PCV Matt Barison says: I do want to assure you that I am safe in Uzbekistan. Peace Corps keep us up to date on things, and I am able to watch CNN and BBC World regularly
I do want to assure you that I am safe. Peace Corps keep us up to date on things
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I do want to assure you that I am safe. Peace Corps keep us up to date on things, and I am able to watch CNN and BBC World regularly. I’ve got loads to say about day to day life here - which is what the majority of people, including me, have been going about for the past few months, I’ll save that for next week.
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Well, although my dear little country is making international headlines, I have even bigger news. Yes, folks, last night for dinner I had fish. You heard right, fish. In this doubly landlocked country I had resigned myself to a fishless existence for the next two years. And, up until last night, that had been the case. But, when my host father mentioned “ballikxona” (fish room,) I knew my luck had changed. And indeed it was a delicious, if subdued meal.
With that I might as well talk about the recent goings on here in Uzbekistan. But before I jump to the here and now, as 24 hour cable news networks are famous for doing, I’d like to give a little background to the situation. Up until 1991, Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet Union. Although I can’t imagine many fans of this blog are ready wave the old hammer and sickle, the Soviet impact on this country was not entirely bad. The good was that people had jobs, food and money. That is, teachers got paid, students had textbooks, and the schools had heat in the winter. Additionally, medical care, though probably not by any means at Western standards, was free. The biggest plus, though, was that people were occupied with jobs. Maybe they were dumb jobs, but they kept people busy, gave them pride in the fact that they were contributing to society, and secured the familial structure.
After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Uzbekistan became independent. However, unlike many independence movements, this one wasn’t fought for, it just happened. Basically, the country was left with all the workings of the old soviet system. This meant many different things. First of all, all the old faces from the Communist role were still in office. And we’re not just talking about the president here, but the whole cupboard… So although a “new” country was born, ideologically, nothing had changed. The old Communist party was renamed with the words Liberal and Democratic sprinkled into the title. So while nothing changed in the governing structure, there was a whole country to be taken care of.
This presented many problems. The first, and perhaps most important, was the challenge of retaining control among the various factions that make up the population here. It was Stalin, I believe, who was responsible for dividing up Central Asia into different countries. As such, the countries here were apportioned so that no one ethnic majority could lay claim to one territorial area. So as a result, you have Uzbekistan, a strange looking country compromising of: Uzbeks, Tajiks, Afghans, Kazaks, etc. etc. You name it. So the new (old) government decided that the first and most pressing task for the new nation was to instill a sense of nationalistic pride and identity in its people. Therefore, to this day, you will see giant billboards with the Uzbek flag, inspiring words about greatness, and other such propaganda. Additionally, to remind the people lest they forget who was in charge, the president had his portrait plastered everywhere. And I’m not kidding, it is everywhere.
Part of this nationalistic re-awakening included a rejection of the Russians and the values that had so brutally imposed during Soviet rule. So Uzbeks were asked to look into their past, their distant past, to find a new model for their future. As such, famous personages, including Tamerlane (Amir Timur,) Miro Ulugbek, and other such 15th century heroes were vaunted as the ideal Uzbek. Schools and streets were re-named, documentaries about these people were aired constantly on the state owned media. Children were named Timur and Ulugbek. (As a gag, when I’m around a group of boys, I say, “who’s Timur?” and there’s usually at least one or two hands raised.) The great irony of this is that these famous people never thought of themselves as Uzbek, they just happened to live around the area. So, in a way, Uzbekistan claimed a regional heritage as its own.
This return to the past, though, meant a re-connection with the deeply rooted Islamic values of the region. Although public religious display was repressed by the Soviets, most people in Uzbekistan continued to self identify as Muslim, even if they did take to the bottle themselves. So although Soviet rule did dampen the religious component of life here, it did not extinguish it. Thus upon independence, many Uzbeks hoped that their nationalistic revival would include a re-connection with their faith. However, this was not to be the case. Perhaps understandably, the government feared that a religious revival would be the precursor to its downfall. After all, the more radical Islamic elements of society certainly had no good will to the individuals who had silenced their way of life for so long. As such, although Uzbeks were asked to reject the Russian influence and re-connect with their cultural roots, they were told, in no uncertain terms, not to start going to mosques. Indeed to this day, being an active participant in organized religious services is just an invitation to increased government surveillance and hassle.
