Yesterday, Ferghana.ru carried an essay from Birlik’s Pulat Ahunov on the need for Uzbekistan’s democratic opposition groups to change their tactics. Uzbekistan’s opposition groups are famously fractured and more focused primarily, it usually seems, on bashing one another than on pursuing reforms in Uzbekistan. A good example of this is the recent “united opposition” meeting during which participants agreed their political program consisted of the following steps.
- Step 1: Get rid of the primary obstacle to unity, those damned accomodationist Birlik members.
- Step 2: …
- Step 3: Overthrow Karimov!
Ahunov says that the position of this part of the opposition, which most prominently includes Erk, is advocating a bad political course with bad precedent by calling for the overthrow of Uzbekistan’s government (though his analogies are not terribly applicable). He says that their uncompromising attitude is well-suited to their lives in exile and that they refuse to confront the question of what their position has accomplished for the Uzbek citizens for whom they claim to speak. He argues that their attitude is better suited for human rights activism, not for politics, where compromise is usually the order of the day.
Monitoring the situation in Uzbekistan and drawing international attention to it is worthwhile and should be continued, Ahunov says. However, he argues that Uzbekistan’s opposition is stuck in reaction mode when it should be acting. He acknowledges that any thoughts of actually competing within Uzbekistan are fantasy at the moment. The opposition needs to consider the realities of their situation and reconfigure their political priorities appropriately, he says.
Toward that end, he has two suggestions.
First, Ahunov says that the opposition should target Uzbekistan’s poor economic conditions rather than the government and be willing to partner with the government in this fight while reserving the right to engage in constructive opposition on other issues. This, he says, “will eventually do away with the distrust and animosity between the powers-that-be and the opposition.”
Second, he says that the opposition must move beyond Tashkent. It must recruit new activists in the provinces and villages if it is to have any sway with the government.
Ahunov says that he knows his message will fall on deaf ears.
I’m aware of the futility of appealing to the radical and uncompromising democrats who have already proclaimed their readiness and determination to fight for power. Blinded by hatred, they will never heed any arguments. This is where out paths split. Radicals want upheavals and turnovers. We want a democratic Uzbekistan.
All things considered, I think the approach he advocates is better. But, is it enough to make Uzbekistan’s opposition relevant? As useless as calling for the government’s overthrow is and as silly as spending its time engaged in internal fighting, it is fanciful to think that constructive criticism is a path that will lead to acceptance. What Ahunov advocates does not seem too terribly different from Sunshine Uzbekistan’s approach. Their program called for fixing Uzbekistan’s economic problems and shied away from an anti-regime message. That landed Sanjar Umarov in prison and with Nodira Hidoyatova briefly imprisoned. If Ahunov and Birlik were to avoid the same fate, it seems they would essentially have to become Karimov’s lieutenants.
Which all goes to show the sorry situation that Uzbekistan’s opposition activists find themselves in and to suggest that they are not likely to play a role in the country’s political future.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.
{ 6 comments }
Good post, but one correction is in order. It was Nodira Hidoyatova who was imprisoned. She is Nigora’s sister. Nigora is head of the independent Ozod Dekhon (Free Peasants) part.
And damn, I knew that! Thanks for catching the mistake!
Nathan, Thank you for this interesting post. One other issue, not much discussed, is the extent to which American and Western support for opposition forces–financial and otherwise–hurts their position. It allows them to be put in the position of foreign agents, wreckers, and so on from the Soviet period. Yeltsin and Gorbachev came from withing the Communist Party apparatus, and my guess is that progressive tendencies in Central Asia likewise will have to develop inside, rather than from outside, existing power structures. Thus, it might be in America’s interest to adopt a policy of “benign neglect” rather than “regime change”–and work with the most pro-Western elements of the power structures to bring Central Asian republics further along the path of economic and political growth, more or less the way the US treats China these days…
Well, were our policy actually regime change, or if politics really divided along lines of hardliners and reformers, or if we gave material support to these parties, I’d agree with you. Additionally, the one big difference between China and most of Central Asia is that the will for economic reform comes from within China and I would argue we haven’t been too successful inspiring meaningful political change in China.
The broad point made by Ahunov and supported by you is fair enough — it would be better if the opposition were united. But one cannot simply dismiss the charges often flung around that the leader of this or that party is secretly being paid by the Karimov regime to cause disarray in the opposition. I have no idea whether these charges are true, but they are obviously plausible. Uzbek intelligence services would be complete morons if they didn’t try to do this sort of thing . . . and it’s not hard to imagine someone taking their money. Once you factor this in, calls for “opposition unity” lose a lot of their meaning, sadly. And opposition leaders attacking each other rather than the regime starts to make more sense, even if it is still unproductive.
The classical opposition is largely irrelevant, if only because their leadership has been out of Uzbekistan for too long, have lost touch with reality there (and vice-versa) and is not necessarily competent.
After the overthow and execution of the karimovites, Uzbekistan will have to go through a phase of purifying chaos. From the mayhem something new and better will emerge.