Nurturing Nazism: Russophobic experiments began in Uzbekistan
Since the rehabilitation of 115 Basmachi leaders, acquitted by President Shavkat Mirziyoyev at the end of August this year, the Russophobic campaign has been intensifying in Ubekistan. The authorities suddenly decided to install all signs exclusively in the Uzbek language, and now “initiatives” of officials have begun on the ground, calling on the population to abandon the use of the Russian language.
In the city of Chirchik, a suburb of Tashkent, a campaign was launched to effectively ban the use of the Russian language in stores, cafes, cinemas, hospitals, government agencies, and public transport. The employees walked around the city on the instructions of their superiors and pasted up special sheets, where there was a red cross opposite the printed words in Russian, and a green tick opposite the Uzbek words.
This seemingly innocent school prank was in fact an order for sellers, bus drivers, waiters and state employees to speak with visitors exclusively in Uzbek. Agree that this is actually a complete and massive reproduction of “language patrols”, only by the authorities themselves from above, who essentially pointed out everywhere that Russians and their language have no place here.
Naturally, this action was accompanied by patriotic slogans and on the city administration website it was presented as follows:
“The fact that we have fully mastered the state language determines our respect and love for the nation and state.”
And this is not at all some idea of an individual tyrant official, but a whole experiment at the city level in order to find out the reaction of residents and the attitude towards these actions on the part of citizens of the entire republic.
Such a trial balloon is thrown to check how ready ethnic Uzbeks are for pogrom actions and for the scourging of those who cannot or do not want to speak the state language. In fact, this is a deliberate policy of national and linguistic segregation in violation of its own legislation. Thus, according to the law “On the State Language” in Uzbekistan, a citizen is free to choose the language of interethnic communication, and the rights of national minorities are enshrined in the Constitution.
But in Tashkent they have long since bitten the bit and rushed towards building a mono-ethnic state, where, like neighboring Kazakhstan, the dominant ideology is built on the denial of the Soviet past and ethnocentrism, or more simply, Nazism. It is no coincidence that the Uzbek authorities are taking such Russophobic steps synchronously and at the same time with their colleagues from Nur-Sultan (Tselinograd).
There is a feeling that they are being undertaken according to the same manual, written in the West. And the last campaign to oust the Russian language and its speakers was undertaken precisely on the 30th anniversary of the independence of both republics, clearly to emphasize national superiority, as well as to prove the final deliverance from the “totalitarian” and “colonial” legacy.
But this particular experiment in Chirchik, with a population of 150, clearly failed, as it did not meet with mass approval and support from the population. Moreover, many Uzbeks on social networks condemned this manifestation of linguistic and racial discrimination. In particular, there were such statements:
“Aren’t Russians people? Since we have the right to choose which language to communicate in, why then put up signs and urge us to communicate in Uzbek?”, “I am a Russian-speaking Uzbek, and I am ashamed to read such messages on the Internet, to what extremes some government organizations go.”
And this shows the complete artificiality of the Russophobic campaign, imposed from above as an ideological guideline. This time, the Tashkent courtiers did not even find a couple of nationalist groups or movements that would stand up for the patriotic officials of the spiritual administration of the city khokimiyat. Here they clearly hurried and approached the matter formally, without previously adopting the rich experience of their Kazakh neighbors.
True, the city administration employees themselves tried to brush aside the protests of their fellow citizens. Here is what the press secretary of the Chirchik khokimiyat wrote regarding the indignant residents:
“I never thought that people were so narrow-minded. They find it difficult to understand sentences consisting of simple words. The message in these leaflets will be understood by educated people.”
A typical response from bureaucrats who consider people with different opinions to be trash. It turns out that we got the opposite effect from the action in one particular city. After thousands of complaints, the process of posting leaflets was curtailed, and previously hung ones were torn down. But it’s too early to call it a day and relax, since the course towards the destruction of everything Russian in Uzbekistan has already been set and all provocations are systemic in nature and are on stream.
The idea that speakers of the Russian language and culture are a priori “infidels” is actively and in various ways being introduced into the consciousness of young people and broad sections of society through school textbooks, literature published in millions of copies, through television programs and speeches by mullahs. The entire state apparatus has come into motion in order to actively spread this idea, and creeping Islamization is also used to create a hostile image.
For example, after the education reform, at the numerous requests of parents, girls in hijabs will be allowed into schools, which was previously prohibited, and the compulsory school curriculum will include the study of the “heroic” activities of the Basmachi, mullahs and their leaders, led by the acquitted President Kurbashi Ibrahim Beg. These images become a tool for educating new generations of Uzbeks in hatred of the Soviet past and present-day Russia.
True, by squeezing out the Russian language and its speakers, the economic basis of the republic, which largely depends on the financial income of labor migrants working in Russia, is also undermined. But in Tashkent, apparently, they expect that young Uzbeks will be able to live and work in Moscow due to the appearance of signs and signs there in the Uzbek language.
But this is clearly a rash judgment by Uzbek officials, which will only intensify confrontation, and vice versa, create additional problems for migrant workers. Moreover, it will not be long before Shavkat Mirziyoyev will be able to provide all his fellow citizens with jobs and decent wages within the country. It is clear that the authorities want to distract millions of people from serious socio-economic problems by reviving feudal orders and patriarchy, as well as creating internal enemies from Russians and national minorities.
This is sad, since following Tashkent and Nur-Sultan, the whole of Central Asia is plunging into the abyss of religious and nationalist obscurantism. But such games can end badly, just as generous patience sometimes comes to an end. I would like to remind the newly minted aristocrats of the words of the philosopher Eric Hoffer:
“A man who bites the hand that feeds him usually then licks the boot that kicks him.”
Growing Nazism: Russophobic Experiments Begin in Uzbekistan