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Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century" project opens up still more interesting prospects for Kazakhstan. It was initiated by the PRC Chairman Xi Jinping in 2013, and after that active preparation work has started. China has already earmarked $40 billion for the project fund. From the point of view of the Chinese leadership, the creation of economic corridors "China-Mongolia-Russia," "Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar," "Economic Belt and Maritime Silk Road of the 21st Century" will lend the regional and world economy a powerful impetus. The common idea of the project ("one belt, one road") lies in the desire to set up a system of cooperation partners on land and sea and demonstrate China's resolution to put forward reforms of the global structure and order.
Author of the abstract - V. Schensnovich
2017.02.009. DMITRY MALYSHEV. CENTRAL ASIA: THREAT OF RADICAL ISLAMISM. SITUATION IN TAJIKISTAN //
"Svobodnaya mysl", Moscow, 2016, № 4, P. 181-192.
Keywords: Central Asia, European Union, U.S.A., Tajikistan, radical Islam, international security, terrorist threat.
Dmitry Malyshev,
PhD (Hist.), assistant professor, Moscow State University
The world comes across terrorist and extremist challenges, which create a real threat to international security, ever more often. Terrorism has long stepped over the boundaries of continents and confessions. It is supranational, and this is its main danger. The destructive activity of the ISIS is causing great alarm both in the East and West. From a regional organization it has turned into a global factor of the destabilization of the existing world order. ISIS has not come into being from nowhere.
Its religious roots go back into the distant past, they can be found in the 7th century A.D., in the very cradle of Islam. The traditions of orthodox Islam are connected with the names of two theologians: Ahmadi bin Hanbala (8th-9th century) and ibn Taimiya (13th - early 14th century). It was they who were the progenitors of the ideological current called "Salafism" (salaf al-salih). One of the most well-known followers of that tradition -Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in 1703 in the very center of the Arabian Peninsula. The emergence of Wahhabism, one of the most orthodox trends of Islam whose ideology has been taken by ISIS, is traditionally connected with his name and activity. The Egyptian philosopher S. Kutb played a no small role in the radicalization of Islam and the formation of jihadist ideology. It was he who connected al-Wahhab's theory with the activity of the present-day Islamists from "al-Qaeda" and ISIS. In the early 2000s there was an upsurge of radical Islam. The recognized "Godfather" of ISIS is a native of Jordan named Abu Musab az-Zarkawi. He was an uneducated man and therefore unable to formulate and substantiate the theoretical foundations of ISIS activity. But the latter had an ideologist in the person of Abu Abdullah al-Muhajir, who was the organizer of bloody "theatrical" performances - mass beheading in the name of the triumph of Allah's ideas.
After the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. in December 1991 the serious radicalization of Islam was taking place in Central Asian states, which used to be part of the U.S.S.R. It was manifested in the emergence and activity of Islamist organizations and movements (often working illegally). Radical Islam in Central Asia has now become a threat no less important than in the Middle East or Africa.
The influence of radical Islam is felt in Central Asia especially strongly as compared to other regions of the postSoviet area due to the border with Afghanistan, which is a destabilizing factor for the situation in the Central Asian states: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan. Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and
Uzbekistan. Islamic traditions and opposition to secular rule have had a long history in the region and they proved firm enough.
The moist indicative in this respect, in D. Malyshev's view, is the experience of Tajikistan. It feels a strong impact of radical Islamism on the local political process. This was due, first of all, to the fact that Tajikistan was the only Central Asian republic drawn in a bloody civil war in the 1990s, which was in essence a struggle of the two development trends - secular and theocratic. Secondly, it was precisely in Tajikistan that the interests of regional and non-regional actors clashed, who later took part in an inter-Tajik dialogue which has finally resulted in a settlement of the conflict. Thirdly, for quite some time Tajikistan was the only Central Asian country where the state authorities officially allowed the Islamic political organization - Party of Islamic Revival - to function. Its representatives were included in the bodies of executive and legislative power, as well as in law-enforcement agencies and military structures.
The situation connected with the radicalization of Islam in Tajikistan and other Central Asian countries was aggravated with the piling up of domestic problems which were used by the local religious underground for compromising secular ruling regimes. As the grave threats and difficult domestic problems in the region D. Malyshev cites interethnic tension, contradictions between the elites inside each country, low living standards of the population, widespread drug addiction, growing popularization of radical religious and nationalistic ideas, widening gap in the incomes of various groups of the population in each country of the region, high unemployment level, fabulous corruption, weak efficiency of the work of government bodies, absence of succession of supreme power in the countries of the region, etc.
Among the main Islamist organizations are the Islamic movement of Uzbekistan, Union of Islamic jihad, "Khizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami", and ISIS. The ramified network of the organization "Muslim Brotherhood" is active in Central Asian countries. It is represented by a network of autonomous cells,
which operate in Central Asian countries under various names: "Society of social reforms", "Committee of Islamic calling", etc. These organizations exist in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The problem of the radicalization of Islam presents a threat to all countries in the region, but it is especially acute in Tajikistan. The spreading of radical Islamist ideas is largely connected with the historical prerequisites of the formation of Tajikistan as a state. In 1929 it became a Union republic within the U.S.S.R. It was in Tajikistan, just as in neighboring Uzbekistan, that the center of the basmachi movement was concentrated, which the Soviet authorities could liquidate only by the 1930s. But the traditions of radical Islam in the republic were preserved.
The disintegration of the U.S.S.R. has made a negative influence on all former Soviet republics of Central Asia, but its consequences were especially painful in Tajikistan. The emergence and development of the already de facto independent Tajikistan has taken place in very difficult conditions. Islamist tendencies have been on an increase in the republic, and it was facilitated by the activities of the two main political forces in the country - the Democratic party of Tajikistan and the Party of Islamic Revival. They did everything in their power to provoke conflicts. As a result Tajikistan was drawn in a five-year-long civil war, whose consequences have not been overcome to this day. Born as an inter-clan confrontation that conflict turned into a full-fledged civil war which formally lasted until June 27, 1997, when a ceasefire agreement was signed in Moscow by the President of Tajikistan E. Rahmon and the leader of the United Tajik opposition S. Nuri. Russia helped Tajikistan to do away with the aftermath of the conflict. It mediated in the solution of the conflict and helped draw closer the positions of the two sides. Western countries, too, joined efforts in order to resolve the conflict in Tajikistan. Nine rounds of inter-Tajik negotiations took place in which the UN and OSCE took place. As a result, the
situation has stabilized and the Party of Islamic Revival of Tajikistan has received the status of an officially existing and functioning organization. Tajikistan is the only republic in the region where, in the conditions of a secular regime, the activity of an Islamic party is officially allowed; moreover, it is even represented by its deputies in national parliament.
The situation in the country began to change in 2015. The Tajik Ministry of Justice demanded in the form of an ultimatum that the party should stop its unlawful activity. D. Malyshev thinks that this fact can be viewed differently. On the one hand, the republican authorities and, above all, President E. Rahmon and his entourage, who support a secular political system, fear the growing influence of radical Islam, which is quite justified. On the other hand, inasmuch as the activity of the Islamic party has always been controlled by the authorities, it deprived the party of the opportunity to act freely within the framework of the law, thus giving possibilities for illegal radical trends, with which the Islamic party was at loggerheads, to engage in propaganda activity.
Tajikistan's authorities look with optimism at the possibility to solve security problems in their country and in the region as a whole. At the same time the country's leadership do not conceal their concern regarding the possibility of a renaissance of Islamic extremism. In March 2016 the government of the republic took under strict control the departure of its citizens abroad in order to prevent their falling under the influence of ISIS. By the beginning of this year more than 1,000 men from Tajikistan joined the ranks of this terrorist organization and are now taking part in the war in Syria and Iraq.
Taking into account the length of Tajikistan's border with Afghanistan (1,344 kilometers), the threat of the penetration of supporters of radical Islam in Tajikistan from the territory of its neighbor persists to this day. This border passes mainly along the Pyandzh River and is easy to cross. This problem is being tackled by a joint Tajik-Afghan commission on the demarcation of the border, but it's still early to talk of any tangible results.
The situation in Tajikistan, just as in the entire region of Central Asia, remains tense, and Islamic radicalism is still the main factor of instability. Time will show whether the interested forces of the region are ready to join their efforts to oppose and overcome this dangerous phenomenon. Meanwhile, until the status quo persists in Central Asia, many problems, including opposition to Islamic extremism, may be resolved successfully, D. Malyshev concludes.
Author of the abstract - V. Schensnovich
2017.02.010. MAXIM LIKHACHEV. MODERN NATIONALIST MOVEMENT OF KAZAKHSTAN // "Problemy Natsionalnoi Strategii", Moscow, 2017, № 1 (40), P. 128-146.
Keywords: Kazakh nationalists -Kazakh national-patriots, Russian-Kazakh relations, Russophobia in Kazakhstan, Russians in Kazakhstan, Russian language in Kazakhstan.
Maxim Likhachev,
PhD (Law), Urals branch of Russian Institute of Strategic Studies, Yekaterinburg
After proclamation of independence the government of the Republic of Kazakhstan took the course for building of an ethnic-oriented statehood, based on the titular status of the Kazakhs. Then, in the early 1990s, the Kazakh nationalism received substantial incentives for development, although such sentiments had also been observed earlier. However, emphasizes Dmitry Likhachev, up to the present the nationalists failed to become a significant political force in the country. Nevertheless, their rhetoric is constantly present in public discourse and enjoys support of certain segments of the population. The power too manifests a certain interest in using the potential of nationalist movements. Representatives of the nationalist camp of Kazakhstan
