tear each other up. In that sense, I think that the US, *at least if they want to keep face and the slightest credibility in the region* , can not let the recent series of humiliations, spittings and face-slappings by the karimovites go by unforgiven/unpunished. Likewise, I do not think that the present ‘friendship’ between the Tashkent regime and the Kremlin-Gazprom wil last. Either case, their fate is sealed.

4) Everyone who has *seriously* been following the region over the last 10-15 years does no buys into that mantra that ‘ first there must be stability and economic growth then democratisation’. All blabla and lip service, yet we know that this is simply not going to happen. The karimovites (and Türkmenbaşi for that matter) know *very* well that if they live up to that they basically undermine their own power base which is one of controlling the key sectors of the economy and keeping the bulk of their subjects in structural poverty.

5) That the average Sovok in CA indeed associates ‘demokratiya’ with ‘bardak’ (a ‘mess’: impoverishment, crime, corruption, a loot ‘n boot economy, … ) is a fact. Yet that does not means that there is no popular need for breathing space and participation (saying that is basically one more of these mantras and fallacies of the regime and syphilitic expats in cahoots with them). In my experience, what the people long for, to start with, is economic democracy as opposed to the status quo where every economic initiatve that is not controlled by the presidential family and it cornies is made impossible. They also long for what is called ‘freedom from fear’. Bu the way by, and form in which, it will be achieved, however, will probably not be what the West had in mind or promoted.