The paradigm of nationalism in Kyrgyzstan. Evolving narrative, the sovereignty issue, and political agenda

Communist and Post-Communist Studies 45 (2012) 39–49

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The paradigm of nationalism in Kyrgyzstan. Evolving narrative, the sovereignty issue, and political agenda Marlène Laruelle Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies, The Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University, United States

a r t i c l e i n f o

a b s t r a c t

Article history: Available online 29 March 2012

In Kyrgyzstan, nationalism combines a narrative on the titular ethnic group and its relation to a civic, state-based, identity, feelings of imperiled sovereignty, and a rising electorate agenda for political forces. Nationalism has therefore become the engine of an interpretative framework for Kyrgyzstan’s failures and enables the society indirectly to formulate its perception of threat, both on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides. To this end, this article first analyzes the double identity narrative, civic and ethnic, of Akayev’s regime, followed by the transformation toward a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz patriotism under Bakiyev, the growing role of the theme of imperiled sovereigntydwhich culminated with the events in Oshdand how nationalism is today becoming a key element of the political agenda and the public scene. Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California.

Keywords: Kyrgyzstan Nationalism Patriotism Inter-ethnic riots Ethnic identity Civic identity

1. Introduction This article proposes a background narrative to frame the outbreak of inter-ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in 2010. It discusses the structuration of the theme of the nation in Kyrgyzstan since independence in 1991 by showing that Kyrgyz ethnic nationalism has become both a potent political instrument for elites and an increasingly dominant psychological frame for interpreting Kyrgyzstan’s problems. It accepts nationalism as a triple phenomenon, combining a narrative on the titular ethnic group and its relation to a civic, state-based, identity; feelings of imperiled sovereignty; and a rising electorate agenda for political forces. The aim is not to say that ethnic nationalism, both Uzbek and Kyrgyz, explains the Osh violence, but to understand how the tools used by Kyrgyzstani society to comprehend domestic evolutions are driven by the way it formulates its identity. Nationalism has therefore become the engine of an interpretative framework for Kyrgyzstan’s failures and enables the society indirectly to formulate its perception of threat, both on the Uzbek and Kyrgyz sides. The trauma of the Osh events has fostered the political forces to structure themselves around nationalist claims, claims which are now bound to play a key role in the types of legitimization operative in Kyrgyzstan. To this end, this article first analyzes the double identity narrative, civic and ethnic, of Akayev’s regime, followed by the transformation toward a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz patriotism under Bakiyev, the growing role of the theme of imperiled sovereigntydwhich culminated with the events in Oshdand how nationalism is today becoming a key element of the political agenda and the public scene.

2. A double identity narrative under Akayev’s regime The election of Askar Akayev to the presidency in October 1990 was inscribed in a twofold context, that of the progressive collapse of the Soviet Union and that of the violent riots of June 1990 in Uzgen, in the country’s south (Carrère d’Encausse, 1993). Alleged reports that Kyrgyz were trying to build houses on an Uzbek collective farm served as the spark, and the riots for the control of arable land continued until the Soviet army intervened (TASS, 1990a). Akayev therefore had to manage both the evolution of political legitimacy during and after the Soviet collapse, and the legacy of the Uzgen conflict, which gave 0967-067X/$ – see front matter Ó 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Regents of the University of California. doi:10.1016/j.postcomstud.2012.02.002

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a voice to rising Uzbek and Kyrgyz nationalisms. The feeling that the new state had acceded to independence on a soil weakened by inter-ethnic conflict, one which required procedures of reconciliation, appeared visibly in the intervention of famous Kyrgyz writer Chingiz Aytmatov (1928–2008), who rightly denounced poor living conditions and unemployment as reasons for the Uzgen violence (TASS, 1990b). Akayev thus sought to reconcile two contradictory trends: the country’s interethnic stability by proclaiming Kyrgyzstan a homeland for all its inhabitants, and special pledges to the titular nationality, which deemed itself to have been mistreated by the minorities of the republic (Russians and Uzbeks) as well as by Moscow’s repression of symbols of pre-Soviet national identity. In this way, Akayev followed the model then established by Boris Yeltsin in Russia, which insisted on Russia citizenship (rossiiskii) rather than on Russian ethno-cultural identity (russkii). Akayev quickly moved to marginalize the few small parties that were trying to promote Kyrgyz ethnic nationalism, often with pan-Turkic or Islamicizing references. He developed the slogan “Kyrgyzstan, our common home” (Kyrgyzstan – nash obshchii dom) as the flagship for the country’s new identity,1 and often used the term “mezhdunarodnoe soglasie” (international – in the sense of inter-ethnic – accord) to celebrate the constructive relationship between ethnic groups (Marat, 2008, p. 31). He created the People’s Assembly, which regroups the cultural centers of the national minorities, and cultivates a positive vision of their role in the building of Soviet and post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan. Russian language was recognized as a second national language and the Kyrgyz-Slavic University, named after the former Russian President Boris Yeltsin, illustrates Bishkek’s welcoming of the Russian culture. Kyrgyzstan’s desire to promote civic identity and avoid overly ethno-centric allusions went hand-in-hand with tranquility of mind concerning former Soviet symbols. It was the last state in Central Asia to become concerned with effacing Soviet memory from everyday places. Thus, the Lenin statue that dominated Bishkek’s central square remained in place until 2003, before being moved a mere hundred meters away to the back of the National Museum, which itself has retained a major part of its previous Soviet collections, supplementing them with a section devoted to independence.2 In a Soviet logic, national minorities were given cultural rights, but could not become involved in politics, and ethnically based political parties were prohibited (Omuraliev and Kokareva, 2007). With the exception of a few small Russian political groups, often linked with the Cossack revival, which attempted to politicize their place in the public sphere (Zharkov, 2002), the majority of Russians did not really seek to become involved in post-independence politics, cognizant that it is “reserved” for the titular nationality. Russian-speaking candidates such as the former mayor of Bishkek, Felix Kulov, were limited in their ambitions by the requirement that applicants for the highest function, namely the presidency, be able to speak Kyrgyz. Uzbek leaders also realized that some of their demands, such as status for Kyrgyz-Uzbek bilingualism, were taboo and that any potential territorial autonomy was unrealistic, since Kyrgyzstan, like all the post-Soviet countries with the exception of Russia, asserts itself as unitary state. However, Uzbek leaders and population rallied to Akayev’s side, since he let them invest the burgeoning private economy. Like its neighbors, the post-Soviet Kyrgyz historiography is built on a teleological logic: it is the history of the nation marching toward its independence (Suny, 2001). The ideas that there are multiple ways of future and that linearity is a retroactive construction of an historian are not considered. Historical moments that are inconsistent with this linearity are perceived as transgressions which hijacked the nation from its destiny and made it dormant until the moment when it would “wake up” again. History is also ethnicized. Peasants or nomads are exaggeratedly foregrounded as the site of preservation of national authenticity, whereas urban cultures, in which minorities are dominant, benefit from more discrete mentions. The nation is also an ethnos which possesses a “gene pool” (genofond) to be preserved, often expressed in the form of a cultural and linguistic purism. National history is therefore at once populist and statist, just as was Stalinist National-Bolshevism: statist, because only the state represent the completed form of national consciousness; and populist, because the ethnicized people forms the center of attention, as is proven by the incessant references to the national mentality or psyche (Suny, 1999–2000). In this framework, Kyrgyzstan sought to establish its “statehood” (gosudarstvennost’), that is its continuity as a nationstate. This notion underlines that the would-be presence of an ancient people on present territory confers contemporary political legitimacy, and implies that the geography of the titular group intersects with that of the state (Ismailova, 2004; Tchoroev, 2002). To this end, Akayev organized jubilees, especially the 3000-year anniversary of the city of Osh, with a clear political aim to hamper the popularity of the former Secretary of the Kyrgyz Communist Party Absamat Masaliyev, who scored 80 percent of votes in his native region of southern Kyrgyzstan (Marat, 2008, p. 38). In 2003 he celebrated the “2200 years of Kyrgyz statehood” in the hope of reviving a declining popularity and improving public support in the wake of the 2005 presidential elections.3 On this occasion, the Academy of Sciences published a new history textbook, History of the Kyrgyz of Kyrgyzstan, uniquely centered on the titular ethnic group (Kakeyev and Ploskikh, 2003). To compensate for the absence of any historically proven dynasties or founders, the country has focused its attention on the hero of its great national epic, Manas. He was transformed in a historical character having lived in the 9th century AD: he gathered together the scattered Kyrgyz clan and launched the great campaign of 840–842, which resulted in the foundation of the would-be first Kyrgyz state. During the festivities organized for the Manas millenary jubilee in 1995, the Kyrgyz president

1 Article 1, Paragraph 3 of the 2006 Constitution states that, “The people of Kyrgyzstan is the bearer of sovereignty and the sole source of state power,” without giving a particular role to ethnic Kyrgyz. 2 Field observations, Bishkek, March 2008, June 2010. 3 This 2200 years figure is based on ancient Chinese sources stating the existence of a Kyrgyz state in 200 BC.

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delivered a political speech in which he formulated seven lessons to be drawn from the epic and that he would make the content of his program of action for the independent Kyrgyzstan. “By seeking to evaluate Manas’ epic from the viewpoint of the idea of the state that it contains,” wrote Akaev, “it is easy to see that for the ancient Kyrgyz people and its constituents, the epic was a prototype for the national constitution, a code of laws and decrees, a code of honor and morals, a testament for the Kyrgyz generations to come.” (Akayev, 2002, p. 282) He did not hesitate to draw religious parallels: “For the Kyrgyz people, Manas is more than an epic (.) It is what the Bible is to Christians”; “My thoughts lead me to draw a parallel between Manas and the biblical figure of Moses who took back his people to their native country, leading it out of captivity.” (Akayev, 2002, p. 280). Since the 1990s Kyrgyz universities have offered special courses on ‘Manasology,’ and the Academy of Sciences has a department specifically devoted to studying the epic (van der Heide, 2008). Manas embodies the values publicly cherished by the Kyrgyz state: a warrior defender of the motherland, the incessant struggle for independence waged by the Kyrgyz, an ideal of self-defense, and of self-preservation, though the multi-ethnic nature of Manas’ entourage was also emphasized (Gullette, 2010). However, compared with the history textbooks of neighboring republics, those edited in Kyrgyzstan are more nuanced. The idea that the Kyrgyz went through a unique ethnogenesisda Soviet term born in the 1940s to define the moment when it became possible to speak of the national consciousness (Laruelle, 2008)dat a precise time and place is contested, with most textbooks giving priority to the notion that there were multiple phases of “ethnic crystallization.” The textbooks also recognize that territory of the Kyrgyz has spread out enormously, stretching from Siberia to present-day Kyrgyzstan, whereas their neighbors lay claim to their autochthonism or nativeness. Kyrgyz historians also attribute great importance to the 1920s and 1930s, recognizing the role of the Soviet regime in building national territories and of elaborating modern identities, and are more positive about the Soviet legacy (Laruelle, 2011). The Akayev-time national narrative therefore combined the civic reference of being “the homeland for all citizens” and ethnic referents to do with Kyrgyzstan as statehood of the Kyrgyz people. This situation was by no means unique: the majority of post-Soviet states had maintained a twin civic/ethnic identity and curbed all “nationalizing nationalism” (Brubaker, 1996), at least at the narrative level. The double identity narrative of the Kyrgyz state, and especially the civic side of it, nevertheless became more and more disconnected from the social and political evolutions of the country throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s. Kyrgyzstan as an island of democracy, a bearer of citizen identity, and a successful manager of a rapid transition to the market economy, quickly failed. On the ground, the brutal social transformations, in particular the rural exodus of the Kyrgyz, impacted on the necessity of assuring the promotion of the titular nationality in order to guarantee social peace (Alimbaeva, in press). The ethnicization of state structures has therefore hastened with the deterioration of the socio-economic situation. In order to guarantee the Kyrgyz privileged access to the public function and to law-enforcement agencies, patronage networks have grown in scale and become the key driver of the system’s functioning. The urban fabric was nationalized with the departure of several hundreds of thousands of so-called European minorities, which include mainly Russians, but also Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Germans, Poles, and so on (Peyrouse, 2008). The issue of repatriation of ethnic Kyrgyz living abroad added to the feeling of Kyrgyzstan’s “Kyrgyzation”. From 1995 onwards, Bishkek decided to put in place the first measures for the “return” of co-ethnics living abroad, however with limited financial means. This logic was later confirmed by a 2001 presidential decree on the “assistance measures for ethnic Kyrgyz to return to their historical fatherland”. It was followed in 2006 by a state program for ethnic Kyrgyz abroad, referred to as Kairylman, and a 2008 law helping them to obtain Kyrgyzstani citizenship and minimal social rights (Kirgiziia priniala Gosprogrammu po repatriatsii ‘kairylmanov’, 2008). These kairylman reportedly number around 22,000, and come mainly from Afghanistan and Tajikistan, with a few from China. The public discourse that accompanies these “repatriates” emphasizes their ethnicity and frames Kyrgyzstan as a homeland for all of those in the world who claim to be Kyrgyz, thus reinforcing the image of an ethnic state (Ferrando, in press). Kyrgyzstani political life, almost exclusively reserved for ethnic Kyrgyz, also profoundly evolved. The Akayev’s regime became more hardline in terms of the freedom it granted to the opposition; it developed a patronage system in which the members of Akayev’s family, and more broadly the presidential clan, gained control over profitable economic sectors (Radnitz, 2010). At the same time, politicians from the south were less and less represented and had to endure high turn-over in their fief of Osh to prevent them from forming a solid electoral base (Melvin, 2011, p. 10). In this logic, Akayev relied on the passive support of the Uzbek community, which, without any political rights properly speaking, was instrumentalized by Bishkek for the purpose of weakening challenging southern leaders. This allowed the formal and informal economy of the southern provinces to become the core of conflicts of interest between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. The repertoire of Kyrgyz political life oriented more and more around the idea of a division between the elites of the north and south. This categorization intentionally mixes ethnographic realities (division into ‘wings’) and political mechanisms. Kyrgyz society accords particular importance to questions of descent: kinship plays a role in matrimonial alliances and community activities (Jacquesson, 2010). However, many other modes of legitimacy have come into competition with this patrilineal reference. In addition, it is rare that the configurations of networks at the political level intersect with the genealogies; the clan in the anthropological sense is not a network in the political sense. Belonging to a “clan” certainly provides a network of access to resources, but it is founded on diverse criteria that are not necessarily connected to questions of kinship: long-standing friendships, solidarities from school or university, the integration into a komanda (a professional team), or the sharing of common economic interests – having worked in the same company at such and such time (Juraev, 2008; Collins, 2006). In Kyrgyzstan itself, this interpretation of the political life as divided into ethno-regionally based wings has worked to mask the competing logics of patrimony among the elites. It also made it possible to avoid in-depth debates on the nature of the Kyrgyz state, at a time when Akayev’s regime was becoming more and more authoritarian.

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3. After the “Tulip revolution”: a more ethno-centered Kyrgyz “Patriotism” The new political power born of the “Tulip Revolution” of March 2005 was built on a differing legitimacy (Cummings and Ryabkov, 2008; Radnitz, 2006; Hale, 2005). The southern elites saw in it a form of revenge on their political marginalization during Akayev’s reign. Bakiyev therefore sought to emphasize the divisions between northern and southern elites. The latter sought quite naturally to promote their interests, and those were clearly in conflict with the de facto autonomy acquired by the Uzbek minority in the management of economic affairs. Moreover, the country’s social and economic transformations accentuated the functioning of clientele logics and the criminalization of the political elites, especially those linked to the bazaar economy (Spector, 2008). The political change in Bishkek has therefore accelerated both the collusion between public structures and the shadow economy, and conflicts of interest in the south (Marat, 2006). Moreover, Bakiyev power was born in the street: the image of a popular movement causing the president and his family to flee had left a non-negligible influence on the idea that popular mobilization is a driver of political change. In this, the events of 2005 worked to confirm the dynamic triggered during the demonstrations in Aksy in 2002, which were a turning point in the history of Kyrgyzstan. They began the process of delegitimizing of Askar Akayev when Azimbek Beknazarov, among others, organized large patriotically colored demonstrations to protest the cession of territory to China (Radnitz, 2005; Laruelle and Peyrouse, 2009). Personal elements also came to play a role: Akayev benefitted from the intellectual legitimacy of a university academic, and from an international prestige that Bakiyev has to do without. The international context ought not to be forgotten: although born of the would-be colored revolutions such as those in Georgia or the Ukraine, the new established power in Bishkek raised in a context where “patriotic revival” and the “vertical power” inspired by Putin’s Russia were in full development (Sakwa, 2007). Bakiyev had therefore to rely more heavily on a new style of political mobilization than his predecessor, and his legitimacy, both symbolically (creating narrative) and pragmatically (creating consensus among elites), was based on a more affirmed Kyrgyz nationalism (Matveeva, 2009). Although all politicians have turned to nationalism as a tool, it is the southern Kyrgyz politicians who have sought to use it as a key driver of their policies. Two figures then emerged, each promoting a muscular discourse about identity: parliamentary deputy Adakhan Madumarov, who did not hide his ethno-nationalist convictions in declaring, against Akayev slogans, that the “Kyrgyz people in the country are masters of their own house, the others are only renters” (Kto v Kirgizii, 2008); and Omurbek Tekebayev, a former presidential candidate and leader of the opposition group Ata Meken (Fatherland). On December 30, 2005, Bakiyev signed a decree establishing a working group invested with a mission to elaborate “guidelines (kontseptsia) for the state and national ideology of Kyrgyzstan” (Marat, 2005; Laruelle, 2007). This commission was first chaired by Dastan Sarygulov, a former secretary of the local Communist Party, who continued his political career as governor of the Talas region, and is known for advocating an anti-Muslim ethno-religious revival called Tengrism (Laruelle and Biard, 2010). Sarygulov was quickly forced to resign, but calls for patriotism have continued to grow in number (Murzakulova, Schoberlein 2009). In 2006–2007, Adakhan Madumarov, State Secretary at the time,4 was appointed head of the commission in charge of developing “guidelines for a pan-national ideology” (Kontseptsia obshchenatsional’noi ideologii). The guidelines were never published due to an inability to forge consensus, and the commission was disbanded in 2009 during the institutional reforms to reinforce the power vertical (vertikal’ vlasti). During the five years of his presidency, Bakiyev set up mechanisms to promote patriotism in a very Soviet mode, inspired by the evolutions of Putin’s Russia (Laruelle, 2009). The Soviet-style slogans connected to the “small homeland” – “my house,” “my town,” “my region,” and others – have been multiplying. The authorities attempted to encourage the presence of state symbols in the public sphere. In 2009, Bakiyev signed amendments to the law on state symbols of the Kyrgyz Republic in the hope of developing popular patriotism, and in parliament a debate was held over the idea that for each official commemoration all be obliged to sing the national hymn with a hand held to the chest (Shchas spoiu!, 2009). The young generation was most targeted by these ideological temptations, since it was suspected of being the most “nihilistic” in terms of national identity, and the most influenced by “decadent” fashions from the West (Kasatykh, 2007). In this, the same Soviet-inherited procedures used in Russia were employed such as, for example, getting higher secondary school pupils to write essays discussing the question of what state ideology should Kyrgyzstan have. The idea of providing a single history textbook for schools, putting forward a sole reading of the nation, was also raised. The War Veterans Council created a commission for the military-patriotic education of the youth, devoted to spreading patriotic precepts in the school setting, in particular during commemorations linked to the Second World War (Patriotism v defitsite, 2009). This tendency was not new since it existed already in Akayev’s time. In 2001, the Kyrgyz government published a decree on the principal direction of military-patriotic education of youth for 2002–2003 (Postanovlenie pravitel’stva KR, 2001) and in 2003 the Defense Ministry proposed the introduction of courses for preparation for military service (Minoborona Kiizii, 2003). Yet the scope taken by desires for ideological supervision has increased markedly in the second half of the 2000s. During Bakiyev time, the constitutive ambiguities of the Kyrgyz statehood have radicalized and the civic/ethnic balance has shifted in favor of the latter. While the regime promoted a similar slogan to that of the Akayev era, “Kyrgyzstan – my homeland” (Kyrgyzstan – moia rodina), and called for an integrative ideology, Adakhan Madumarov did not hesitate to state that Kyrgyzstan is the state of the Kyrgyz people, one where the “minorities are welcome” (Malevanaia, 2007). Since the

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After which he was made Secretary of the Security Council in 2008–2009.

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Soviet period, the tools of reference available to elites and Kyrgyz society have barely evolved. The idea of the “friendship of peoples” and that of tolerance as a specific feature of Kyrgyz culture have been maintained and internalized within the context of independence. Claiming an ethnically pure state is not considered politically correct, while the dominant metaphor is that of the “common home” that is shared by the “master of the house” and his “guests” (khoziain/gost’). The use of the house as metaphor of the nation implies that the guests must recognize that the landlord takes precedence when it comes to deciding cultural and social rules, and that he only accepts the guests thanks to his own good will. Ethnic tensions are thus systematically explained by the excessive good and tolerant nature of the Kyrgyz people and the lack of recognition that minorities have toward them. Between 2005 and 2010, the number of political groups using the Kyrgyz ethnic nation as their point of reference multiplied. In summer 2005, a new nationalist party was created. Uluu Biridik (Great Unity) was led by the former vice governor of the Issyk-Kul region, Emilbek Kaptagayev, a member of the united opposition against Bakiyev. The party’s first mission was declared to be the preservation (sberezhenie) of the Kyrgyz people and it called upon Kyrgyzstan to become the ethnic state of the Kyrgyz (Katargin, 2005). Kaptagayev has made regular calls for the suppression of Russian as an official language, deeming that its having this status damages the development of Kyrgyz national consciousness. Then in 2007, the first kurultay of national-patriotic forces – as they define themselves – took place in Osh. This kurultay brought together about 500 small, scattered groups (V Oshe namechaetsia, 2007; Khamidov, 2007), like that headed by Dastan Sarygulov, which has often accused the authorities of having “lost the sense of the holiness of the homeland” (D. Sarygulov perechislil, 2007), and Nazarbek Nyshanov’s Patriotic Party of Kyrgyzstan, which has made similar remarks. In addition, this same period saw the formation of many youth movements, some of which, such as Kel-Kel, were proWestern and played a key role in organizing the “Tulip Revolution,” as well as others of nationalist sensibility (Doolotkeldieva, 2009). These latter groups all shared more or less the same agenda: to promote a pride in being Kyrgyz, in mastering the Kyrgyz language, and in knowing the country’s past. The differences show up in terms of immediate objectives. Some groups were focused on contemporary economic and social questions. This was the case for Jebe!, which denounced the domination of international institutions over the destiny of the country. Others, such as Kyrgyz El or Kyrgyz Nur, have declared a fight against the nation’s “decadence” by promoting knowledge of the past and revalorizing the great national heroes, in particular those who fought against Czarist authorities and then against the Soviet regime. China’s announcing that it would ask UNESCO to recognize Manas as part of the world oral tradition on behalf of its Kyrgyz minority has generated great resentment in this patriotic youth, which claimed Manas as a symbol of the independent Kyrgyz state (Marat, 2009). 4. Explaining Kyrgyzstan’s failures: the theme of “imperiled sovereignty” While the ethnic mythologizing of the state is carried out through Kyrgyz-centered historical references, which suppose that the titular nation has superior rights within its “own” state and that the minorities are only “guests,” the issue of the economic, social and political sovereignty of Kyrgyzstan also gained in importance. The sovereignty theme proposes a modernized version of the national narrative focusing on contemporary issues of globalization, while depicting challenges in almost a conspiratorial fashion. At the end of 2005, the Kyrgyz political scientist Nur Omarov described the risk of the country’s “de-sovereignization” after the “Tulip Revolution” by focusing essentially on the influence of the NGOs financed abroad and the presence of two foreign military bases (Omarov, 2005). At the end of 2006 and the start of 2007, the theme of imperiled sovereignty took on a more economic color through the popular protest movements against the decision by Feliks Kulov’s government to join the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIDC) Initiative of the International Monetary Fund (Kachiev, 2006). The narrative laid out was clearly that of a refusal to lose sovereignty to major international organizations, and these demonstrations played a key role in crystallizing a patriotic movement denouncing Western hegemony among the Kyrgyz youth. Many other components of this imperiled sovereignty theme can be identified. First is a dominant discourse on the undermining of national autonomy through the presence of two military bases, Russian and American. The feeling has become legion according to which all the country’s political upheavals ought to be apprehended as elements of the obscure “Great Game” being carried out by the great powers on Kyrgyz territory (Huskey, 2008). This is accompanied by conspiratorial readings, extremely fashionable throughout the post-Soviet space (ICCEES, 2010). Revelations about the trafficking organized by the son of the former president, Maksim Bakiyev, who had been selling jet fuel bought cheaply from Russia to the U.S. army at high prices, has worked to reinforce this conspiracy interpretation (Mystery at Manas, 2010). Washington’s refusal to denounce the lucrative operations of the Bakiyev family – because some among them were directly linked to the Manas base – gave out an image of Western powers as having a view of Kyrgyzstan as a mere pawn in their world strategies. In addition, the American base was the theater of several accidents in which Kyrgyz civilians lost their lives, but diplomatic immunity enabled American soldiers to avoid prosecution, provoking widespread popular discontent and the sentiment of the impunity of the Westerners (Amerikanskomu soldatu, 2011). The second component is the claim that significant migration rose a threat to Kyrgyz sovereignty. The hundreds of thousands of migrants that travel to Kazakhstan and Russia each year are presented as a net loss for Kyrgyzstan, as they allegedly enrich their host country more than their country of origin, and thereby contribute to the impoverishment of the labor force and brain drain in Kyrgyzstan. For the public opinion, shocked by the social and cultural changes ushered in by the market economy, the argument has become commonplace according to which migration can explain the country’s weaknesses and difficulties. The Kyrgyz authorities signed intergovernmental agreements with Russia to better manage this

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migration, including control over financial flows and demands for payment of Russian pensions to the Kyrgyz migrants (Doolotkeldieva, 2011) but the overriding impression remains that of a continuing loss of human capital. An article in Easttime, for example, discusses the brain drain as a dead loss for the “future gene pool of the nation” (Altymyshev, 2011). A key driver shaping this feeling of imperiled sovereignty is the threat weighing on territorial unity, regularly raised in the context of pressures and interference from neighboring Uzbekistan. Although Tashkent is not interested in the Uzbek minorities across its borders, and refuses to engage in the logics of the kin state protecting its co-ethnics abroad (Fumagalli, 2007a), the power differential with Kyrgyzstan heightens the feeling of no longer being in control of its territory. Half of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz border is still waiting to be delimited by a bilateral territorial treaty, and the Uzbek intelligence services are known to be carrying out punitive acts against political opponents (or those decreed such) on Kyrgyz territory, as evidenced with the killing of activist Alisher Saipov (Tchoroev, 2008). In addition, a large part of the Karimov regime’s legitimizing narrative is built on the denunciation of Kyrgyzstan as a failing state (Megoran, 2004). As for it the Kyrgyz media very often spread the idea that Uzbekistan is ready to defend militarily its minorities, recalling its role in the attempted coup of Mahmud Khudoberdiyev in Khudjand in Tajikistan in 1998, forgetting to remember that Karimov’s regime seeks now mainly to protect itself from any risk of destabilization, rather than to pursue more adventurous policies. Moreover, the insistence placed on the rampant Islamization of the Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstan in the local media reinforces the image of a dangerous “other.” Since the “Tulip Revolution” the Uzbek minority’s political commitment increased. Silent under Akayev and tacitly in favor of Bishkek, it kept a low profile during the 2005 political struggles, but the following year – for the first time since Uzgen in 1990 – the Uzbeks of Jalalabad poured out into the street to protest their absence of public recognition by the southern elites then in power, as well as to denounce the growing “Uzbekophobia” among local law-enforcement agencies (den Blanken, 2009). At the same time, a new generation of younger leaders emerged who had made a fortune in the private sector, such as Batyrzhan Batyrov, and who wield a more militant discourse in terms of claims for the rights of the Uzbek minority. In particular, they have intensified demands for the Uzbek language to be given official status and representation in government (Fumagalli, 2007b; Khamidov, 2006; Osmonov, 2006). Whereas the Akayev government had connections with certain Uzbek leaders, that of Bakiyev had no personal contact with them, so communication in cases of crisis was almost inexistent (Melvin, 2011). In addition, competition for the control of economic resources was heightening: the Uzbeks traditionally dominated the bazaars and the urban economy, the Kyrgyz the rural economy and the administration, whereas the shadow sectors were divided between both communities, with a growing preponderance of Kyrgyz circles, which were directly supported by the Bakiyev family, in particular the brother of the president, Zhanysh, and the president’s son Maksim. Finally, the local border disputes around the Uzbek enclaves of Shakhimardan and Sokh, and the Tajik one of Vorukh cultivate an image of population pressures on the territory. Many Tajik and Uzbek families in search of arable land tend to move to Kyrgyz territory into the villages deserted by migrants.5 Numerous Kyrgyz politicians and media thus denounced the “creeping migration” that is leading to changing state borders as a result of the settlement of foreign families (Murat Zhuraev, 2008). These land occupations were considered a threat to national security and, in September 2008, the Kyrgyz parliament passed a law on the protection of border areas by conferring special administrative status on a dozen villages along the border and providing social assistance to local populations in order to deter their departure (Reeves, 2009). The slogan “Kyrgyz land for the Kyrgyz!” thus spread widely in the zones affected by regular inter-ethnic skirmishes.6 The interpretive grid based on the black and white couple “tolerant Kyrgyz majority versus aggressive minorities” was used during all the localized violence which took place between the Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz and Tajiks, Kyrgyz and Meskhetians, Kyrgyz and Uyghurs, and between Kyrgyz and Dungans, in particular in the village of Iskra not far from Bishkek in 2006 (Stolknoveniia, 2006; Dungane begut, 2006). Minorities are suspected of occupying profitable economic niches (agriculture for Uzbeks, fresh produce for Koreans, the service sector for Russians), to the detriment of the majority. The fact that the civil service is overwhelmingly in the control of the Kyrgyz – precise figures are not available because of their political sensitivity – is obviously passed over in silence, as is the quasi mono-ethnicity of the law-enforcement agencies (Marat, 2011). The main narrative is not to expel minorities from Kyrgyzstan, but to ask them to recognize the symbolic, political, cultural, and economic supremacy of the titular nation. The political scientist Mars Sariyev, for example, explained in discussing the events in Osh in 2010: “The Uzbeks of Kyrgyzstan have the chance to live in a democratic and economically free country, which is not the case in neighboring Uzbekistan. Here they are not persecuted and can engage in business freely. And just look how they thank us”.7 Other neighboring countries are also denounced as adding fragility to Kyrgyzstan’s sovereignty. Debates about what status to give the Russian language have become recurrent. The idea that the maintenance of Russian impedes the learning of Kyrgyz (Huskey, 1995), which in turn slows the process of “national awakening”, is extremely common (Miroslav Niazov, 2010). In many Kyrgyz narratives on sovereignty, Russia is, after Uzbekistan, one of the central objects of conspiracy theories, owing to its historical past, economic role in migration flows, military presence, and linguistic influence. The fact that the Russian media heavily criticized Bakiyev before his fall in April 2010 further supports a conspiratorial reading of events: Moscow is allegedly responsible for having propagated the image of a weak and illegitimate power (Heathershaw, in press).

5 On localized ethnic tensions at the borders and in the Fergana exclaves, see the Foundation for International Tolerance reports, http://fti.org.kg/en/ (accessed August 3, 2010). 6 Fieldwork in the Batken region, June 2010. 7 Interview with Mars Sariyev, Bishkek, July 2, 2010.

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Nevertheless, Russia and Uzbekistan are not the only ones being decried: since 2008–2009, Kazakhstan has also been increasingly criticized as overtly contravening Kyrgyz independence and as responsible for growing interference in domestic Kyrgyz affairs. The ceding of four tourist resorts on the northern shore of Lake Issyk-Kul to the government of Kazakhstan in order to pay off debts, for example, was very unpopular. With the events in Osh in June 2010 (Ponars Policy Papers, 2010; International Crisis Groups, 2010; Human Rights Watch Report, 2010) the theme of imperiled sovereignty suddenly grew in proportion, accelerating the merging of different levels of victimization. The Western media, suspected of looking for easy clichés, were alleged to have thought of the Uzbeks as the victims of bloodthirsty Kyrgyz, portraying the latter as Mankurts, a symbolically charged image in Central Asia, meaning enslaved men who have lost their humanity.8 The Uzbek diaspora is therefore seen as having won the battle of images and the heart by obtaining the support of the West, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. The supposed merging of internal and external enemies constitutes a powerful driver of nationalist radicalization, rallying diverging milieus. Kyrgyz-language newspapers, in particular Alibi and Apta, did not hide their radical reading of the Osh events, with articles sometimes almost calling for inter-ethnic hatred, while Russian-language newspapers, although less pointed, almost never gave the floor to the Uzbek version of events. Some of the journalists who criticized the Kyrgyz version of the story have been accused of not being “patriotic” (Najibullah, 2010). Even the opposition media have remained largely silent on Uzbeks being disproportionately targeted by police raids, and arbitrary arrests. Some Western-oriented groups were also ambiguous in their formulations. In early July 2010, the civic movement called An Abecedary for the Building of Kyrgyzstan (Azbuka stanovleniia Kyrgyzstana) held a public discussion on “How we are formatted: the chances for sovereignty.” The majority of the local participants espoused conspiratorial clichés about Russia, the West, and the Uzbek diaspora, although the debate also gave the floor to a more reserved audience.9 The government’s non-recognition that the postconflict situation is stamped by unjustified detentions, rigged trials, daily violence, and land grabs to the detriment of the Uzbek confirms that the state is no longer able to take a neutral role in the ethnic tensions. This impression was corroborated in May 2011 when the Kyrgyz parliament declared persona non grata Kimmo Kiljunen, the head of an international commission that investigated Osh events, saying the report was one-sided, incited racial hatred, and threatened national security (Head of Commission, 2011). For Kyrgyzstan, a country that had sought to be the most “globalized” in Central Asia, the impression of having lost the “information war” during the Osh events is a supreme failure. The most democratic country of Central Asia, the one most open to the West, and the one in which civil society is supposed to have been most supported is also the most instable, as well as that with the most widespread feeling that the sovereignty to emerge from independence is but an illusion.

5. After the 2010 events: nationalism as a political agenda? If Bakiyev’s overthrow in April 2010 reopened public debate on the nature of the Kyrgyz political regime (Temirkulov, 2010) with the vote on a new Constitution setting in place mechanisms of parliamentary democracy, the events of June revived discussions on the Kyrgyz state and its national identity. Nation-building and state-building thus seem to be intrinsically linked. As in Russia, the term “patriot” has today come to take on such diverse meanings that the message of identity that accompanies it is almost inaudible: depending of groups, patriotism is presented either as a civic identity against the rise of ethno-nationalism, or as a political expression of ethno-nationalism. For instance, in order to assure the security of goods and persons during the events of spring 2010, a voluntary patriotic militia, the DND Patriot, formed and participated in securing public spaces alongside the police.10 Since October 2010 legislative elections, the supporters of Roza Otunbayeva called for citizens to begin a patriotic surge and prevent the country from sinking into civil war based on north-south divisions or ethno-nationalism. Groups of young activists have played the hand of civic patriotism, such as, for example, the movement “My – Kyrgyzstantsy!,” which aims to overcome ethnic divisions among the youth with an updated rhetoric on the friendship of peoples.11 In early 2011 during the debates on the necessity to remove one’s hat for the national hymn, some deputies gave a course in patriotism by putting forward increasingly excessive measures (Kak Ar-Namys za patriotism borolsia., 2011). For all these groups, patriotism is a way to oppose nationalism. However, the government is also pursuing the ethnic mythologizing of the state and cannot refuse the Kyrgyz-centered legitimacy on which it is reliant without taking enormous risks. Thus, a month after the Osh riots, Roza Otunbayeva requested that Manas be included in the school curricula (President Otunbaeva, 2010) probably in order to prevent southern politicians from hijacking Kyrgyzness for themselves. The term patriotism also dominates among the political forces which are based on an ethno-nationalist agenda. This is the case, for example, with the high-profile Ata-Jurt (Homeland) party, which collected close to 9 percent of the vote at the legislative elections of October 2010, thus receiving more seats than any other party. The party is run by politicians mainly from the south close to the Bakiyev elites and often linked to figures from the power structures, including Omurbek

8 The term Mankurt, popularized by the novel The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years by Chingiz Aytmatov, is a philosophical tale about what can happen to those who forget their motherland, language, and history. 9 Personal Observations at the forum “Kak nas formiruiut. Shansy na suverenitet”, Bishkek, July 2, 2010. 10 See their website, http://www.rdf.in.kg/rus/dnd_patriot/ (accessed August 3, 2010). 11 Interviews with young activist members of the movement, Bishkek, July 2, 2010.

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Suvanaliyev, general of the militia, former vice Minister of the Interior, and former director of internal affairs for the Osh region; Keneshbek Dushebayev, former Minister of Interior and director of the National Security Services; and also Kamchybek Tashiyev, the Emergency Situations Minister from 2007 to 2009, himself a native of Osh who was appointed governor for the region and has being accused of being directly involved in the riots. However, Ata-Jurt’s “southern” aspect is not the only reason for its good election results, as it also received votes in the north: its ethno-nationalistic agenda spoke to a broad spectrum of the Kyrgyz population. Ata-Jurt accuses Otunbayeva’s government of setting up the country’s future in a way that does not suit the “mentality” of the Kyrgyz people and is not based on their history as a nation, and it calls for the strengthening of the army and secret services, and a strong domestic authoritarian order.12 It emphasizes the unique antiquity of the Kyrgyz people, and hopes for a better structured patriotic education for the youth. The party’s program proposes that there be obligatory courses on the history of Kyrgyz ethnicity. Ata-Jurt’s website is filled with clichéd pictures of “Kyrgyzness,” but the degree of theoretical elaboration of this national-patriotic doctrine remains very weak. However, popular success does need a sophisticated ideological construction. This doing, MP Kamchybek Tashiyev often takes up notions considered as consensual among the population: The titular nation must be superior; it cannot be inferior to the other ethnicities in the country. These latter must respect our tradition, our language, our history, and then everyone will live in peace. But if an ethnic group in our country, the Russians, the Uzbeks, the Turks or the Chinese, say that they are equal with the Kyrgyz or superior to them, then the state will collapse. (.) This is why the Uzbeks living in our country must learn our language, esteem our traditions, and know our culture. (.) [For too long] we have forgotten to affirm that the masters of Kyrgyzstan are the Kyrgyz, and what happened? Every twenty years we have inter-ethnic conflicts (Kamchybek Tashiyev, 2010). Similar discourse has been advanced by the El-Armany Party and its leader General Miroslav Niyazov, long time vicechairman of the security services, deputy Minister of the Interior, and former Secretary of the Security Council, who denounced the move to a parliamentary system, the lack of government ideology, and the disinterest of corrupt politicians for the legitimate identity concerns of the Kyrgyz people (http://www.elarmany.kg/?p¼341). The El-Armany program focused on the failure of independent Kyrgyzstan to affirm itself nationally when it had a “unique opportunity for national renewal” and describes a country that has now become a “hostage to international financial institutions.”(http://www.elarmany.kg/?p¼16). Ethno-nationalist radicalism has also taken the face of the Mayor of Osh, Melisbek Myrzakmatov, a young businessman and former Member of Parliament who was appointed mayor in January 2009 by the Bakiyev’s team. Myrzakmatov made extremely radical speeches in which he directly accused the Uzbeks of destroying Kyrgyzstan’s sovereignty, overtly defended the Kyrgyz, and called for ethnic domination in the south (Direktivy pravitel’stva, 2010). In August 2010, the government tried to dismiss him from his functions, but failed in the face of his determination and his local support, an occurrence that has worked to fragilize Otunbayeva and confirm that Bishkek has no real control over the southern politicians. Local parliament awarded him the honorary title of “Hero of the Kyrgyz People,” along with Kursan Asanov, the city commandant, and Askar Shakirov, a Kyrgyz deputy in the parliament who perished during the June 2010 violence (Barnett, 2010). Myrzakmatov used his position as mayor to implement a punitive anti-Uzbek policy, part of which found expression in the reconstruction plans for the Osh town, thus re-opening the gaping wound formed by the age-old dispute over land distribution, and controls of the main urban economic niches such as the bazaar. A whole new generation of ethno-nationalist politicians therefore emerged in 2010, aware of the opportunity offered by the events to build new legitimacy on an ethnic agenda. Even the government’s narrative remained ambivalent in its reading of the 2010 events, and first level personalities such as Azimbek Beknazarov or Omurbek Tekebayev did not hide their preference for an ethnic reading of Kyrgyz identity. The then Prime Minister Almazbek Atambayev himself regularly spoke of the “Uzbek diaspora” to designate Uzbek-speaking citizens, fully aware how this definition of Uzbeks by their non-nativeness may drive Kyrgyz resentment. The idea that the Uzbeks are primarily responsible in the Osh conflict still largely dominates Kyrgyz public opinion. They are accused of growing wealthy off the backs of the pauperized Kyrgyz, and their demands for linguistic recognition and political rights are apprehended as an indirect call for independence with the aim to destroy Kyrgyzstan’s unity. But the progressive structuring of ethno-nationalism as a political agenda probably also signifies the birth of a contrary political logic. In this way, Felix Kulov’s Ar Namys party appointed Anvar Artykov, an ethnic Uzbek, on his party’s list for the October 2010 elections, securing many Uzbek votes in Osh, and presented Ar Namys as the guardian of national minorities and civic consensus (Doolotkeldieva, 2010). The transformation of nationalism into a political agenda was also visible in the Parliament’s debate about a “Guideline for Ethnic Policy and Consolidation of Society in Kyrgyzstan”. The document, written up by a new office in the presidential administration called the Department for Ethnic and Religious Policy and Cooperation with Civil Society – itself supported by the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities, the OSCE Centre in Bishkek and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights – calls for the construction of a civic identity. This latter is defined as the key element, a point of structuration around which Kyrgyz society will be able to stabilize (Proekt Kontseptsiia, 2011). Ethnic policy therefore envisages a civic identity in which the respect of ethnic groups is supposed to be assured by policies of bilingualism, for example, in educational institutions, and guaranteed rights for the political representation of minorities. But Ata-Jurt

12 See their website, http://www.atajurt.kg/index.php?option¼com_content&view¼article&id¼27&Itemid¼11&lang¼ru&limitstart¼3 (accessed August 3, 2010).

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presented a concurrent document, “The State Ethnic Policy in the Kyrgyz Republic,” which instead insists on the notion of Kyrgyz ethnicity as the central element of nationhood (Kontseptsiia natspolitiki partii, 2011). In its logic, Kyrgyzstan has to construct itself around the Kyrgyz nation, conceived as “the integrating and consolidating kernel of Kyrgyz society,” in which the other ethnic groups would have limited rights. Ethnic integration would then be less about protecting minorities’ interests than about developing their sense of Kyrgyz patriotism. The government-backed document was ratified by the Parliament in May 2011, while the Ata-Jurt alternative was refused (Mukhametrakhimova, 2011). 6. Conclusions While the memory of the Uzgen conflict in 1990 was partially pacified by the reconciliatory discourse of Chingiz Aytmatov, today Kyrgyzstan lacks any respected figures to develop a convincing identity consensus. If Roza Otunbayeva regularly denounced the risk of new inter-ethnic clashes and the nationalist radicalization of the youth, the members of her government did not condemn the wave of Kyrgyz nationalism on which they base their social legitimacy. They therefore cannot criticize the Kyrgyz perpetrators, sack the militia and secret services that refuse to restore order in Osh, or defend the Uzbek minority. Neither can they admit they have enjoyed the support of Uzbek leaders such as Batyrov in their struggle against Bakiyev, without incurring a major loss of legitimacy among the ethnic majority. On the Uzbek side, the radicalization of the identity narrative is not visible in the same way since the community does not have any recognized unified political leadership. Nonetheless the wave of emigration since the Osh events, and fieldwork feedback demonstrate that the trust in the Kyrgyz authorities has been broken. Political or religious radicalism among Uzbeks will probably be structured in the future. The totally polarized Uzbek and Kyrgyz narratives of victimhood and the politics of grievance will take years to erase and will hinder any prospect of building a civic identity. The memory of mutual benefits between communities is vanishing to the advantage of that of competition for shared natural resources and economic niches. Paradoxically, Kyrgyzstan is the Central Asian only country that lacks a state-fostered ideology, but the one where deteriorating socio-economic conditions and unstable political life has created a fertile background for inter-ethnic tensions. On the Kyrgyz side, the failure of statehood is interpreted as the failure of nationhood. What thus dominates today is the illusion that the more Kyrgyzstan becomes the state of the Kyrgyz in terms of identity narrative, historical references, language policies, and marginalization of the minorities from decision-making, the more it will be able to succeed in constructing itself as a state. Ethnic differentiation will therefore probably be reinforced in the years to come, just as the logics of territorial and socio-economic segregation between communities. But the temptation of mono-ethnicism goes against the will to build a parliamentary democracy, and the role of the 2011 elected president, Almazbek Atambayev, is still to be defined. 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