Yes Yazan. This sort of comments is quite typical for *certain* pretentious and outlandish intelligentsia (incl. journalists and NGO leaders) in the ‘Stans. They’re frustrated, so they need to get a feeling of self-esteem by spitting on societies and cultures which they consider ‘inferior’ while all too often they don’t know jack shit what they’re talking about.

When you speak to these people about Islam and the Islamic world, the first association they often make is ‘ah yes it’s like Afghanistan’ while Afghanistan is not ‘the Islamic/Muslim world’ and vice-versa.

In fact, many people do not (want to) see the other side of what we get in the media: turmoil, poverty, extremists … Yes that all exists. Yet what also exists is, that many countries where Islam is much more present than in the ’stans have economic dynamism, confident forward-looking people and an active civil society (yes, often faith-based) that is much more than a grant-driven affair.

I’m sorry to have to say that, but compared to that, the Kyr and other ‘Stans face rather pathetic.

There’s also this cliché that women who wear hijab are by definition poor, illiterate and oppressed and women in miniskirts ‘cosmopolitan’. In fact I met (and worked with) many hijab-wearing women who chose to do wear that and who were much more educated and socailly-professionally active than most half-naked bimbos who basically copy MTV and the magazines.

BTW, indexes and social indicators are of course useful to have a base for comparison but they do not tell everything. Often they are co-based on govt. stats, whereas like the USSR, local elites and intelligenstia like to keep up a façade of modernity and development.

I will only reply my comment on GV.

While I was translating this for Arabic Lingua, I was struck with a couple of seriously disturbing, to say the least, generalizations…

“Arabic world is behind us, because there, 50 percent of women are illiterate.”

Where exactly do you get that? literacy levels in countries like Syria, Lebanon, and the North Africa are all more than 90%, and in the levant especially it is close to 97%…

Most of the Arab countries are much more high up in the Human Development Index…
[The only arab countries that scored less than Kyrgyzstan are Egypt, Morocco, Sudan, Djibouti and Yemen]

The Syrian parliament has 14% of it women, that’s higher than in the US.

This kind of insensitivity and ignorance to other cultures is very very disturbing…

It all depends what you call ‘a threat of Islamisation’ really…

*if you mean the risk that Kyr and other ‘stans become Sharia states like Saudi Arabia or Sudan or the stronghold of a larger Jihadi movement (local or imported from Pak or Arab countries), then the threat is marginal and largely the product of fantasies, social prejudice and political smokescreens; take this from someone who has been following the issue for 10 years now: the international Jihadi movement doesn’t give a toss about Kyr. Its priorities are booting out the ‘crusaders’ out of Iraq and Afghanistan and fighting the Zionist occupiers in Jerusalem/the Occupied Territories.

*if it means that more and more people find an identity, dignity and social responsibility in Islam, then that is not a threat but a good thing. Again, the fact that a person wants to live ‘more the Muslim way’ does not mean that he or she wants a Sharia state. BTW, if you are interested: the PEW Research Centre and the sociologist Tair Faradov carried out empirical studies (for the Uzb and Azer case, but relevant for Kyr as well) that clearly show/suggest that.

IMO, Islam in Kyr is no longer a quasi-exclusive matter of ‘Uzbeks from Osh and Jalalabad’. First, it is growing fast among ethnic Uighurs and Dungans too, who are both much smaller groups but economically important and very active. Is it a coincidence that minorities with a clearer, more outlined identity seem to fare better in Kyrgyzstani society than most Kyrgyz? When I was in Tokmak in 2004, a police major — ethnic Kyrgyz himself — told me: “We have much less trouble with the young Dungan here than with our people. The Dungan, they are more Muslim. So their families stick together more, they work harder, drink less and take less drugs. And that’s why they live better than us.”

Second, during my most recent stay in Kyr (summer 2006) one of the things that stroke me compare to the years before is the larger visibility of Islam around Bishkek, i.e. not in the centre but the wider suburbs like Novopavlovka, Lebedinovka, Alexandrovka etc… Migration from the southern provinces to these (cheaper) townships and the presence of Dungans and Uighurs there explain things partly, but not everything. And this brings us to another important point: it is a typical illusion to think that ‘religion is something for the poor’ and motivated by ‘material gain’. It is the case with these evangelist Christian sects, yes. But in the case of Islam, there are other factors. The dirt poor don’t think about anything besides daily survival and, if there is a bit of surplus left, escapism (mostly alcohol).
The driving factor behind renewed interest for Islam is not so much poverty but *social mobility*. Social enviroments change, often abruptly: USSR collapse, ‘transition’, etc. That makes them mobile, most often when they try to cope with those changes: a) horizontally mobile (eg. rural-urban migration, seasonal work abroad) and well as b) vertically mobile (eg. impoverishment/enrichment, change of occupation, access to new media, people’s intellectual status that does not match social-financial status; etc.). In turn, that leads to a) erosion of traditional cultural frameworks (Soviet/traditionalist) and leaves a cultural void which has to be filled (that’s where religion, in this case Islam, comes in); b) new expectations/ambitions and, unavoidably, frustrations.
“Так что разрешение ношения хиджаба-платочка - это маленький шажок к горькому началу (или концу?). So allowing to wear the hijab on passport photos could be the beginning of the end.”

What I noticed in all these years is, that those who are most panicky and hyper-ventilating about that so-called ‘Islamskaya ugroza’ are either ethnic Russians (esp. women) and heavily russianized/westernised ‘urban Kyrgyz’ who most often have no clue about/have a visceral fear for anyone and anything outside of their own surroundings. Yes, it is the beginning of the end of the pretentious illusion of moral superiority of some… But then again, what have those ‘some’ brought or achieved in the end?
“Edil Baisalov, a Kyrgyz politician (LJ user baisalov), says that every women has a right for choice - wearing hijab or miniskirt.”
Yes, he wrote than on 24.kg too: http://www.24.kg/questions/2007/08/23/60091.html The sheer question – в мини-юбки или хиджабы – is already imbecile and immature. Is there no third, middle option? BTW, I’d invite all of you to read the comments. I’d also like Baisalov to explain why some make all that fuss when a woman chooses hijab, while the same think that a degrading pornographic attire is the norm.
“The Arab world is behind us, because there, 50 percent of women are illiterate.”
Well, Baisalov better do his homework before ventilating outlandish conventional truths and illusions:
*First, that is true for a number of Arab countries (eg. Yemen) but in others which I visited (Jordan and Morocco, for instance), let me tell you that people live noticeably better and society generally is much more developed than Kyrgyzstan.
*Second, I also find it funny that he takes women literacy as the only standard to judge who is behind whom. This being said, with the deterioration of the education system (for which you can’t blame Islam, but the IFIs and the rotten regimes that they fund), it is highly questionable whether Kyrgyzstan’s (or other ‘stans) 98-st.% literacy rate still corresponds with reality.
*Third, Islam is no longer an exclusively Arab matter. Yes, its origins are Arabic, Arabic if the language of the Holy Quran and the Haramain (the holy centres in Mekka and Medina) are in Arabia. Yet today, only some 30% of the Muslims in the world are of Arab background. Several larger non-Arab and Muslim-majority countries (Turkey, Malaysia and Indonesia) are far ahead of Kyrgyzstan and other ‘stans on most fronts.

“кроме соратников и исламского сообщества. Зато последнее поддерживало очень неслабыми суммами.”
”She was not being supported by anyone but her closest aides and the Islamic community. But the latter had been supporting her with a sizeable chunk of money …”

So what? At least, there we have an example of a female social initiative that was not sponsored by – or merely taken for the sake of – one or another IO or NGO grant. BTW, I like his use of the word ‘soratnik’, which is usually used for ‘partner in crime’ rather than ‘aide’. Most revealing for his mindset.  lol

“Such kind of organizations [Mutakallim – ed.] including other structures such as “Jangyryk”, a youth movement, are financed by the Arabic World.”

That’s not better or worse than certain liberal groups that are being funded by NDI or neocon-linked structures like IRI, isn’t it… ? ;)

“mass alcoholism and pornography – ”

Ya skazal ‘pornoKRATIYA’ (pornoCRACY). Which is more that just (the circulation of) pornography. It is a mentality that considers everything that is being promoted through pornography as the norm.

“I strongly believe the most rational choice we can make in this aspect is Western democracy, with its liberal values.”

OK, and I hope you will be consequent with that in the case of a scenario like this one: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6912052.stm ;)