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A college classroom and a soccer press convention appear unlikely settings for diplomatic contretemps with Russia. However that’s what has occurred in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the 2 largest nations of central Asia, an unlimited area as soon as beneath the management of the tsarist and Soviet empires. The incidents underline the rising willingness of central Asian states, since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, to face up for his or her pursuits and assert their identities.
In Tashkent, Uzbekistan’s capital, a trainer slapped and screamed at a pupil who complained that she was conducting her Russian-language class in Uzbek. After Russia’s overseas ministry spokesperson denounced the incident as “merciless remedy”, the deputy speaker of Uzbekistan’s parliament hit again by saying the Kremlin ought to thoughts its personal enterprise. In the meantime, the Russian coach of Kazakhstan’s nationwide soccer crew has been fined for making disrespectful remarks at a information convention concerning the Kazakh language.
It’s no accident that language was on the coronary heart of those altercations. Though Russian remains to be a lingua franca in central Asia, every of the area’s 5 states is selling its personal language. Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have substituted a modified Latin alphabet for the Cyrillic script that was imposed in Soviet occasions, and Kazakhstan is following go well with.
No much less important is the will to reclaim management over their fashionable historical past. October 27 marked the one centesimal anniversary of the proclamation of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic as a part of the USSR. However as a substitute of paying tribute to the Russian hand in establishing the primary fashionable Uzbek polity, the authorities are celebrating the function of Jadidism, a modernising Islamic reform motion that emerged within the late nineteenth century and was suppressed beneath Joseph Stalin’s dictatorship.
Slowly however absolutely, central Asian governments are lifting the veil of silence that hung for many years over Stalin’s repressions within the area. In September 2023, the Kazakh authorities declassified the archival information of two.4mn victims of Stalinism. Even Tajikistan, the smallest central Asian state, is voicing complaints about Russia. Kokhir Rasulzoda, the Tajik prime minister, criticised “widespread violation of the elemental rights and freedoms of our residents” after mass deportations of Tajiks from Russia following a terrorist assault in March on a Moscow rock live performance.
To be clear, no central Asian nation is breaking, and even desires to interrupt, decisively with Russia. Some are not directly sustaining Vladimir Putin’s battle of aggression in Ukraine by enabling Moscow to avoid western sanctions and import items helpful for Russia’s militarised financial system. Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian army bases. It was solely a month earlier than Putin attacked Ukraine in 2022 {that a} Russian-led pressure entered Kazakhstan on the authorities’s request to assist quell riots that killed greater than 200 folks.
Central Asia’s rulers are undoubtedly disturbed by Putin’s tried annexation of enormous areas of Ukraine. However they don’t allow their state-run tv channels to air reviews on delicate issues akin to Russian atrocities or, in August, the Ukrainian counter-invasion of Russian territory. In Turkmenistan, probably the most tightly managed central Asian nation, the state media has hardly talked about Russia’s battle in any respect because the 2022 invasion.
Beneath the floor, nevertheless, all central Asian states are exploring the alternatives which have arisen because the invasion to distance themselves from Russia. Partly due to the area’s uncooked supplies and power riches, the US and the EU are eager to encourage this pattern — although they face competitors from China, Turkey and Russia itself. Central Asia was one thing of a backwater through the chilly battle. It’s something however that now.
tony.barber@ft.com
