A land of deportees and heroes

KAZAKHSTAN was the last of the Soviet republics to break its links with the U.S.S.R. and declare independence. This happened on 16 December 1991, a date which Pope John Paul called ‘indelibly inserted in the annals of your history’, the more memorable in that it led to Kazakhstan simultaneously closing the Soviet-run nuclear site at Semipalatinsk and, shortly thereafter, signing up for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

From Genghiz Khan to Stalin

Invaded by Gengiz Khan in the thirteenth century, what is now Kazakhstan was part of the Golden Horde which Gengiz ruled. It became established as an independent state in the fifteenth, and acceded to the growing Russian empire in the eighteenth. With the defeat of the White Russian army in 1919, it fell under Bolshevik rule and in 1920 became a fully-fledged Soviet Socialist Republic. It suffered terribly in the period of forced collectivisation and Stalin’s purges in the thirties, when hundreds of thousands died of starvation and massacre. But, while many died, throughout most of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thousands more were deported from Ukraine, Belaruse, Poland and other countries to the wastes and gulags of central Asia, where many of their descendants still live.

A secular Muslim state

The greater part of the country’s 16 million population are Kazakh (44 per cent), but Russians, many of whom emigrated to Kazakhstan in the nineteenth century to buy farm land, make up more than 35 per cent of the total. They are concentrated mainly in the more fertile north, which is believed to also contain important deposits of copper, lead and zinc, as well as coal and oil, all relatively undeveloped so far.
Until independence in 1991, Russian was the official language, but in 1993, Kazakh, one of the Turkic group of languages, replaced it. Most ethnic Kazakhs are Muslim – there is a proverb which says ‘a good Kazakh is also a good Muslim’, but according to the constitution it is a secular state.
Islam in Kazakhstan is essentially non-confrontational. Muslims live and work in harmony with members of other religions. There is an understanding of preference for Islam, and a firm conviction that neither the government nor the political parties should interfere in matters of religion, and so long as this is respected, serious communal strife is unlikely.
Strenuous efforts were made during the Soviet regime to eradicate Islam, and most mosques were closed, but Islam survived, thanks in no small part to the activities of Sufi teachers and groups. There is also a strong element of folk religion and shamanism in their Muslim beliefs, with a healthy respect for the ‘evil eye’ and abundant use of protective charms, which may also have contributed to survival. With independence Islam took on new life, with new mosques built, pilgrimages completed and Islamic schools encouraged, but without recourse to fanaticism or calls for the establishment of an Islamic state. Government of such a huge area – the country stretches from the borders of China to those of European Russia, over a million square miles, more than all the ‘stans’ plus Afghanistan and Pakistan, put together – is no easy matter and is bound to be less controlled on its outlying edges than it is in the towns and cities. So far, the lumbering bureaucracy has managed to keep the peace and its balance with remarkable success.

The arrival of Christianity

Travellers on the Silk Road to China brought Christianity to the country in the fourth century. But under the explosive pressure of Islam in the eighth and ninth centuries, Christians retreated and vanished until their return as settlers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, bringing Orthodoxy with them. These were supplemented by Christian deportees – Volga Germans, mostly Lutherans, Catholics, both Eastern and Latin, from Ukraine, Poland and Belarus and many others.
With the end of the Soviet Empire, there has been a counterflow as non-Kazakhs return to their countries of origin. But a number have remained. The Soviet authorities destroyed almost all Catholic churches in the country, for example, and by 1991, there were virtually none left nor priests to take charge of them. But, priests have come back, and there are now about 40 of them and many new churches. The Vatican has declared the country an apostolic administration and sent a nuncio to the capital, Almaty.
Protestants too were harshly repressed during the Communist regime, with the Baptists in particular suffering severe treatment. Since independence, a number of evangelical, charismatic and independent churches, some of them with Korean connections, have set up shop, but many of the German Lutherans have emigrated.

New law on religion

At the end of January, the upper house of the Kazakhstan parliament approved a new draft law on religion, and ten days later it was approved by President Nursultan Nazarbayev. It has not been welcomed by all religions.
The law lays down that all religions or religious groups must be registered with the proper authorities. Those that do not register can be banned. It refuses registration to Muslim groups that are outside the framework of the ‘spiritual administration’ which runs Muslim affairs in the country. The administration has, surprisingly, offered unqualified support for the law.
Christians, on the other hand, are not at all happy: the Orthodox do not like the requirement for spiritual leaders to be elected by their religious communities, while some of the other denominations claim the new law makes them ‘second class citizens’. The Baptists have opposed provisions allowing the government to ban unregistered communities and, according to the Oxford-based Keston News Service, the press officer of the Hare Krishna has objected to a whole range of clauses that allow repressive measures to be taken against believers.
There is also some concern that interpretation of the law depends to a large extent on the viewpoint of the officials charged with implementing it. While there are certainly flaws and ambiguities in it, it must be said that to the lay observer it gives the impression of being an honest effort to treat different religions equally.

The Pope’s visit

It was a compliment to the Kazakh government that Pope John Paul chose to make his first central Asian pastoral visit to Kazakhstan. This was reinforced by his courageous decision not to let the events of 11 September, only ten days before his visit began, deter him. The Kazakh people seemed to realise this by their enthusiastic reception. Fifty thousand, three quarters of whom were said to be Muslims, turned out for his Mass in the main square of Astana. They welcomed his invitation to Christians and Muslims to work together and ‘never let what has happened [September11] lead to a deepening of divisions: religion must never be used as a reason for conflict.’
His call went out to the Russian Orthodox too, partly through his use of the Russian language and partly through his plea to ‘rebuild [God’s] living temple which is the ecclesiastical community spread throughout this vast central Asian region.’ The Russian Orthodox, with an estimated two-and-a-half million souls in the country, as opposed to 200,000 Catholics, are far and away the most numerous non-Kazakh denomination. Not that the Orthodox were particularly welcoming – their leader, Patriarch Alexi of Moscow, is known to regard all Catholic intrusion into what he calls ‘canonical Orthodox territory’ as offensive, and his local representative in Kazakhstan was ill in hospital at the time of the visit.

Religious freedom

John Paul returned frequently to the theme of religious freedom in what he called ‘this land of martyrs and believers, deportees and heroes, intellectuals and artists.’
He listed the names of Kazakhs who had suffered and died in the gulags: the Blessed Oleksa Zarytsky, priest and martyr, the Blessed Mykyta Budka, a bishop, Bishop Alexander Chira, pastor of Karaganda for 30 years and the Pope’s friend, Fr. Tadeusz Federowicz. He asked his audience to be witnesses, as these victims of the gulag were, but to add ‘the gentleness of dialogue.’ He quoted the Kazakh sage and poet Abai Kunanbai, who wrote: ‘precisely because we worship God and have faith in him, we have no right to claim that we must force others to worship and believe in him.’ He insisted that the Church had no wish to impose its faith on others, but pointed out that ‘the more we bear witness to the love of God the more that love grows in our hearts.’

Looking forward

Kazakhstan retains good relations with Russia, and is a member of the Russian-led Commonwealth of Independent States.
In 1997, a deal was signed with the U.S.A. on gas and oil in the Caspian Sea area, and another has been signed with Russia on a pipeline from Russia. There is a flourishing metal production industry, and agriculture is highly developed. A single market was formed with Kyrgysztan and Uzbekistan in 1995, and an economic treaty was signed with Russia and Belarus in 1998. And so on. The country is determined, in spite of its remoteness, to play its part in international brotherhood. For example, the Kazakhstan’s women’s rugby team is an enthusiastic member of the international women’s rugby league.
In short, Kazakhstan’s history since independence has been one of cautious progress, with particular attention paid to the problems and dangers of Islamic fundamentalism, and to maintaining harmonious relations between the religions in the country. Opposition to the law on religion will die down if the issue is sensibly handled, and Kazakhstan should continue, and flourish, as central Asia’s closest approximation to a successful multi-faith society.