What’s with the 200-person brawl in Almaty this past weekend? And what’s with the Chechens causing problems there? I thought they only liked antagonizing Russians… unless darling Ramzan is truly inspiring his people around the globe.
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Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
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This is the 3rd or 4th time that there has been inter-ethnic fighting of this type in the Almaty oblast in the past 6 months. One of the worse previous incidents was also centered in Shelek, which according to the article is the place where part of the Kazakhs in this fight came from.
Last fall it was Kazakh-Uyghur fighting. This time it is Kazkah-Chechen, is there a pattern here? And I don’t think it has anything to do with Chechens.
I have seen this kind of thing developing for years. As Kazakh society has become richer, there have been dramatic changes in the way many Kazakhs (not all) relate to the other ethnic groups around them. You should hear some of what they say to their near-cousins the Kyrgyz! It is ugly.
I don’t have a good feeling of where this is headed over the long-term.
I have to admit to not following any kind of ethnic fighting in Kazakhstan – hell, before this incident, I thought that was a relic of the early 90s. My confusion here I guess stems from the descriptions: it seems a group of Chechens ganged up on a Kazakh and shot him in the back. But I could be misreading that.
If there is a pattern (and I would appreciate any news sources to show this), then you’re absolutely right – it is a much bigger problem than it seems.
Some of my information on the ethnic fight of last year was based on personal interviews. But I did find one news piece in my files at:
http://enews.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=1759
And I find it interesting that in this article also, local Kazakh press writes about how another ethnic groups (this time Uyghurs) started the fight by mistreating some poor Kazakh youths – sounds familar doesn’t it? I guess every other ethinic group in the country feels empowered enough to take on Kazakhs?