President Nazarbyaev gave a long speech at the Astana Economic Forum yesterday, describing what Trend.az calls his “concept of civilized development in the 21st century.” (For those with a particular interest in this subject, the full text of the speech is available.) In the course of laying out his vision, which includes social and economic justice based on a global rather than “Washington” consensus, he takes a swing at the internet, saying that its improper use can derail development.

Nazarbayev said that the unprecedented level of global communications technologies now available reduce barriers of time and distance, but that this potential cannot be used as a tool of provocation to undermine the moral foundations of public order. Instead, he says, these tools should be used for “constructive goals.” Later in the speech, he describes the protests of the Arab Spring as having unleashed a host of ills including the hampering of social development and complication of international relations. Such revolutions, Nazarbayev says, are harmful to politics and society.

Though Nazarbayev’s warning about the misuse of the internet comes well before his mention of the Arab Spring in his speech, the two ideas are closely connected as a major theme in his speech is that revolution has nothing to offer modern politics or societies but waste and chaos. He commented last month that countries affected by the Arab Spring have been set back economically 15 years and that they’ve ushered in Islamist rule. In that interview, he also said that using social media for political purposes threatens stability and he complained then too that the west pushes values incompatible with the mentality and tradition of much of the world.

It is unlikely that this talk signals any significant expansion of restrictions on the internet beyond those that already exist. However, it is another reminder that Kazakhstan is pursuing the same strategy as Azerbaijan and Uzbekistan of demonizing the internet as a source of considerable danger and incompatible western morals and ideologies while encouraging “legitimate” use of it as a tool to enable businesses and government.

Nazarbayev casts Kazakhstan as a bridge between east and west. But, having Ilham Aliyev and Islom Karimov as peer practitioners in his approach to the internet places him and Kazakhstan very far from the middle ground.

While Central Asia’s international political profile has risen considerably since 2001, it has primarily been seen in the West through the prism of Afghanistan. The policies of Western governments towards Central Asia as a whole and as individual states have widely fluctuated, but in almost every case, been heavily shaped by policies toward Afghanistan. US and ISAF Afghanistan policy has been short-sighted and messy enough, making policy toward Central Asia even moreso.

In recent years, Central Asia’s governments have backslid, becoming more authoritarian and less able to provide services to all of society. This contributes to greater risks for instability in the future.

How much responsibility do Western countries, particularly the United States, have for this situation?

According to Alexander Cooley, who writes, “…the West has left a trail of repression, graft and unfulfilled commitments to Central Asia’s fledgling civil society,” a lot.

Cooley makes two big claims about how the US and ISAF campaign in Afghanistan has affected Central Asia:

1. Security assistance has made Central Asian states more authoritarian and corrupt
2. The drawdown from Afghanistan will magnify these effects

I acknowledge the possibility that Cooley is referring to a very small, slightly more than trivial, increase when using the adjective “more” to describe the changes in authoritarianism and corruption in Central Asia caused by western security assistance. However, it seems unlikely that he means “slightly more than trivial” for a few reasons. First, why bother writing about it in anything other than a theoretical way if that is indeed the case? Second, he does not write about these changes in the way one might expect were he describing small changes; the language suggests a qualitative and quantitative levels of authoritarianism and corruption rather than describing, for example, how western assistance creates new opportunities for the pre-existing corruption. Third, the tone suggests he means something big.

Perhaps the strong evidence is in his forthcoming book, because the case made in the article linked above is extraordinarily thin.

Before even looking at the evidence, this case should be approached with extreme skepticism. As a thought experiment, imagine there had been no war in Afghanistan. Would we expect any of the Central Asian governments to be qualitatively different in any perceivable way? Would corruption or authoritarianism be significantly less pronounced? To say they would be dramatically understates the agency these governments have.

Similarly, even with the war in Afghanistan, if western security assistance is a noteworthy contributor to increased corruption and authoritarianism, we should expect the effects to be more pronounced where that assistance is and has been greatest. It is hard to measure these things objectively, but looking at Freedom House and Transparency International scores or purely qualitative assessments of corruption and freedom as levels of US security assistance over the last decade shows no clear patterns. Uzbekistan was a little better in the early part of the decade when US security assistance was greatest and did most of its slide during the period of poor relations with the US. Kyrgyzstan has slid on corruption rankings and fallen and bounced back on freedom rankings. There is a lot more economy in explaining these changes by referring to the features of the particular governments than there is by pointing to US security assistance as the cause.¹

So, Cooley has big evidentiary hurdles — ones he sets up himself by writing at the outset that, “Western security assistance has made the Central Asian states more authoritarian and more corrupt” — to clear to show a causal relationship between security assistance and increased corruption and authoritarianism. He simply does not clear them.

On promotion of political and civil rights, he writes,

The K2 eviction prompted Western officials to accept the Central Asian governments’ insistence that engagement on security issues was now antithetical with promoting political freedoms.

To support this claim, he points out that the US toned down criticism of President Bakiev in 2007 to prevent the eviction of Manas, that human rights organizations complain that the US will not raise rights issues with certain Central Asian governments because of security relationships, and that the EU addresses human rights issues in EU-Central Asia dialogues. This simply does not cut it. Yes, the US has toned down criticism at times, and some agencies are particularly prone to downplaying concerns over rights. However, it is incorrect to say that the US does not raise these issues, as some human rights organizations claim (though this argument is hard to refute without details). Whether or not this engagement makes any difference, especially in a systematic way, is an entirely different question, as is whether or not US officials are eager to bring these issues up. But the mountain of rights related reports and certifications required for security assistance required by Congress make it impossible not to bring these issues up. Is it really that hard to find people in government with knowledge of these negotiations or who can describe the far more complicated story on trying to promote rights and maintain security assistance agreements?

On corruption, Cooley describes the rent-seeking around the Northern Distribution Network and the massive corruption in fuel sales for the Transit Center at Manas. He is entirely right that western, mostly US, engagement on transit into Afghanistan has created opportunities for corruption for local elites. And he is right that the payments are likely to increase as equipment is moved out of Afghanistan on the NDN. Yes, this is “more” corruption quantitatively, but is it qualitatively? One’s mileage may vary, but any and all resources coming into the region from outside are likely to have a chunk taken out due to corruption.²

Cooley never directly supports his claim that western security assistance has made Central Asia more authoritarian. The closest he comes is when he writes,

…the Obama Administration in January of this year lifted a ban on providing military assistance and its financing to the Uzbek government, opening the way to transfers of material that is as likely to be used to target domestic opponents as it is for its publicly stated purpose of guarding these supply lines.

Cooley, like other analysts of US security assistance, would be better served by taking a look at what security assistance has been given and what is on offer. Vague reference to “material” muddies the water. Uzbekistan wants all kinds of military equipment, but what is actually being offered does not include weapons and ammunition. Specific items include night-vision goggles, thermal imaging sensors for border posts, and body armor, and it will probably also include things like computers, desks, certain kinds of vehicles, and similar equipment being moved back out of Afghanistan. It explicitly does not include expansion of training. I guess all of these things could be used against domestic opponents or the public, but is that really such a significant risk? These are not the tools of repression currently used, and to claim that this increases authoritarianism is making a mountain out of a molehill. Again, is it really that hard to find people, especially at State or on Congressional staffs, who have worked these issues and can provide another perspective to add something to the story?

I agree that US policy has been lacking in Central Asia over the last decade. There have been strategic missteps and missed opportunities. Western governments, particularly the US and German, have too often let themselves lose sight of the importance of human rights to the long-term security and stability of Central Asia in the pursuit of short-term goals in Afghanistan. Human rights organizations play an important role in reminding western governments that Central Asian governments are headed the wrong direction, and academics play an important role in providing inputs to orient policy in better directions. However, in either of these cases, that role is undermined by making thinly-supported arguments that overstate the effects of security assistance on Central Asian governments.

Earlier this week, Small Wars Journal published an article by Matthew Stein, a research analyst currently working at the Foreign Military Studies Office at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, discussing the role of videos recorded and posted by citizen bystanders in the information battle to control the narrative over the police’s violent crackdown on protesters in Zhanaozen last December. Stein’s article provides a fairly straightforward summary of the different videos showing the police firing on protesters and how the ways in which the government has built a narrative for the incident. On the significance of the appearance of these videos, Stein writes,

Finally, the significance of these videos is that the people of Zhanaozen were able to get information on the incident out into social media despite the government’s control over access. People using social media to publicize incidents that might not otherwise be noticed is not a new trend, as can be seen from worldwide events in 2011. However, this is the most noteworthy example from Kazakhstan, much less Central Asia, of this happening. Due to the effect that the first video (Zhana Ozen 3) had, it will not be the last time that people in Kazakhstan document an incident on video and make it available for a wide audience.

Dissemination of documentary evidence without state filtering is a fairly recent phenomenon in Central Asia, though some, including myself, would argue that Kazakhstan is late to this, at least in regard to high profile events, especially compared to Kyrgyzstan, where there are several earlier examples, including 2010′s overthrow of President Bakiev and especially the ethnic violence in Osh. More importantly though, the significance of information going unfiltered into social media and out to a wide audience is overstated. As internet use increases in Central Asia, it should come as no surprise that some of these people use the internet to distribute content like the Zhanaozen videos.

In his final paragraph, Stein points to the emergence of a struggle between state and society to control the narratives around controversial events. There is a story to be told about how these authoritarian states respond to erosion of their information dominance, but in many ways, it is singularly uninteresting. Almost every state tries to shape narratives, and in Central Asia, the state controls the story by keeping political groups, social and religious groups, and the media on a short leash. Central Asian governments have stepped up some restrictions and monitoring of social media. Security services are adept enough at disrupting off-line political activity planned online, and governments are finding ways to convince people to avoid the internet.

Like my colleagues here at Registan, I have found expectations of a Central Asian spring in the near term or the assumption that the Arab Spring would have a measurable impact on Central Asia to be based on fundamental misunderstandings of the region. Political culture matters. A lot. Government plays a critical role in nurturing fear, distrust, and political apathy, but their success is aided enormously by their political opponents and the societies they govern perpetuating this culture themselves. And research on Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan suggests that at least in the near term, the internet has exacerbated these problems.

Of course, all of these things — the relationships between state and society, the discussions within society, and political and cultural attitudes — are dynamic. Timelines extend well beyond the near term. The documentation and discussion in social media of events like Zhanaozen or ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan is important because it preserves events. Stein is looking in the wrong place for meaning. The real significance of this documentation and presentation is in how and whether it changes society’s modes and norms for discussing sensitive political, social, and cultural topics and how those changes subsequently change political culture. The state’s reaction is just a continuation of a long-running dynamic.

I do not find the future as bleak as we sometimes make it sound when we focus on the near term. It is, of course, incorrect to characterize any popular uprising as entirely reliant on the internet. Twitter, facebook, etc. can only catalyze offline factors. Trends like the popular revival of Islam, failures of economies to meet rising expectations, the growth of ethno-linguistic nationalism, and demographic shifts all suggest heightened chances for political instability in the medium- to long-term. It is difficult to look at how the internet is being used in Central Asia at present and not see it playing an organizing and catalyzing role in the future should these trends keep drifting Central Asia toward instability. However, it is absolutely impossible at present to predict how or when the internet will play an appreciably important role. The only thing that is certain is that more clarity on these questions comes from focusing on discussions and practices within society than from monitoring the state-society dynamic.

Jund al-Khilafah (JaK), a Kazakh-led terrorist group based in Pakistan, issued its second statement on the Ansar al-Mujahideen online forum on April 1 claiming affiliation to Mohammed Merah. JaK’s first statement was released on March 22.

On the day after Mohammed Merah was killed in Toulouse on March 22 JaK issued the following the statement (excerpted):

“On Tuesday, March 19, one of the Islamic knights, brother ‘Yousef al-Faransi’ – we ask Allah to accept him – took off in an operation that shook the pillars of the Zionist- Crusade in the entire world and filled the hearts of Allah’s enemies with terror…. We hereby claim responsibility for these blessed operations, and we say that what Israel is committing of crimes against our people on the blessed land of Palestine, and in Gaza specifically, will not pass without punishment. The Mujahideen everywhere intend on avenging every drop of blood that was unjustly and aggressively shed in Palestine, Afghanistan and other Muslim homelands.”

One week later, on April 1, JaK showed deeper knowledge about Merah in a second statement (excerpted):

“And since I got to know the brother closely and sat with him in many occasions, and for a short period I was one of his mentors, I see that it is my duty to defend the honor of the brother…and seek to remove the fiction from the truth of what was going on in his mind, and the motives that pushed him to carry out the operations in France…. From Egypt to Ash-Sham, and from there to Palestine…. where he visited Jerusalem and prayed there, and thereafter to Kurdistan, Iraq, and then to Tajikistan, where he was able to get a visa to Afghanistan, and entered and searched for who would help him join the Taliban…. From Afghanistan he returned to France when he prepared a visa to Pakistan with the excuse of trade and went there. Allah graced him this time, as in Islamabad he met people who took him to the Taliban, who in turn facilitated his arrival in the tribal regions, when he ended up joining our brigade…. Brother, Yusef is not a reckless man as the media in the Western countries wants to view him. He was a serious young man…who was intelligent and mastered the use of a Linux computer and an Apple Mac in his possession and prepped it with many software programs for film production because he was fond of photography and always carried a Panasonic Full HD 14.2 Megapixels camera.

Neither of these statements has gathered much attention in the mainstream media probably because most analysts see JaK’s claims as false, but the claims were good enough for the administrators of Ansar al-Mujahideen online forum to post them. One of the major surprises about JaK claiming an attack in France is that in 2011 all of JaK’s attacks were carried out in Kazakhstan and all of JaK’s statements were directed against the Kazakh government.

Yet, one reason to believe that JaK’s claims are legitimate is its track record. In 2011, the three claims JaK made about three attacks in Atyrau, Taraz, and Boraldai (a village outside of Almaty) were consistent with the facts on the ground and were released within three to four days of the attacks, so they showed some degree of inside information.

For instance, on October 31, 2011 in Atyrau, a terrorist blew himself up next to an apartment building near the Prosecutor-General’s office and another bomb detonated in a garbage can blocks away. A claim of credit by JaK following the attack showed inside knowledge, especially since the statement was released the day after the explosions, which would not have given JaK much time to see the media’s depiction of the event. JaK said:

“We refute that the last attack was carried out as a martyrdom-operation. It seems that the bomb exploded accidently, which led to the martyrdom of its carrier. We ask Allah to accept him among the martyrs.”

A similar claim with a degree of inside knowledge was released three days after Maksat Kariyev went on a several hour noontime rampage in November 2011 in Taraz, Southeastern Kazakhstan killing five security officers, one gun shop guard, and himself in a suicide bombing that he detonated when a police commander approached him. JaK claimed responsibility and said:

“In Taraz, you saw with your own eyes what one soldier did to you, and God willing you will see horrors by the hands of men who don’t fear death and give their souls easily to support the religion of Islam and defend the honor of the Muslims.”

In Boraldai Village outside of Alamaty, five JaK fighters were killed on December 3, 2011 when Kazakhstan security forces surrounded them inside their safehouse. Four days later Jak came out with a claim that said:

“We are ready to be killed in the thousands in order to support [Islam]… losing our lives is a cheap price that we pay for this cause… God give glory to the fighters who were killed by the apostate forces of the Nazarbayev regime at a base where the five lions of the al-Zahir Baybars Battalion of Jund al Khilafa were gathered.”

Sure, JaK may be bluffing about Mohammed Merah. But what may have happened is that Merah passed through a JaK training camp in Pakistan’s tribal areas with the approval or guidance of the Taliban or al-Qaeda. This is not such a far stretch considering that the IMU, JaK, TIP, and other Central Asian groups all have camps supported by the Taliban in the Afghanistan-Pakistan border region. To Merah, JaK could have been a typical al-Qaeda outfit, but to JaK Merah could have been perceived as one of theirs— hence the claims.

The Kazakh terror group Jund al-Kilafah claimed responsibility for the crazy shootout in Toulouse, France, last week. Like its other claims for attacks outside of Kazakhstan, there’s very little evidence they actually do this beyond saying so on some website. Even so, it makes for an interesting evolution of the Kazakhstan Terror phenomenon, as it marks the first time the group even claims interest in Europe.

Back in October, the Kazakh government decided to put some 47 young men on trial for involvement in Jund al-Khilafah (the trial is closed to the public). Some of the men on trial were arrested, but authorities have admitted several are being tried in absentia. As that trial begins, we know nothing about how they’re being charged, presented with evidence, or allowed to defend themselves. Like too many other abusive justice systems in Central Asia, we have no reason to think the trial will be fair or will result in punishing the actual terrorists who planted bombs in Atyrau last year.

Unfortunately, that’s not the only mass trial going on in Kazakhstan right now. Kazakhstan has also decided to punish the rioters at Zhanaozen — apparently deciding it is a crime to be murdered by the police (above is a photo of the trial, which is posted by the invaluable @aktaulada twitter feed). Police were still arresting activists who marched in Zhanaozen as recently as a month ago, almost like it was retribution for daring to stand up to the government. Over the weekend, activists staged a small rally in Almaty to mark the hundredth day since the deadly riots in December. (Sadly, the murder of at least 17 protestors doesn’t spark the same degree of public anger that a lack of affordable housing does.)

At the start of the trial today in Aqtau, hundreds of people tried to enter the temporary courthouse to watch the proceedings, creating a minor stir as the authorities tried to figure out what to do with the over-capacity crowd.

As this Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty video shows, the judge suddenly decided to delay the trial at the last minute when one defendant didn’t show up, sparking outrage by onlookers and the accused’s families.

Both of these trials are a joke. They don’t demonstrate any interest on the part of Astana to establish justice, the rule of law, or hold anyone to account. They are meant to be empty, public show trials so the government can say it’s “doing something” to maintain order and counter terrorism. Are innocent people caught up in either trial? We cannot know, though we can probably assume some are. But so long as the government remains so secretive about why it is arresting people and how it knows they did things, we have no reason to trust either proceeding.

Registan Bloggers Michael Hancock-Parmer and Christopher Schwartz have teamed up to write about Abai Kunanbaiev (or, if you prefer, Abay Kunanbayev). A force of nature in the Republic of Kazakhstan, he was similarly popular in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Born Ibrahim, he took Abai (“careful”) as his takhallus (تخلص), or pen-name. He is most famous for his prose work, Qara sözder (قاراسوزدەر, often mistranslated as Book of Words, instead of Words of Edification). It has been characterized as a philosophy of the Steppe, a ‘Kazakh Philosophy.’ Schwartz believes that there’s more than meets the eye to this text. Meanwhile, Hancock-Parmer argues that Abai, the historical figure, is himself worthy of rethinking.

First, let me say Happy Nawruz to everyone! Second — and perhaps contradictorily — I’m about to be lynched by every liberal reader and lionized by every conservative reader of Registan for breathing the name of Leo Strauss in this hallowed digital space. For those you who have no idea why, to make a long story short, Strauss is both blamed and applauded for providing the intellectual justification for the Bush Administration’s many controversial policies (point and counterpoint). Liberals see in him the professorial mastermind for the worst kinds of contemporary elite realpolicking and “managed democracy”, while conservatives see in him the professorial champion of traditional morality and “values-based democracy”. There is much more than meets the eye about Strauss, however, but only if you give him a chance and really read his work.

The same can be said about Kazakhstan’s Abai Kunanbaev. Mythologized by the Soviets and independent Kazakhstan, he is proclaimed as the model Kazakh and a philosopher par excellence and denounced as a fount of rabid, unsophisticated traditionalism or lamented as the enabler of tradition’s destruction. You won’t find much of the latter criticisms in print or on YouTube, which is dominated by the official discourse; you have to go to the cafes of Almaty and talk with the young urban intelligentsia of today to hear it. The historical Abai is obscured, explains my colleague Michael (who can actually read Abai in the original Chaghatay, much to my envy). As with Strauss, very few people are actually taking the time to really read his work.

In my recent BBC piece (Kyrgyz version; Uzbek version; English forthcoming) I actively play with the Abai of myth as opposed to the Abai of history, in order to get my Central Asian colleagues to think more dynamically about what it means to be a critic. The ideas secretly working behind the scenes in that piece, though, are not those of Abai, but those of Strauss.

Soviet ideologues, particularly (as Michael alerts us) Mukhtar Auezov, being as they were good (if oft-unwitting) disciples of G.W.F. Hegel’s Phänomenologie des Geistes and Wissenschaft der Logik, saw in Abai something of the zeitgeist of his era — and although their exegesis was distortive, they nonetheless may not have been off the mark. Abai was educated in both the Muslim madrasah and the Russian skola, and made a living translating Russian and European philosophical and literary works into Kazakh (Chaghatay) and as a newsman with the Russian-Kazakh weekly, Dala Ualaiatynyng Gazeti/Kirgizskaia Stepnaia Gazeti. Michael calls this latter outfit “a flagship in the age of the newspaper as civilizing tool”, an apt and very provocative description that I really love, because the thing is, Abai was full of interesting ambivalences.

Lishnego cheloveka

Abai was a harsh critic of the lishnego cheloveka (“superfluous man”/”dandy”). The criticism was primarily derived from nomadic and generally Islamic notions of manliness:

Fops show off in various ways. One will pay great attention to his face, cultivate his moustache and beard, pamper his body and swagger — now lifting an eyebow langurously, now tapping his fingers or struting with arms akimbo; aother will adopt a studied carelessness in his foppery and, in an off-hand way, affecting to be ‘a simple fellow’, will drop hints in passing about his Arabian horse or his rich raimant: ‘Oh, it’s nothing in particular!’ He goes out of his way to attract the attention o fhis betters, arouses envy amog his equals, and is regarded among his inferiors as the acme of refinement and luxury. They say about him: ‘What has got to complain of with such a horse and clothes like that!’

At the same time, he recognized the phenomenon as having its own nomadic-Islamic analogues:

The one who strays [i.e., off the Straight Path, Sirat al-Mustaqim, الصراط المستقيم] is certain that ahead is the right road and the path is behind him. / For him, what insincere people say is also right. / They are self-satisfied as though they are drowning in riches, / and they don’t far at al unjust deeds. / His short cloak suits him. / He does his belt below the waist and walks carefree. / He tries to cock his white fur hat at a more rakish angle, / and it’s finally worn out. / In summer he never goes without his white cap, / and his stick is white in his hands. / He puts his stick on the wall of the yurt and hangs his cap on it. / He looks at them secretly, admiring them from afar.

In general, the steppe’s lishnego cheloveka was a curious and mixed up creature, trying to combine the lifestyles of Russian modernity and Kazakh tradition in a ghastly superficial way:

Such rogues are numberless among the people, and all of them are not suited to work. They don’t cherish the soul, but are polished on the outside. Tight trousers and short cloaks — that’s all they know. It doesn’t come to their mind to pasture the flocks, to work honestly, get rich and be useful to the people. They roam round the auls driving their only horse till it sweats, not bothering to give the correct greeting, nodding from afar with a vacant, blissful smile.

Grounding these criticisms, however, is an argument for a proper understanding of what it means to maintain tradition while simultaneously modernizing.

“On our steppe there is neither divine nor human justice.”

Abai saw in limited Russification the key to unleashing the best of Islamic spirituality and Kazakh tradition and to resisting Tsarist colonization:

One should learn to read and write Russian. The Russian language is a key to spiritual riches and knowledge, the arts and many other treasures. If we wish to avoid the vices of the Russians while adopting their achievements, we should learn their language and study their scholarship and science, for it was by learning foreign tongues and assimilating world culture that the Russians have become what they are. By studying the language and culture of other nations, a person becomes their equal and will not need to make humble requests. Enlightenment is useful for religion, as well.

To be clear, he was no fool: in one passage he laments how a Russian education alone, revitalizing though it may be, is not sufficient to curtail the decline of morals and unity among his people. He also points out at least twice in the Qara sözder that modernization equally entails an investigation into and adaptation of traditional Kazakh systems of knowledge and jurisprudence.

Careful but enthusiastic Russification and rennovating Kazakh customs was not a rogue argument for the time. The early Islamic modernization movement, embodied by such thinkers as Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani or the Jadids in Uzbekistan, was of the view that a rapprochement between Western methodologies and Islamic customs was both possible and preferable (as opposed to today’s either/or argument between “Westernization” versus “Islamification”).

Meanwhile, Abai idealized the Kazakh tribal nobleman (for lack of better description), the bey, turning the position into a kind of moral archetype. This enabled him to forcefully attack the actual beys of his era, who had largely been reduced to Tsarist servitude and victims of avarice both personal and popular in the dog-eat-dog world that he believed had become the nineteenth-century steppe:

The beys live in worry, protecting their wealth. / They buy, knocking off ten percent. / Those whom heavly retribution has hit, / having accepted the ten, hanker after the ninety percent. [...] The strong overcome, the rich win – that’s a well-known truth. / He who has finally failed falls into the net. / Everyone will bring up an evilly growling dog so that in time / they will set it upon the one who’s soul is radiant.

At several points in the Qara sözder, Abai also talks about the corruption and antiquatedness of the Islamic education and judicial system, holding them accountable before the God they are supposed to represent and calling for systematic reforms. The depravity was so bad that even poetry, that supreme performative art of nomadic societies, was eviscerated of its meaning and value:

Poetry is the queen of language, the sovereign of the word. / It takes a wise man to extract it from the strongholds. / Language has free will in it and it warms the heart / with the roundness and perfection of its form. / [...] Ayat [Qur'anic verses] and Qadis [Islamic judges] are the fathers of the word. / Their famous poems sang. / Do not endow the word with powerful strength / unless Allah and the Prophet profit by it. / [...] They picked up the kobyz and dombra [traditional Kazakh instruments] / and sang songs of praise to the unworthy. / They wandered, asking for mercy with their songs, / debasing the word in foreign parts. / They troubled the language for profit, and filled up the soul, / pleading for crumbs sometimes with deception, sometimes with flattery. / Begging in a distant, foreign land, / the cursed ones glorified the riches of their homeland.

Abai himself sums it up in what may be his most poignant line, writing, “On our steppe there is neither divine nor human justice.”

The destroyer of tradition?

As one can imagine, such criticisms, if not done subtly (and Abai is often blunt, at one point calling humanity “sacks of shit”), could be easily manipulated to de-legitimize and dismantle the Kazakh ancien régime — which is exactly what happened in the Soviet period. That Abai would have protested the destruction of his world was cunningly disregarded as “regressive”. If such is the precedence for modernization in Kazakhstan, then it comes as no surprise that Kazakhstani authorities today have been deeply ambivalent about adopting the ways of the West. For the last twenty years, Nazarbayev et al have gone back and forth on implementing democracy and the free market. We could denounce them as unscrupulous and corrupt nomenklatura clinging to power under the guise of cultural relativism, and although that may often be true, it overlooks how Abai’s ghost may haunt them.

Enter: Strauss, who devoted his career to exploring (and criticizing) what he perceived to be the paradox of our era, namely, if the modernized (i.e., liberalized) state is impartial to questions of value, how then does it justify its own value, particularly in the face of intolerant ideologies (in his era, fascism; in our era, fundamentalism). He came to the conclusion that we moderns — particularly those of us in the West but also our compatriots in other regions — are, well, deluding ourselves, foolishly believing that we can neutralize the political space by sanitizing it of values and beliefs that impose certain programs of action upon society as a whole. Previous eras, contends Strauss, were more self-aware and more honest about the role of values and beliefs.

However, I don’t want to focus on this aspect of his thinking just yet. More important is what he had to say about critical intellectuals in general, which he developed while working on, among other thinkers, the Medieval Islamic philosopher Ibn Rushd (Averroes), Abai’s senior by some eight centuries, who could also be seen as something of an Islamic modernizer vis-à-vis Almohad Spain and the Westernization of his era, namely, Aristotelian science. In his essay, “On a Forgotten Kind of Writing” and in his book, Natural Right and History, Strauss outlines the problem faced by philosophers in every era in a particularly useful manner:

Philosophy or science, the highest activity of man, is the attempt to replace opinion about “all things” by knowledge of “all things”; but opinion is the element of society; philosophy or science is therefore the attempt to dissolve the element in which society breathes, and thus it endangers society. Hence philosophy or science must remain the preserve of a small minority, and philosophers or scientists must respect the opinions on which society rests. To respect opinions is something entirely different from accepting them as true…

Philosophizing means to ascend from the cave to the light of the sun, that is, to the truth. The cave is the world of opinion as opposed to knowledge. [...] Any inadequate view of the eternal order [i.e., a partial truth in the form of a more or convention] is , from the point of view of the eternal order, accidental or arbitrary; it owes its validity not to its intrinsic truth but to social fiat or convention.

We may generalize his point: reason (as embodied by the critic, whether literati, philosopher, journalist, or yes, blogger) and context (as embodied by mores and convention, whether religious revelation, culture, law, society) are in a difficult dance with one another. Context provides the very content and structure of reason, from concepts and images to the very language used and style of logical inferences, while reason deconstructs context, thereby enabling it to confront itself and evolve. The problem is context cannot be reasonable, while reason cannot produce context (religious revelation especially so, because of the unique kind of absolute authority it claims for itself, but other varieties of context can be very intransigent and reticent, as well).

It is precisely this difficult dance that we find in Abai. In one of his most breathtaking poems, he describes a traditional Kazakh hunter and eagle chasing down a fox. By the late nineteenth century, this custom was already being seen as “quaint”, “primtive”, “naturalistic”, euphemisms for backwardness and immorality. In his pursuit of modernity, Abai could at times be subject to the same viewpoint, but in this poem he resists, demanding that the transcendent come down to the level of the immanent:

There is no shadow of evil-doing in [the hunter's] soul. / When there is hunting there is prey. / Of all the occupations known to mortal man / it is the only one which brings no harm to anybody. / Isn’t that clear to all who have a meditative mind and a pure heart? / But you cannot grasp it if you look down arrogantly from above. / You cannot imagine the picture unless your eyes are keen, / who listen with attention to every word, / sees everything, and reflects it in his heart. / If ayone reads these words, it should be a hunter, / for nobody can understand them who does not know / the taste of hunting with a hunting bird.

This struggle for balance between the universal and the particular seems to me the key to unlocking the perplexity of Abai, and perhaps understanding why Auezov, for all his faults, was so drawn to him. Indeed, Kazakhstan’s struggle with modernity today may mean that Abai is precisely the mythological figure the Kazahs need — if only they can bear to truly confront him.

Everyone’s a critic

Wither the future of criticism? There may be no way of resolving the problem permanently — if indeed it is a problem, or if we may understand it in a sort of Hegelian manner, as the very nature and engine of history. Strauss was convinced that, whatever the truth, it has become imbalanced today. For Strauss, at least Ibn Rushd understood that he had to couch his criticism of society in such terms as to appear not so radical and negative to the general public as it really was, out of respect for keeping the reason-context balance. At first glance, Abai would appear to be violating that rule, as he spends pages upon pages of the Qara sözder berating his nation. Indeed, the text begins with these memorable lines:

Whether for good or ill, I have lived my life, travelling a long road fraught with struggles and quarrels, disputes and arguments, suffering and anxiety, and reached these advanced years to find myself at the end of my tether, tired of everything. I have realized the vanity and futility of my labors and the meanness of my existence. What shall I occupy myself with now and how shall I live out the rest of my days? I am puzzled that I can find no answer to this question. [...] I have decided at length: henceforth, pen and paper shall be my only solace, and I shall set down my thoughts. Should anyone find something useful here, let him copy it down or memorise it. And if no one has any need of my words, they will remain with me anyway.

Arguably, though, what he’s doing here is in fact maintaining the balance by channelling a well-established Sunni-Sufi literary motif of the world-weary wise old man preaching a revival of spiritual and cultural values, re-employed for the purpose of modernization (with not a little bit of an edge of Pushkin).

At the same time, however, there is still real despair and anger in there — the perennial angst of the critic. Indeed, perhaps Abai had a good reason for devoting the 27th passage of his book to a parable about Socrates explaining humanity’s obligations to God by dint of reason, as the latter was a man who tried to reconcile these dualities, and for his efforts was executed by the Athenian government, essentially for treason.

As for the Abais of today — the literati, philosophers, journalists, and bloggers of Central Asian, both native and not — I would like to say that Strauss is wrong. Yet, it does seem, as the tired expression goes, “everyone’s a critic: mass literacy, mass media (ontologically, in the case of the Internet’s grassroots nature), mass free speech, etc., which has not only blurred the lines on what it means to have an informed opinion, but blurred the lines of what it means to express one, too.

In saying this, I don’t mean to be anti-democratic; to the contrary, perhaps what Strauss sees as a dilemma is actually the growing pains of a new and better world order. At the same time, though, I, like Strauss before me, increasingly wonder whether democracy can in fact survive by unfettered reason alone. Perhaps an important truth is contained in the fact that Ibn Rushd and Abai combined their criticism with public service, Ibn Rushd as a judge and medical doctor, Abai as a newsman. Could today’s knowledge class is increasingly detached from the living realities of everyday people?

I believe that journalists are still struggling to strike the balance, to maintain the connection between reason and context, and indeed, media at its best serves as a way to keep the disciplines and the general public all informed of each other. The problem is that media is less and less at its best.

A personal note

Much of what I’ve written above also arises from my emerging understanding of my faith as a Bahá’í, which teaches that true progress, the kind of advancement that Abai and my colleagues seek, really lies in balancing deconstruction with construction, reason and context, and working on a common project for a common good (I have written about this in terms of “journalism as a sacred dialogue” at length on my personal blog). It’s to try to transform criticism into the best of that other Kazakh institution, the chaikhana, the Habermasian teahouse of conversation and dialogue. In the words of Bahá’u’lláh, our prophet,:

O ye the dawning-places of knowledge! Beware that ye suffer not yourselves to become changed, for as ye change, most men will, likewise, change. This, verily, is an injustice unto yourselves and unto others… Ye are even as a spring. If it be changed, so will the streams that branch out from it be changed. Fear God, and be numbered with the godly. In like manner, if the heart of man be corrupted, his limbs will also be corrupted. And similarly, if the root of a tree be corrupted, its branches, and its offshoots, and its leaves, and its fruits, will be corrupted…

We try this everyday at The Registan and my own network, NewEurasia, but we still haven’t found the right equation.

Abai himself seems to have understood the incredible importance of finding that equation, for he loathed what happens when criticism becomes too detached, too universal, and thus lost in the darkness, rather than the light, of objectivity:

[A]rguments within reason help to strengthen one’s convictions, but, excessive zeal for them can only spoil a man. For lovers of wrangling will launch into disputes not for the sake of ascertaining the truth but rather to show off their knowledge and get the upper hand of other people. Such arguments breed envy, add not a whit of humanity, and do not serve scholarship — on the contrary, they simply confuse people. This is the vain occupation of troublemakers. He who leads hundreds astray from the right path is not worth the little finger of one who has brought just one man back to the path of truth. True, disputation is one of the paths to knowledge, but a person who gives himself entirely to this runs the risk of becoming conceited and arrogant, an envious gossip. Such a person will be not averse to slander, backbiting and vituperation, which only lowers human dignity.

[Note: the English translation of Abai's collected works which I have been quoting so far is by David Aitkyn and the poet-scholar Richard McKane and published in 1995 by the EL Bureau. You can read it @ http://www.abay.nabrk.kz/.]

Registan Bloggers Michael Hancock-Parmer and Christopher Schwartz have teamed up to write about Abai Kunanbaiev (or, if you prefer, Abay Kunanbayev). A force of nature in the Republic of Kazakhstan, he was similarly popular in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic. Born Ibrahim, he took Abai (“careful”) as his takhallus (تخلص), or pen-name. He is most famous for his prose work, Qara sözder (قاراسوزدەر, often mistranslated as Book of Words, instead of Words of Edification). It has been characterized as a philosophy of the Steppe, a ‘Kazakh Philosophy.’ Schwartz believes that there’s more than meets the eye to this text. Meanwhile, Hancock-Parmer argues that Abai, the historical figure, is himself worthy of rethinking.

This post is about the difficulty of finding the historical Abai. I sincerely hope that Abai will forgive any misunderstanding on my part of his life. He lived a long time ago and today is largely known through the memory of his edited and translated work, rather than the memory of his life. His life, however, is sacred, as is his burial site. His mausoleum is a target for pilgrimage on a national level. I do not intend my scholarship and questions to be construed as an attack on his legacy. I hope to better understand the man behind the legend, the reality inside the myth.

The reality in 2012 is the myth. The words written by the hand of Abai, his autograph, are illegible to almost all Kazakhs, save the million or so living in China. Abai was not famous while he was alive, though it seems he was widely respected (see Virginia Martin citation below). How did his current status in Kazakhstan come to pass? Allow me to elucidate where I can and question where I can’t.

In this post I will discuss one source of Abai’s current and Soviet-era characterizations. If you are interested in a more prolonged and better researched discussion of Abai and the cultural heritage bequeathed by the Soviet Union to the Republic of Kazakhstan, I strongly recommend looking up Eva-Marie Dubuisson’s PhD dissertation, The Value of a Voice: Culture and Critique in Kazakh Aitys Poetry.

If one wants to learn about the modern Abai–the man in the statue, the man name-dropped constantly in Aitys competitions, the man regarded as the Father of Kazakh Literature–there is another name that should be studied first. This name is Mukhtar Auezov.

The work of Auezov lies at the root of the “cult of personality” built around Abai. Auezov claimed deep, personal connections to Abai, to the point where he felt it was his duty to collect Abai’s work and write a heavily fictionalized biography of the man. It’s worth noting that Auezov knew the elder Abai as a child. Auezov went on to marry a granddaughter of Abai, though the marriage didn’t last. In the end, it would be a fair generalization to say that Auezov made his own name and career on works with Abai’s name in the title.

This was not merely an act of altruism.

Mukhtar Auezov wrote for the Soviet Union, not entirely independent of its modernizing mission. Abai, on the other hand, wrote for the Russian Empire, not entirely independent of its own civilizing mission. Auezov was a Bolshevik almost from the beginning – though he was accused of nationalistic tendencies already in the 1920s. He quit politics and went on to write scientifically researched history and poetry from Abai.

However, might one ask whether writing about Abai as a model for modern Kazakhs was itself a political maneuver?

Steven Sabol published a monograph in 2003, entitled Russian Colonization and the Genesis of Kazak National Consciousness. Sabol is an Associate Professor of History at UNC Charlotte and is currently on leave to write his next book, The Touch of Civilization’: Comparing American and Russian Colonization of the Sioux and Kazakhs. In Russian Colonization, Sabol illustrates how the Soviet Union enforced its modernizing-mission by selecting three Kazakh enlighteners: Abai, Chokan Valikhanov, and Ibrahim Altynsarin. Labeled “democratic-enlighteners,” (54) all three were Russian-educated and deeply involved in the ‘civilizing mission’ of the Russian Empire of the 19th century.

In the 20th century, the Soviet Union utilized its press and media to advertise and extoll the writings and virtues of these pro-Russian writers to the larger population of Kazakhs. Unlike other authors and literate Kazakhs of the time, these three gentlemen were “blessed” by the Soviets by having their “Collected Works” gathered and redacted by editors and published in large print runs. Their importance and writings were maximized over other cultural figures, some of whom remain obscure today. Part of the reason lies in the power of the standard narrative on the language of the ancestors of modern Kazakhs:

In Kazakhstan, the two official languages are Kazakh and Russian. Kazakh belongs to the northestern Turkic language subgroup of Nogai-Kipchak group. The language is influenced heavily by Mongol as well as by Tatar. The Kazakh language was written first during the 1860s with the Arabic script. The Latin script had been introduced later in 1929. Stalin decided in 1940 to unify the Central Asian written materials with the materials of Slavic rulers through a modified Cyrillic form. In the year 1992, an alphabet based on Latin was once again discussed but was not considered any further because of the high costs involved in the process.

This narrative must be challenged.

Abai Kunanbaev was not the first author in the Kazakh language, the first to transfer oral poetry to the page, or even the first to praise the Russification of the Kazakhs.  On a technicality, I could point out that Abai didn’t even write in Kazakh, as he predated the Soviet Kazakh language of the proletariat, and was writing in a centuries-old language called Chaghatay. As Yuri Bregel explained in his Notes on the Study of Central Asia, the Soviet scholars of Uzbekistan “appropriated the Chaghatay language, which had been the common Turkic literary language of all of Central Asia, renamed it “Old Uzbek,” and proclaimed as Uzbeks all the Turkic poets and writers who wrote in Chaghatay…” (11). Except, it seems, Abai, and certain other authors of the 19th century.

Abai, like the other “democratic-enlighteners,” was conspicuous for the attention he gave to the “civilizing” mission of the Russian Empire and its enemy, traditionalism,  and traditionalist Islam which some saw coming from Islam. Prior to his own efforts, Chokan Valikhanov had written for a Russian audience on the dangers of Islam, explaining that it was alien and a dangerous newcomer in the steppe. Later in the 19th century, Abai, Bokeikhanov, and Altynsarin gained some renown (how much is debatable) through their involvement in the Russian/Kazakh bilingual weekly newspaper, Dala Ualaiatynyng Gazeti/Kirgizskaia Stepnaia Gazeti.  Published in Omsk from 1888 until 1902, this was a flagship in the age of the newspaper as civilizing tool.

The Russian mission in the steppe was not a nefarious plot to create a capitalist hellscape in which the innocent inhabitants would be chained to Mammon so that their blood might be converted to gold. It was also not a utopian wonderland where the nomads were welcomed as equal citizens among the Russians of Muscovy and St. Petersburg. If I may, I’d suggest that the Russian Empire treated the Kazakhs pretty well in comparison with the treatment received by other “ethnicities” categorized and surveilled by St. Petersburg. Similar to the Cossacks, their steppe nature was clear to the administrators, thanks to the work of Dostoevsky and Valikhanov. Abai deserves to be studied and read, particularly his actions outside of writing. For example, Virginia Martin writes in her 2001 monograph Law and Custom in the Steppe that Abai was at least tangentially involved in Kazakh customary law (7).

His cooperation with the Russians and his leadership among his fellow Kazakhs would by no means preclude his glorification and admiration. His achievements were many. I would only advocate for looking into the Kazakh steppe in which the Russian Empire was not interested – and how Abai lived practically in a swiftly changing environment not of his own design.

As matters between Israel and Iran continue to irradiate, I just want to throw this out there to see what readers think: if much of Iran’s drive to go nuclear is motivated by a desire to serve as a model of Islamic leadership, could Kazakhstan be utilized by diplomats and theorists as an alternative?

To review: at independence, Kazakhstan had 1400 nuclear weapons (warheads on SS-18 ICBMs) and 40 Tu-95M long range bombers equipped with 320 cruise missiles, all of which was out of the country or otherwise dismantled by the end of 1995, including a clandestine American operation. Since then, Kazakhstan has been a rather vocal supporter of nuclear arms control.

I should note that there have been two hiccups that, at the moment at least, seem more like Orientalism and rumor than anything else. The first, the FAS notes,

Although two other new states — Ukraine and Belarus — also possessed “stranded” nuclear weapons, the Kazakh weapons attracted particular international suspicion, and unsubstantiated rumors reported the sale of warheads to Iran. Subsequent negotiations demonstrated convincingly, however, that operational control of these weapons always had remained with Russian strategic rocket forces.

The second, the Associated Press reported in late 2009 that an unnamed member state of the IAEA claimed Iran had struck a clandestine deal to import 1350 tons of purified uranium ore from Kazakhstan, a claim which the latter denied. As far as I know, nothing more has come from this report, at least not publicly.

Overall, the case of making Kazakhstan an alternative model is looking solid. Here we have a predominantly Muslim country (no less multiethnic-multireligious than Iran, indeed, more so) that arises from the dominant Sunni-Sufi wing of Islam; that is a regional leader and has been materially developing well (relative to its southern neighbors and bracketing issues of corruption or the recent troubles with the oil workers); and most of all, is not in a pissing match with any superpowers — in fact, is getting along rather well with all of them, even to the point that it was given the chair of the OSCE (again, certain issues notwithstanding). Most of all, at one point Kazakhstan had the bomb and willingly gave it up (for the purposes of advocacy, diplomats and theorists can conveniently overlook issues of Russian property claims and such). In fact, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Kazakhstan is basically being allowed by the international community (read: the West) to pursue a program of peaceful nuclear energy develop, including the ambition to develop nuclear reactors for export, despite all its many social, environmental, and political problems, most notably corruption.

I’m painting very broad strokes, of course, but you get my point and can fill in the details for yourself. Seems to me like there’s a useful opportunity here that isn’t being tapped into. What do you think?

In an effort to clear my brain while I construct some kind of cogent argument about the depth and nature of the relations  between Kazakhs and Cossacks in the middle of the 19th century, I will share some choice citations from the works I’ve been reading. I understand that I’m dropping these into a blog and taking them out of the context in which they were written, but think of this as active propaganda for the study of Central Asian history. Even if English is your only language, there is still a lot of material one can use to add something to the discourse. To strengthen the argument that English is a viable entryway into the rabbit-hole of Central Asian history, I’ll share some English-language passages not taken taken from the standard (too problematic) pop-histories of Peter Hopkirk and company. There is plenty of ‘real’ stuff to read, whether on loan from a library or digitized on Google Books. So I would say, do not rely on Hopkirk to examine sources like these – Registan readers are certainly up to the task of challenging (and confirming or denying) the various motives attached to actions described in these books.

On the cooperation of Cossacks and Kazakhs:

“It is said that a Kirghiz chief once galloped with a Cossack escort (on two horses) 200 miles in twenty-four hours, the path extending for a considerable distance over a mountainous and rocky district. The animals, however, soon recovered.”

p.128 – Burnaby, Fred. A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia, with maps and an appendix, containing, among other information, a series of march routes, compiled from a Russian Work. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877.

This passage comes from a chapter extolling the virtues of the horses of Central Asia and the steppe – though they are small, unattractive, and relatively poorly treated, they are perfect for long riding and very self-sufficient, even in winter.

On the perceived connection of Turks, Cossacks, and Russians:

“For arms [the Cossacks] carried short breech-loading rifles and swords, while they were shortly to be supplied with Berdan carbines, which is spoken of very highly by the Russian officers.”

p.293 – Burnaby, Fred. A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia, with maps and an appendix, containing, among other information, a series of march routes, compiled from a Russian Work. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877.

Here I would point out that the chapter is discussing Cossacks, who are generally mentioned separately and by group from the Russian officers that oversee them.

“It will take the Russians a long time to shake off from themselves the habits and way of thought inherited from a barbarous ancestry; and the veneer of polish laid on by a two hundred years’ intercourse with Europe requires but little rubbing to disclose the Tartar blood so freely circulating through their veins.”

p.75 – Burnaby, Fred. A Ride to Khiva: Travels and Adventures in Central Asia, with maps and an appendix, containing, among other information, a series of march routes, compiled from a Russian Work. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1877.

Ironically, this passage is in direct response to a chance meeting on the mail road, stopped at a station, with Nikolai Kryzhanovskii, the Governor-General of the Orenburg district (which included the north-western portion of modern-day Kazakhstan).

On the after-effects of the Revolts and Uprisings of 1916:

“Now Turkestan and Russian Central Asia are extremely loyal, peaceful and happy Russian colonies. Rebellion was put down with such severity by the Russians… that the Asiatic tribesmen learned that Russia was too powerful to be trifled with; they knew they had found their masters, and submitted absolutely.”

p. 74 – Graham, Stephen. Through Russian Central Asia. New York: The Macmillan Company. 1916

I think this passage does a fair job of showcasing some of the difficulties in utilizing travel diaries as representations of events “on the ground.” While the fresh perspective (and language used) makes them attractive, they are generally useful more as a guide to perceptions and underlying prejudices for and against powers and peoples.

On the modern scholarship of the existence of large Muslim populations among the Cossack Hosts:

“From 1798 until 1866 many Bashkir communities were enrolled in the Bashkir-Mishar Cossack Host. Bashkir Cossack units were organized territorially, and Bashkir settlements were organized into “cantons;” cf. Zakony Rossiiskoi imperii o bashkirakh, mishariakh, teptiarikh i bobyliakh, F. Kh. Gumerov, ed. (Ufa, 1999), 178-182.”

p.19 -Qurbān-ʿAlī Khālidī.  Frank, Allen & Usmanov, Mirkasym (eds.) An Islamic Biographical Dictionary of the Eastern Kazakh Steppe, 1770-1912. Inner Asian Library, Volume 12. Boston: Brill, 2005.

Allen Frank is one of a small number of American scholars at the forefront of the Islamic History of Central Asia. This little passage is hinting at a larger research project independent of my paper topic – the non-Russian, non-Christian elements of the Cossack Hosts across the Russian Empire, their provenance, utilization, and fate throughout the so-called “long 19th century,” stretching from the 1770s until the fall of the Russian Empire by 1920.

On the education and non-education of the native population:

“[The people of Tashkent] are not highly educated, but it is said that every man and woman can at least read and write. In this they are very different from the other tribes of Central Asia, which are usually illiterate.”
p.297

“There are good schools for the children of officials and military men and settlers, but the natives supply their own. The mullahs who teach them are illiterate; they can scarcely read anything except the Koran, and they have no knowledge whatever of modern learning or methods of education. They do not know the difference between New York and London, or between an American and an Englishman.”
p.333

Curtis, William Eleroy. Turkestan: “The Heart of Asia.” New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.

There is a lot to unpack in this passage. Mr. Curtis traveled through Central Asia quickly by train and stated that in general he would not recommend it as a place for people to visit. When something in Central Asia impressed him, he compared it to similar good deeds he heard of in Japan. Tashkent in many ways reminded him of a model Japanese city.

It is important to examine the bases for his judgment of the quality of education. If someone cannot read and write a European language, they are illiterate. Knowledge of the Koran and, one can assume, languages written in an Arabic alphabet, is worthless. Similarly, understanding the importance of Curtis’ own world (the differences and similarities of London and New York) was to be far more important for the people of Tashkent than their own history and political reality, of which Curtis remains more or less ignorant. That being said, I believe Curtis makes some very interesting and prescient comments on Russian Colonial policy, see below.

On Perceived Russian Colonial Policy:

“The Russian government does not want strangers to visit Turkestan… It does not want the country advertised. It has nothing to exploit. It maintains a strict policy of closed doors, and prefers to pick the immigrants and the capitalists who shall develop the material wealth of its Asiatic provinces. The reasons for this policy of exclusiveness are sound, from the Russian point of view.

“In the first place, the Russians want Turkestan for themselves… In the second place, the Russian government does not want the natives interfered with. Its policy from the beginning of the conquest has been to protect and perpetuate the native customs, habits, and conditions, and to encourage the natives to go on as they are, illiterate, superstitious, antiquated in methods, and primitive in habits…”

p.333 Curtis, William Eleroy. Turkestan: “The Heart of Asia.” New York: Hodder & Stoughton, 1911.

In the last two months, we’ve born witness to more incidents of illiberal democracy or democracy’s “doubles” here in Central Asia/Eurasia, from Kazakhstan’s parliamentary elections which many say was an experiment in pseudo-pluralism; to Turkmenistan’s surreal presidential election that has left those of us on the outside (and, indeed, many of those on the inside) scratching their heads wondering what it was all about to begin with; to Russia’s intriguingly complex and probably historical presidential poll. Still to come in the next few years are parliamentary elections in Armenia and Tajikistan, and presidential elections in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Tajikistan, none of which are expected by Western observers to be free and fair. The question I hear a lot from non-specialists is: why are these societies even bothering with the charade? At the moment, this is the shape of my answer:

Central Asian/Eurasian politics can be easily dismissed as tired Sovietisms re-worked into cynical caricatures of the West. Unfortunately, as I get to know this part of the world better, I’m increasingly not so convinced that it’s us Westerners who are being mocked; instead, what’s happening to the concept of liberal democracy here is actually very much part of a universal phenomenon. Just ask any civil society activist and they’ll tell you how “liberal democracy” can and is frequently bastardized to mean “popular legitimacy”, and “popular legitimacy” is, in turn, bastardized to mean “approval for the regime’s policies”. The uncomfortable reality is that this as true in the archetypal liberal democracy, the United States of America, wherein elected officials routinely and conveniently distort the widespread (albeit diminishing) voter apathy of the country to mask the hijacking of policy-making by special interests, as it is true in, say, Kazakhstan, whose consistently high voter turnout (in comparison to the USA), masks the authoritarian tendencies of the dominant ruling party (all the more so if the turnout figures prove to be false). In both cases, what we’re really dealing with is legitimacy-engineering, intended to buttress a constellation of elites and their related pet institutions and industries by a transference of moral authority from the grassroots to the top.

Make no mistake, the target of the legitimacy-engineering is primarily internal: the grassroots itself (particularly the electorate), as well as rivals for power (real or perceived). The electorate, thanks to a terrible education and media system, simply don’t know any better; the rivals, having achieved a position of relative elitism to have access to more information, do know better but catch the hint and respond accordingly (i.e., silence and subterfuge). Insofar that the legitimacy-engineering has an external orientation, this is a secondary, although not unimportant goal, namely, to deflect criticism via the logic of national self-determination. Indeed, democratic elections can accomplish what divine right of kings or Marxist dialectical materialism never could, namely, to give the impression of collective agreement with respect to a regime’s choices. And yes, in all of this I am talking as much about my homeland as I am about the Central Asian/Eurasian states (I am probably sounding like a very bitter expatriate right now). The benefactor of the legitimacy-engineering is not as clear in the American context as in the Central Asian/Eurasian one, but in both cases, it’s really a system that’s receiving the moral authority, not just the man on top.

Yet, speaking of the men on top, just as presidents of the United States can be prone to messianic depictions of themselves — either of the Terror or Hope variety of eschatology — Central Asian/Eurasian presidents notoriously have a penchant for the salvific. Besides the late Niyazov, Karimov spring to mind, and in his own way, Bakiyev had a tinge of the deliverer to his administration, as well, and Putin and Aliyev frequently co-opt still-fresh memories of societal turmoil in their favor. Along these lines, I actually have a begrudging respect for Nazarbayev: his golden handprint in the Baiterek is actually not so much an expression of megalomania as it is a statement of fact, namely, that he has left an indelible mark upon his country, like it or not, for better and for worse. That’s more than I can say for all the “Change” that’s happened in the United States since 2008 (at least in my cynical moments). But again, in all cases, the target is internal, the goal still is and always is legitimacy-engineering. The era of elections setting the course of a nation rather than approving a pre-set path — if it ever existed — is fast receding into the past here and in the West.

But then there’s Turkmenistan. I think, unfortunately, this country is an outlier. I’ve got a sinking feeling in my gut that it is increasingly fruitless to seek any kind of rationality oriented toward the outside world from the Turkmen president, even vis-à-vis his immediate neighbors, much less the West. If there is any logic to his behavior, then it’s most likely in response to internal power dynamics, the nature of which are invisible to the outside eye (although there are clues). But before we start thinking that this is still in keeping with the overall trends in managed democracy, we should consider the thoughts of my colleague Annasoltan, who has come to fear that what we’re really looking at in Turkmenistan is the possible mental deterioration of Berdimuhammedov. The presidential election, then, may have really been driven by the illogic of ego and insecurity: this time around, the legitimacy-engineering was directed not at the grassroots, but by the establishment toward the president himself.

Power-plays and madness are not mutually co-exclusive, of course, and in fact the latter can sometimes be a pretty good tool in the former, just ask Caligula. Moreover, determining how much of this exercise in megalomania was the initiative of Berdimuhammedov and how much of it arose from the overall regime, and for which purposes, could be enlightening. Until those facts can come to the light of history, unfortunately, all the rest of us can do is stand outside Turkmenistan’s parallel universe and wonder about its strange physics, a political physics in which the logic of liberalism and democracy are twisted to reduce an entire society into instrumental extensions of one single ego.