Marianna Gurtovnik

What follows are some of my thoughts about the civil society development in the Newly Independent States. I would welcome comments and insights from interested readers, particularly about the role that local corporate philanthropy may play in sustaining the civil society and bridging the gap between the rich and the poor in the region.

Many reputable publications in the West tend to portray current political and economic developments in the Newly Independent States as a decline of democracy and restoration of authoritarianism. With no intention to sound gloomy, one cannot help but wonder if a genuine commitment to democracy was there, to begin with. And has the track record of reforms up-to-date been solid enough to justify the use of the word “decline” when describing the current state of affairs? This article provides a broad overview of the government-civil society relations in the Newly Independent States, and suggests ways to lift the existing tension to the benefit of both parties.

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

With a possible exception of the Baltic States, none of the Newly Independent States has, over the past 15 years, followed steadfastly the path of democratic progress. Several historical circumstances have contributed to these newly emerged nations’ checkered history of democratic achievement. (Martha Brill Olcott has also provided her own assessment of the democracy-building efforts in Central Asia.) At the dawn of the 1990s, anxious to cement their independence and gain international credibility through participation in global economic and military institutions, ruling elites from Ukraine to Uzbekistan hurried to proclaim laws that were to promote transparent governance and fair opportunities for all. Often half-baked and contradictory, these laws mainly served as a window-dressing; tested in critical circumstances, the fragile institutions that they had established failed to uphold citizens’ political rights and economic freedoms. Such systemic dysfunctions were to be expected. After all, for the most of the post-independence period, political power in all of the Newly Independent States (NIS) has been concentrated in the hands of former communist chiefs who regarded democracy as an alien and inconvenient concept. As international pressure to reform grew, the costs of relinquishing some of their immense powers outweighed, in their view, the potential benefits of the rule of law. Nationalistic voices in some ex-Soviet nations, too, have openly resisted calls for reform that, they felt, were imposed on their countries by meddlesome democratic crusaders from the West. Furthermore, several NIS leaders have leveraged their countries’ vast natural resources and geo-strategic advantages to toughen their grip on domestic affairs and brush off western criticism of corruption and abuse of authority.

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Leila writes about Kazakhstan-Russia relations that were recently questioned (ENG).

Kamneed shows Republic Square in Almaty (known as Brezhnev Square before) (RUS).

Welcome to neweurasia’s latest regional survey - and as usual we’re glad to have many of our bloggers write about one specific topic. This time around, we’re looking at some of the various minorities in Central Asia. Unity in diversity seems to be the motto then, as not a lot can be more multi-faceted than a survey on the region’s rich ethnic tapestry.

Without further ado, then, let’s have a look at what’s been written by our authors all around our blogs:

We’re especially grateful to the two external bloggers who have contributed to this survey:

Russian-Germans in Tajikistan: J. Otto Pohl traces the little-known history of the Russian-German minority in Tajikistan over the 20th century.

Of Minorities and Their Warlords: Josh Foust casts some light at Afghan warlords that from the 80’s onward established their own ethnic enclaves.

Up in Smoke: Ted Callahan, Research Fellow at the AUCA, provides are rare glimpse into the little-known Afghan Pamirs and the Kyrgyz communities dwelling this remote stretch of land.

Perceptions of Identity - Luli in Samarkand: Nafisa dares to violate taboo: she visits the Luli, Central Asian Romas, whose community has been marginalised in her hometown of Samarkand.

“We’re all in the same boat now”: Claire is concerned that the socio-economic situation in Kyrgyzstan will aggrevate interethnic tensions.

Ethnic Kyrgyz in Tajikistan: Vadim climbs to high altitude and introduces Tajikistan’s Kyrygz living in the harsh conditions of the Pamirs.

We Are Different, Yet Together: Tolkun Umaraliev reports from his hometown Osh, where Uzbek-Kyrgyz relations have been difficult in the past. Ways to improve the situation might be found in neighbouring Uzbekistan

Evolving as a minority – Russians in Kyrgyzstan: Yulia gives her sobering comment on the state of the ethnic Russians in Kyrgyzstan, many of whom will certainly leave the country in the future.

Russian-Germans from Kazakhstan returning home: Back in 2006, Ben posted two stories about the fate of those Russian-Germans who have returned to their ancestral homeland (Post 1 - Post 2).

Contributions in Russian:

Chechens in Kazakhstan: Adam provides an insight into the history and status of the Chechen community in Kazakhstan.

Street as a school for Luli children: An anonymous author from Uzbekistan tells how it is to be a Luli child in Uzbek society.

Russians in Uzbekistan: Girl of the Sand speaks about those few Russians left in Uzbekistan. She says that there is an increasing nostalgia about everything Russian as a result.

Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey about minorities in Central Asia. This post, written by Josh Foust, is cross-posted at The Registan.

What is there to say about a country that is, technically, all minorities? For not a single ethnicity in Afghanistan breaches the magical 50% mark to become a true majority, and this has created friction, at the least. Indeed, in one sense, the story of Afghanistan itself is really the story of how its minorities battle for control, power, and the right to live.

By any common definition, the Pashtuns are Afghanistan’s ethnic majority, though they are really only a plurality. And much of Afghanistan’s recent history is the story of their struggle for national and tribal independence. For any discussion of the Pashtun must include a discussion of its tribal divisions, which have played major roles in Afghanistan’s power relationships. As but one example, President Hamid Karzai and the Taliban’s erstwhile leader Mullah Mohammed Omar are members of the Popalzai and Hotak tribes respectively, both centered around Kandahar. The history of conflict between their two tribes reaches back centuries. In 1715, Mirwais Khan Hotak overthrew the local Persian governor of Kandahar, and his son formed an Empire that eventually sacked the ancient capital Isfahan. In 1747, Ahmah Khan Abdali, of Karzai’s Popalzai tribe, was crowned King by a tribal Jirga.

Put differently, much of the fighting in Afghanistan today can be seen as simply the latest stage in a centuries-long conflict between Pashtun tribes.

Reducing Afghanistan to tribal warfare, however, is too simplistic. Abdali (who took the name Durrani and created the royal heritage the Taliban lay claim to in 1994) was named King because the ruler of the Persian Empire, a Turkmen named Nader Shah, was murdered. Today, however, the Turkmen are a comparatively miniscule slice of Afghan ethnicity, whose biggest contributions were to Ahmed Shah Massoud’s Northern Alliance, first against the Soviets, and later against the Taliban.

Massoud is perhaps the gold standard of Afghanistan’s ethnic warriors. A Tajik, the so-called “Lion of the Panjshir,” fiercely defended his home in the Panjshir Valley just north or Kabul for decades, until the Pakistani-funded Taliban drove him north to Feyzabad. Massoud earned a name for himself, and became the pride of Tajiks in Afghanistan, by remaining resolutely independent in his struggle for independence. (more…)

Editor’s Note: What follows is part of a cross-blog survey about minorities in Central Asia.

In a 21st century where nationalism, separatism, and multiculturalism are as strong as ever, it is easy to overlook the inherent mutability of ethnicity. This is especially true in Central Asia where terms such as “Tajik,” “Kyrgyz,” and “Uzbek” meant something very different less than a century ago, and terms like “Sart” and “Teptiar” no longer have any meaning.

As part of neweurasia’s latest survey on Central Asian minorities, this post will look back on the deliberate process enacted by the Soviet Union to create ethnicities and nationalities with the ultimate intention of eliminating them entirely.
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Tajikistan’s president officially changed his last name, and has begun passing a variety of other weird, nationalistic laws, reports James (ENG).

On March 21 I was happy to present neweurasia (together with Global Voices, see detailed post about the conference on GV) as an example of citizen media site on First Moscow International Conference on Blogs, Media and Citizen Journalism on March 21.

Session on Freedom of Speech in Russian Segment of the Internet

The conference was organized by the Centre for Internet Policy of Moscow State University for International Relations (MGIMO), Realno.info, a web site that was created in the summer of 2006 to bring together regional journalists, and a Club for Regional Journalists “Iz Pervyh Ust” (”First-Hand Reporting”). The idea for the conference came up when Rostislav Vylegzhagin, one of the organizers and editor for Realno.info, was writing his dissertation on new media, only to discover that there are no Russian-language sources on new media, despite much interest in it.

It was good to catch up on development of Russian citizen journalistm. Because if Russia is several years behind the West in development of new media, Central Asia is several years behind Russia. Central Asian Livejournal bloggers are in touch with Russian, hence, the initiatives by Russian bloggers are likely to influence Central Asia too (especially, Kazakhstan, with high Internet penetration and mostly Russian-speaking population). It is also useful to see how Russian government copes with the rise of blogosphere, which is numerous and outspoken.

Dmitry Peskov, Director of the Center for Internet Policy, said in his welcome speech that four or five years ago, when first bloggers appeared in Russia, the IT administrators at the universities used to block access to Livejournal. Now, however, there is a need to explain the positive side of the blogosphere. Most conference participants (about 60 journalists from the regions, several from Belarus and Ukraine, and the rest - students, journalists, bloggers from Moscow) had their own blogs. If Almaty conference in September 2006 was dominated by the debate about whether blogs compete with professional journalists, Russia moved on. It now discusses what the future of the citizen media would be, and how both bloggers and professional media can cooperate with each other to contribute to better reporting. (more…)

Ksenia tells the stories of several young people struggling to find jobs in Ekibastuz (RUS).

Ben digs up an anecdote from 1995 Kazakhstan (ENG).