The Relations of the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with Israel

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan became independent upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. Neither of these republics developed strong nationalist identities and it has been the task of their former communist leaders who are still in power to develop such identities while suppressing internal divisions. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have had a history of tolerance toward their respective Jewish populations, from which many have immigrated to Israel (and the United States) in recent years to unite with family or for economic reasons. Those republics view Israel Diaspora Jews as a source of investment and technological know-how as well as an avenue for better relations with the United States. Conversely, Israel, while considering Russian sensitivities in its relations with Central Asia, values the region as a market for Israeli products, a source for hydrocarbon resources and a way to counteract Iran as well as to seek a more favourable attitude in disputes with the Arabs.     

The politics of culture and the space for Islam: Soviet and post-Soviet imaginaries in Uzbekistan

This article examines how possibilities for Muslim expression were and are shaped by the political imaginaries in Soviet-era and independent Uzbekistan. It develops the concept of social ‘imaginary’ in Charles Taylor's critique of Western secular modernity. Political imaginaries are the assumptions about the nature of being, the essential categories through which the world is understood and acted upon, that are produced within dominant state discourses and that shape the space for the political. The article compares the Soviet vision of socialist modernity and the logic of the current state ideology in independent Uzbekistan, and discusses how these have framed the possibilities for being Muslim. It argues that the category of culture is produced in distinct and contrasting ways in these imaginaries, and plays a central role in delineating the public space for Islam.     

The impact of homeland independence on the Latvian community in Great Britain

Abstract

The article examines the effects of homeland independence on the Latvian DP community in Great Britain. Although the most tangible effects of independence have been the new opportunities to re-establish physical links with the homeland — to visit, and for a tiny minority to return to live, there have also been significant consequences for the organised community and on conceptions of home and belonging. This paper suggests that for an overwhelming majority of Latvians in Britain, homeland independence has strengthened the bond to Britain and brought about shifts in identities. Rather than stimulating a large-scale return to the homeland, independence has somewhat ironically, led to the completion of the integration process in Great Britain.     

Ethnicity and the politics of heritage in Uzbekistan

The UNESCO office in Uzbekistan has been relatively successful in nominating cultural practices to The Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Selection for the List conveys prestige and draws international attention to local culture that is deemed of universal value. What is striking about the first successful nominations from Uzbekistan is that they point to the inseparability of Tajik and Uzbek culture, a touchy subject for both Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. In this article the author looks at how the politics of ethnic cultural heritage play out through these projects, highlighting the tensions between a rhetoric of diversity promoted both by UNESCO and by the official national ideology, and practices that demonstrate a more mundane, ethnically exclusive sense of national culture. Although ostensibly celebrating the rich diversity of Uzbekistan's national culture and eschewing the strict delineation of Tajik culture from Uzbek culture, the effect of UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage programmes is to perpetuate the occlusion of Tajik culture in Uzbekistan.     

Narratives of Islam in Uzbekistan: authoritarian myths and the Janus-state syndrome

ABSTRACT

Under the late Islom Karimov, the authoritarian regimes in Uzbekistan created dual myths of Islam. On the one hand, Islam was encompassed in the larger context of manaviyat (spirituality), and on the other, a myth of an Islamic ‘extremism’ that challenges security and stability on a regional scale was cultivated. This ‘threat’ is so pervasive and pernicious that it commands the authoritarian nature of governance that characterizes the Karimov era, leading to a Janus-state syndrome in which Islam is simultaneously cast as a sine qua non of national myth and an existential threat to state security. This article examines the mythology of political Islam in Uzbekistan and the Janus-state syndrome resulting from the duality of Islamic myth. It argues that a civil society cannot flourish in Central Asia unless moderate Islamic groups are allowed to build the very social structures that provide the foundation for interaction, peaceful coexistence, toleration and pluralism.     

The puzzle of manual harvest in Uzbekistan: economics,status and labour in the Khrushchev era

Uzbekistan has attracted international criticism for its use of child labour, defined as labour performed by youth under the Soviet legal limit of 16, to harvest cotton by hand. This article argues that manual labour, mostly performed by low-status children and women, became entrenched in Central Asian agriculture during the 1950s, and investigates the possible reasons for its persistence in the face of global trends to the contrary. The timing is a puzzle, because the 1950s were when mechanization of agriculture became a global development goal. The USSR participated in the mechanization trend. To understand better the roots of rural labour patterns in the Khrushchev period, we must consider how economic incentives and disincentives, gender relations, demographics, and state policy worked together.