MLitt Dissertation: The Ideology of National Independence and Uzbekistan’s Foreign Policy: Discourses of Danger and Nation-Building

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School of International Relations

Middle East and Central Asian Security Studies

The Ideology of National Independence and Uzbekistan’s Foreign

Policy:

Discourses of Danger and Nation-Building

Submitted by: Mokhira Suyarkulova

This dissertation is submitted in part requirement for the Degree of M. Litt. at the

University of St Andrews, Scotland, and is solely the work of the named candidate.

Supervisor: Dr Sally N. Cummings

August -2006

St Andrews, UK

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Abstract

Post-1991 Uzbekistan was challenged to consolidate the state and a nation while also

formulating and establishing the structures and mechanisms of foreign policy-making

and implementation. There is a constant interplay between the process of national

identity consolidation and foreign policy dynamics through the ongoing construction of

the categories of the ‘inside’ characterized by unity, homogeneity, peace and stability

and the ‘outside’, which is inherently dangerous, unstable, chaotic and alien. In

Uzbekistan national identity consolidation has become not only the raison d’etat but

also the raison d’etre of the new state, which is an “imagined community” in its purest

form. The Ideology of National Independence as articulated by the president Islam

Karimov and the elites has become the medium for assertion of national identity in

particular through the construction of the foreign both within and without. The national

identity is consolidated through the construction of the notions of interest and threat.

Thus the state and society engage in the construction of the discourses of danger in

relation to the perceived outside threats, which can be creatively reinterpreted in the

changed circumstances. Thus in the wake of the events in Andijon in May 2005, the

Uzbek state has articulated a discourse of danger that links the threat of the Islamic

extremism/ terrorism to that of the Colour Revolutions promoted by the hegemonic

‘West’ in the strategic interests of the New Great Game. This narrative has become both

the rationale and the rationalisation of the changes in foreign policy alliances that

occurred after Andijon. On the whole, however, this strategic realignment is consistent

with the general independent and unilateralist foreign policy course pursued by the

state since its emergence in 1991. Foreign policy thus continues to be central to the

production and reproduction of Uzbek identity.

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Table of Contents:

Abstract .......................................................................................................... 1

Introduction .................................................................................................. 2

Chapter I:

Theoretical Background and Approach ..................................................... 5

I.1. Defining Ideology ..................................................................................... 5

I.2. Nationalism as Ideology ........................................................................... 8

I.3. Uzbek Nationalism ................................................................................... 10

1.4. Identity and Ideology in the Analysis of Foreign Policy ......................... 13

Chapter II:

The Ideology of National Independence As a Nation-building Project ... 19

Chapter III:

Foreign Policy and Nation-Building Dynamics .......................................... 28

III.1. Interpreting Andijon and the Aftermath ................................................. 28

III.2. Continuity in Uzbekistan’s Independent National Foreign Policy ........ 31

III.3. Foreign Policy Conception of 2005 and Other Documents ................... 33

III.4. Discourses of Danger: the Colour Revolutions, Islamic Extremism/

Terrorism and the New Great Game ............................................................... 36

Conclusion ...................................................................................................... 45

Bibliography ................................................................................................. 47

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“All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State,

against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals”.

(George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four)1

Introduction

This thesis deals with one of key questions of international relations discipline – the

extent to which ideology and identity influence foreign policy – by taking the case study

of Uzbekistan’s Ideology of National Independence (Milliy Istiqlol G’oyasi va

Mafkurasi) and its link with the foreign policy making. Looking at nationalism as a

political ideology central to the nation- and state-building project of the independent

Uzbekistan, this thesis strives to establish how foreign policy making has been utilised

as a tool for national identity consolidation of a polity, which is an “imagined

community” in its essence. After independence in 1991, which was not a result of a

struggle for independence but rather a historical accident, Uzbekistan embarked on a

nation-building project that was conceptualised in the notion of the Ideology of National

Independence.2

This project was not only to justify the existence of the newly

independent state but also to legitimate the regime in power as the only authority having

the expertise and the ideological superiority required to govern this state. This

dissertation, therefore, investigates the symbiotic relationship between foreign policy

and nation-building project in Uzbekistan by looking at how articulation of national

identity (that defines the “self” in opposition to the “other”) in the form of the Ideology

of National Independence interacts with foreign policy making. It is argued that the

Ideology helps enhance the insecure identity using foreign policy as a tool thereby

creating the notions of the interest and threat that in their turn influence foreign policy

1 George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (London: Secker & Warburg, 1962), 28.

2 On March 17 1991, in the referendum on preservation of the USSR, 94% of Uzbekistan’s population

(95% turnout) expressed their will to preserve the Soviet Union. (Source: Bremmer, Ian and Taras, Ray

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behaviour. The paper thus takes the recent changes in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy

alignments to demonstrate this double dynamics between national identity and foreign

policy.

Events that unfolded in Central Asia in spring of 2005 (Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan

and Andijan unrest in Uzbekistan) and the regional strategic realignment that followed

them are at the centre of the puzzle this dissertation seeks to resolve. The author finds

that there is a need for an analysis of the change in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy

orientation that goes beyond the great power games explanations and recognises more

agency in the Central Asian states’ foreign policy behaviour than they are usually given

credit for. This focus on the recent events is justified for two reasons. Firstly, the topic

is generally under-researched. Secondly, there is a tendency in the existing accounts of

the events following May 2005 to utilise the idiom of the New Great Game, which this

author finds not only useless but also distorting of the realities of international relations

in the region. The role of identity and ideology has been neglected in the analysis of

post-independence Uzbekistan’s foreign policy. This dissertation will make a modest

contribution to understanding dynamics between nation-building project and foreign

policy of Uzbekistan, which should be of interest not only to the scholars of the region,

but also to the students of post-Soviet politics and foreign policy generally.

The research is based on the review of secondary sources as well as content analysis of

the Uzbek press, official documents, legislation, declarations, speeches, study manuals

and textbooks, books authored by President Islom Karimov himself. Having looked at

all these materials we then try to make sense of the domestic-foreign interplay and the

place of ideology and national identity in the foreign policy making of the Uzbek state

(ed.). New States, New Politics: Building the Post Soviet Nations (New York: Cambridge University

Press, 1997).

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and the role of foreign policy making for the nation- and state-building efforts of the

new state.

To that end, this paper is divided into three sections. Firstly, the theoretical chapter

provides the reader with the working definition of ideology for the purposes of this

study. The chapter further argues in favour of approaching nationalism as a political

ideology. Furthermore, the theoretical chapter explicates the approach adopted in this

study, which has been very much inspired by David Campbell’s3 thinking on the

discourses of danger, politics of identity and foreign policy.

The second chapter provides the general overview of the essence of the Ideology of

National Independence, its epistemic origins, history of articulation, spirit, content, uses

in the political and social life of the country, in particular in foreign policy making.

The third chapter explores the domestic-foreign interplay whereas the state strives to

achieve an internal identity cohesion and legitimacy through the Ideology of National

Independence. The discourses of danger as a practice central to foreign policy making

and constitutive of national identity will be analysed in the context of post-Soviet

Uzbekistan. The chapter attempts to analyse the general course of foreign policy in

independent Uzbekistan and the recent changes in its foreign policy. In particular how

the discourses of danger in relation to the terrorism, Islamic extremism have undergone

a fusion with those of the Coloured Revolutions. It is argued that the national identity

dynamics and foreign policy are in a symbiotic relationship, whereby discourses of

danger are used in foreign policy articulation in order to enhance the national identity.

Finally, the concluding chapter summarizes the arguments of the thesis and identifies

the directions of further research.

3 David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity

(Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1998).

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Chapter I: Theoretical Background and Approach

The purpose of this chapter is to define the key concepts that are used in this

dissertation, to outline the theoretical approach and its application within the framework

of this research. First and foremost, it is necessary to define what is meant by ideology

in this dissertation. Further, the chapter explains why it is useful to look at nationalism

as a political ideology to explain the essence and purpose of Uzbekistan’s Ideology of

National Independence. The following subsection explores the history of development

and characteristic features of Uzbek nationalism. Finally, this chapter looks at how

identity and ideology are interacting with foreign policy, in particular through

discourses of danger that are instrumental in constructing the notions of the interest and

threat integral to national identity formulation. The approach adopted in this

dissertation is to analyse the nation-building efforts in Uzbekistan by looking at how

Uzbek state has utilised the discourses of danger in relation to terrorism, Islamism and

Colour revolutions and how those discourses in their turn have constituted the state’s

foreign policy.

I.1. Defining Ideology

Throughout this dissertation (political) ideology is used in a broad sense referring to a

comprehensive set of ideas, a worldview that operates within a particular political space

and context, provides a teleological vision of history, a programme for collective action,

and justification for a political regime.

There are few other terms that are as heavily laden by negative connotations as the term

“ideology”. Various Marxism inspired thinkers have contributed to the conception of

ideology as a false-consciousness of the oppressed masses articulated and propagated by

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and in the interest of the ruling class.4 The association of ideology with totalitarian or

authoritarian regimes is well based both on historical evidence and the general

propensity of ideologies to assume the existence of societal unity and general agreement

on the principal values.5 Fundamental to all of the modern ideologies has been the

belief that a political community can engineer a better society, liberate the oppressed or

preserve (or rediscover) lost purity and glory. That is why most modern ideologies have

been criticised by post-modern thinkers, who not only were sceptical about the

possibility of coherent and conscious agency in political and social change but also

problematised the inherent preoccupation of the ideological regimes with achieving

unity and the resulting lack of appreciation for diversity.6

The author finds that the Gramscian concept of hegemony is more subtle and

sophisticated. While it underlines the role of the dominant political forces in the

construction of the societal notions of what constitutes “common sense” and creates the

limits of the possible, the inevitable and the non-negotiable (pre-political), it does not

put the elites above and beyond the discursive economy of a society. 7 Ideology cannot

be merely imposed onto a social psyche but is embedded in the institutions. Although

the ideologues of the state can be rather cynical about the ideas they propagate, their

activities are translated into the structure, doctrines, rituals and myths that affect their

behaviour nonetheless.

Some scholars of ideology find it useful to differentiate between ideologies, mentalities,

belief systems and political cultures.8 What distinguish ideology from mentality or

4 David McLellan, Ideology (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995), 22.

5 John Schwarzmantel, The Age of Ideology (London: MacMillan, 1998), 185.

6 Ibid, 187.

7 Ibid, 25-26. Also in Andrew F. March, “From Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and

Authoritarian Legitimation ”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (2003), 308; Andrew Vincent, Modern

Political Ideologies. 2nd

ed. (Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995), 7. 8 John Mc Lean, “Belief Systems and Ideology in International Relations: A Critical Approach” in

Richard Little and Steve Smith (eds.). Belief Systems and International Relations (Oxford: Basil

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political culture are, arguably, the degree of sophistication in their articulation as well as

the level of popularity and understanding among the “common people”. Thus while

identity, mentality or political culture are the common modes of behaviour, simplified

thinking and feeling about social and political phenomena shared by the majority of the

population, ideology remains the reserve of the ruling elites and the intellectuals, or the

so-called ‘ideologues’ of the regime.9 Although for some (Kelman, for instance) it is

exactly the internalisation of the beliefs and ideas that characterises political ideology as

“a set of beliefs that is inherent in the political system itself, communicated to

individual citizens in the course of socialization and throughout life and adopted by

them”. 10

It is hard to assess whether and to what extent the Ideology of National

Independence promoted by the regime in Tashkent has been internalised by the masses.

The effects of mass communication are generally hard to evaluate, while the

socialisation of individuals is a life-long ambivalent process, with unpredictable

outcomes for political and social behaviour since the influences are multiple and not

equally distributed11

.

For the purposes of this dissertation the author does not find it useful to concentrate on

intricacies of meanings. The thesis will concentrate on the elites’ practical uses of

ideology that in its turn is called upon to consolidate the national identity of the new

state. As the second chapter shows, the view of ideology as an objective psychological

Blackwell, 1988); William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990); Rick Fawn (ed), Ideology and National Identity in Post-

communist Foreign Policies (London, Portland: Frank Cass Publishers, 2004). 9 Rick Fawn, Ideology and National Identity; Andrew March, “From Leninism to Karimovism:

Hegemony, Ideology, and Authoritarian Legitimation”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (2003), 308. 10

Cited in John MacLean, “Belief Systems and Ideology in International Relations: A Critical Approach”

in Richard Little and Steve Smith (eds.), Belief Systems and International Relations (Oxford : Basil

Blackwell, 1988), 74. 11

Almond, Gabriel A. and Verba, Sidney, The Civic Culture: Political Attitudes and Democracy in Five

Nations. (Newbury Park, London, New Dehli: Sage Publications, 1989); Jowett, Garth S. and O’Donnell,

Victoria, Propaganda and Persuasion (Newbury Park, London, New Dehli: Sage Publications, 1992).

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need becomes institutionalized and indeed instrumentalised by society in Uzbekistan.12

And while ideology, identity and culture are conceptually distinct categories they are

intimately interconnected in such a way that humans perceive a threat to their ideology

or culture as also a threat to their identity.13

President Karimov has rationalised the

necessity for the articulation of the ideology of national independence by the

undesirability of an ideological vacuum (g’oyaviy bo’shliq) as a great danger that

outside ill-intentioned powers might take advantage of.14

Uzbekistan’s president Karimov, has referred to his ‘child’ as an ideology15

but whether

it indeed can be recognized as one deserves some investigation. The second chapter of

this dissertation will cover in more length the essence of the Ideology. However, just by

looking at the name given to it by the creator, it is obvious that the crux of it is

nationalism, i.e. the idea that every nation should ideally possess a sovereign state of its

own and a failure to fulfil this ideal constitutes a tragedy and danger.

I.2. Nationalism as an ideology

Almost every collection on modern political ideologies include a chapter on

nationalism.16

Nationalism in a sense was one of the pillars of most of the contemporary

ideologies. It survives the crisis of the modern ideologies due to its unique ability to

combine the quest for progress, modernization with the appeal to the pre-modern

12

William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 1990), 38. 13

Ibid. 14

Islam Karimov, foreword to Milliy Istiqlol G’oyasi: Asosiy Tushunchalar va Tamoyillar (The Idea of

National Independence: the main concepts and principles – in Uzbek), [by the working group of the

National Society of Philosophers of Uzbekistan] (Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 2001). Available on State- and

Society- Building Academy under President of Uzbekistan site at http://zamin.freenet.uz/mig/boshi.htm 15

Both g’oya (idea) and mafkura (ideology) are newly borrowed Arabisms used to replace Russian words

ideiia and ideologiia. These two terms are used interchangeably both in Karimov’s speeches, books and

the teaching manuals used in the educational institutions of the republic. 16

See, for instance, Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies: An Introduction (London: MacMillan, 1992);

David MacLellan, Ideology, 2nd

ed., (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995); Roger Eatwell and

Anthony Wright (ed.), Contemporary Political Ideologies (London: Pinter, 1993); Andrews Vincent,

Modern Political Ideologies, 2nd

ed., (Oxford, Cambridge: Blackwell, 1995); John Schwarzmantel, The

http://zamin.freenet.uz/mig/boshi.htm

11

attachments, overcoming the alienating effects of the universalistic ideologies.17

There

are, however, views to the extent that nationalism is not an ideology in the strict sense

of the word “in that it does not contain a developed set of interrelated ideas and values”

and “is better thought of as a doctrine, a teaching, or body of teaching”.18

Since this dissertation adopts a broader understanding of ideology as a set of ideas

justifying a political order, it is assumed here that both nationalism in general and its

specific incarnation in Uzbekistan qualify to be classified as political ideologies.

The essence of nationalism as a political ideology is the belief that “the world as

‘naturally’ divided into nations, each with its own distinctive national character”19

and

that a failure to achieve a separate national statehood constitutes a tragedy and danger to

preservation of the uniquely valuable identity. The ideology of state sovereignty and the

modern idea that a nation is the natural and legitimate base for statehood have

dominated the international relations for the most part of the past century and still

determine the normative framework of the international system. Therefore, it was only

logical for the new states that emerged on the wave of decolonization and later (as in the

case of Uzbekistan) as a result of Soviet Union and Yugoslavia disintegration to adopt

nationalism as the raison d’etat as it provided the only plausible raison d’etre given the

history of their emergence and the fuzzy borders and identities inherited from the

colonial past.20

There are multiple variants of nationalism, ranging from the most radical ethnic forms

of nationalism such as fascism and Nazism to the inclusive French-model civic type. It

Age of Ideology: Political Ideologies from the American Revolution to post-modern times (London:

MacMillan, 1998). 17

John Schwarzmantel, The Age of Ideology, 147. 18

Andrew Heywood, Political Ideologies, 136. 19

John Schwarzmantel, The Age of Ideology, 134. 20

Juan R. I. Cole and Deniz Kandiyoti, “Nationalism and Colonial Legacy in the Middle East and Central

Asia: Introduction”, International Journal of Middle East Studies 34 (2002), 192.

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is therefore essential to determine the nature of the Uzbek nationalism. It is argued here

that the distinct form of nationalism that historically developed in the former USSR

provides the states with the vision of their pasts, present and future legitimates their

particular political systems and provides the programme of collective action. Karimov

recycled Soviet brand of nationalism to justify existence of new independent Uzbekistan

and has called this project “Ideology of National Independence”.

I.3. Uzbek Nationalism

A lot has been written on nationalism in Central Asia in general and in Uzbekistan in

particular.21

The states in Central Asia are often analysed in terms of them being

nationalising polities. The term “nationalising state” was coined by Rogers Brubaker

and further applied in the Central Asian context by Annette Bohr22

. Brubaker

introduced this concept in the triadic relational model with other two elements –

national minorities and “homeland” states. Brubaker describes nationalising states as

“ethnically heterogeneous, yet conceived as nation-states, whose dominant elites

promote (to varying degrees) the language, culture, demographic position, economic

flourishing, or political hegemony of the nominally state-bearing nation”.23

The use of

the term “nationalising state” by Brubaker suggests that the elites in such a state view it

as an incomplete and deficient kind of a nation-state and therefore deem it necessary to

21

Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (ed.), New States, New Politics: Building the Post Soviet Nations (New

York: Cambridge University Press, 1997); Donald S. Carlisle, “Soviet Uzbekistan: State and Nation in

Historical Perspective” in Beatrice F. Manz (ed.) Central Asia in Historical Perspective (Boulder:

Westview, 1994); James Critchlow, Nationalism in Uzbekistan: a Soviet Republic’s Road to

Independence (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991); Berg G. Fregner, “‘Soviet Nationalism’: An Ideological

Legacy to the Independent Republics of Central Asia” in W van Schendel (ed.) Identity Politics in

Central Asia and the Muslim World: nationalism, ethnicity and labour in the twentieth century (St

Martin’s Press, 2001); Olivier Roy, The New Central Asia: The Creation of Nations (London and New

York: I.B. Taurus Publishers, 2000). 22

Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996); Annette Bohr, “The Central Asian States as

Nationalizing Regimes” in Smith, Graham at al (eds.), Nation-Building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands:

the Politics of National Identities (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 139. 23

Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed: Nationhood and the national question in the New Europe

(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 57.

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undertake a project of nationalising its territory and institutions.24

Such nationalising

projects are launched in order to remedy the past (real or perceived) injustices that

prevented the full realisation of the nation-state. Thus, a “nationalising state” does not

differ from a nation-state in its essence. The concept is useful in terms of reflecting the

degree of development of a nation-state. One could argue that all currently established

nation-states are constantly undergoing a nationalising project of their own, since they

pursue a number of policies and practices aimed at reproduction of their cultures.25

In a way, the Central Asian republics were nationalising states since the moment of their

creation in 1924: first, through the affirmative action policies of the centre in Moscow;

and after their independence, thanks to the efforts of the local national elites. The

Soviet phase of nation-building in Central Asia was a result of the grand social

engineering efforts of the Bolsheviks that saw formation of national territorial units in

the south as the way to lead the people of the region out of their ‘backwardness’ and to

establish trust to the Soviet rule (sovietskaya vlast’).26

After the independence the states

started to nationalise in order to overcome their inferiority complex, as the means of

legitimising their very existence and also because of the dominance of the idea of the

nation-state as the normal and the most legitimate state model in the minds of the elites.

While state rhetoric might emphasize the peaceful coexistence of more than a hundred

ethnic groups (civic nationalism model), tolerance toward other ethnic and cultural

groups is presented as a virtue of the state-bearing nation.27

Therefore, the states of the

post-Communist Central Asia are culturally and ethnically heterogeneous, yet perceived

24

Ibid, 79. 25

Anderson, Benedict, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism

(London, New York: Verso, 1936-rev and ed in 1991); Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca,

New York: Cornell University Press, 1983). 26

Francine Hirsch, “Toward and Empire of Nations: Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet

National Identities”, The Russian Review 59 (April 2000), 204.

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as nation-states as a result of the national politics of the USSR and the legacy of the

discourse of nationality practiced by the Soviets.28

The Soviet period endowed the Central Asian states, especially Uzbekistan, with a

concept of national history of the modern political entity whereby the present identity is

retrospectively projected into all state formations that ever existed on the territory of

today’s Uzbekistan. After the creation the state in 1924 entire content of the national

culture, including language, history, folklore even dance were created by specialists-

intellectuals, “specifically trained and employed to produce national cultures”29

. The

Russian ethnographers collected folklore, the linguists standardised and alphabetised the

local vernacular languages, emphasizing the differences between the dialects and

ridding them of all the foreign elements.30

In Uzbekistan, all the literature created in

Chag’atoi language, including Alisher Navoi’s writings (who wrote in Farsi as much as

he did in Turki), were labelled as “Old Uzbek” and thus ascribed as the cultural heritage

of the modern Uzbeks. Similarly, the post-independence Uzbekistan has usurped a

number of significant regional historical cultural figures as the national heroes and the

great ‘ancestors’ of the Uzbek people. The ideology of national independence thus also

projects Uzbek people’s struggle for independent nation-statehood and peace back into

the mists of times.31

To sum up, the nation-building process in Uzbekistan is a non-finite process that not

only constitutes the reason for the state’s very existence, but also the particular regime’s

27

Milliy Istiqlol G’oyasi: asosiy tushuncha va tamoyillari (Ideology of national independence: main

concepts and principles – in Uzbek). National Society of Philosophers of Uzbekistan. Tashkent:

O’zbekiston, 2001. 28

Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Reframed, 25. 29

Yuri Slezkine, “The USSR as a Communal Appartment: How a Socialist State Promoted Ethnic

Particularism”. Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (1994), 438. 30

In Uzbekistan the Ferghana dialect was chosen as the standard version of the language. People still

speak quite different dialects (shevalar) in various parts of Uzbekistan, which sometimes are mutually

unintelligible. Although the standard dialect is used in writing, TV and radio are dominated by the

Tashkent dialect, which is in vogue and is considered to be the Uzbek language by the capital-dwellers.

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legitimation source. Thus, the ideology of national independence is an ideology that

provides the account of the polity’s past, present and future and gives its people a

programme for action – promotion of nation’s development, stability and its very

survival. The particulars of Uzbekistan’s ideology of national independence will be

discussed in detail in Chapter II of this dissertation.

I.4. Identity and ideology in the analysis of foreign policy

The question of whether similar cultural and ideological characteristics can motivate,

sustain, or at least rationalise alliances among states is perhaps at the core of the debate

that seeks to place ideology and national identity in the foreign policy analysis.32

This

dissertation addresses this question in two ways.

Firstly, it is argued that similar identity and nature of regime motivated the authoritarian

states of the region to form an alliance in the face of the common enemies (the hybrid

threat of the ‘West’/ the ‘Colour’ Revolutions and terrorism/ Islamic extremism). While

the foreign policy making of the states in the region is usually characterised as

‘pragmatic’, as opposed to ‘ideological’, what can be perceived as pure real politik is in

fact a manifestation of a worldview that is deeply ideological. The referral of the

regional leaders to the ‘distinct mentality’, necessity to take into account the historical

and cultural specific features of their nations, the assertion of such values of political

stability and security represent nothing less than an ideological outlook that is not only a

rationalisation but also a rationale for the foreign policy decisions.33

John Heathershaw, using Emanuel Adler’s concept of the ‘Imagined (Security)

Community’, argues that the states in the region see each other as “sharing a common

31

Andrew March, “The Use and Abuse of history: ‘national ideology’ as transcendental object in Islam

Karimov’s ‘ideology of national independence’”. Central Asian Survey 21, no. 4 (2002). 32

Ole R Holsti, Terrence P. Hopmann, and John D. Sullivan, Unity and Disintegration in International

Alliances: Comparative Studies. New York: Wiley, 1973.

16

destiny and identity”34

and therefore, “an imagined regional community of Central Asia

has been able to evolve based on an authoritarian political culture and values – and a

political ideology, which we can call neo-Sovietism”.35

Additionally, since the content of Uzbekistan’s ideology is nationalist, the foreign

policy goals are defined in terms of national interest. However, ideology and identity

shape the perceptions of national interest. As Katzenstein correctly put it, “Definitions

of identity that distinguish between the self and other imply definitions of threat and

interest that have strong effects on national security policies”.36

Therefore, the

dichotomy between pragmatic and ideological foreign policy is questionable.

Secondly, contrary to conventional definitions of foreign policy as “the goals sought,

values set, decisions made and actions taken by states, and national governments acting

on their behalf, in the context of the external relations of national societies”37

this

dissertation questions the understanding that there is the sphere of the ‘foreign’ that has

to be managed and controlled that is characterised by anarchy, danger and difference,

while the ‘domestic’ sphere with homogenous internal identity allows the national

government to pursue a policy in the foreign realm on behalf of all its subjects.

The approach in this thesis therefore is to assume the identity insecurity of Uzbekistani

state. The chapters to follow elaborate on how foreign policy has been used as a

nationalising tool in Uzbekistan. Although this approach is very much inspired by

critical theories of international relations (so-called post-structuralist/ post-modernist

33

Declaration on the 5th

Anniversary of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, June 15, 2006,

Schanghai. SCO official web site: http://www.sectsco.org/503.html. 34

Emanuel Adler,‘Imagined (Security) Communities: Cognitive Regions in International Relations’.

Millennium: Journal Of International Studies 26, no. 2 (1997), 253. 35

John Heathershaw, “New Great Game or Same Old Ideas? Neo-Sovietism and the International Politics

of Imagining ‘Central Asia’”. Paper presented at the “Uzbekistan at the Crossroads: Multiple Challenges

and State Response” conference. University of Edinburgh, 16 June 2006. 36

Peter Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, 18-19. 37

Mark Webber and Michael Smith, Foreign Policy in a Transformed World (London, New York:

Prentice hall, 2002), 2.

http://www.sectsco.org/503.html

17

school of thought) it is substantiated by a number of analyses that do not necessarily

subscribe to this camp’s thinking.

This research therefore focuses on the discourses of danger as central to the state’s

aspiration to achieve the Gellnerian congruence of the cultural (identity) boundaries

with the frontiers of the political unit. In this process not only an internal homogeneity

must be approximated to the fullest possible extent but also such homogeneity is

unthinkable unless clear boundaries of what it means to belong to a particular nation-

state means need to be drawn.38

The guiding approach of this thesis is best expressed in

David Campbell’s words:

…instead of regarding foreign policy as the external view and rationalist orientation of a pre-

established state, the identity of which is secure before it enters into relations with others, we can

consider foreign policy as an integral part of the discourses of danger that serve to discipline the

state. The state and the identity of “man” located in the state can therefore be regarded as the

effects of discourses of danger that more often than not employ strategies of otherness. Foreign

policy thus needs to be understood as giving rise to a boundary rather than acting as a bridge.39

In the process of securing its identity a state, according to Campbell, engages in

practices of “double exclusion”, i.e. clarifying the lines of identity by identifying the

enemies – both domestic and foreign.40

The domestic dissent and non-conformism is

disciplined by association with the foreign or through representation as a deviation from

the healthy norm.41

Campbell thus talks about two modes of identity politics: ‘foreign

policy’ and ‘Foreign Policy’. The former refers to the practices of internal exclusion

and disciplining, while the latter is the conventional use of the term to express the

external stance and behaviours of a state as an actor in the international relations, but

which should also be understood as a practice central to the production and reproduction

of the national identities in the name of which the polity supposedly exists.42

Identity

38

David Campbell, Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity

(Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1998), 9. 39

Ibid, 51. 40

Ibid, 63. 41

Ibid, 3. 42

Ibid, 68.

18

defined as “varying national ideologies of collective distinctiveness and purpose”,43

is

formed domestically through internal ‘othering’ practices and influences how a state

behaves internationally by providing the actors at home with a vision of the state’s role,

its place in the international system and an understanding of what constitutes threat and

the national interest.

A discourse of danger is a practice of treatment of particular events or a possibility of

such events happening as threatening to the communal identity. Campbell writes that

“the ability to represent things as alien, subversive, dirty, or sick44

” is central to the

articulation of danger, which is a constitutive part of foreign policy. What is more

important, “the constant articulation of danger through foreign policy is …not a threat

to a state’s identity or existence: it is its condition of possibility”.45

Should a state

succeed in its promise of providing security it will fail to survive its own success.

Chapters II and III analyse the discourses of danger utilised by the Uzbek state in order

to produce and reproduce the territorial and identity boundaries. Several scholars of

Central Asian politics have accomplished similar analyses. For instance, the special

issue of the Central Asian Survey journal46

dedicated to the discourses of danger in

Central Asia and Stuart Horsman’s article on the Uzbek government’s discourses on

terrorism. The latter stresses that origins of the discourses of danger proliferated in

43

Peter Katzenstein, The Culture of National Security, 6. 44

Campbell, 3. 45

Ibid, 13. 46

Central Asian Survey 24 (1), March 2005, Special Issue on Discourses of Danger in Central Asia. The

issue introduces us to an excellent sample of contributions from a self-reflective group of researchers and

workers of the international civil society sector in the region. The articles by Reeves, Heathershaw,

Bichsel, Megoran, Torjesen and Macfarlane give the readers insights of how discourses are not only

produced by the states, but also by other actors of international relations (international aid agencies,

conflict-prevention NGOs, etc) possessing authority, knowledge and the ‘expertise’ to give prescriptions

to the ills of the societies seen as underdeveloped and conflict-prone. These contributions are especially

successful in demonstrating that discourses are not only produced by the actors possessing power and

claims knowledge, but that they also take on a life of their own as the population appropriates the

discourses to communicate their grievances and advance their interests within the given power structures.

19

society are found in its insecurity at the identity level.47

The same author has

demonstrated how the articulation of threat and the need to respond to it (in relation to

Tajik and Afghan civil wars) has been utilized by Uzbekistan to nation- and state-

build.48

Bloom outlines three basic ways in which national identity interacts with foreign

policy:49

- When national identity is used as a “foreign policy resource”, i.e. the

government mobilizes the national identity dynamics in order to serve its

strategic foreign policy goals;

- When foreign policy is a “tool for nation-building”;

- When “national identity dynamic triggered by non-government actors influences

foreign policy”.50

This dissertation will deal mostly with the second scenario of national identity dynamic

with foreign policy, proposed by Bloom.

To sum up, this paper examines and evaluates the role of the Ideology of National

Independence (being a general name for the nation- and state-building project) in

Uzbekistan’s foreign policy in two ways:

1) It looks at how it provided rationale for the recent change of strategic alliance in

the face of the combined threat of Islamism and Colour revolutions;

2) It also investigates more generally how the Ideology reflects the attempts of the

state/regime to consolidate the national identity through discourses of danger

that delineate the spheres of the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’ that are integral to

foreign policy.

47

Stuart Horsman, “Themes in Official Discourses on Terrorism in Central Asia”, Third World Quarterly

26, no. 1 (2005), 209; and Stuart Horsman, “Uzbekistan’s involvement in the Tajik Civil War 1992-1997:

Domestic Considerations”, Central Asian Survey 18, no. 1 (1999): 37-48. 48

Ibid, 206. 49

William Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations, 89. 50

Ibid.

20

The following chapter shows how the Ideology articulates the meaning of Uzbekness

and the ideological threats to that identity. This not only legitimates the regime and its

domestic and foreign policy but also is called upon to “manufacture” a generation “of

viable and usable human beings”.51

51

Gellner, Ernest, Nations and Nationalism (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1983), 38.

21

Chapter II: The Ideology of National Independence As a Nation-

Building Project

In the early post-independence years both ideological and physical security threats to

the state were at the centre of policy agenda of the new Uzbek state.52

The first of the

many books authored by President Karimov53

starts with an enumeration of security

threats to the new-born independent state, which are followed by the nationalistic

rhetoric of the glorious past (the golden legacy of ancestors), enormous natural and

human resources that guarantee the great future. In the first official declaration of the

necessity to articulate an Ideology,54

Karimov again frames his ideas in terms of a threat

that absence of such an ideology poses to independent survival of the new state.

The post-Soviet societies seem to have an ambivalent attitude toward ideology. On the

one hand, the totalitarian past made them develop a strong distaste for ‘ideologisation’

(ideologizatsiia) of political and social life. On the other, ideology has come to be

perceived as an invisible social force, a sort of a spectre that defines and leads a society

as a political community, having a life of its own. This is evident in Uzbek elites’

apprehension in the wake of the Soviet era at the absence of a ‘national idea’ as a vital

component/ feature of any society. It seems that the Ideology of National Independence

was called into existence by the belief on the part of the elites in the fundamental

necessity for a body politic to acquire a ‘soul’, without which that organic entity would

be incapable of functioning. An Ideology thus takes on some transcendental qualities of

“quasi-material existence” outside of peoples’ minds.55

52

Stuart Horsman, “Themes in Official Discourses on Terrorism in Central Asia”, Third World Qaurterly

26, no. 1 (2005), 199. 53

Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan on the Threshold of the Twenty-First Century: Threats to Security,

Conditions and Guarantees for Development (Moscow: Drofa, 1997). 54

Islam Karimov, Ideologiia – eto ob’ediniaiushii flag natsii, obshestva, gosudarstva (Ideology is the

uniting banner of the nation, society, the state). Interview with the chief editor of “Fidokor” magazine.

Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 1998. 55

David McLellan, Ideology (Buckingham: Open University Press, 1995), 28.

22

The concern with what Karimov has termed, “an ideological vacuum”56

among the

ruling elites of the post-Soviet Uzbekistan is understandable when one remembers that

they were socialised in a society that could not conceive of a political order without a

leading ideology. Time and again in his public speeches and interviews Karimov

asserted the organic necessity of an ideology for survival of any nation, presenting it as

an urgent and existential task for the society to achieve. The ‘vacuum’ in ideology can

potentially be taken advantage of by some external ill-intentioned forces in order to

subjugate Uzbek people. As Karimov put it “the absence of one’s own opinion,

submission to the will or the idea of the other is way more dangerous than any kind of

economic or political dependence”.57

Thus measures are taken in order to forestall the harmful ideological influences of the

evil forces on the minds of the gullible Uzbek people, especially the youth. “Pravda

Vostoka” reported in May 2006 about a competition that was organized in the National

University of Uzbekistan that tested the students’ knowledge of the books written by the

president, which was conducted in order to hinder “the harmful influence of the

ideological diversions that are on the increase in the century of globalization”.58

The

state also deemed it necessary to introduce a special piece of legislation on a new

programme of additional measures to increase the effectiveness of the ideological

propaganda among the population. According to the decree of the president adopted on

April 3 2006, more should be done in terms of “effective and pro-active propaganda and

agitation” to counter the “various information attacks, directed against our national

interests”.59

56

Islam Karimov, Ideology is the uniting banner of the nation, 7. 57

Ibid, 5. 58

Regnum review of Uzbekistani press, 21 May, 2006, http://www.regnum.ru/news/643514.html 59

Decree of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan from April 4, 2006, N PP-317 “On the

Programme of Additional Measures Aimed at Increasing the Effectiveness of the Spiritual-Enlightening

and Propaganda-Agitation Work Being Conducted Among the Population” in the “Vedomosti palat Oliy

Majlisa Respubliki Uzbekistan”, 2006, N 4, 201.

http://www.regnum.ru/news/643514.html

23

Overcoming mankurtization thus has become an important task in cultural

nationalisation in Central Asian states. Mankurt is a term attributed to Chingiz Aitmatov,

who first used the word in his novel “Buranniy polustanok”/ “The day lasts more than a

hundred years”.60

A mankurt was a person, who, by means of physiological

manipulations, was turned into a zombie. Such a person did not know his name, his

parents and where he came from. This word became a metaphor for all the people, who

lost their “roots”, their culture and identity.

The need for an ideology is thus two-fold: there is an ‘objective’, quasi-scientific need

for a “healthy” ideology in any ‘healthy’ society; and having own ideology is a pre-

requisite for safeguarding one’s independence and identity through acquisition of

‘ideological immunity’:

To form the ideological immunity among our people, especially the young ones, is of utmost

importance in the contemporary conditions of overcoming the ideological vacuum. This work

needs to be done carefully with much consideration, like an experienced white-bearded gardener

would tenderly and with care grow the young plants.

[…] The need to take account of the ideological situation in the post-Soviet area, the conditions

in the Central Asian region, importance of filling in the vacuum that appeared after we denied

the old ideology, with the new ideology – the ideology of national independence, should be clear

to all of us. This should be done in order to actively oppose the attempts of the alien and

destructive ideas to penetrate [our society].61

Karimov’s paternalistic claims of the necessity for achieving ‘ideological immunity’ are

akin to the Leninist idea that a vanguard of professional revolutionaries should bring the

true ideology to the common people, who otherwise due to their inferior understanding

of political reality would be prone to the influences of the rival (bourgeois) ideology.62

Dear friends, know one thing: there can never be vacuum in the spiritual, moral sphere. If a

healthy idea does not prevail in a society, the alien, harmful ideas will strive to penetrate it. This

is a law of nature.

60

The translated version of the novel by John French with foreword by Katerina Clark – Chingiz

Aitmatov, I dolshe veka dlitsia den/The day lasts more than a hundred years (Bloomington: Indiana

University Press, 1983). 61

Islam Karimov, foreword to the book “Ideia Natsional’noi Nezavisimosti: Osnovnye poniatiia I

printsipy” (The Idea of National Independence: the main concepts and principles) in Za protsvetanie

Rodiny – kazhdii iz nas v otvete (Each of us is responsible for flourishing of Motherland). Vol. 9.

Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 2001. 62

David MacLellan, Ideology, 22.

24

This threat is particularly dangerous to us, because such features as gullibility and simple-

mindedness prevail in the national character of the Uzbek people. If I were asked: which nation

is the most guileless, the most ingenuous one in the world, I would reply, the Uzbek nation, the

Uzbek people.63

The above quote also implies that all the rival ideas are unhealthy and harmful simply

by the virtue of being alien (they want to penetrate a healthy body politic in order to

infect it). The trope of a healthy body endangered by all sorts of external influences that

can lead to disease, pollution, madness or weakening is central to articulation of the

discourses of danger in a society.64

The uses of this trope in the construction of the

“foreign” are further discussed in Chapter III of this dissertation.

While achieving ideological immunity through construction of a national ideology is

seen as vital and is actively promoted by the state, it was also deemed necessary that

Uzbekistan’s Constitution had an article that stipulated that “No ideology shall be

granted the status of state ideology”.65

Similarly, the Law of the Republic of

Uzbekistan “On the Main Principles of Foreign Policy Activity of the Republic of

Uzbekistan” of 1996 rules out “the ideologisation of inter-state relations” as a

normatively unacceptable basis for international relations and the state’s foreign policy

making.66

As a result of this ambivalence in understanding the role of ideology, the texts on the

Ideology of National Independence feature such controversial elements as a critique of

the ‘old’ Soviet ideology as ‘based on force and pressure, lies and hypocrisy’, 67

the

warnings against promoting the Ideology of National Independence to the status of the

63

Islam Karimov, “Ideology for us is the source of spiritual and moral strength …”, Tashkent:

O’zbekiston, 2000. 64

David Cambell, Writing Security, 75-80. 65

Constitution of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Part I, Chapter2, Article 12. Adopted at eleventh Session

of twentieth Supreme Council of the Republic of Uzbekistan on December 8, 1992. “Pravo” legal

information system, http://www.pravo.uz/english/resources/doc/constitution.php3. 66

Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan from December 26, 1996, N 336-I “On the Main Principles of

Foreign Policy Activity of the Republic of Uzbekistan”, article 3. 67

Islam Karimov, Ideologiia – eto ob’ediniaiushii flag natsii, obshestva, gosudarstva (Ideology is a

uniting banner of the nation, the society, the state) (Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 1998), 3.

http://www.pravo.uz/english/resources/doc/constitution.php3

25

state official ideology68

and the arguments in favour of legitimacy of the Ideology due

to its reflectivity of the interests, values and aspirations of the Uzbek nation.69

It is

quite obvious, despite all the government disclaimers, that the Ideology enjoys the

status of an official state-promoted project. In 2001 the president issued a directive that

ordered creation and integration into the state education system at all levels of an

academic discipline of “Ideology of National Independence: main concepts and

principles”.70

In less than two months, the National Society of Philosophers published a

textbook for use in the republic’s educational institutions, based on president’s ideas on

the subject71

. This obvious contradiction in the nature of the government-led conscious

effort of the elites to articulate a national ideology and the simultaneous proclamations

that such attempts are by no means intended to elevate it to the level of the state

ideology is compounded by their failure to admit that the real content of the Ideology is

ethno-nationalism. Nationalism is problematic as a state ideology in the former USSR,

since it bears a lot of negative luggage. There is also a sense of urgency to position the

‘old’ Soviet ideology and other rival ideologies (such as Islamism and Western

liberalism) as alien and imposed from outside, in stark contrast to the ‘new’ one as the

only truly authentic, democratic and benign ideology that reflects the goals and desires

of the Uzbek people.

68

Islam Karimov, “Natsional’naia ideologiya – dlia nas istochnik duhovno-nravstvennoi sily v

stroitelstve gosudarstva I obshestva” (Ideology for us is the source of spiritual and moral strength in the

building of the state and society), speech at the meeting with the representatives of scientific and artistic

intelligentsia, dedicated to the main principles of the Conception of the Ideology of national

independence, April 6, 2000 in Nasha vysshaia tsel’ – nezavisimost I protsvetanie Rodiny, svoboda I

blagopoluchie naroda (Our paramount goal is independence and prosperity of the Motherland, freedom

and wellbeing of the people). Vol. 8. Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 2000. 69

Ibid, “Ideologiia natsional’noi nezavisimosti – ubezhdeniie naroda I vera v velikoe budushee”

(Ideology of National Independence – conviction of the people and faith in the glorious future), answers

to the questions of the correspondent of the “Fidokor” newspaper. 70

Directive of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan from January 18, 2001 “On creation and

introduction into the republic’s education system of a discipline of the ‘Ideology of national independence:

main concepts and principles’. 71

Milliy Istiqlol G’oyasi: asosiy tushuncha va tamoyillari (Ideology of national independence: main

concepts and principles – in Uzbek). National Society of Philosophers of Uzbekistan. Tashkent:

O’zbekiston, 2001.

26

Andrew March is perhaps the author who gave the most thorough and insightful

treatment of the subject of Uzbekistan’s Ideology so far.72

This author agrees with

March’s interpretation of the discourses and strategies of legitimation utilised in

articulation of the Ideology by Uzbek elites:

The main strategy is to define the entire state in relation to common goals, to define the goals

and aspirations as virtually constitutive of the nation as such, and to equate the regime with the

proper articulation and realization of those goals through the state apparatus. These circular

definitions, linked theoretically by the concept of ‘ideology’, ensure that the acceptance of one

claim implies the acceptance of all of them and, more importantly, that the opposition to one of

the parts can be treated as opposition to all of them. The aim is to create an exclusive

identification between the political community, the state, the goal and the regime, using the

talent and natural legitimacy of the first three to secure the legitimacy of the latter.73

The only critique of March’s interpretation that this author has is that the former seems

to read a bit too much into how the Ideology is constructed as if according to some

premeditated plan of the elites. Indeed, the pseudo-scientific theorisation of the

Ideology is tautological, but is not so to follow some design of the elites. It has been

pointed out above that there exists an idea of an objective need for an ideology in a

society among the elites. Therefore, although there is obviously a deliberate and

consistent programme of articulation of the national idea, this process is not entirely

cynical, since the elites themselves have a need to rationalise the existing political order

and give it a higher content than mere struggle for power and resources.

According to the official definition, “In its essence the ideology of national

independence of Uzbekistan is a system of ideas that express the main goals; bind the

past and the future, and serve to fulfil the dreams of our people”.74

The ideology is

72

The three articles all dealing with different aspects of the subject were published one after the other in

2002-2003 and became the starting point of this research. See Andrew March, “State Ideology and

Legitimation of Authoritarianism: the Case of Post-Soviet Uzbekistan”. Journal of Political Ideologies 8,

no. 2 (2003); “The Use and Abuse of history: ‘national ideology’ as transcendental object in Islam

Karimov’s ‘ideology of national independence’”. Central Asian Survey 21, no.4 (2002); and “From

Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and Authoritarian Legitimation”. Post-Soviet Affairs 19,

no. 4 (2003). 73

Andrew March, “State Ideology and Legitimation of Authoritarianism: the Case of Post-Soviet

Uzbekistan”, Journal of Political Ideologies 8, no. 2 (2003), 229. 74

Milliy Istiqlol G’oyasi: Asosiy Tushunchalar va Tamoyillar (The Idea of National Independence: the

main concepts and principles – in Uzbek). Available on State- and Society- Building Academy under

President of Uzbekistan site at http://zamin.freenet.uz/mig/boshi.htm .

http://zamin.freenet.uz/mig/boshi.htm

27

presented as neutral, above politics. It is denied that it has the official state status and

serves to legitimate and strengthen the regime in power. It is presented as an organic

progress, a self-evolving and self-correcting social phenomenon that arises out of the

natural dynamics within the society, something of the same order as the idea of the

‘invisible hand’ that by some inexplicable law of nature brings about systemic balance.

Thus, since the ideology is a set of unproblematic ideas that are presented as apolitical

(or pre-political, according to Gramsci) there is an assumption of societal uniformity

and homogeneity of identity within the polity. Any ideologies or ideas that question

that the regime’s exclusive claim to expertise of achieving the obvious goals of

development and progress, or do not share the purportedly universal values are othered

and included in the list of the serious “ideological threats” that Uzbekistan faces these

days, which are:

- Islamic caliphate;

- Re-unification of the newly independent states into the former (Soviet) Union;

- Threats to our history, national values and the essence of our religion;

- Attempts at moral corruption of the people;

- Incitement of regional and international conflicts.75

The first two threats on the list both, although in quite difference ways, question the

legitimacy of the very existence of the post-1991 Uzbekistan. An Islamic Caliphate

does not base its legitimacy on national identity. Similarly, many people are nostalgic

about the Soviet past, which is an ideological threat for the new state. Any questioning

of whether Uzbekistan’s emergence as an independent state resulted from the conscious

struggle of the Uzbek people for a sovereign statehood or rather was a mere historical

accident is dangerous to legitimacy of new Uzbekistan. The following two sources of

danger on the list create the moral spaces of identity of the ‘inside’ that is marked by the

superior understanding of one’s history, religion and value and the ‘outside’ that strives

to corrupt this pure world. This is further elaborated in Chapter III.

75

Ibid.

28

The main idea of the ideology comes in a sort of a slogan – “Ozod va obod Vatan, erkin

va farovon hayot” (Independent and peaceful Motherland, free and prosperous life).76

The core ideas of the ideology are as follows:

- Greatness of Motherland

- Peace in the homeland

- Wellbeing of the people

- Bringing up a perfect person

- Social cooperation/unity

- Inter-ethnic peace, ‘friendship of the peoples’

- Tolerance among different religions77

Although the above list is referred as the principal ideas of the ideology of national

independence, it seems that they represent goals and values that the society ought to

strive to more than the ideological foundations of an all-encompassing worldview. It is

a mix of the so-called ‘national’ and the ‘universal human’ values. The ideology of the

Uzbek state is a combination of the nationalistic agenda of achieving or restoring the

past national greatness (through upbringing of a new golden generation) and a quest for

stability that is elevated to the level of being a prerequisite for any progress,

development and national fulfilment project. Conflict thus is represented as a

breakdown in the system, an abnormal condition that halts the progress of civilization

and bears inherently negative character for a society’s development. The ideology of

national independence is thus authoritarian in its content and spirit in that it attempts to

create a view of reality that rules out a possibility for dissent. It equates any opposition

to any of its elements with treason not only to the regime but also to the people/nation

and the founding values of stability and prosperity.78

The Ideology is instrumental in the regime’s nation- and state-building project because

its function is to discipline the citizenry through articulation of what it means to belong

to the polity. It is also important in how the state behaves internationally, for instance,

76

Ibid. 77

Ibid.

29

in its international alliance making. Thus, the Ideology that serves to nation- and state-

build Uzbekistan is in a symbiotic relationship with foreign policy making. The next

chapter specifically looks at how that is the case.

78

Andrew March, “From Leninism to Karimovism: Hegemony, Ideology, and Authoritarian

30

Chapter III: Foreign Policy and Nation-building Dynamics

Uzbekistan is an “imagined community” in its purest form. Historically, until 1924

there never was a place called Uzbekistan. What constitutes Uzbek and Uzbekness has

been problematic ever since the creation of the nation by the Soviets, but especially so

after “the independence by default” in 1991. Therefore, the identity boundaries are

constituted by the vision of the internal other as much as they are by the notions of the

foreign. To quote David Campbell: “If the identity of the “true nationals” remains

intrinsically elusive and “inorganic”, it can only be secured by the effective and

continual demarcation of those who are “false” to the defining ideals”.79

Such false

nationals in Uzbekistan (mankurts) include those who have not preserved their

traditions, those who have lost their identity and gave in to the external influences either

due to their weakness of will or evil nature. The government and the media have

produced multiple images of the “enemy within and without” through discourses of

danger in relation to the hybrid threat of terrorism/ Islamic extremism and Colour

revolution that are rationalised in terms of the new Great Game thesis. These discourses

of danger have provided rationale and rationalisation for foreign policy decisions of

Uzbek government as well as have served as a tool for nation building.

III.1. Interpreting Andijon and the Aftermath

On Monday, the twenty first of November of 2005 the last American aircraft left the

military base in Khanabad, Uzbekistan.80

Various commentators have referred to this

event as the apex of a U-turn that Uzbek foreign policy took after the tragic events in

Legitimation”, Post-Soviet Affairs 19, no. 4 (2003), 309. 79


(Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1998), 91.

31

Andijan several months prior. Gregory Gleason observed that the July 29 declaration by

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan of the Uzbekistan’s desire to see the

military base in Karshi-Khanabad closed within six-month period “represented a sharp

and significant reversal of Uzbek foreign policy”.81

Frederick Starr noted that “few, if

any, observers anticipated the rapid downward spiral of U.S.-Uzbek relations during the

past several years82

”. Meppen observed that the base and its demise “became the

metaphor for the U.S. – Uzbekistan bilateral relationship”.83

However, this paper argues

that the change of alliances from the US to the Russian Federation was not the outcome,

as commonly assumed, of the events of May 13 2005 in Andijon and the subsequent

reaction to them by the USA, but rather a catalyst that sped up the process that preceded

those events.84

Analysis of the chronology of the events that have led to the break of

the US-Uzbek alliance and the regional realignment triggered by Uzbekistan’s shift of

foreign policy orientation toward the regional blocks and organizations manifests that

the US and Uzbek governments have failed to communicate effectively due to the

fundamental differences in their vision of international relations and their value

systems.85

Both sides of the “Strategic Partnership and Cooperation” agreement86

of

2002 seem to have interpreted its terms differently, which eventually led to the

disintegration of the alliance.

80

UzA News Agency, “V Uzbekistane proshla tseremoniia zakrytiia voennoi bazy SShA” (Ceremony of

closure of the USA military base took place in Uzbekistan), November 21, 2005,

http://www.uza.uz/society/?id1=6063. 81

Gregory Gleason, “The Uzbek Expulsion of US Forces and Realignment in Central Asia”, Problems of

Post-Communism, March/April 2006, 49. 82

Frederick Starr, “Introduction” to Daly, John C.K., Meppen, Kurt H., Socor, Vladimir and Starr,

Frederick S. “Anatomy of a Crisis: U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations, 2001-2005”. Silk Road Paper, Central

Asia-Caucasus Institute, (February 2006), 5. 83

LTC. Kurt H. Meppen, “US-Uzbek Bilateral Relations: Policy Options” in Daly, John C.K., Meppen,

Kurt H., Socor, Vladimir and Starr, Frederick S. “Anatomy of a Crisis: U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations, 2001-

2005”. Silk Road Paper, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, (February 2006), 13. 84

Meppen, 31. 85

Daly, John C.K., Meppen, Kurt H., Socor, Vladimir and Starr, Frederick S. “Anatomy of a Crisis:

U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations, 2001-2005”. Silk Road Paper, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, (February

2006).

http://www.uza.uz/society/?id1=6063

32

This dissertation does not deal with the question of interpretation of the events in

Andijon on May 12-13, 2005. Neither does it attempt to reconstruct those events.

There have been some academic analyses of violence in Andijon, all of which take sides

according to their ideological position vis-à-vis current regime.87

The circumstances

surrounding the aftermath of those events made it impossible for any independent party

to conduct an investigation.88

Therefore, the public will probably never have access to

the full information regarding this tragedy. Although the numbers of people who died

and the circumstances of their deaths remain unclear,89

Andijon is the point when the

ideological alliances crystallised and much was made of the alleged interference of the

outside forces into the internal affairs of independent Uzbekistan.

The great game of the great powers to take control over the Eurasian ‘heartland’ by

means of promoting a colour (this time green) revolution has become the government’s

narrative of the events in Andijon.90

The Akromiya91

group has been portrayed as both

having links with the Islamic Khaliphate movement (Hizb-ut Tahrir), having masters in

Afghanistan and supporters Kyrgyzstan and also an attempt by the ‘West’ to install a

86

Strategic Partnership and Cooperation Framework Between the United States of America and the

Republic of Uzbekistan, July 4, 2002. USA Embassy in Uzbekistan:

http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&mid=400 87

Akiner, Shirin, ‘Violence in Andijon, 13 May 2005: An Independent Assessment’, Silk Road Paper,

Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, (July 2005); Daniel Kimmage, ‘What really happened on Uzbekistan’s

bloody Friday?’, RFE/RL Central Asia Report, 5, no. 18, 17 May 2005; International Crisis Group.

Uzbekistan: the Andijon Uprising. Asia Briefing No 36. Bishkek/Brussels, 25 May 2005; 88

The Uzbek government dismissed the calls by the UK, the EU and the OSCE for independent

investigation as “unfounded” and contradicting the norms of the international law. Accusations were

made afterwards by president Karimov himself and then the press that the demands for an investigation is

an attempt to “zamesti gryazniy sled” of the foreign involvement, to conceal the truth about the events

and to throw the blame on Uzbek government. 89

According to different reports by the international media, the opposition groups in Uzbekistan and

human rights organizations 500-1,000 people were killed in Andijan. The government provided the death

toll figure of 169. Shirin Akiner’s controversial report confirms the government estimate saying that the

number of casualties “was probably closer to the government estimate (i.e. under 200) than to the high

estimates (1,000 and above) given in media reports.” (p. 10)

90 For example, speech of Karimov at the SCO Summit, July 5, 2005. Ministry of Foreign Affairs,

http://www.mfa.uz/jahon/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid

=97&page=1.

91See Ilkhamov, Alisher, “’Akromiya’: Islamic Extremism or the Islamic Brand of Social Democracy?”.

UNISCI Discussion Paper, Issue 11, May 2005, 187.

http://www.usembassy.uz/home/index.aspx?&mid=400

http://www.mfa.uz/jahon/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=97&page=1


33

puppet regime through the usual scheme of the export of “Colour revolutions”.92

The

discourses of danger around religious fundamentalism/Islamism and the Colour

revolutions along with the New Great Game thesis of regional international relations

have provided the ideological foundation for the recent rapprochement between Russia,

China and the Central Asian states.

III.2. Continuity in Uzbekistan’s Independent National Foreign Policy

The only constant in Uzbekistan’s foreign policy after its independence in 1991 has

been the pursuit of national interest, which is equated by the leadership with regime

survival. At times it has meant that the state interest equals saving the face of the

president, because he has come to personify the state. Uzbekistan’s foreign policy cycle

that started in 1990s with consistent moves to distance itself from Russia, through

participation in NATO’s “Partnership for peace” scheme, attending its 1999 summit in

the USA, subsequent withdrawal from the CIS Collective Security Treaty, membership

in the pro-Western GUAM/GUUAM, which culminated in 2001, when Uzbekistan

willingly offered its cooperation in America’s War on Terror and basing rights in the

south of the country; and ended in the reversal of this strategic partnership in the wake

of Colour revolutions in the post-Soviet space and consequent rapprochement with

Russia and pro-status quo authoritarian regimes in the region93

– this whole cycle

92

“Nobody will turn us away from the chosen path”, Islam Karimov’s press conference given in the

aftermath of the events in Andijan on May 12-13, 2005, (May 14, 2005, Tashkent, Oqsaroy residence).

Published on the web site of the Press Service of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan:

http://www.press-service.uz/ru/book_content.scm?sectionId=9672&contentId=9679. 93

Uzbekistan has also re-joined the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on August 16, 2006.

“Uzbekistan stal polnopravnim chlenom ODKB” (Uzbekistan has become a full-right member of the

CSTO), Russian International Information Agency (RIA Novisti), August 17, 2006,

http://rian.ru/politics/cis/20060817/52738112-print.html .

http://www.press-service.uz/ru/book_content.scm?sectionId=9672&contentId=9679

http://rian.ru/politics/cis/20060817/52738112-print.html

34

speaks in favour of considering the norm of sovereignty and the pursuit of national

interest as the leading principle in Uzbekistan’s conduct of foreign policy.94

The ideology of national independence as the essence of the legitimation of the state’s

existence has also set the foreign policy course of the republic on “a pragmatic and

flexible but assertive and unilateralist foreign policy”95

tangent. Islam Karimov said in

his report for the joint session of the Legislative Chamber and the Senate of Oliy Majlis

that “the main goal, essence and content of the foreign policy” was “the interests of

Uzbekistan and once more the interests of Uzbekistan”.96

Horsman describes

Uzbekistan’s relations with Russia and the US as “equidistant” allowing a fine balance

in order to maintain the newly independent state’s sovereignty and achieve the most

favourable position vis-à-vis the great powers. Uzbekistan’s reluctance to commit to

any regional block or organization is a natural inclination of a newly emergent state that

enjoys the regional power status to prefer bilateral relations to multilateralism.97

Since

the early post-independence period Uzbekistan has been trying to balance cooperation

within the framework of pro-Russian (the CIS), pro-Western (GUUAM) and pro-

Chinese (SCO) organizations, maintaining the comfortable distance and making the best

of their interest to strengthen military and economic ties.98

The title of the latest

(thirteenth) book in the collection by President Karimov (“Uzbekistan will never depend

on anyone”)99

manifests Uzbekistan’s determination to uphold its sovereignty and to

resist the hegemonic forces. In response to the demands of the OSCE and other

94

Vladimir Socor, “The Unfolding of the US-Uzbekistan Crisis” in Daly, John C.K., Meppen, Kurt H.,

Socor, Vladimir and Starr, Frederick S. “Anatomy of a Crisis: U.S.-Uzbekistan Relations, 2001-2005”.

Silk Road Paper, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, (February 2006): 44-65. 95

Stuart Horsman, “Independent Uzbekistan: ten years of gradualism or stagnation?” in Sally N.

Cummings (ed.), Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2003), 51. 96

Elyor Ganiev, “Foreign Policy priorities: dialogue and cooperation”, Deplomaticheskaya Panorama,

November 2005. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan,


=364&page=1. 97

Ibid, 52. 98

Nick Megoran, “Revisiting the ‘pivot’: the Influence of Halford Mckinder on Analysis of Uzbekistan’s

International Relations”, The Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (2004), 350.



35

European-based organizations to conduct an independent investigation of the events in

Andijan Karimov emphasized that no one alliance is defining and determinant for the

country’s foreign policy:

[…] please do not forget that Uzbekistan is situated on the territory of Asia. If we did join the

“Partnership for peace” programme after the USSR collapsed, it was, I think on the wave of

collective joining of that programme by all the post-Soviet states.

In this respect we, of course, understand our responsibility regarding the commitments we made

in the framework of this programme. At the same time, one should not forget, that Uzbekistan is

not only a member of the OSCE, but also the Organization of Islamic Conference – 85 percent of

our populations are adherents of Islam. Uzbekistan is a member of many inter-state structures.

For example, the CIS, the OCAC, the SCO and others. We also maintain close ties with the

countries of South-East Asia, practically all of the Arab countries.100

The independent and proactive nature of Uzbekistan’s foreign policy is also manifested

in the country’s relations with her neighbours, which is evident in the history of Uzbek

involvement in Tajik and Afgan civil wars, trade and migration policies in regard with

other Central Asian states. The independence was probably most expressively asserted

in Uzbekistan’s decision first to accommodate (2001) and later to evict (2005) the US

airbase from its territory. Horsman correctly interpreted Uzbek-US partnership in the

Afghan operation as a marriage of convenience that was limited to cooperation within a

particular project and thus temporary.101

The relations between the two countries started

cooling down long before May 2005. The foreign policy Conception of 2005 is a

culmination the independent foreign policy course of Uzbekistan.

III.3. Foreign Policy Conception of 2005 and Other Documents

The Conception of the Foreign Policy Priorities was adopted by the president decree in

March 2005,102

two months before the Andijon events. We therefore can see how the

government saw Uzbekistan’s foreign policy priorities before the test case, whether or

99

Islam Karimov, Uzbek People Will Never Depend on Anyone (Tashkent: O’zbekiston, 2006). 100

“Uzbek people will never depend on anyone”, press-conference given before President Karimov’s

state visit to Chinese People’s Republic, 25 May, 2005. Service of the President of the Republic of

Uzbekistan, http://www.press-service.uz/ru/book_content.scm?sectionId=9672&contentId=9817. 101

Stuart Horsman, “Independent Uzbekistan: Ten Years of Gradualism or Stagnation?” in Sally N.

Cummings (ed.), Oil, Transition and Security in Central Asia (London: Routledge, 2003), 52.

http://www.press-service.uz/ru/book_content.scm?sectionId=9672&contentId=9817

36

not Andijon caused any significant revision of the foreign policy priorities, vision of the

chief allies and foreign policy challenges. The Conception comes in the form of a

matrix for action divided into eight main policy spheres, which apparently are organized

hierarchically in the order of their importance. The document provides the broad policy

directions or goals, proposed measures to achieve these foreign policy goals, forms and

mechanisms, timeframe and the responsible bodies for their realisation/ implementation:

I. Creation of the favourable foreign policy conditions for sustainable development of the

Republic of Uzbekistan and the defence of her national interests on the international arena;

II. Provision of security, peace, stability and sustainable development in the region through

cooperation within the structures of SCO, OCAC (Organization of Central Asian

Cooperation), CIS and other organizations;

III. Development of cooperation within the framework of the UNO to achieve Uzbekistan’s

foreign policy goals;

IV. Strengthening cooperation with OSCE, the EU and NATO to deepen the democratic and

market reforms in the country, to provide security and stability in Uzbekistan and the region

as a whole;

V. Recognition by the international community of the positive changes that take place in the

country due to the implementation of the democratic and market reforms;

VI. Development and strengthening of cooperation with the most prominent world powers – the

states playing the leading role on the global arena – the USA, Russia, Japan, China,

Germany and France, other countries of the European Union;

VII. Maintaining close relations with the Republic of Korea, India and the countries of the South

and South-East Asia, Middle and Central East;

VIII. Widening and strengthening of cooperation with the prominent and authoritative

international financial structures and organizations – International Monetary Fund, World

Bank, Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and other financial and

economic institutions.103

The conception is logically divided into the policy priorities on the global and regional

(post-Soviet) levels. It further elaborates on the policy goals in Uzbekistan’ relations

with Europe, the ‘great powers’ and finally, the Asian and Middle Eastern states.

The relations with the US do not receive any significant attention within the Doctrine

where the US are grouped together with relations with other “great powers”

(krupneishimi derzhavami) and mainly focus on the continuation of cooperation in the

spheres of “security, fight against terrorism, religious extremism, drug and human

102

Decree of the President of Republic of Uzbekistan from March 10, 2006, N PP-24 “The Conception of

Realisation of the Priority Directions of the Reform in the Foreign Policy and the Foreign Economic

Policy Spheres”. 103

Appendix N 5 to the Decree of the President of Republic of Uzbekistan from March 10, 2006, N PP-24

“The Conception of Realisation of the Priority Directions of the Reform in the Foreign Policy and the

Foreign Economic Policy Spheres”.

37

trafficking”. Within the subsection on the US-Uzbek relations, the widening if

economic cooperation, increase in trade and investment are discussed as a foreign

policy priority.104

In the relations with European international organizations, the conception emphasizes

the interest of the state in developing the security component of the cooperation and in

downplaying of the ‘democracy promotion’ element of their agenda. Thus, the

conception points out the necessity for the OSCE to “adapt to the actual conditions of

global and regional security and the interests of the member-states”. It is pointed out in

other official sources that the organisation exhibits symptoms of the “internal disease”

and “obvious disbalance” in the understanding of the “fundamental principles of the

organization and its practice”.105

At the OSCE summit in Slovenia the Uzbek foreign

minister asserted that a thorough reform that would remove the structural misbalance

was crucial. The Uzbek foreign ministry believes that root of the perceived “deep

systemic crisis” of the organization lies in the failure of the organization to balance the

three ‘baskets’ constituting the foundation of its activities. The OSCE is believed to be

preoccupied with “the monitoring of the processes taking place on the territory of the

CIS, focusing on the human rights and controlling the electoral processes”, while such

observation missions are mainly one-sided, focus only on the countries “to the West of

Vienna” and their conclusions are “subjective and in most of the cases biased and

remote from the actual state of affairs”.106

The Uzbek side expressed disappointment at

104

Uzbekistan falls within the “Jackson-Vanik” amendment to the US law “On Trade” of 1974, which

was introduced during the cold war against the USSR for mistreatment of the Soviet Jews. Putting an end

to the amendments effect on Uzbekistan is one of the objectives of the Conception. Overall, the amount

of financial and economic assistance during the strategic cooperation within the operation in Afghanistan

was not meeting the expectations of the Uzbek leadership, since it was conditioned on the pace and

quality of the political and economic reform. 105

“OSCE: to meet the demands of the new time”, Diplomaticheskaia Panorama, December 2005.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan,

http://jahon.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=465

&page=1. 106

Ibid.

http://jahon.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=465&page=1

http://jahon.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=465&page=1

38

the failure of the organization to give an unequivocal evaluation of the “antiterrorist

efforts” of the Uzbek authorities during the Andijon events.

As for Uzbekistan-NATO link, the new approach to these relations is “based on the

principle of sufficient and necessary level of cooperation”.107

Therefore, the relations

with the “West”, including the USA were envisaged as mainly limited to the spheres of

military and anti-terror cooperation well before Andijon.

Security issues dominate the foreign policy agenda of the Uzbek state. The web page of

the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a thematic dossier on the contemporary international

problems and Uzbekistan’s position on them puts the threats posed by international

terrorism and extremism on the top of their list of the issues.108

Therefore, the country

seeks to forge cooperative ties with other states both bilaterally and within the

framework of international organizations (the UN, the SCO, and the OSCE) specifically

focusing on the anti-terrorism measures. The government puts political extremism in

the same category of threats as terrorism. In particular, they claim that propaganda by

religiously radical groups like Hizb-ut Tahrir represents “an ideological preparation to

direct involvement in the terror organizations”. The statement therefore calls upon the

UN agencies such as the UNICEF and the UNESCO to develop special educational

programmes aimed at creating a “stable immunity against the extremist ideology”

among the youth.109

III.4. Discourses of Danger: the Colour Revolutions, Islamic Extremism/Terrorism

and the New Great Game

107

Elyor Ganiev, “Foreign Policy Priorities: dialogue and cooperation”, Diplomaticheskaia Panorama,

November 2005. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan,


=364&page=1. 108

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Uzbekistan,

http://www.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=13&

page=1 109

Ibid.



http://www.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=13&page=1

http://www.mfa.uz/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=13&page=1

39

The “heartland” or the New Great Game (NGG) thesis has become a staple paradigm

for many analysts of the international relations of Central Asian states. The thesis is

equally popular with both the Western and the post-Soviet intellectuals and policy

makers.110

It can be said to have had a great impact on the foreign policy formulation of

Uzbekistan. Although originating in the time of imperial competition for the region at

the end of the nineteenth century, the thesis of Halford Mackinder is held to be still

valid and has become pivotal to Uzbekistan’s understanding of its foreign policy role.

Geography equals destiny, according to the view of the country as lying at the heart of a

region of immense geo-strategic and geo-economic interests of global (the US, China,

Russia) and regional (Iran, Turkey, Pakistan and Afganistan) powers. Andrew Edwards

writes:

Therefore the perceived wisdom is that the New Great Game, emerging in the early 1990s and

continuing until the present day, is multifaceted, covering a range of sectors from economic to

social and cultural and questions of hard security, with a variety of actors playing the game in a

number of geographical areas. The hypothesis is that while the original Great Game has ended, a

New Great Game has taken its place.111

Some students of Central Asia have dismissed the New Great Game thesis as not useful,

in fact, false and misleading and failing to withstand any degree of academic rigor:

The political, cultural, economic and military situation is radically different. The aims are

different as are the means and methods used. The only real similarities—and these are limited—

are in the geographical location and in the romantic, exotic, obscure and remote perspective

given by some commentators to the events occurring in Central Asia and the Transcaucasus.112

110

See, for instance, Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia

(London, New York: I.B. Tauris, 2002); Menon, Rajan, “The New Great Game in Central Asia”, Survival

45, no. 2 (2003): 187-204; Ilan Berman, “The New Battleground: Central Asia and the Caucasus”, The

Washington Quarterly 28, no. 1 (2004): 59-69; Frederick S. Starr,“Making Central Asia Stable”, Foreign

Affairs 74, no. 1 (1996): 80-92, for examples of the geopolitical analysis of Central Asian international

relations, and Matthew Edwards, “The New Great Game and the new great gamers: disciples of Kipling

and Mackinder”, Central Asian Survey 22, no. 1 (2003): 83-102; Nick Megoran, “Revisiting the ‘pivot’:

the Influence of Halford Mckinder on Analysis of Uzbekistan’s International Relations”, The

Geographical Journal 170, no. 4 (2004): 347-358, and John Heathershaw, “New Great Game or Same

Old Ideas? Neo-Sovietism and the International Politics of Imagining ‘Central Asia’”, 16 June 2006 for

critical approach to the new great game thesis and the analysis of how it has affected thinking of policy-

makers in the West, Russia and Central Asia. 111

Matthew Edwards, “The New Great Game and the new great gamers”, Central Asian Survey 22, no.1

(2003), 87. 112

Ibid, 90.

40

Nonetheless, the NGG has become a central idiom in the regional governments’

discourses of international relations.

The vision of the Central Asian region as the battleground of global powers aspiring to

dominate the heartland gives the rationale for the discourse of danger around the Colour

revolutions as a strategic tool utilised by the ‘evil forces’ to destabilise the region and

take it over. In the global conspiracy for the regime change in the CIS countries

disparate actors are lumped together in fashion that implies their ideological and

functional unity. Therefore, the national governments (especially through their

embassies and aid programmes), international NGOs, the United Nations agencies,

human rights organizations and local NGOs supported or funded by some international

actors are all believed to cooperate in a conscious and premeditated manner in order to

overthrow the governments that ‘the West’ does not approve of in order to institute a

form of government willing to play by their rules of the game.113

Both the great game thesis and the “export of revolutions” scare are problematic. The

former exaggerates the importance of the region generally and Uzbekistan in particular

for the US or ‘Western’ foreign policy interests. The latter envisages a master plan for

the regime change and spreading liberal ideology, as part of the great game competition

that will target the states in the region. This plan supposedly will require not only

enormous commitment money-wise but also the unthinkable degrees of the will and the

skill to coordinate and plan the activities among the organizations that are not

traditionally understood as acting in accord internationally. The organizations as

diverse as the Peace Corps, the Open Society Institute (Soros Foundation), the USAID,

the association of American lawyers ABA/CEELI, the American Council on

cooperation in education ACCELS, the Counterpart International, Radio Liberty/ Free

41

Europe, the UNHCR, the Freedom House, the BBC, the IWPR, the Council on

International Research and Exchange (IREX), the charity organization supporting

independent mass media Internews Network, Eurasia Foundation that provides support

to economic and democratic reform in the CIS countries, the Central Asian Free

Exchange (CAFE), the Urban Institute, Mercy Corps, Winrock International, not to

mention the countless local and grassroots NGOs have all been denied re-registration

under some bogus pretexts and were closed down, because they were believed to be

involved in plotting a colour revolution in Uzbekistan.114

The Uzbek press and the authorities have launched a campaign of indictment of all

organizations and individuals involved in institutions promoting liberal values by

representing them as agents of the malevolent outside forces of neo-imperialism. For

instance, the newspaper “O’zbekiston Ovozi” in the article entitled “Games under

attractive guise”115

informs the readers (referring to the Ministry of Justice data) that

there are around 5,000 registered NGOs in Uzbekistan, “but the activities of some of

them have been stopped by the ruling of court”. Based on the conclusions made by the

participants of a workshop “Export of democracy and its consequences” organized by

the political parties of Uzbekistan, some NGOs “engage in activities that pose a threat to

113

Graeme P. Herd, “Colourful Revolutions and the CIS. ‘Manufactured’ Versus ‘Managed’

Democracy?”, Problems of Post-Communism 52, no.2 (2005), 4. 114

The Ministry of Justice of Uzbekistan justifies the denial to extend the organizations’

registration/accreditation by “deviation of the organization’s activities from those initially declared in

their charters”. Thus, for instance, Winrock International’s initial sphere of activity declared in its charter

was “realization of the ‘Farmer to farmer’ programme aimed at rendering the farmers assistance in

increasing the levels of productivity and effectiveness of agricultural activities”. However, apart from

this project the NGO realised a “Project on increasing integral legal literacy among women”, which

supported the women NGOs in Uzbekistan. Winrock among other things funded and otherwise supported

trainings and seminars conducted by experts invited from the Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, creation of local

NGOs, trips abroad by the NGO leaders, and the unlicensed production of print materials and video-

cassettes with films and plays that were distributed during the seminars and trainings. According to the

expert opinion of the Ministry of Sport and Culture and the national agency “Uzbekkino”, the plots of the

films and the plays were “built in exclusively negative and distorted view of interpersonal relations within

Uzbek and Karakalpak families and represented an attempt to impress upon the audience the view of the

oppressed status of women in Uzbekistan, and also to create negative attitude towards the traditions and

way of life of Uzbek and Karakalpak people.” Source: Ferghana.ru, “Another representative office of an

American organization has been closed in Uzbekistan”, 27 July, 2006,

http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=4518.

http://www.ferghana.ru/article.php?id=4518

42

the national security”. The leaders of such NGOs are reportedly “former officers and

generals of CIA”, therefore it becomes clear for the paper that the NGOs are “branches

of the foreign intelligence services disguised under beautiful names”. Thus the whole

country, according to the author, should stay vigilant in the name of preserving stability

in the republic; otherwise it will follow the fate of Kyrgyzstan. There, the paper

continues, “as a result of anarchy, looting and disorders, a mere change of country’s

leadership took place according to the scenario of the Western directors”. Other

newspapers as well cite some sources that indicate that the US government invested

millions of dollars into democracy information centres in the region. The Uzbek press

warns the readers about the nightmares of the “colour revolutions”, telling about their

outcomes in the Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan. Everyone should know the

“enemy’s true face”, because “the Central Asian region is in the intersection of the

interests of Russia, China, Turkey and the USA” and the latter will do all it takes to

conduct its policy in the region. The Russian Institute of Strategic and Interregional

Research in cooperation with the Regional Politics Foundation of Uzbekistan and the

Institute for Civil Society Research conducted a round table dedicated to the subject of

“Colour Revolutions as a threat to societal stability”. During this gathering the

participants discussed in detail the current situations in Serbia, Georgia, the Ukraine and

Kyrgyzstan that underwent such revolutions. The specialist present came to a

unanimous conclusion that all of the ‘post-revolutionary regimes’ have experienced

serious decline in real income of the population and an alarming increase in

unemployment.116

The clear delineation of borders thus becomes possible through the discourses of

difference, whereby the self is portrayed as morally superior, stable, clean and healthy,

115

Regnum review of Uzbekistani press, 3 July, 2006, http://www.regnum.ru/news/666938.html. 116

Regnum review of Uzbekistani press, 15 May, 2006, http://www.regnum.ru/news/639773.html.



43

while the other possesses the opposite traits. For instance, in the article under the

eloquent title “Akromiya as a contagious disease and an expression of extremism” the

“Narodnoe Slovo” newspaper employs the socio-medical discourse in regard to the

movement. For example, an average member of Akromiya is described as a young male

aged 20 to 25, who “had caught the disease from his older brother”. An “ardent”

Akromiya member, Abdubois Ibragimov ‘infected’ all his five brothers and father - “the

confessions of the akromists who joined this ‘religion’ in late 1990s testify to the fact

that the contagion if transferred from the older and more authoritative members of a

family to the younger ones”.117

The metaphors of theatre are also commonly employed by the national press: theatre,

stage, actors, and directors (all used inside the inverted commas) – are there to convene

the sense of contrivance and insincerity, even hypocrisy of the external forces and their

designs.118

The most popular discourse in the Uzbek press is the one of the moral decadence of the

Western societies. The liberal values are thus depreciated and the moral space of

identity is drawn by a discourse of danger of becoming like the other. As Campbell put

it, “…the social space of inside/outside is both made possible by and helps constitute a

moral space of superior/inferior, which can be animated in terms of any number of

figurations of higher/lower”.119

Presenting the ‘Western’ models of democracy as

morally unacceptable substantiates the infamous thesis of the regime about the unique

mentality of the Uzbek people that prevents the immediate and wholesale transition to

117

“Akramiya as a contagious disease and an expression of extremism”, Narodnoe Slovo. “Jahon”

Information Agency under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan,

http://www.mfa.uz/jahon/modules.php?op=modload&name=Section&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid

=260&page=1. 118

“’Theatre’ of one ‘actor’?”, Narodnoe Slovo, “Jahon” Information Agency under the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan,


=204&page=1.

http://www.mfa.uz/jahon/modules.php?op=modload&name=Section&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=260&page=1




44

liberal democracy. For example, journalists would routinely bring up the fact that the

Western democracies have produced “anti-natural” laws that allow marriages between

homosexuals as a proof of their [democracies’] amorality.120

Similarly, the papers, TV

programmes, seminars and round tables would be dedicated to the decadent influences

of the Western pop-culture, the impropriety of the fashions among the young people,

especially the young women. Thus, there is a fear not only of the export of the Western

democracy but also of the Western culture, which are incompatible with the national

identity.

Finally, the internal identity is delineated by drawing an image of the “enemy within”,

who is “mankurtisized” by external forces. For example, journalist Ibrohim Normatov’s

articles condemning the “masquerading democrats”, “traitors and envious people live

among us”, who perform the tasks assigned to them by “hostile forces” and are paid

according to the amount of work done.121

Karimov also in his interview accused the outsiders of subverting the identity of the

Uzbek citizens in pursuit of their egoistic goals:

The international organizations that work here not always pursue noble goals. Through the

workshops like “The leaders of the XXI century” they “help the government” to select the most

gifted young people, but they do it primarily for their own benefit. This is followed by the

regular trips abroad, where in the course of various symposia and seminars those young people

are systematically brainwashed. They prepare people who call themselves “the citizens of the

world” and say that soon there will be no more borders. This is what is called “ten steps towards

the common people”. Fine. But then it turns out that three citizens of the country, where this

beautiful expression was born, blow up Tashkent.122

Others, who are not as intelligent, are duped into joining enemy’s ranks; they too are

brainwashed and made into “zombies”. The article in Narodnoe Slovo entitled “The lost

119


(Manchester : Manchester University Press, 1998), 73. 120

Ibrohim Normatov, “Do not make the fire of conspiracy”, Qishloq Hayoti (Rural Life), Regnum

review of Uzbekistani press, 3 July, 2006, http://www.regnum.ru/news/666938.html. 121

Ibrohim Normatov in Qishloq Hayoti (Rural LIfe), Inson va Qonun (Individual and the Law), and

Turkiston. Regnum review of Uzbekistani press, 3 July, 2006, http://www.regnum.ru/news/666938.html. 122

Viktoria Panfilova, “Pri imperii nas schitali liudmi vtorogo sorta” (Interview with Islam Karimov: In

the days of empire we were regarded as second-class citizens), Nezavisimaia Gazeta , January 14, 2005.



45

ones” tells us a story of a village simpletons, who found themselves working for

Akromiya bakery and who were cynically used by the movement to take part in the May

events. The author concludes that Akromiya took advantage of the “gullible young

people, who have no life experience or firm moral principles of their own, who besides

come from the low-income, socially vulnerable background”.123

What we observe, paradoxically, is not only demonization of the outside forces (the

hegemonic West) as subversive but also their inexplicable mutation with the other

major ideological threat to the regime, the Islamist movements.124

In Uzbekistan,

curiously enough, the discourses of danger concerning terrorism and fundamentalism

merged with those of colour revolution scare in the government narrative. Andijon

events were portrayed as an attempted coup inspired by “external” forces interested in

undermining the stability and constitutional order in the republic. The enemy is

therefore Janus-faced, according to government narrative. On the one hand, it is

inspired by religious fanaticism. On the other, it is supported by the hypocritical

Western neo-imperialists. Here is how the official Uzbek news web site describes the

events:

On the night from 12 to 13 May 2005 several armed militants, who were the members of

"Akromiya" terrorist organisation, the offshoot of "Hizb-ut-Tahrir" in Andijan, arrived in Andijan

from the south of Kyrgyzstan. Their accomplices joined them in the city. The rest of the state of

affairs developed in keeping with the scenario of "colour revolution", which has taken place in

Kyrgyzstan.125

Such understanding, although not withstanding any reality check, has profoundly

affected both domestic and foreign policies of Uzbekistan after Andijon. The

discourses of danger around Islamic extremism/terrorism and colour revolutions have

123

“Zabludshie” (The lost ones), Narodnoe Slovo, “Jahon” Information Agency under the Ministry of

Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Uzbekistan,


=231&page=1. 124

Meppen, 40. 125

Bekqul Egamqulov and Yunus Boronov, “Interests hitting democracy”, October 26, 2005. UzReport

news agency, http://news.uzreport.com/andijan.cgi?lan=e&id=284.



http://news.uzreport.com/andijan.cgi?lan=e&id=284

46

been used by the government to create its version of what had happened in Andijon,

provided rationale and rationalisation for alliance with other status-quo states and

allowed the Uzbek state to capitalise on it in its nation-building project.

47

Conclusion

This dissertation sought to investigate the relationship between the national identity,

ideology and foreign policy of a state in Central Asia that since its independence has

been striving to consolidate its state and nationhood. Foreign policy is one of the

determining spheres, through which a national identity is asserted. It has been argued

here that foreign policy and the nation-building project of the new Uzbek state (which

the president has called the Ideology of National Independence) are in a symbiotic

relationship. National identity and ideology can be both the rationale and rationalisation

for forging alliances or leaving them. Likewise, foreign policy serves to reinforce the

national identity and forward the state’s nation-building project. As the case study of

Uzbekistan’s Ideology of National Independence has demonstrated, the country’s

foreign policy has been shaped by the discourses of danger that are central in

articulation of a nation’s identity and the notions of threat and interest that accompany it.

Uzbekistan since it gained sovereignty in 1991 has pursued an independent and pro-

active foreign policy that reflected the national identity that the state has been

promoting in the form of the Ideology of the National Independence. This project

serves to legitimate the state based on the idea of national statehood, but also the very

regime that in the persona of the president have come to embody the state.

This dissertation offers an alternative interpretation of the recent Uzbek foreign policy

changes that goes beyond the new great game type of analysis and looks at the domestic

and regional political dynamics. It is argued here that regional realignment after the

Andijon events is consistent with Uzbekistan’s foreign policy course pursued so far and

should be interpreted as the state’s pursuit of the national interest, which in its term is

defined by the national identity and ideological considerations. The national interest in

48

case of Uzbekistan is equated with the survival of Karimov’s regime, because

historically an independent polity with that name is inconceivable in separation from the

figure of the timeless leader.

Further comparative studies looking into the problems of national identity consolidation

and foreign policy making in Central Asia are necessary in order to shed light unto the

similarities and divergences of the nation-building projects within the region as well as

the wider post-Soviet states’ context.

49

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