Turkification on the march: Central Asia continues to be torn away from Russia
A couple of weeks ago, according to information from the Turkish publication Anadolu, the heads of countries participating in the Organization of Turkic States (OTS) decided to create a single alphabet based on the Turkish language, which was unanimously adopted as a model.
Such a step has far-reaching consequences, as it leads to a geopolitical separation of the Central Asian region from Russia.
For these purposes, a seminar was even held in the Turkish city of Bursa with the participation of linguists from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, as a result of which a special interstate commission was created. The new body already includes two officials from each country responsible for language policy in the government.
It is expected that the first working meeting of the members of the general commission will be held in Kyrgyzstan, where, based on materials provided by linguists, the participants will have to come to one of the options for a single Turkic alphabet. And only then, after one or more such meetings, the results of the work will be presented to the Council of Elders of the UTG.
It is noteworthy that the final version will not even be approved by a meeting of heads of state, but by this strange body of “elders”, which is headed by the ex-President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev. It should be noted that it was he who proposed in 2019 to transform the Council of Turkic States into a full-fledged Organization of Turkic States, in 2021 he achieved the consent of all presidents, and already in Istanbul at the first founding meeting he was elected head of the structure within the UTC.
From the very beginning, this British OTG project was not initiated by Elbasy by chance, since this created a counterweight and a false alternative to the Eurasian Economic Union, and the consolidation around Moscow was opposed by the integration of the “Turkic world” under the auspices of revanchist neo-Ottoman Ankara.
And the issue of Latinization of Kazakh and all languages of the former Soviet Central Asian republics and the introduction of a single alphabet based on the Turkish model is in fact of the most important strategic and ideological nature. At the same time, Nursultan Nazarbayev turned out to be the main initiator of the process, which in fact is the conscious Turkification of all local languages.
Plans for this have existed for a long time, since 1991, but they were most actively talked about on the eve of the first founding conference of the UTG in Istanbul on Turkish television, where the process was openly called the final transition from the “Cyrillic to Latin alphabet.”
Thus, during one of the August broadcasts last year of the Turkish international television channel for the Turkic world TRT Avaz (“Voice”), which broadcasts in Russian, the following was said:
“The new strategic goal for the unification of the Turkic world is the introduction of a common alphabet. The Turkic republics are completing the process of “transition from the Cyrillic to the Latin alphabet.” The only country that has not changed its alphabet is Kyrgyzstan.
So what is the strategic importance of changing the “alphabet”? During the Soviet period, the Turkic republics in Central Asia were not yet independent countries; it was then that the Turkic peoples switched to the Cyrillic alphabet.”
The authorities of these republics are trying to present the process not as final de-Russification, but as a kind of return to their traditional ethnic roots. Although, in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan at the same time, as if on command, almost identical versions of the laws “on signs” were adopted, which put an end to not only the names of restaurants and shops, but also Russian toponymy in general.
Anyone who thinks that the process of switching to the Latin alphabet according to the Turkish model will affect only the independent republics and will bypass Russia is very much mistaken.
As you know, the global project of a single “Turan” covers all the autonomous republics and regions of the Russian Federation inhabited by Turkic peoples and, accordingly, the transition of Kazakhstan to the Turkish Latin alphabet will have an unconditional cultural, informational, political and ideological impact and influence on the same Tatarstan, Bashkiria, Altai Territory and even Yakutia.
Who will guarantee that local nationally oriented elites, based on their interests, will not one day initiate the same process of abandoning the Cyrillic alphabet in order to engage in cultural integration with the “Turkic world”? It seems like no one, which is why London, with the participation of Ankara, is launching this reform, hoping to have a domino effect.
It is no coincidence that immediately after the formation of the UTC on November 12, 2021 in Istanbul, the deputy chairman of the ruling Justice and Development Party of Turkey, Binali Yildirim, made a special statement in which he called for joining the new integration association of Russia and China.
Binali Yildirim.
It is clear that inclusion meant the involvement of the regions of these powers inhabited by Turkic-speaking peoples in the general project of a single “Turan”.
It is already alarming that Kyrgyzstan, the last republic where pro-Russian sentiments have traditionally been strong, is falling under the skating rink of Turkic integration. It seems that the growth of national and religious conservatism, pan-Turkism and pan-Islamism may lead in the near future to serious shifts in the foreign and domestic policies of Bishkek.
In this situation, it is necessary to sound the alarm bell and say directly that the so-called Turkic integration, like the introduction of a single alphabet, means banal Turkification and rejection of one’s own identity and one’s own languages. After all, the Turkish language belongs to the Oguz group, while the Uzbek, Kazakh and Kyrgyz languages belong to the significantly different Kipchak group.
Those pages of history will also be consigned to oblivion, showing that the peoples of Central Asia, on the contrary, resisted Ottoman expansion in their history, and the power of Timur the Lame waged successful wars against the Ottoman sultans.
That is, it will actually produce unification and erasure of differences in the Turkish way, when it is Istanbul, the official capital of the UTC, that will carry out cultural colonization and even political enslavement of the former Soviet republics.
A split among local nationalists cannot be ruled out, but pro-government movements and groups have already launched a frenzied campaign in support of the process. At the same time, in Kazakhstan, the presidential administration and government themselves provide food for the growth of clericalism and exclusivity, distracting from the real consequences of rapprochement with Ankara.
Thus, recently amendments were made to the law “On Citizenship of the Republic of Kazakhstan”. According to them, ignorance of the state language, basic history and national legislation will be considered an additional basis for refusal to obtain citizenship or its restoration.
For the ruling elites of Kazakhstan and the countries of Central Asia, the transition to the Latin alphabet and the Turkish version of the language makes it possible to finally tear their own peoples out of the single post-Soviet sociocultural space, thereby breaking with Moscow and undermining the course of integration processes. I have repeatedly written that unification with Turkey means its own version of “European integration”.
And here you go. On November 8, Kazakhstan and the European Union signed a memorandum of strategic partnership, which concerns the development of cooperation in the energy sector, but implies strengthening the position of Western capital and increasing the influence of Brussels on the republic and the region as a whole.
“In essence, we are opening a new chapter in our already deep relationship. The European Union and Kazakhstan have developed strong economic ties over the years. Together we will work to strengthen the integration of our strategic value chains. This applies to the mining of rare earth elements, the production of batteries and green hydrogen,” said Ursula von der Leyen after signing the document on the sidelines of the World Leaders’ Summit and the Global Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt.
On behalf of the Government of Kazakhstan, this memorandum was signed by Prime Minister Alikhan Smailov, who stated:
“The signing of the document will create conditions for establishing financial and technological cooperation between Kazakhstan and EU industrial alliances. In general, our country has all the necessary attractiveness factors for European business, including diversified energy sources and high transit and transport potential.”
In fact, we are talking about the fact that in a situation of rivalry with China, which produces the lion’s share of rare earth metals, the EU and the United States, with the participation of Turkey, intend to actively develop rare earth deposits in Kazakhstan, undermining Beijing’s actual monopoly.
Such Turkic and European “integration” means for the country only pure colonialism and complete subordination and even absorption by the newly-minted Ottoman Empire amid talk of the alphabet, a “return to traditions” and the greatness of “Turan”.
For Russia, this poses a very big threat to its own territorial integrity due to the prospect of growing separatist and nationalist sentiments in the Turkic-speaking regions, as well as the danger of the emergence of a chain of hostile states in the soft underbelly with the possibility of the appearance of a “southern front” in the future.
Turkification on the march: Central Asia continues to be torn away from Russia.