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The review of constitutions, reduction of powers of the head of the state and transfer of powers to collective organs with greater intellectual potential (parliament, government), as it was done in Kyrgyzstan, - this is the main way to prevent installation of monarchies, which doom economies of "elected monarchies" to non-competitiveness, the state - to instability and "time of troubles", the peoples - to poverty and destitution.
"Svobodnaya mysl", M., 2011, N10, pp. 35-45.
A. Saliyev,
Political analyst (the Republic of Kyrgyzstan) THE CONTEMPORARY ROLE OF ISLAM IN SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SPACE OF THE KYRGYZ REPUBLIC
The rebirth of Islam and its greater activity in the political sphere nowadays may be considered as a natural reaction to the profound crisis in political, social, spiritual-moral and economic spheres endured by the countries of Central Asia at the present time. It is determined also by the external factors - globalization, changes in the geopolitical balance, modernization etc. Re-Islamization goes on in parallel (or is attended by) ethnic mobilization, and this factor means that the direct or indirect attempt has been taken to stimulate it at the official level for the sake of formation and consolidation of the national statehood and identity.
However, the following question remains an item on the agenda: how is it possible to realize in practice, since even if in the historic period Islam was not the main consolidation factor in the Fergana valley; the national, tribal, clannish, political and economic components first of all determined the process of consolidation.
The existence of different levels of identification of Muslims related to regional and national belonging means also the following: in ideological terms the separate groups of the Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan represent a rather motley picture. The below part of the study is devoted to discussion of the main ideological directions of development of various groups or communities (jamaats) in the Fergana valley of Kyrgyzstan as well as their different views on implementation of Islamic doctrine.
The specific feature of the ideological picture of Kyrgyzstan, i.e. the rapid rise of religious self-consciousness of the population, was clearly shown by the results of the sociological research of the author in summer of 2005 in two southern regions of the country (Osh and JalalAbad regions), two northern regions (Chui and Issyk-Kul regions) and in the city of Bishkek. The great majority of respondents (81.7%) answered that they believe in Allah (81.7% of them have higher education). A rather great part of them (25.75%) observes fully religious laws and permanently observe Muslim rites. More than half of the respondents (51.7%) answered that they observe the religious rites not always, while 64.45% of the respondents said that they have Koran at home.
To the author's view, the following ideological aspects of development of the Muslim community contain the complex of Islamic values: All-Islamic moral, law, religious-cultural specifics, including national traditions and rites of Kyrgyz, Uzbeks and other nationalities living in the countries, which in terms of historical past remain in close and permanent reciprocal action.
It seems that by characterizing the Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan in terms of its ideology it is significant to find out which ideas of development of Islam and of realization of Islamic doctrine as a whole in Central Asia have been disseminated to a larger extent in the
Muslim environment of the country. The question arises as well: the ethnic belonging of any Muslim has any reciprocal ties with his susceptibility to some ideology based on Islam?
At present, the Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan every year becomes more subject to the political process. On the wave of further democratic reforms, which led to adoption of the new constitution of the country in 2007 and to forming of the parliament according to the party lists, different parties do involve non-secular Muslims in political life of the republic.
Actually, the Muslim resource of Kyrgyzstan represents potentially an influential force, which, however, does not fully take actively actions in its interests jointly with various political parties or non-governmental organizations. In other words, Kyrgyzstan stands on the threshold of real struggle waged by different political forces for bringing the Muslim resource to their side. A particular interest attracts the practical question: is it possible to use for the political purposes the Muslim community as a united political force under conditions of its multinational composition, of tribal and clannish differences. According to the data of 2001, the national composition of Kyrgyzstan, taking into account the peoples professing Islam, was as follows: Kyrgyz - 3225 thousand people, Uzbeks - 683 thousand people, Tatars - 45 thousand people, Dungans - 51 thousand people, Uighurs -46 thousand people, Kazakhs - 42 thousand people, Tajiks -43 thousand people, Turks - 33 thousand people, Azerbaijanis -14 thousand people.
Correspondingly, the above presented data it is evident that, from the point of view of political object, two groups in the Muslim community (Kyrgyz and Uzbeks) attract special attention, while representatives of other nationalities, due to their small number, can not be a significant factor in the aggravating political struggle for the
"Muslim resource". At least, the significance of other nationalities in political struggle is much less comparative with two main ethnic groups.
It is also not excluded that due to the recent rise of Kyrgyz nationalism "the Islamic alliance" of representatives of non-title nations, for instance, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Dungans, Tajiks etc., may emerge. The quantity of these nationalities may exceed one million.
For the long period, the following expertise prevailed: the Kyrgyz thanks to the nomadic way of life in the past time and under conditions of atheist Soviet rule are not susceptible to Islam. Actually, "traditional" ("every day") Islam, disseminated within the Kyrgyz population of the country, was always marked by queer and strange forms by means of mixture shaman perceptions and concept of Islamic monotheism. Evidently, this fact resulted in the ingrained meaning that Kyrgyz in mass are less religious than other, mainly settled peoples of Central Asia.
The distinct features of Islam in the epoch of rapid development of information technologies and the general trends of development of Islam for the post-Soviet period should be taken into account. For the period of independent development of Kyrgyzstan, Islam significantly consolidated its positions in the environment of Kyrgyz, which became an important result of openness of Central Asia to external influence and "rebirth" of Islam. Islam gradually extended the horizons of its influence on the system of social relations. Islam gradually more and more becomes the norm of "customary law".
However, it should be noted that Islam still is unable to perform one of the significant functions in society of Kyrgyzstan - the activities directed to integration. The capacity of Islam as an instrument of society's integration has not been realized both at the all-national and the internal-national levels, if the matter concerns the title nation of
Kyrgyzstan. The tribal system of Kyrgyz society and, consequently, the specifics of internal-national identification of the Kyrgyz to a large extension prevent achievement of this objective. In this context, the experts and scientists of Kyrgyzstan started the research for working out theoretic model of relations between the state and Islam and of the boundaries of the secular order.
The main problem consists in mechanisms of such reciprocal relations: either it is the extension of state relations to Islam, including Kyrgyz national elements, or it is the process in order to de-ideologize the power, which occupies the position of neutrality. The tribal division acquires a special significance in case of distribution of power functions and representation in the organs of state governance.
The higher level of identification of the Kyrgyz is fixed by the line of geographic division of the country to the North and the South. At the present time, it represents a much more important factor in policy of the country comparing with the local tribal division within both the northern and the southern clans. In the point of fact, the attempts of many years to overcome the tribal structure of Kyrgyz society resulted in the change for the regional principal of division and representation in the power structures. This factor always had impact on the change of groups in the power structures, which was realized according to a private line for governance of the country. It should also be noted that the question of self-identification directly depends on the age, social status and education of respondents. At the same time, the theological education or average training in this field is not a key factor for determining the nature of the given views.
The poll arranged in 2008 among students originated from the regions at the age from 18 to 25 years getting education in secular higher education institutions in Bishkek and Osh showed that the majority of respondents did not observe religious rites. At the same
time, there exists the trend of the rise of religiousness among representatives of the students (from 25% to 30% of students in secular higher education institutions), who visit mosques not regularly but attend all Friday prayers. It is worth comparing the results of the poll among young people in 2003, which showed that from 8% to 10% of students of secular higher education institutions attended Friday prayers, one may see the geometrical growth of attendants by the youth of Friday Mohammedan prayers. At the same time, over 52.76% of young people are "nonreligious" and 62.8% of young people identify themselves primarily as Muslims and only later as Kyrgyz by nationality. It shows that the youth besides cultural identification looks for political and ideological basis in Islam (although over half of respondents said that Islam was only religion (55.53%), while 32.66% of respondents considered Islam as a religion and at the same time as ideology and politics).
Thus, the stereotype of perfunctory "religiousness" of Kyrgyz, in contrast to Uzbek, is being broken gradually. The spiritual vacuum, corruption and, as a result, the fall of authority of secular state institutions lead to the situation, when the youth today considers Islam as a value's orientation, a certain political-ideological system and not simply a tradition. Of significance is the fact that the contemporary youth remains at the initial stages of the process of ideological transformation from the traditional-national perception of Islam (Kyrgyz means Muslim) to adherence to general Islamic values, religious orientation to identification, which means augmentation of a chance of emergence in the perspective of the protesting ideological-political position.
Most (68%) of respondents-students from 20 to 23 years, mainly representatives of the rural youth from regions, positively value the participation of higher state officials in religious rituals of believers.
It may be considered that in total 66.9% of respondents admit that the believers have the right to establish political parties. At the same time, of significance is the fact that against the background of ideological "uniformity" of secular political parties of the KR, in the future the youth may consider as an alternative in the form of a new political force, exactly "the secular party with pro-Islamic rhetoric". Today, most respondents coming from regions (64.6%) consider that Islam and democracy represent the mutually compatible phenomena in certain circumstances. It gives the chance to speak about both positive perception of democracy, its rights and freedoms and about the traditional perception of Islam. At the same time, 51.1% of respondents see the future of Kyrgyzstan in the mixed form of secular system with the deciding role of Islamic values like, for instance, in Malaysia and Turkey. At the same time, 14.32% of respondents see Kyrgyzstan as a purely Islamic state like, for instance, Iran. One should become lost in thought by the fact that 1.26% of the respondents from rural districts consider Kyrgyzstan as a democratic country with the western model of development like, for instance, the USA.
In point of fact, we may see the formation of a strict Islamic level of identification and exit of thinking outside the national framework. However, it should be admitted that these trends only started to grow in the milieu of Muslims, and this category of people represents even if gradually growing but still a minority of the Kyrgyz part of the Muslim community in the republic.
In contrast to the above mentioned, we see that the main mass of the population at the age from 30 to 64 years intend to identify itself within the framework of nationally oriented Islam. Undoubtedly, it leads to separation of the Muslim community of the republic from other nationalities professing Islam in Kyrgyzstan.
At the present time, the urgent problem of Muslim Kyrgyz remains as an engrained factor in the consciousness, namely - the regional and tribal division. The emergence of regional tension, of distrust or alienation within the Kyrgyz part of the Muslim community was not marked by open and evident features. And what is more, it is not discussed by the press. However, the unofficial regional division in the process of distribution of powers within organizations and institutions in the religious sphere is a direct consequences and a partial reflection of the situation emerged in society for the years of independence.
The monopoly of the southern regional group in the religious sphere is the established tradition since the power of Soviet time. In its turn, this actual situation resulted in emergence of the situation when actually in all regions of the country, except the Talass region, the heads of Muslim communities originated from the southern region, particularly, from the Osh and the Batken regions.
Actually, this circumstance to a large extent shows the essence of the main regional contradictions between the South and the North within the Kyrgyz part of the Muslim community. They always were characterized not so much by theological as by traditional distinctions.
The first group of contradictions relates to a different perception of traditional Islam, which characterizes mainly the rites and culture of daily life of the layman in Kyrgyzstan. The imams of the mosques nominated to the northern regions of the country brought with them the cultural specifics of the South, the stereotypes and psychology of religious thinking which were not understood by Muslims of the north.
For instance, in the south rather under the influence of the settled way of living of other peoples, the views, which had nothing in common with Islam, became deep-rooted. As an example one may cite as follows: women shall not visit mosques; imam has a special status of
"holy man" in society and a lot of other distinctions, which are not fully supported in the north of the country with due account of the period of the Soviet power and traditions inherent in nomadic societies.
The other feature of the so called "southern Islam" is the open commercialization of the rite's services. One of the clearest examples may be such phenomenon as davran spread in the south of the republic. Most likely, Davran has its origin in the Tajik language and is the term of late Sufi Islam. The Arabic root day'p, i.e. turn or queue is its basis. In traditional "southern" Islam davran means calculation of missed Mohammed prayers. Since the time of attaining one's majority and till funeral prayer it is transferred to the material basis in kind of foods (grain) paid only once and transformed further to money.
The imams in the south have their own theological interpretation of this phenomenon doubtful from the point of view of Islam and not justified by any religious sources. It should be stressed that the term davran and the mentioned practice related to the missed prayers do not exist in Islam. From the theological point of view, this local perverted and dangerous misinterpretation of religious principles causes the deterioration of material wellbeing of the deceased person's family.
At the same time, this phenomenon has been widely spread in the south of the country. Some families have to sell cattle and houses in order "to pay off" for the deceased person. The attempts to introduce davran in the north caused dissatisfaction, and imams of the mosques had to repudiate this practice. But in any case, it had a negative impact on the relations between the community and its head. However, some paid services were practiced by imams in lesser cases than in the south.
The education and training of cadres remain a not less important problem. At present, the other reason of discord in the milieu of Muslim Kyrgyz in the south is a result of many years "monopoly of the south" in the spiritual sphere and the subsequent unjust proportion for
the northern students sent for studies to the main universities of the Muslim world by the Spiritual Department of Muslims of Kyrgyzstan.
Thus, the factor of regional belonging has a very great impact on the Kyrgyz part of the Muslim community, and this purely internal and unpublicized phenomenon, nevertheless, represents a significant problem for society and for the state, from the point of view of social-public stability.
The other significant factor, which contributed to the lack of conflicts on the basis of regional division, was the fact that the religious self-consciousness of the population in the north of the country was much lower than in the south. The thesis may be put forward that "the rebirth" of Islam in the south of the country created the situation when Muslims could more freely and, probably, with greater ardor than beforehand to observe the rites of Islam. In other words, the formerly not so openly observed religious rites later became the daily practice of the majority of the population. But further this practice did not modernize the religious thinking but consolidated the traditional (daily) form of Islam.
The situation in the north of the country differed from the situation in southern regions of Kyrgyzstan. It was a tradition that in the north the level of the secular education of Kyrgyz was always higher. Since the Soviet time, in the process of break of the traditional way of life of the nomadic population, the Kyrgyz population was actively attracted to getting the special and the higher education. Evidently, the majority of the population in the rural districts, like in the south, respected the priorities, determined by traditional types of economic and private business activities. Like in the south of the republic, "the rebirth" of Islam resulted in consolidation of its traditional-ritual role in public relations. Further, as the rise of religious self-consciousness of the population was going on, the attitude of the
population to Islam was gradually acquiring the features of its thoughtful study and attempted use in daily life not only as a religious tradition.
The external influence of the Muslim world, including establishment of various institutions, education and enlightening Islamic centers, played a significant role in this respect. For the last 16 years, the main result of these activities was as follows: the education level of an ordinary Muslim rose greatly promoting a more conscious approach to Islam. Every year understanding of Islam gradually leaves the framework of its traditional-ritual content.
The process of spread of Islam in the northern regions of the republic goes on and gradually exerts influence on the representation of people coming from the north in the local kaziyats, mosques and the administration of mufti. To all appearance, "monopoly" in the spiritual sphere of the representatives of the south will gradually diminish, although the post of the head of mufti office will be kept as usual by the representative of the south. It is determined by the circumstance that for the years of traditional control in this sphere the spiritual leaders of communities and education institutions to a rather great extent are "stuck" in terms of further development of Islamic thinking and limited themselves with ritual and daily aspects of interpretation of Shariah. The long-term concentration of power within the framework of one regional group has led the rivalry for the post of the head of muftiyat. Some spiritual leaders in the north comprehend it clearly. The designation of local residents to the post of imams is the first indication of significant changes in the spiritual sphere of Kyrgyzstan.
The control exerted by southern representatives in this sphere has led to violation of the main principles of selection of the head of Muslim community, recognized one of imams in the Chuy region. He said that a desperate struggle was going on in the muftiyat and the
government for the right to be the mufti, while the main decisive factor of its outcome was not the knowledge and personal qualities of the person but money. Evidently, the regionalization of spiritual sphere is a negative phenomenon in the Kyrgyz part of Muslim community. But it is a natural process, which is caused by the rise of religiousness in the population and which is determined by the remaining problem of regional division for North-South. However, exactly Islam remains the main mechanism of consolidation under conditions of multinational characteristic of Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan.
A numerous national group in the Muslim community of the country consists of representatives of the Uzbek people. Traditionally, Uzbeks were more religious than Kyrgyz and kept to a larger extent the religious-ritual part of Islam as an important element of daily life and identity even in the period of the Soviet power. Further, religiousness of the Uzbek population became the basis of the stereotype in society -"Uzbeks are marked by greater religiousness than Kyrgyz".
However, in Soviet time the level of religiousness of Uzbeks was characterized rather by the traditional-ritual part of Islam, which formed an integral part of their culture. For the period of "rebirth" of Islam it resulted in public demonstration of Islamic rites in daily life and in increase of the number of mosques.
The "rebirth" of Islam was marked to a greater extent by another distinction: the development of "national" Islam in the country, which implied unofficial closeness of national Muslim communities. From the objective point of view, it is a natural phenomenon, since in the places of compact settlement of other Muslim peoples usually there existed mosques called by the names of nationality of believers, who attended them - Uzbek, Uighur or Dungan.
This division by national indication was always a specific feature of the religious sphere of Kyrgyzstan, and it is kept alive till present. In
the long-term perspective, it is a great problem for the state, since the question of integration of society of Kyrgyzstan is raised inevitably for the sake of solving the problem of integration of society of Kyrgyzstan for achievement of internal political tasks or, in other words, for creation of the integrated society corresponding to the interests of the state.
With due account of the total number of the Uzbek population in Kyrgyzstan and the places of its compact settlement near the historic Motherland, the problem of integration of Uzbeks in the common structure of society of Kyrgyzstan seems very urgent. However, the probable solving of this problem should not be based on the principles of pressure or rigid restrictions. In this case, the principle of involvement in social and political life of the country should be applied, and a stage to it may be fixed at the community level taking into account religiousness of Uzbeks.
In reality, the identity of Uzbeks consists of two components: first, nationality, second, religious belonging. Ethnicity occupies the first place, since in consciousness it is identical with religious belonging.
In point of fact, we speak about realization of the principle of Islamic unity based not on the state level, taking into account its secular character, but on the level of Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan. The need of elimination of national barriers in the Muslim environment is evident, but it demands great efforts, which should be supported by practical steps both on the part of muftiyat and on the part of other official organs of the state. It concerns not only Uzbek ethnos but also other nationalities - Uighurs, Dungans etc.
We see that elaboration of the principle of representation in the power by national quotas, like in the USSR, at present is impossible primarily due to specifics of Kyrgyz mentality. One of the first steps in
this direction may be involvement of Uzbeks and other nationalities to the work of muftiyat and its organs. It will promote the internal community integration, the attainment of higher status of Muslim community as an influential factor in social relations and, consequently, consolidation of the authority of muftiyat as an organ contributing to harmonization of inter-national relations. We come to the conclusion that under conditions of secular power in Kyrgyzstan the state is unable to interfere directly in the religious sphere and to assume the functions of the regulator of relations within one confessional unity. At the same time, it is an objective factor that at present the state lacks the needed means for working out and carrying out the national policy owing to absence of the means and of any national ideology promoting integration of society.
The question is that the ideology based on common human principles and deprived of religion might suite Kyrgyz, since one part of them and non-Muslim peoples share atheist views. It is impossible to find out an alternative to the Muslim way of development and the system of Islamic values for the Muslim part of the population, i.e. Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Dungans and others. Any ideology, which ignores this specific feature, is doomed to tearing away particularly by the people with strong Muslim tradition and by the Kyrgyz, who accepted Islam. And adoption of any ideology based on Islam will violate the norms of the constitution.
The full realization of integrating function of Islam seems to be possible only within the framework of Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan. And what is more, Islam contains the legal norms of regulation of relations in community, which not always are applicable under conditions of the secular state. Just greater role of Muslim community in social relations will promote solving inter-national
problems and, consequently, will make its contribution to the stable development of the country.
At present, the simplified division of Islam to traditional, moderate or radical type of it is widely spread in contemporary political science relating to analysis of processes in Islamic world. But, undoubtedly, we comprehend that Islam as a system of common human moral-ethical values and social-political principles is the integral and undivided system. In other words, the different types of Islam do not exist. Islam is one entity, but its perception and evaluation of its role in a given society for certain historic periods are different.
At present, the collisions among various groups of ulam (scientists) take place in the Muslim community of Kyrgyzstan as a result of the restoration and politicization of Islam. Using plain words, the conflict occurs between two types of religious thinking: the traditional for Central Asia acceptance of Hanifites mazhab and maturidit akida; Salafit, often political thinking brought from other countries of the Muslim world and further acquired sustainable forms and content not without external intrusion. The emergence of two "types" of Islam within the framework of one state is not a new phenomenon. For the first time it was noticed in the countries of the Near and Middle East. The reasons of appearance of the parallel Islam in this region lie in discrepancy with the official power in the political sphere, when policy of the state differs from the existing principles of religion. At the same time, if the traditional type of religious thinking often means the conservative approach in the perception of the definite mazhab and akida, the views introduced from outside represent by themselves a very mixed picture - from fundamental-conservative type to modern and radical types of religious thought.
Sotsialnaya spesifika razvitiya politicheskoy kultury v Tsentralnoy Azii", M., 2009, pp. 122-152.
