Strange bedfellows in Central Asia

AFTER DECADES of being one of those Central Asian republics that people had heard of but couldn’t quite place, Uzbekistan has come into the limelight through the Bush-Blair war on terrorism. It is a vast waterless desert nearly the size of Spain with a few oasis areas in which its towns and cities shelter. Its twenty-odd million people are from a mixture of races: apart from Uzbeks, who constitute 70 per cent of the population, there are sizeable Russian, Tajik and Kazakh communities, with smaller numbers of Tatars, Kara-Kalpaks, Koreans, Ukrainians and Kyrgyz. Its capital is Tashkent and its predominant religion Sunni Muslim.

Springboard for Afghanistan

It is, of course, its proximity to Afghanistan to the south which gives it its present high profile and makes it attractive to the U.S.A. as a member of the coalition against Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaida organisation and the Taliban. While American and British spokesmen are naturally wary about revealing details of the ‘Enduring Freedom’ project, it is known that the Uzbek government has handed over one or more military and air bases as jumping-off points for an eventual ground war against Afghanistan. A steady flow of U.S. transport and strike aircraft has been seen at the Khanabad base, and the U.S. secretary for defence has announced that a thousand troops of the U.S. 10^th Mountain Division arrived in Uzbekistan in early October, and that another thousand are to be sent there soon.
In return for this help President Bush has undertaken to discuss any threats to Uzbekistan or, in other words, to come to its defence in the event of an attack on Uzbekistan from Afghanistan or any other quarter. It has recently been revealed by President Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan that his country and the U.S.A. have been undertaking covert anti-Taliban operations for the past year, and that military and security co-operation between the two countries has been going on for two to three years.

No change since Soviet times

Such frankness is unusual in Uzbek spokesmen, who have tended to copy the taciturnity practised in Communist times not so long ago. For the first few weeks after 11 September, when it was clear that Uzbekistan was about to become a key player in this latest phase of ‘The Great Game’, officials used the mantra Our president is prepared to discuss anything with Washington. In fact, very little has changed since Soviet times. With the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, Uzbekistan, until then an unremarkable and compliant Soviet republic, moved seamlessly into independent mode, with the formerly dominant Communist Party becoming the People’s Democratic Party of Uzbekistan, and former apparatchiks such as President Karimov himself merely changing their labels and resuming their rule of the country. Playing on Uzbek nationalism, Karimov won the presidential elections of 1992 by denying his opponent access to the media and keeping the counting process in his own hands. With Karimov elected, his opponent’s party, Birlik (Unity) was banned and his opponent accused of that old Communist favourite unconstitutional activities and exiled. In 1995, Karimov extended his term until 2000, when he was elected almost unopposed. Karimov’s tutelage under Communism had not been wasted.

Opposition from Muslims

But Karimov does not rule unopposed. Opposition comes mainly from the Muslim majority, and it is against this community that Karimov’s efforts are focused. All Muslims in the country are tarred with the accusation of Islamic fundamentalism, and are regularly harassed, persecuted, imprisoned and tortured. Karimov’s security service, the S.N.B., controls the media through threats to families, and one Uzbek writer, Malika Kenjaboyeva, has compared the Uzbek media to Orwell’s Ministry of Truth in 1984, which brainwashed the apathetic population through repetition of contradictory slogans : war is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.
The international agency Human Rights Watch has been trying to persuade the U.S. government to designate Uzbekistan as a country of particular concern under the international religious freedom act, but the last hearing in September was overtaken by the disaster of 11 September and is unlikely to be resurrected until the wars against bin Laden, Al Qaida, the Taliban, Afghanistan and the Muslims are over.

Christianity comes early

Unlike a number of other former Soviet Central Asian republics, Uzbekistan was not used during the Communist period as a repository for unruly or unwanted peoples of Europe. So there are no communities of Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian or Belarusian Catholics as there are elsewhere. But Christianity did come early to the country, probably through merchants and travellers using the Silk Road which linked China with Europe. It is estimated that in the fifth century a quarter of the country’s population were Christians. With the Islamic revolutions from the eighth century onwards, Christianity virtually disappeared until it was brought back to some extent during the expansion of the Russian empire in the nineteenth century. With Stalin’s persecutions and the depredations of subsequent dictators it again receded during the Communist period.

With the fall of the Soviet empire it returned, mainly in the form of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal movements, and both Roman Catholicism and Russian Orthodoxy have held their own. The Holy See has diplomatic relations with Uzbekistan, and is represented by a papal nuncio resident in Almaty (formerly Alma Ata), capital of Kazakstan.

Religion and the law

The Uzbek constitution provides for freedom of religion and the separation of Church and State. This is used both to control and persecute members of religious communities. A decree passed by the Uzbek cabinet soon after the law came into force gives local and district authorities unlimited power to refuse registration to religious communities. Article 3 on the right to freedom of conscience includes a provision that the enticement of minors into religious organisations is not permitted, nor are they to be given religious instruction against their will. In practice, on the basis of this article, the authorities forbid religious instruction of children in places of worship. Article 5 on the separation of religion from the state prohibits activities intended to convert believers of one faith to another, as well as any other missionary activity. In practice, this has led to a complete ban on preaching in public.
Christians do not fare as badly as Muslims. The number of unregistered mosques closed down by the authorities is especially shocking, according to the Keston Institute in Oxford. Article 5 also says the activity of any political party on a religious basis is forbidden. This has led to a campaign of repression against Islamic parties, including Hizb-ut-Tahrir and the Islamic Renaissance Party. The chairman of the unregistered Human Rights Society told Keston that there were about 10,000 political prisoners in the country, most of them members of Islamic parties.

By contrast, Christians and Jews do not fare too badly. For example, they have freedom to build churches and worship, virtually without let or hindrance, so long as they remain within certain bounds. Those that defy the authority of state-appointed bodies, or who take part in missionary or proselytising activities, are liable to severe punishment. All religious organisations are aware of being kept under close surveillance by the authorities, who haul them in for questioning or worse on the slightest pretext.
Next to the Russian Orthodox Church, with its 150,000 members, the Catholic Church with 30,000 is the best attended, followed by the Armenian Apostolic Church with 25,000. Until recently the Catholics had to rely on visiting Polish or Belarusian priests, but it is reported that a resident Catholic priest may have arrived in the country.

The Muslim tradition

Uzbekistan’s immediate future depends on the outcome of the current U.S. attack on Afghanistan. If, as seems possible in the worst-case scenario, this were to degenerate into a full-scale attack by Muslims on Christian and western institutions the world over, the prospects for Uzbekistan’s strongly anti-Muslim government must be perilous. Christians are already beginning to emigrate, while conversions to Islam are increasing. Statisticians go so far as to predict that Muslims will form 90 per cent of the population by mid-century (as opposed to 73 per cent now), and it may be that Uzbekistan will revert, now that it is free of the shackles of Communism, to the passionate attachment to Islam which found expression in the splendid turquoise domes, the mosques and minarets, the bazaars and chaikhanas (teahouses) of Samarkand and Bokhara.

Samarkand is first and foremost the city of Tamerlane, the Mongol leader who lies buried under the magnificent dome of the Gur Emir, in a burial chamber lined with jasper and alabaster, his tomb a single slab of dark green jade from China. For lust of knowing what should not be known, sang James Elroy Flecker’s pilgrims, we take the golden road to Samarkand. Then, 150 miles to the west, lies the ancient city of Bokhara, known as much for its rugs as for its 350 mosques and medressehs (religious schools) . Few of them survive or are open, and the great caravanserais which used to dominate the bazaars are now given over as living space for needy Uzbeks.
The historian and diplomat Fitzroy Maclean visited Uzbekistan in 1987, and commented on the fresh interest in the Islamic tradition and culture to be found in many young Uzbeks. He noted that, beside the official activities of the Grand Mufti another underground Islamic cult exists, with unofficial mosques and mullahs and imams, even, if you know where to look for them, sufis (Islamic mystics).

Strange bedfellows

Misery acquaints us with strange bedfellows, said Shakespeare, and this is certainly true of the U.S.A.’s present association with Uzbekistan. The compensating factor is that Karimov probably needs Bush more than Bush needs Karimov. It is to be hoped that once Bush has silenced, killed or captured Osama bin Laden and Al Qaida he will be able to sever the military connection with Uzbekistan and start paying attention to its human rights’ performance.