Central Asia and the Caucasus: Transnationalism and Diaspora (Routledge Research in Transnationalism)

Central Asia and the Caucasus

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of linkages have been established between newly independent Central Asian states, or populations within them, and diaspora ethnic groups. This book explores the roles that diaspora communities play in the recent and ongoing emergence of national identities in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The loyalties of these communities are divided between their countries of residence and those states that serve as homeland of their particular ethno-cultural nation, and are further complicated by connections with contested transnational notions of common cultures and “peoples.” Written by highly respected experts in the field, the book addresses issues such as nationalism, conflict, population movement, global civil society, Muslim communities in China and relations between the new nation-states and Russia. This innovative book will interest students and researchers of transnationalism and Central Asian studies. Touraj Atabaki is Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History, Professor of Modern History at the University of Amsterdam and Professor of Iranian and Central Asian studies at the University of Utrecht. Sanjyot Mehendale is Executive Director of the Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the University of California at Berkeley. She is also the director of the Uzbek-Berkeley Archaeological Mission.

Transnationalism Series Editor: Steven Vertovec University of Oxford

“Transnationalism” broadly refers to multiple ties and interactions linking people or institutions across the borders of nation-states. Today myriad systems of relationship, exchange and mobility function intensively and in real time while being spread across the world. New technologies, especially involving telecommunications, serve to connect such networks. Despite great distances and notwithstanding the presence of international borders (and all the laws, regulations and national narratives they represent), many forms of association have been globally intensified and now take place paradoxically in a planetspanning yet common arena of activity. In some instances transnational forms and processes serve to speed-up or exacerbate historical patterns of activity, in others they represent arguably new forms of human interaction. Transnational practices and their consequent configurations of power are shaping the world of the twentyfirst century. This book forms part of a series of volumes concerned with describing and analyzing a range of phenomena surrounding this field. Serving to ground theory and research on “globalization”, the Routledge book series on “Transnationalism” offers the latest empirical studies and ground-breaking theoretical works on contemporary socio-economic, political and cultural processes which span international boundaries. Contributions to the series are drawn from Sociology, Economics, Anthropology, Politics, Geography, International Relations, Business Studies and Cultural Studies. The series is associated with the Transnational Communities Research Programme of the Economic and Social Research Council (see http://www. transcomm.ox.ac.uk). The series consists of two strands: Transnationalism aims to address the needs of students and teachers and these titles will be published in hardback and paperback. Titles include: Culture and Politics in the Information Age A new politics? Edited by Frank Webster

Transnational Democracy Political spaces and border crossings Edited by James Anderson Routledge Research in Transnationalism is a forum for innovative new research intended for a high-level specialist readership, and the titles will be available in hardback only. Titles include: 1 New Transnational Social Spaces International migration and transnational companies in the early 21st century Edited by Ludger Pries 2 Transnational Muslim Politics* Reimagining the Umma Peter G. Mandaville 3 New Approaches to Migration? Transnational communities and the transformation of home Edited by Nadje Al-Ali and Khalid Koser 4 Work and Migration Life and livelihoods in a globalizing world Edited by Ninna Nyberg Sorensen and Karen Fog Olwig 5 Communities across Borders New immigrants and transnational cultures Edited by Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof 6 Transnational Spaces Edited by Peter Jackson, Phil Crang and Claire Dwyer 7 The Media of Diaspora Edited by Karim H. Karim 8 Transnational Politics Turks and Kurds in Germany Eva Østergaard-Nielsen 9 Culture and Economy in the Indian Diaspora Edited by Bhikhu Parekh, Gurharpal Singh and Steven Vertovec

*Also available in paperback

10 International Migration and the Globalization of Domestic Politics Edited by Rey Koslowski 11 Gender in Transnationalism Home, longing and belonging among Moroccan migrant women Ruba Salih 12 State/Nation/Transnation Perspectives on transnationalism in the Asia–Pacific Edited by Brenda S. A. Yeoh and Katie Willis 13 Transnational Activism in Asia Problems of power and democracy Edited by Nicola Piper and Anders Uhlin 14 Diaspora, Identity and Religion New directions in theory and research Edited by Waltraud Kokot, Khachig Tölölyan and Carolin Alfonso 15 Cross-Border Governance in the European Union Edited by Olivier Thomas Kramsch and Barbara Hooper 16 Transnational Connections and the Arab Gulf Edited by Madawi Al-Rasheed 17 Central Asia and the Caucasus Transnationalism and diaspora Edited by Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale

Central Asia and the Caucasus Transnationalism and diaspora

Edited by Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale

First published 2005 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2005 Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors their contributions All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Central Asia and the Caucasus: transnationalism and disapora / edited by Touraj Atabaki and Sanjyot Mehendale. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-415-33260-5 1. Nationalism – Asia, Central. 2. Asia, Central – Ethnic relations. 3. Nationalism – Caucasus. 4. Caucasus – Ethnic relations. I. Atabaki, Touraj. II. Mehendale, Sanjyot, 1965– III. Title. DK859.5.C4544 2004 305.8'00958'090511– dc22 2004012848 ISBN 0-203-49582-9 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-57450-8 (Adobe eReader Format) ISBN 0-415-33260-5 (Print Edition)

Contents

Figures and tables Preface Acknowledgments Notes on contributors 1 Introduction: Transnationalism and diaspora in Central Asia and the Caucasus

ix xi xiv xv

1

TOURAJ ATABAKI

2 Nationalism from without: Theorizing the role of diasporas in contemporary conflict

10

JOLLE DEMMERS

3 Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan

21

SHIRIN AKINER

4 Russians in post-Soviet Central Asia: Issues and concerns

66

KULBHUSHAN WARIKOO

5 State, homeland, and diaspora: The Armenian and Azerbaijani cases

80

STEPHAN H. ASTOURIAN

6 Diaspora and global civil society: The impact of transnational diasporic activism on Armenia’s post-Soviet transition

113

ARMINE ISHKANIAN

7 Afghan communities in Uzbekistan: A preliminary case study NATALYA KHAN

140

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Contents

8 Uighur community in 1990s Central Asia: A decade of change

148

ABLET KAMALOV

9 The Afghan diaspora: Reflections on the imagined country

169

EDEN NABY

10 Islam in China: Transnationalism or transgression

184

DRU C. GLADNEY

11 The Assyrian diaspora: Cultural survival in the absence of state structure

214

EDEN NABY

Index

231

Figures and tables

Figures 10.1 10.2 10.3

Islam and culture: a range of alternatives Hui Islam and Chinese culture: a range of alternatives Muslim minorities and Chinese culture

208 209 209

Tables 1.1 1.2 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.7 7.1 7.2 8.1 8.2 8.3

Population distribution and ethnic composition of five Soviet Central Asian Republics (1989) Population distribution and ethnic composition of three Soviet Republics of the Caucasus (1989) Kazakh population movements in the twentieth century Ethnic diaspora formation by immigration in pre-Soviet period (late eighteenth–early twentieth centuries) Ethnic diaspora formation by immigration in Soviet period Main religious diasporas Penal diasporas Tentative typology Ethnic trends in Kazakhstan Ethnic trends in Kyrgyzstan Ethnic trends in Uzbekistan Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia, 1990–94 (registered migrants) Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia (1981–94) Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia (1990–94) Migration of ethnic Russians from Central Asia to Russia (1997) UNHCR resettlement of Afghan refugees in 1996–99 UNHCR repatriation of Afghan refugees in 1996–99 Uighur population in Central Asian countries Ethnic composition of Kyrgyzstan, per 1999 census Uighur population in Semirechie and Ferghana districts of the Russian Empire

5 6 26 38 38 41 42 58 68 68 68 74 74 74 74 142 143 154 155 156

x 8.4 8.5 8.6

Figures and tables Dynamics of number of ethnic groups in Kazakhstan for the period between two censuses (1989–99) Urban Uighur population in Kazakhstan Uighurs in Kazakhstan

158 158 158

Preface

This book covers the proceedings of the academic conference “Currents, CrossCurrents and Conflict: Transnationalism and Diaspora in the Caucasus and Central Asia,” held at the University of California, Berkeley, in the Spring of 2002. The volume focuses on contemporary and historical aspects of the areas and polities that constitute the regions of the Caucasus and Central Asia.1 The end of Soviet hegemony led to the emergence of new nation-states that had their formal beginnings as artificial polities created under Soviet policies. Along with Afghanistan, these fledgling states have been struggling with the conundrums of national identity amid complex population mixes and competing local and transnational ethnic, religious, and political affiliations. Moreover, various globalizing forces are bringing great pressures to bear on the region’s constituent parts, vying among them for cultural affiliations, strategic zones of interest, and economic introgression. Central Asia’s propinquity to Russia and China’s Muslim populations, and to Iran and Pakistan, heightens the region’s political significance; and as a vat of natural resources, including gas, oil, and gold, it has attracted intense interest from multinational capital. Even some of the region’s vast depopulated surfaces are of great moment – Russia’s missile program and nuclear industry are both deeply if now contingently engaged in Kazakhstan. The September 11th, 2001, attacks on the USA and their aftermath suddenly thrust the region further to the front of the world stage. Scholars, and the policy makers who depend on their work, are now struggling to sort out the region’s many-layered complexities. They have few published sources, however, which analyze the new post-Soviet realities. And those recent works that do address the region tend to focus on an individual political/geographic entity rather than on the dynamics among transnational forces within and beyond the region. The 2002 “Currents, Cross-Currents and Conflict” conference at the University of California, Berkeley, explored the roles diaspora communities play in the (re)emergence of identities in contemporary Central Asia and the Caucasus. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a number of linkages have been established between the newly independent states, or populations within them, and diaspora ethnic groups. As mentioned by King and Melvin,2 the loyalties of these diaspora groups are divided between their countries of residence and those new states that

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serve as the homeland of their particular, distinct ethno-cultural nation, and are further complicated by connections with contested transnational notions of common cultures and “peoples.” Related phenomena are to be found in the cobbled world of Afghanistan and in an extremely restive Xinjiang province in China. These transnational linkages operate both into and out of the region. For example, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, millions of self-identified Russians found themselves living on non-Russian territory in Central Asia. In order to maintain their social and economic positions in the new republics, they seek to play a direct part in Russian politics towards the region, as well as in local and inter-regional politics. Conversely, a number of factors have contributed to an exodus of large numbers from the Russian population in the Central Asian republics: indigenization; political reassertion by titular nationalities; ethnocultural resurgence; concerns about their economic viability in the new political dispensation; newly significant language barriers, and so on.3 Another variety of transnational diaspora phenomena can be seen in the example of the Kazakhs. Kazakhstan was the only Soviet Central Asian state with a majority Russian population. During the post-Soviet transition, the new Kazakh government looked to Kazakh communities abroad, hoping to entice many to return to create a numerical majority in the Kazakh state. Links were formed with Kazakh communities in China, Russia, Turkey, and Iran, and specific policies were established to encourage a return to an identified “homeland.” Transnational diasporas operate in the other direction as well. By the time the USSR collapsed, distinct ethnic Uighur communities had established themselves in several different countries and republics. Although for the most part these communities had been isolated from one another, they began to find a new unity in their relationship to their home region, Xinjiang (China). The Chinese state has become very apprehensive about the role these diaspora communities are playing in support of separatist voices in its western province. And several Central Asia nations are making use of the Uighur “card” in their relations with China. War and ethnic cleansing have been the engines of another variety of diaspora dynamics initiated by mass migrations from Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Afghanistan. Extra-territorial Armenian and Azeri communities have long played major roles in policies toward their respective homelands. And more recent Afghan refugees in Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, and the West are buffeted by the influences of transnational ethnic alliances as they attempt to play a role in the formation of a post-Taliban polity. This book is intended as a contribution to emerging scholarship concerning these and other transnational and diasporic currents in Central Asia and the Caucasus. In this regard, it might be noted that there exist few books in English dealing directly with the issues of transnationalism and diaspora in Central Asia. There are books that deal with specific diasporic communities, but they focus almost exclusively on relations with the host nations, paying little attention to relations with the home regions. And significantly, few deal with post-Soviet Central Asia. With regard to the Caucasus, considerable attention has been

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paid over the years to the Armenian diaspora, but little work has been published reflecting changed conditions following the fall of the Soviet Union, nor has much been published about Armenian diasporas in light of recent theoretical conceptualizations of transnationalism. Sanjyot Mehendale Caucasus and Central Asia Program, Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies Department of Near Eastern Studies University of California, Berkeley

NOTES 1 With regard to geographic scope, this book’s definition of Central Asia is broad and includes Afghanistan and the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China, as well as the former Soviet Republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. 2 Charles King and Neil J. Melvin, “Diaspora Politics: Ethnic Linkages, Foreign Policy and Security in Eurasia,” International Security, Winter 1999/2000, Vol. 24:3, p. 110. 3 Ibid., pp. 118–24.

Acknowledgments

This book would not have been possible without the support of numerous people and institutional units at the University of California, Berkeley. Special thanks go to Dana Sherry (2000–02 Program Coordinator for the University’s Caucasus and Central Asia Program), who patiently and diligently edited these contributions and shepherded them into manuscript form. Grateful thanks are also extended to the University’s Institute of International Studies, which provided the financial means to organize the conference and to bring together the manuscript. Finally, the conference and ultimately this volume would not have been possible without the support of the University of California Berkeley’s Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, its Department of Near Eastern Studies, and its Silk Road Working Group. Permission has been granted by the University of Ljubljana to publish a revised version of the Javnost article “Nationalism from without: theorizing the role of diasporas in contemporary conflict,” in Chapter 2 of this volume.

Notes on contributors

Touraj Atabaki Touraj Atabaki is Professor of Modern History at the University of Amsterdam; Professor of History of the Middle East and Central Asia at Utrecht University; and Senior Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. He is the author and editor of, among others, a number of publications including Post-Soviet Soviet Central Asia (London, I. B. Tauris, 1998); Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and the Struggle for Power in Iran (second edition, London, I. B. Tauris, 2000); Men of Order: Authoritarian Modernisation under Atatürk and Reza Shah (with Erik Jan Zürcher, London, I. B. Tauris, 2004). Sanjyot Mehendale Sanjyot Mehendale is Executive Director of the Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the University of California, Berkeley. She was the organizer of the Currents, Cross-Currents and Conflict: Transnationalism and Diaspora in the Caucasus and Central Asia conference in 2002 at UC Berkeley, out of which this book originates. In addition, she teaches courses on Central Asia in UC Berkeley’s Department of Near Eastern Studies. An archaeologist, she is the director of the Uzbek–Berkeley Archaeological Mission which conducts research in Southern Sogdiana, Uzbekistan. A recipient of a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, she is currently working on a manuscript focusing on the Bagram ivory and bone carvings which were once housed in the National Museum in Kabul, Afghanistan. Jolle Demmers Jolle Demmers is a lecturer/researcher at the Centre for Conflict Studies (CCS) at Utrecht University. She works on (long-distance) nationalism and violent conflict, and neoliberal restructuring and conflict. Her recent publications include: Friends and Bitter Enemies: Politics and Neoliberal Reform in Yucatán, Mexico (Amsterdam, Thela Thesis, 1998); Miraculous Metamorphoses: The Neoliberalization of Latin American Populism (co-edited with Alex E. Fernández Jilberto and Barbara Hogenboom, London, Zedbooks, 2001); and “Diaspora and Conflict: Long-Distance Nationalism, Locality and the Delocalisation of Conflict Dynamics” in Javnost/The Public: Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture, Volume 9, No. 1 , 2002;

xvi

Notes on contributors

Good Governance in the Era of Global Neoliberalism: Conflict and Depolitisation in Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia, and Africa (co-edited with Alex E. Fernández Jilberto and Barbara Hogenboom, London, Routledge, 2004). Shirin Akiner Shirin Akiner is a lecturer in Central/Inner Asian Studies, Near and Middle East Department at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, and an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of International Affairs. She has authored a number of books including most recently Tajikistan: Disintegration or Reconciliation? (Royal Institute of International Affairs, London, 2001); Formirovanie Kazakhskogo Samosoznaniya: Ot plemeni k natsional’nomu gosudarstvu (Fond SorosKazakhstan, Gylym, Almaty, 1998); Minorities in a Time of Change: Prospects for Conflict, Stability and Development in Central Asia (Minority Rights Group, London, 1997). In addition, she is editor of The Caspian: Politics, Energy, Security (RoutledgeCurzon, London, 2004). Kulbhushan Warikoo Professor K. Warikoo is Director of the Central Asian Studies Programme at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi (India). He is the Secretary General (Honorary) of the Himalayan Research and Cultural Foundation, and founder editor of Himalayan and Central Asian Studies, a quarterly journal published since 1997. His publications include Central Asia and Kashmir: A Study in the Context of Anglo–Russian Rivalry (New Delhi, 1989); Ethnicity and Politics in Central Asia (co-editor, New Delhi, 1992); Central Asia: Emerging New Order (editor, New Delhi, 1995); Bamiyan: Challenge to World Heritage (editor, New Delhi, 2002); and The Afghanistan Crisis: Issues and Perspectives (editor, New Delhi, 2002). Stephan Astourian Stephan Astourian is William Saroyan Assistant Adjunct Professor and Executive Director of the Armenian Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Astourian teaches courses on ethnic relations and conflicts; modern diasporas: transnational identity and politics; and the Caucasus in the modern era. He edited Memorikon (Los Angeles, Arvest Publishing, 1997) and Jusur: The UCLA Journal of Middle Eastern Studies 6 (October 1990) and 5 (October 1989). His articles include “Le Genocide armenien: massacre a l’asiatique ou effet de modernite?” in Quand Tombe La Nuit: Origines de Emergence des Regimes Totalitaire en Europe (Stephane Courtois ed., Lausanne, L’Age d’Homme, 2001). Armine Ishkanian Armine Ishkanian is a lecturer at the Centre for Civil Society in the Social Policy Department at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research interests include civil society, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), governance, gender, globalization, and the post-Soviet transitions in Armenia and

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the Caucasus. She has also conducted research on poverty, the impact of poverty reduction strategy papers (PRSPs), and migration from post-Soviet states to Western Europe and the United States. Currently she is writing a book about civil society and NGOs in Armenia, their role in the post-Soviet transition, and their impact on democracy-building efforts. Natalya Khan Until recently, Natalya Khan was a senior lecturer in Asian history at the Tashkent State Institute of Oriental Studies in Uzbekistan. Her primary areas of research have been the history of Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and the social, political, and economic impacts of the Afghan civil war on post-Soviet Central Asia. In 1998, she was a visiting scholar at Linacre and St Anthony’s Colleges, Oxford University (UK). In addition, as an Open Society Institute Fellow, she has been a visiting research scholar at the University of California, Berkeley where she was engaged in research on contemporary Afghanistan and Central Asia. Ablet Kamalov Ablet Kamalov is affiliated with the Kazakh Academy of Sciences, Almaty. From 1989–96, he worked at the Institute of Uighur Studies, and, since 1996, has been affiliated with the Institute of Oriental Studies and has been teaching at the Department of International Relations of Al-Farabi Kazakh National University. He has been a visiting scholar, among others, at the University of Washington, Seattle, USA, and the University of Oxford, UK. Dr Kamalov is currently working on a research project supported by the Central Asian Research Initiative (CARI-HESP) program of the Open Society Institute. He is the author of the book The Old Uighurs: VIII–IX cc (Almaty, 2001), published in 2002 in Iran in Persian under the title Tarihi umumi Uighurstan, and numerous articles on the history and culture of Central Asia. Dru C. Gladney Dru Gladney is Professor of Asian Studies and Anthropology at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa. He has been a Fulbright Research Scholar twice, and has conducted extensive field research in China, Central Asia, and Turkey. His most recent books include Ethnic Identity in China: The Making of a Muslim Minority Nationality (Harcourt Brace, 1998); Making Majorities: Constituting the Nation in Japan, China, Korea, Malaysia, Fiji, Turkey, and the U.S. (editor, Stanford University Press, 1998); and Dislocating China: Muslims, Minorities, and Other Sub-Altern Subjects (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2004). Professor Gladney is currently engaged in an extensive field research project in Central Asia and in the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous region among Tajik, Kyrgyz, and Kazak transnational semi-nomadic peoples, examining issues of cross-border identifications, underdevelopment, sedentarization, and cultural preservation, funded by the US Department of Education and the Ford Foundation. On-line articles and projects can be found at www.hawaii.edi/dru.

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Eden Naby Eden Naby’s work has focused on the 19th and 20th century cultural history of Central Asia, broadly defined as the Turco-Iranian regions of Asia from Western China to the Zagros Mountains. Her particular interest has been ethnic culture and politics and the relationships of minorities to each other and to the state, especially in terms of cultural definition and development. Dr Naby has served on the faculties at Columbia, University of Wisconsin – Madison, University of Massachusetts – Amherst, and Harvard University. Aside from many articles, she is co-author of The Modernization of Inner Asia (M. E. Sharpe, 1995) and Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx and Mujahid (Westview Press, 1998, revised, 2002), and two Assyrianrelated exhibits at Harvard University (with accompanying catalogues). Dr. Naby is currently engaged in composing a memoir of her Assyrian–Iranian childhood, a study of the Assyrian press in the context of the development of the press in the Middle East, and problems of ethnic minorities in regional development.

1

Introduction Transnationalism and diaspora in Central Asia and the Caucasus Touraj Atabaki

Of the many momentous events that have marked the twentieth century, the rise and fall of the Soviet Union, the world’s largest empire, arguably has had the most far-reaching consequences. Population dislocation, mass migration, and immigration were among the consequences of this dramatic series of sociopolitical changes. The end of Tsarist Russia caused the first wave of migration out of the fallen empire. In Central Asia and the Caucasus, during the early period of Soviet rule, an exodus of refugees left their homelands for neighboring countries, mainly Iran, Afghanistan, Turkey, and China. In Iran and Turkey these political refugees set up cultural and political organizations and endeavored to sustain their links with the homeland. In later years, particularly during the 1930s, under pressures exerted on their already unwelcoming countries by the Soviet government, many of these refugees were forced to leave for other distant countries, in Europe or the United States, in pursuit of a safer haven. Unfortunately, there are no statistics available on the exact number of these refugees. Nevertheless, on the basis of available archival materials, one can deduce that prior to the outbreak of World War II there were tens of thousands of Tatars, Azerbaijanis, Armenians, Georgians, Turkmen, Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz wandering into and out of the neighboring countries, some toward Europe or the United States, forming the first Caucasus and Central Asian diaspora communities. The second wave of population dislocation was engendered by the process of forming the new Soviet state. An immediate consequence of implementing the ethno-federalist and authoritarian modernizing policies adopted by the Bolsheviks were massive migrations, forced or “voluntary,” unique in modern world history. The engineered partition of the Tsarist Empire and the demarcation of the new borders in Central Asia began as early as April 1924, when the Sredazburo (Central Asian Bureau) of the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party voted to partition the Tsarist administrative province of Turkestan. A process of administrative realignment across Central Asia then followed, and was finally completed in 1936. Under the new alignment, all of Central Asia was administratively divided into three organizational categories: autonomous republics, autonomous regions, and national territories. By adopting an ethnoadministrative policy in Central Asia, the Bolsheviks initially divided the entire region into three national-territorial entities for Uzbeks, Kazakhs, and Turkmen.

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However, to avoid any possible revival of old territorial solidarity, they offered the heartland of the former Turkestan – the khanates Bukhara, Kokand, and Khiva – to the Uzbeks. Thus Uzbekistan extended from Osh at the eastern edge of the Ferghana valley to Khiva and Khwarazm in the west, and from Tashkent in the north to Zarafshan and Termiz near the northern border of Afghanistan, comprising all three former khanates of Bukhara, Kokand, and Khiva. The new demarcation, however, left the area’s other major ethnic groups, most prominently the Tajiks and Kyrgyz, with a strong sense of betrayal. Fearful of escalation of national sentiment among Tajiks who spoke Persian, the language of neighboring Iran and Afghanistan, the Soviets formally recognized the Tajiks and Kyrgyz as the other two major ethnic groups in the region. They did so by concluding their territorial realignment with the allocation of an administrative territory to these ethnic groups. Subsequently, five republics were formed in the region, with each supposed to accommodate a titular or dominant ethnic group: Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Uzbek, or Turkmen. Following this engineered partition, a new project for the homogenization of each Central Asian republic was initiated. To enhance this project, a process of nativization began which meant that the titular ethnic group gained access to high positions in the local administration. Whereas it was possible for so-called “recognized ethnic minorities” to enjoy “cultural freedom” within the new republics, it soon became clear that if one wished to advance one’s career it was necessary to adopt a certain degree of overt “titularness.” Meanwhile, titular ethnic cultural distinctiveness was gradually constructed and Sovietized, and members of the titular nomenklatura were encouraged to advance the particular interests of their republic. Likewise, the Soviet policy of registering nationality in the internal passport at the republic level tended to encourage non-titular ethnic groups to declare themselves as a members of the titular group in official documents, for the sake of advancement within the government apparatus. Meanwhile, at the Soviet level the party-state system, with its drive to centralize power, monopolized the key command positions throughout the Soviet Union, denying access to these positions to almost all non-Russian nationalities. Its highranking administrators formed the privileged core of a trans-ethnic population. Even at the republic level, without exception, a native Russian always filled the position of deputy first secretary of the Communist Party in every republic. The Sovetskij chelovek (Soviet person) was the ideological embodiment of this transethnic party system, subjected to the original, revolutionary-popular idea of Soviet patriotism, whose identity was grounded in a sense of loyalty to the Soviet state. Thus absolute loyalty to Moscow predominated over any form of loyalty to individual republics. However, within the republics a concealed ethno-nationalism gradually developed not only within each dominant group but also between the ethnic minorities, which fostered interests different from those of the titular nation. Ethno-nationalism in the Central Asian republics is the direct outcome of this peculiar type of ethno-federalist administrative structure adopted by the Soviets. While they attempted to link a single constructed titular nation to its own state, in

Introduction

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order to achieve social homogeneity and political cohesion, they simultaneously denied the smaller ethnic minorities in each republic equal rights with the titular nation. Although the Soviet government never genuinely encouraged ethnonationalism anywhere within the Soviet Union, one can point to occasional instances when Moscow made concessions to minority groups in order to consolidate its power at the local level. One may therefore conclude that in the post-Tsarist Empire the Bolsheviks, while aiming to construct a peculiar institution of Soviet ethno-federalism in part through the invention of the Sovetskij chelovek paired with patriotism, in the end unwittingly stimulated ethno-nationalism by the application of their elitist and centralizing policies. Underlying this fundamental problem was the fact that the imposed territorial borders never corresponded adequately with the cultural groupings. As a result, ethno-nationalism during the Soviet era became the most dynamic force in local politics. While the titular nationalities in each republic enjoyed preferential treatment and tended to comprise the local administrative hierarchy, ethnic minorities strove to consolidate their presence in particular sectors of the administration, especially those most strictly controlled by the Russians, by adopting a “defense” system based on nepotism. In order to achieve a clear historical break and to impede any potential call for unity among people who shared a common language and culture but lived under different national flags, the Soviet authorities in the early days of their rule launched a widespread linguistic refashioning project in Central Asia. The Sovietization of the languages in Central Asia was initiated under the authority of Russian orientalists working at institutions inherited from the Russian Empire. The chief target of this project was to form national languages based on a certain spoken dialect, and to install these as the official written and literary languages. Accordingly, each republic would have a national language different from the languages spoken or written by co-ethno/linguistic groups outside the Soviet Union. The invention of national languages created modern Kyrgyz and Turkmen in 1924, and Karakalpak in 1925. Furthermore, to establish pan-Soviet consistency and to break all links with the past, the Arabic alphabet for all national languages was changed in 1929 to Latin and in 1940 to Cyrillic. By then, Soviet territorial state-building in Central Asia had been concluded, with five Soviet Socialist Republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan established in addition to the Autonomous Republic of Karakalpakstan in Uzbekistan and the Autonomous Province of Gorno Badakhshan in Tajikistan. Along with territorial state-building and language policies, the Soviet regime also implemented a wide range of social engineering projects in Central Asia. In the 1930s, the Bolsheviks instigated a policy of forced sedentarization of nomadic people, and of mass collectivization of agricultural lands into the collective farming units known in Russian as kolkhoz and sovkhoz. Moreover, the pace of industrialization that was unsettling all of Russia during the 1930s caused dramatic labor shortages in some industrial sectors and regions. The Stalinist

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policy of “encouraging labor migration” or the “voluntary labor migration in building socialism”, which in practice was nothing less than displacement of a segment of population within each republic, and often to a new republic, created colossal population dislocation. Completing these enormous waves of mass migration were the catastrophic deportation schemes engineered by the Communist Party during World War II and the immediate years after. The Crimean Tatars, the Volga Germans, and the Meskhetians were the most prominent of such deported ethnic groups. Nevertheless, although Khrushchev, following Stalin’s death, in his secret speech delivered to the Twentieth Congress of the Soviet Communist Party in 1956, acknowledged the deportation of several national communities from their homelands, their respective autonomous territories were never restored to them. Therefore, although the ultimate aspiration of the early Bolsheviks was to create a homogeneous state, the immediate consequence of the ethno-federalist administrative policies adopted by the Communist Party, in combination with forced migrations and mass deportations, was the development of ethnonationalist sentiments among Soviet citizens. The Bolsheviks’ recipe of “modernization and urbanization completely overlooked the difference between the immigrant population seeking to fit in, on the one hand, and an indigenous population seeking to assert its proprietary claim to homeland on the other.”1 Moreover, by ignoring the “significance of the subjective ‘sense of place’ that served as an integral element in the way indigenes defined themselves and viewed the world,” Stalin’s perception of homeland was as “an empty container within which nations could be created and destroyed”2 and eventually a Sovetskij chelovek could live. The ultimate demographic consequence of these miscellaneous measures of population displacement adopted by Moscow during the 70 years of Soviet rule was some eight republics in the Caucasus and Central Asia of very diverse ethnic composition. As is shown in Tables 1.1 and 1.2, prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, and based on the last general census conducted in 1989, variety within the ethic composition of the Central Asian Soviet Socialist Republics was high, while Russians composed the main non-native ethnic group in each republic. Acknowledging the high percentage of ethnic diversity in each republic, through state-party rule, the central Soviet government sought a forced harmony among diverse ethnic groups throughout the Soviet era. Nevertheless, once Gorbachev launched his reform program in the mid-1980s, it soon became apparent that disparities among the ethnic groups in each Soviet republic, and corresponding ethno-nationalism, ran deeper than anticipated. Soon inter-ethnic hostilities among nations, which had supposedly been supplanted by sovetskii chelovek, convinced even admirers of the Soviets’ achievements that the “Soviet person” had never really come into existence. By the late 1980s, some ethnic minority groups in each Soviet republic began to feel stirrings toward a return to their homeland/motherland, though they did not always know where that was. Following ethnic tension between disgruntled guests and their incommodious hosts, in 1989 some 63,000 Meskhetians were forced

Introduction

5

Table 1.1 Population distribution and ethnic composition of five Soviet Central Asian Republics (1989) Uzbekistan

Kazakhstan

Tajikistan

Kyrgyzstan

Turkmenistan

19,810,000 Uzbeks 71.3% Russians 8.3% Tajiks 4.7% Kazakhs 4.0% Tatars 2.3% Kara Kalpaks 2.0% Crimean Tatars 0.9% Koreans 0.9%

16,464,000 Kazakhs 39.6% Russians 37.8% Germans 5.8% Ukrainians 5.4% Uzbeks 2.0% Tatars 1.9%

5,093,000 Tajiks 62.2% Uzbeks 23.5% Russians 7.6% Tatars 1.4% Kyrgyz 1.2% Ukrainians 0.8%

4,258,000 Kyrgyz 52.3% Russians 21.5% Uzbeks 12.9% Ukrainians 2.5% Germans 2.3% Tatars 1.6%

Uighurs 1.1%

Germans 0.6%

Kazakhs 0.8%

3,523,000 Turkmen 72.0% Russians 9.4% Uzbeks 8.9% Kazakhs 2.4% Tatars 1.1% Ukrainians 1.02% Azeris 0.9%

Turkmen 0.3%

Dungans 0.8%

Armenians 0.9%

Koreans 0.2% Kazakhs 0.2% Jews 0.1%

Uighurs 0.8% Tajiks 0.7% Koreans 0.4%

Osetins 0.1% White Russians 0.1% Crimean Tatars 0.1% Bashkirs 0.1%

Azeris 0.3% Kurds 0.3%

Baluchis 0.7% Lezgis 0.2% White Russians 0.2% Persians 0.2% Bashkirs 0.1%

White Russians 1.1% Kyrgyz 0.8% Koreans 0.6% Ukrainians 0.7% Azeris 0.5% Turkmen 0.6% Polish 0.3% Turks 0.3% Jews 0.3%

Turks 0.3% Greeks 0.2%

Armenians 0.2% Bashkirs 0.2% Azeris 0.2% Germans 0.2% Uighurs 0.1% Bashkirs 0.1% Others 0.9%

White Russians 0.2% Jews 0.1%

Moldovanians 0.2% Dungans 0.1% Armenians 0.1% Others 1.7% Mordva 0.1% Mordva 0.1% Tajiks 0.1% Others 0.6% Kurds 0.1% Chuvash 0.1% Ingush 0.1% Armenians 0.1% Jews 0.1% Udmurds 0.09% Others 5.5%

Germans 0.1% Kurds 0.1% Others 4.5%

Source: Natsional’nyi Sostav Naseleniya SSSR po Dannym Vsesoiuznoi Perepisi Naseleniya 1989 (Goskomstat SSSR), (Moskva: “Finansy i Statistika”, 1991), pp. 13–15, 17–19.

to leave Uzbekistan, though they had no homeland to return to. In other cases, ethnic minorities living in areas adjacent to their titular republic one began to call for secession and conjoining with the motherland. In the Caucasus, following the outbreak of hostilities between Azerbaijanis and Armenians over NagornoKarabagh in 1988, some 300,000 Armenians and 200,000 Russians and Jews left Azerbaijan, while the number of Azerbaijani refugees coming from Armenia or Karabagh reached 230,000 to 250,000.3 The formation of eight independent republics in the southern region of the former Soviet Union was accompanied by political tensions between neighboring states and ethnic groups, which in some cases led to bloody confrontation. Citizens

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Table 1.2 Population distribution and Ethnic Composition of three Soviet Republics of the Caucasus (1989) Azerbaijan

Georgia

Armenia

7,021,000 Azeris 82.6% Russians 5.5% Armenians 5.5% Lezgis 2.4% Avars 0.6% Ukrainians 0.4% Tatars 0.3% Jews 0.3% Talysh 0.2% Turks 0.2% Georgians 0.1% Kurds 0.1% Tatis 0.1% Others 0.8%

5,401,000 Georgians 70.0% Armenians 8.0% Russians 6.3% Azeris 5.7% Osetins 3.0% Greeks 1.8% Abkhaz 1.7% Ukrainians 0.9% Kurds 0.6% Georgian Jews 0.2% Jews 0.1% White Russians 0.1% Assyrians 0.1% Tatars 0.07% Others 0.7%

3,305,000 Armenians 93.3% Azeris 2.5% Kurds 1.6% Russians 1.5% Ukrainians 0.2% Assyrians 0.1% Greeks 0.1% Others 0.2%

Source: Natsional’nyi Sostav Naseleniya SSSR po Dannym Vsesoiuznoi Perepisi Naseleniya 1989 (Goskomstat SSSR), (Moskva: “Finansy i Statistika”, 1991), pp. 13–15, 17–19.

of the fledgling republics engaged in post-Soviet restructuring of the region, where old identities were being recast and in some cases new ones invented. Often the primary basis for such new or reformed identity was a deep sense of distrust toward Russia and Russians, recasting one’s identity by rejecting the “other”, which often included “other-izing” the Russians. With a community of 25 million, some 17 percent of the total Russian people, Russians living in the former Soviet states formed the largest displaced ethnic group of the Soviet Union. Language, religion, and the Russian colonial past all alienated the Russian community from its host republics. For decades, the practice of using Russian as the lingua franca had kept the Russian communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia from learning the local languages. From July 1989 to May 1990, all republics in the former Soviet south passed laws replacing Russian with their own national languages as their state language. Following independence, insistence on the use of national languages became even more pervasive, limiting the use of Russian but also the languages of other ethnic minorities. Russian and non-Russian immigrants leaving the southern independent republics increased in the first years following the fall of the Soviet Union. In Turkmenistan, the size of the Russian population dropped from 12.6 percent of the total population in 1989 to 6.7 percent in 1995; in Uzbekistan, the decrease in the same period was from 8.3 percent to 6.0 percent.4 In Kazakhstan, which had a large Russian population, the number of Russians leaving the country for the Russian Federation during 1989–1993 reached 614,838, some 9.9 percent of Kazakhstan’s total Russian population.5 The same rate could be observed in the

Introduction

7

other republics of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Moreover, during the last ten years, in the absence of Sovetskij chelovek, there has been an observable gradual increase in the sense of alienation among ethnic minority groups in each new republic, which has manifested itself in the crafting of a new diaspora identity for themselves. In the post-Soviet era, many of the diasporic populations who had settled in compact communities in the former Soviet republics have formed cultural societies, produced periodicals, and staunchly taught their children their own religious convictions and vernacular languages, even when they were sent to Russian schools. Moreover, they follow intimately the political changes in their country of origin. In contributing to a definition of diaspora, Walker Connor has observed that “despite massive migration, it is still the case that all but a relatively small percentage of the world’s population lives within an ethnic homeland” and propounds a working definition of diaspora as “that segment of a people living outside the homeland.”6 Distinguishing those diaspora communities whose country of origin does not enjoy sovereignty from those whose corresponding ethno-linguistic group forms the titular or non-titular ethnic community in another nation/territorial-state, both types survive within the southern Soviet successor states. Russians, Armenians, Germans, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, and Iranians are among those who are identified and engaged with the myth of homeland, though not necessarily with return. They “retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland – its physical location, history, and achievements and they believe that they are not – and perhaps cannot be – fully accepted by their host society.”7 During the last years of Soviet rule and the early years of independence, one could trace the financial and moral support some parties in the regional conflicts enjoyed from ethnic diaspora communities in the Caucasus and Central Asia. The Armenian and Azerbaijani communities of Central Asia supported the respective parties in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and the Chechen diaspora in Russia as well as in the Caucasus and Central Asia acknowledged the financial needs of their compatriots in their fight for an independent Chechnya. Recruiting volunteers and dispatching them for combat was also part of these diasporas’ campaign to support the homeland. However, for those ethnic minorities without an independent homeland, such as the Crimean Tatars, the Meskhetians, or the Kurds, the collective desire for the restoration of the vanished or imagined homeland created a new form of ethno-communal allegiance and political solidarity which accentuated the “reconstruction” of a homeland and return. No matter how anachronistic their desire and call for rebuilding the “homeland” might appear, nevertheless, as in the case of the minority Kurdish community in Central Asia which supports the PKK in its strikes against Turkey, it has the potential to prove quite a real security threat. The contributions to this book address a number of the phenomena and issues raised above. They are the results of a conference, “Currents, Cross-Currents and Conflict: Transnationalism and Diaspora in Central Asia and the Caucasus,” held by the Caucasus and Central Asia Program at the University of California,

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Berkeley in April, 2002. The conference aimed to bring together specialists on diasporas to create a comparative and inclusive study of emerging transnationalism along the former Soviet Union’s southern borders, both in the Soviet successor states and their neighbors. In Chapter 2, Nationalism from Without: Theorizing the Role of Diasporas in Contemporary Conflict, Jolle Demmers presents a theoretical framework for examining the process of “deterritorialization” and “delocalization” of international conflicts. Furthermore, by contemplating the notion of long-distance nationalism she examines the role of politically mobilized diaspora in contemporary intra-state conflicts. In Chapter 3, Towards a Typology of Diasporas in Kazakhstan, Shirin Akiner, in her contribution on the typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan, provides a detailed historical description of the ethnic build-up of Kazakhstan. Furthermore, by studying the outcome of the Soviet fall on population dislocation in Kazakhstan, Akiner offers an account of a post-Soviet diaspora pattern of behavior in contemporary Kazakhstan. Finally, Akiner’s chapter concludes with some remarks on the typology of diasporas in former Soviet Kazakhstan as analogized with the British Empire. In Chapter 4, Russians in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Issues and Concerns, Kulbhushan Warikoo studies demographic changes in the Russian communities of Central Asia during the 70 years of Soviet rule and then following the Soviet Union’s demise. Warikoo considers diverse sociopolitical processes such as indigenization and what the Russian community perceived as a reluctance to assimilate, and their impact on the gradual decline of the Russian community in the former Tsarist/Soviet south. In Chapter 5, State, Homeland, and Diaspora: The Armenian and Azerbaijani Cases, Stephan Astourian poses an introductory debate on the concept of diaspora and its working definitions, followed by a detailed study on the rather long formation of the Armenian and Azerbaijani diaspora communities and their intermingled relationship with their (fictitious and factual) homeland and its functioning states. Armine Ishkanian addresses the role of the Armenian diaspora, the most prominent diasporic group of the region, and its non-governmental organizations in shaping the post-Soviet transition. In Chapter 6, Diaspora and Global Civil Society: The Impact of Transnational Diasporic Activism on Armenia’s Post-Soviet Transition, Ishkanian examines the impediments confronting Armenian diaspora activism in advancing its agenda in the homeland. In Chapter 7, Afghan Communities in Uzbekistan: A Preliminary Case Study, Natalya Khan studies the drastic, catastrophic political changes in Afghanistan that have had far-reaching effects for Russia and the five Central Asian neighboring republics, among which is the gradual formation of an Afghan diaspora community in the region. By focusing on Uzbekistan, Khan’s study examines both the inter-state relationship between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan and the status of Afghan refugees in Uzbekistan. The fate of the Uighur community in Central Asia is the subject of Ablet Kamalov’s study. Divided between the Tsarist/Soviet south and the Xinjiang province of China, since the late nineteenth century the destiny of the Uighur community has been linked to the Russo-Chinese diplomatic relationship. In Chapter 8, Uighur Community in 1990s Central Asia: A Decade of Change, Kamalov examines the impact

Introduction

9

of the Soviet fall in refashioning the Uighurs’ collective identity both in the former Soviet Central Asia and in China. In addition to the Soviet successor states, the contributors to this book also consider neighboring regions. In Chapter 9, Eden Naby analyzes the formation of diaspora identities in correlation with real or imagined homelands. In this chapter, The Afghan Diaspora: Reflections on the Imagined Country, Naby studies the gradual configuration of Afghan identity in diaspora populations, their reciprocal relationship with the host land and their possible role in reshaping the political process in Afghanistan. In Chapter 10, Islam in China: Transnationalism or Transgression, Dru Gladney argues that Muslims in China are seriously threatened in terms of self-preservation with an Islamic identity. Following an introduction on the roots of Islam in China, Gladney studies the four phases during which Chinese Islam was heavily influenced by exogenous trends. Finally, in Chapter 11, Naby presents an overview of the struggle of another diaspora community in preserving its diminishing entity and ethnic consciousness. In this chapter, The Assyrian Diaspora: Cultural Survival in the Absence of State Structure, Naby explores the hardships with which the Assyrians, a worldwide population of some four million, have been confronted with preserving their language and culture, maintaining the aspiration of creating a homeland though none is promised or waiting for them. In Russia, the Caucasus and Central Asia, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the idealization of a real or putative ancestral home and “a collective commitment to its maintenance, restoration, safety and prosperity, even to its creation”8 has become one of the main notions fostered by diaspora communities that dream of drawing new political borders. With this long-distance nationalism, borrowing Benedict Anderson’s language, Acton’s aphorism that “exile is the nursery of nationalism” is being contested and reconfigured.9

NOTES 1 Robert J. Kaiser, The Geography of Nationalism in Russia and the USSR (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 146–47. 2 Ibid. 3 http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/usazerb/refugees.htm 4 K. Warikoo, “Russians in Post-Soviet Central Asia: Issues and Concerns,” Chapter 4, this volume. 5 David D. Laitin, Identity in Formation: The Russian-Speaking Population in the Near Abroad (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 259. 6 Walker Connor, “The Impact of the Homelands Upon Diasporas,” in Modern Diasporas in International Politics, ed. G. Sheffer (New York: St Martin, 1986), p. 16. 7 William Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myth of Homeland and Return,” Diaspora 1, no. 1 (1991), p. 83. 8 Robin Cohen, Global Diasporas: An Introduction (London: University College London, 1997), p. 106. 9 Quoted in: Benedict Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism: World Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics (Amsterdam: Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdam, 1992), p. 2.

2

Nationalism from without Theorizing the role of diasporas in contemporary conflict1 Jolle Demmers

Intra-state violent conflicts are no longer fought solely in the actual war territories: in the villages of Ambon, the jungles of Sri Lanka, or the occupied territories of Israel. Increasingly, conflicts seem to become dispersed and delocalized. Stories about American Jewish groups supporting right-wing extremism in Israel, German Croats speeding the violent collapse of Yugoslavia, and the Tamil Tigers in London, Kurds in the Netherlands, Filipinos, Khmer, and Kosovar Albanians in Western Europe and the US are not new to us. Within the field of Conflict Studies, however, the process of the “deterritorialization” of conflict is left surprisingly unexplored. Many questions about the political mobilization of diaspora communities and their role in intra-state conflicts remain unanswered. How and why are diaspora communities involved in intra-state conflicts in their erstwhile homelands? What activities do they undertake? How are they organized? What strategies do they use? And, eventually, how do they affect contemporary conflicts? In this chapter I explore the deterritorialization and delocalization of contemporary conflict. By looking at ideas on locality, long-distance nationalism, and conflict dynamics I aim to identify units of analysis to understand the role of diaspora in contemporary conflict. The nature of diasporic politics is manifold and highly case-specific. Kaldor, for instance, points at the presence of both cosmopolitan, anti-nationalist, and reactionary ethno-nationalists within diasporas.2 Others see room for hybrid, diasporic “third space” standpoints.3 The impact of diaspora activities on contemporary conflicts is also highly miscellaneous. In some cases diasporic connections seem to feed and prolong the conflict. In other cases diasporic voices and initiatives can plead for reconciliation and demobilization. Examples of diasporas acting as a strategic force in regional conflicts can be readily discerned. The sudden upsurge in strength of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the summer of 1998 may have been at least partially due to fundraising efforts by the Albanian diaspora in the West. The Croatian diaspora was quite effective in helping swing the international community behind the Croats in their conflict with the Croatian Serbs in the mid-1990s. Furthermore, the Tamil diaspora in Canada and Western Europe has been active in funneling financial support to the Tamil insurgents fighting the Sinhalese government forces in Sri Lanka.

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Diasporas have existed in one form or another since ancient times. There are, however, reasons to believe that the political weight of diaspora communities has increased significantly throughout the late twentieth century, and that they often play a crucial role in contemporary conflicts. These reasons are (1) the rise of a new pattern of conflict; (2) the rapid rise of war refugees; (3) the increased speed of communication and mobility; and (4) the increased production of cultural and political boundaries in the Western world.

NEW PATTERNS OF CONFLICT, MOBILITY, AND BOUNDARIES Throughout the late twentieth century a new pattern of conflict has evolved in which identity groups – religious, ethnic, cultural, and others – have become central. One of the first scholars to recognize this was Edward Azar. He argued for a radical revision of Clausewitzean ideas by claiming that it was the identity group – however defined – and not the nation-state that was at the core of most contemporary conflicts. At the end of the twentieth century, with the collapse of Yugoslavia and civil wars in the Caucasus, Indonesia, and Africa, the idea that a “new pattern of conflict” had evolved became widespread. There is debate about whether this “new pattern” should be dated back to 1945 (and include the decolonization wars of the 1950s and 1960s, and the post-colonial civil wars of the 1970s and 1980s) or whether it only began with the ending of the Cold War in 1989. These large questions will not be discussed here. The phenomenon that most wars in the late twentieth century are within states, and that they are often about the role and status of nations and communities within these states is of concern to this research.4 These intra-state wars differ substantially from the European wars in the era of the dynastic state or from the “total wars” of the first half of the twentieth century.5 Kaldor and Vashee, for instance, characterize the “new wars” in terms of: political goals (no longer the foreign policy interests of states, but the consolidation of new forms of power based on ethnic homogeneity); ideologies (no longer universal principles such as democracy, fascism, or socialism, but tribalist and communalist identity politics); forms of mobilization (no longer conscription or appeals to patriotism, but fear, corruption, religion, magic, and the media); external support (no longer superpowers or ex-colonial powers, but diasporas, foreign mercenaries, criminal mafia, regional powers); mode of warfare (no longer formal and organized campaigns with demarcated front-lines, bases and weapons, but fragmented, dispersed, involving paramilitary and criminal groups, child soldiers, light weapons, and the use of atrocity, famine, rape, and siege); and the war economy (no longer funded by taxation and generated by state mobilization, but sustained by outside emergency assistance and the parallel economy including unofficial export of timber and precious metals, drug-trafficking, criminal rackets, plunder).6 In sum, new patterns of conflict have evolved that are distinct from traditional inter-state disputes over foreign policy, security, economic resources, or

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East–West rivalry and revolve around questions of status of identity groups within states. What role do diaspora communities play in this new type of conflict? Since the nature of external support for contemporary conflict has become increasingly transnational, diaspora communities have become the obvious group to mobilize external support. Since identity groups in conflict often lack formal international representation such as membership of the United Nations (UN) and a diplomatic corps, they largely depend on their dispersed members for (the mobilization of) external support, both politically and financially. An example of this are the repeated efforts of Moluccan groups in The Netherlands to pressure the Dutch government to use its membership in the UN to call for humanitarian intervention in Indonesia. Another example includes the call on the Serbian diaspora by Serbian Deputy Premier Vojislav Seselj to strike back “wherever they lived” in response to the NATO bombing campaign in March 1999. Financially, diasporas are often pressured to contribute part of their income to the homeland: the parallel government of the Kosovo Albanians of the 1990s was financed through a 3 percent tax on all income both within Kosovo and among the Albanian diaspora abroad.7 A recent survey estimated that remittances provided 45 percent of Kosovo’s annual domestic revenues during the war of 1998–1999. Kurds in Amsterdam and London are pressured by the PKK to work two out of the fifty-two weeks in a year for the homeland organization. A second, very straightforward, reason to presuppose the increasing importance of diaspora communities in contemporary conflicts is the rapid rise of war refugees. Since most contemporary conflicts are civil conflicts within states, the share of civilian casualties is very high. Whereas in WWI 80 percent of warrelated deaths were soldiers, in the 1990s, over 90 percent of war-related deaths were civilians, killed in their own homes and communities.8 An often-heard ironic remark is that indeed, “The least dangerous place to be in most contemporary wars is the military.”9 These vicious internal conflicts generate great numbers of refugees, who often leave the country at the same time. In sum, the new pattern of conflict rapidly produces diaspora. Third, because of the speed of communications and high mobility of people, diasporas are increasingly capable of forging and sustaining social relations that link their societies of origin and settlement. Practically, this means that diaspora communities can easily participate in conflicts in their homelands and “live their politics long-distance.”10 A fourth reason why diaspora are likely to continue to focus on their erstwhile homeland is that it has become increasingly hard to settle in “host” countries. The new racist nationalism that is gathering force in contemporary Europe is centrally concerned with notions of defending home, space, and territory against “the other,” a category which has come to include immigrants, asylum seekers, and ethnic minorities. Due to the increased production of cultural and political boundaries in countries of the Western world, contemporary diasporas have found full incorporation in the countries in the West within which they resettle either not

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13

possible or not desirable. Because of this, they maintain close relationships with their ancestral homelands.

DIASPORA: A WORKING DEFINITION In his introduction to the new journal Diaspora Tötölian loosely mixes the term diaspora with transnational community by stating that, “Diaspora are the exemplary communities of the transnational moment.” Further, he adds: “The term that once described Jewish, Greek, and Armenian dispersion now shares meanings with a larger semantic domain that includes words like immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guest-worker, exile community, overseas community, ethnic community.”11 Others prefer to distinguish diaspora from transnationalism. Whereas transnationalism is defined as a “process by which immigrants forge and sustain multi-stranded social relations that link together their societies of origin and settlement,”12 diasporas are at times defined as presupposing a separation more like exile.13 In addition, whereas transnationalism generally presupposes the construction of social fields that link together communities in two nation-states, diasporas are often seen as more globally dispersed. Diasporas maintain a “triadic relationship” between (a) globally dispersed yet collectively self-identified ethnic groups; (b) the territorial states and contexts where such groups reside; and (c) the homeland states and contexts where they or their forbears came from.14 Safran uses a rather strict definition of diasporas, defining them as expatriate minority communities (1) that are dispersed from an original “centre” to at least two “peripheral” places; (2) that maintain a memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland; (3) that believe they are not – and perhaps cannot be – fully accepted by their host country; (4) that see the ancestral home as a place of eventual return, when the time is right; (5) that are committed to the maintenance or restoration of this homeland; and (6) of which the group’s consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by this continuing relation with the homeland.15 Whereas Tötölian’s definition lacks precision, Safran’s checklist is perhaps too strict. I agree with Clifford that we should be wary of constructing our working definition of a term like “diaspora” by recourse to an “ideal-type,” with the consequence that groups become identified as “more” or “less” diasporic. I will therefore follow Clifford and use the term “diaspora” as a signifier, “not simply of translocality and movement, but of political struggles to define the local, as distinctive community, in historical contexts of displacement.”16

DIASPORA AND CONFLICT: LOCALITY, LONG-DISTANCE NATIONALISM, AND CONFLICT DYNAMICS In the contemporary world, group identities are no longer spatially or territorially bounded. People support, produce, or cling to territorially based identities even

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though they do not actually live in the territory. Diasporas can actively be involved in violent conflicts at the other end of the world through electronic means, and influence these conflicts by sending money, arms, and opinions. How can we conceptualize these processes of deterritorialization and delocalization of conflict? I will first look into the applicability of ideas on locality and (longdistance) nationalism. Then I will briefly discuss the delocalization of conflict dynamics.

Locality: the claiming of space Globalization, and in particular new communication technologies such as the Internet offer individuals the opportunity to create and sustain their own social and cultural networks, in opposition to both national states and a wider global culture. In more abstract terms, this is what Arjun Appadurai calls “locality:” the capacity of individuals to shape their surroundings, to create a “home,” to claim space. In a recent article, Appadurai analyzes the transformation of the production of locality in a “dramatically delocalized world.” Locality, Appadurai claims, is a fragile social achievement. Even in the smallest, most isolated societies local subjects must be produced with the help of spatial symbolism. Appadurai points out how the relationship between the production of local subjects and the communities in which such subjects can be produced, named, and empowered to act socially is historical and dialectical. Furthermore, he stresses the importance of context and power in analyzing the link between locality and community. To transform “spaces” into “places” is inherently an exercise of power.17 The capability of communities to produce local subjects is affected profoundly by the locality-producing capabilities of larger-scale social formations such as the nation-state. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries there was a steady increase in the capacity of the modern nation-state to define all communities under the sign of its forms of allegiance and affiliation. However, this process of homogenization is under threat from (1) the growing disjuncture between territory, subjectivity, and collective social movement, and (2) the steady erosion of the relationship between spatial and virtual communities.18 These processes are looked into here. Human motion and virtual communities The creation of a “homogeneous space of nationness” by the nation-state is increasingly under threat from the forms of circulation of people characteristic of the contemporary world. Human motion has increased rapidly throughout the late twentieth century. Increasingly, the intermediate surveillance of the nationstate is bypassed by new transnational forms of communication, such as fax machines, e-mail, and other forms of computer-mediated communication. Each of these developments, of course, interacts with the others, creating complicated new connections between producers, audiences, and “publics,” local and national, stable and diasporic.19 These numerous new forms of communication affect the

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capability of communities to be context-producing rather than largely context-driven. A clear example of this are the Zapatistas, a small indigenous peasant movement in the Lacandona jungle of southern Mexico who made very clever use of the Internet. Without the Internet they would have never been able to attract so much international attention and support, and would have been easily repressed and silenced by the Mexican priísta regime. Likewise, the Milosevic regime was unable to block the Serbian anti-Milosevic B92 Internet broadcasting from The Netherlands during the 1990s. Particularly, the Internet allows debate, dialogue, and relationship-building among various territorially divided individuals, who nevertheless are forming ‘communities of imagination and interest’, the so-called virtual communities.20 In this sense, the production of locality is primarily a political struggle. Due to human motion and the emergence of virtual communities this political struggle is no longer territorially bounded. How can we now use these insights in our study of the role of diaspora communities in intra-state conflict? What follows from Appadurai’s framework is that conflict should be understood as a struggle between the locality-producing capabilities of two or more social formations. Generally, in this struggle, the localizing power of the nation-state is dominant and capable of defining all other social formations (e.g. identity groups) under the sign of its forms. However, at times of conflict, this dominance of the nation-state is contested. Identity groups or national minorities resist assimilation into the nation-state. In other cases, the nation-state has lost (or is unable to produce) localizing power (the so-called “weak” or “failed” states). Recent examples of this are Colombia where part of the country is in the hands of the guerrilla movement, the FARC, and the separatist civil wars in Indonesia (Ambon, Atjeh), Africa, and the Basque Country. But also “no-go” areas in major cities around the world: the favelas in Brazil and certain areas of Mexico City where the “state” and its representatives are not welcome. If groups choose to resist assimilation and construct their own histories, cultures, and identities, they must do so without the vast array of (localityproducing) facilities that are available to the state, such as national universities, state primary schools, standardized print languages, and ceremonies of national independence, statues, and street names.21 This was, for instance, the case in Kosovo, where Albanian Kosovars set up an underground parallel government during the Milosevic regime. This government administered a system of education, health, and social services. An important advantage of the idea of locality is that it offers room to study the construction of virtual communities and processes of delocalization. If properly made operational, the term could help to analyze the struggle of ordinary people in intra-state and nationalist conflict and their efforts to “claim space” and “produce locality.” Nationalism not as seen by governments and the spokespeople and activists of nationalist movements, but as it is seen by ordinary persons. Particularly in civil wars and intra-state conflict, “ethnic marking” is very important. Protestant youths in Belfast painting the pavements of their neighborhood during the Orange marches, saying this is my land, you don’t belong here.

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Or the more subtle examples such as the stickers you’ll find at practically every traffic light in Barcelona, saying: “This is Not Spain.” An important question with respect to the role of diaspora in intra-state conflict is therefore in what way they are able to strengthen their “homeland-groups’ ” capabilities to be contextproducing. Long-distance nationalism Whereas Appadurai tends to phrase the process of nation-building and nationalism primarily in terms of “locality production power,” others such as Ernest Gellner focus on “culture” and identity. Here nationalism is defined as the political principle that holds that the national and the political unit should be congruent. The nation is defined as a “shared culture,” a national identity.22 There is, however, an important shortcoming in theories on nationalism, particularly in relation to diaspora research. Until recently, theories on nationalism all stressed the centrality of territory and boundaries: ethnic or national boundaries should not cut across political ones. “Let all nations have their own political roofs, and let all of them refrain from including non-nationals under it,” as Gellner put it.23 Taking this as point of departure, it is hard to assess the “long-distance nationalism” of diaspora communities and their involvement in nationalist conflicts in their erstwhile homelands, particularly when they have no serious intention of returning to their heimat. Can we still speak of “nationalist” struggles when nationalists live, work, and operate in territories that are thousands of miles away from the ones they are fighting for? And have no intention to return to? Is “long-distance nationalism” not a contradictio in terminis? I don’t think so. Rather, nationalism has changed: the phenomenon has outgrown its definition. In contrast to the expectations of many, globalization (including the internationalization of labor, mass migration) has not meant the end of nationalism. Instead, nationalists (Catalans, Kosovar Albanians, Macedonians, Serbs) have begun to carry out their struggles on a global scale. National communities are being “imagined” in a new (delocalized) way. We are witnessing the construction of transnational national communities.24 People remain loyal to a national homeland they no longer inhabit. “Exile is the nursery of nationality,” as Lord Acton already stated in 1860.25 Minority groups that are repressed by the state often “vote with their feet” and leave the country. Very often they try and emigrate to liberal democracies and Western countries where they can express their identity, culture, and language more freely. A large number of Kurds that fled Turkey, for instance, only “discovered” their “Kurdishness” in Germany, where they could express their culture, language, and organize themselves without repression. Or as Lyon and Uçarer noted, “(T)here have always been Kurds among the Turkish guest workers and refugees, but most of them did not discover their “Kurdishness” until they came to Europe.”26 In their case exile indeed did breed nationalism. This kind of long-distance nationalism has become a significant force in today’s global world.

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The delocalization of conflict dynamics By long-distance interference with the conflict in their homeland, diaspora communities are engaged in a sort of “virtual conflict:” they live their conflicts through the Internet, e-mail, television, and telephone without direct (physical) suffering, risks, or accountability. Therefore they are engaged in processes of conflict dynamics that differ importantly from their identity group members in their homelands. Although hardly investigated, this “delocalization” of contemporary conflict and the “long-distance participation” of diaspora communities is likely to have a complex, and crucial, effect on the conflict. Let us turn to conflict theory to further elaborate on this. Contemporary conflicts are often about the role and status of identity groups within states. In broad terms, conflict can be defined as “the pursuit of incompatible goals by different groups.”27 These goals, however, are by no means static or fixed. Conflicts, and particularly the violent, civilian conflicts under study here, are dynamic processes with complex life cycles. Galtung introduced an influential model of conflict dynamics.28 He suggested that conflict should be seen as a triangle, with contradiction (C), attitude (A), and behavior (B) at its vertices. Here the contradiction refers to the underlying conflict situation, which includes the actual or perceived “incompatibility of goals” between the conflict parties. Attitude includes the parties’ perceptions and misperceptions of each other and of themselves. These can be positive or negative, but in violent conflicts parties tend to develop demeaning stereotypes of each other, and attitudes are often influenced by emotions such as fear, anger, bitterness, and hatred. Attitude includes emotive (feeling), cognitive (belief), and conative (will) elements. Behavior is the third element. It can include cooperation or coercion, gestures signifying conciliation or hostility. Violent conflict behavior is characterized by threats, coercion, and destructive attacks. According to Galtung all three components have to be present together in a full conflict. A conflict structure without conflictual attitudes or behavior is a latent (or structural) conflict. Galtung sees conflict as a dynamic process in which contradiction, attitudes, and behavior are constantly changing and influencing one another. As a conflict emerges, it becomes a conflict formation as parties’ interests come into conflict or the relationship they are in becomes oppressive. Conflict parties then organize around this structure to pursue their interests. They develop hostile attitudes and conflictual behavior. And so the conflict formation starts to grow and develop. As it does so, it may widen, drawing in other issues and parties, deepen and spread, generating secondary conflicts within the main parties or among outsiders who get sucked in. Eventually, Galtung claims, resolving the conflict must involve a set of dynamic changes that involve a de-escalation of conflict behavior, a change in attitudes, and transforming the relationships or clashing interests that are at the core of the conflict structure.29 Since diaspora communities are physically separated from the “core conflict” they are engaged in different contradiction-attitude-behavior dynamics. Even if the diaspora and the “homeland” communities have similar perceptions of the

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contradiction (C) (for instance, Serbian and Albanian Kosovar groups have incompatible goals because they both claim Kosovo/a to be “theirs”), they are likely to experience different emotions and develop different behaviour during the course of the conflict. Whereas the “homeland” groups that are physically engaged in the conflict will experience fear, hunger, pain, and stress, diaspora groups will probably feel anger, frustration, or alienation. Consequently, these differences in attitudes will affect their behavior and perception of the contradiction, and so forth. Diasporic and homeland groups live in different realities. The homelands that lie at the symbolic centre of transnational national communities are “inventions”; they are products of the imagination of deterritorialized groups. Hence, diaspora and local groups may have different interests in maintaining the “homeland” as a collective identity and a source of cultural reproduction. Anderson, for instance, stresses that the political activities of the diasporic person are directed toward an “imagined heimat” in which “he does not intend to live, where he pays no taxes, where he cannot be arrested, where he will not be brought before the courts, and where he does not vote: in effect, a politics without responsibility or accountability.”30 Although it is very likely that diaspora and local groups “imagine” their homeland differently (and therefore show different attitudes and behavior), I would be careful to oppose the two. Again, real life is more complex. Not all diasporas are engaged in just “virtual wars.” For example, a substantial number (an estimated 20,000) of Kosovar Albanians in the diaspora returned to Kosovo in 1998 and 1999 to participate in the conflict. They crossed the border between virtual and real conflict. So far, there is very little case material on the role of diaspora communities in intra-state conflict. What is becoming increasingly clear though is that it is no longer possible to understand ethno-nationalist conflict dynamics without incorporating the “diasporic” component.

CONCLUSIONS There is reason to believe that the political weight of diaspora communities in intra-state conflict has increased. This is related to the rise of new patterns of conflict, the rise of war refugees, the speed of mobility and communication, and the increased production of cultural and political boundaries in Western countries. Group identities are much less territorially bounded. Of course, ethnonationalist diasporas have existed in one form or another since ancient times. However, advances in communication and transportation have increased their size, visibility, and impact within the international system. Diasporas are able to remain much more deeply involved in the national struggles in their homelands than they ever could before. In addition, both multicultural policies and xenophobia in Western countries enable and force newcomers to continue to define themselves in terms of their ethnic or national origin. In order to analyze and understand these new phenomena this chapter has looked at ideas on locality, nationalism, and conflict dynamics.

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The focus on locality and “context-producing capabilities” draws our attention to the rise of virtual communities and allows us to include everyday practices in the analysis of diaspora and violent conflict. The focus on nationalism offers a more historical and political view on nation-building and minority nationalism and the construction of transnational national communities. Conflict theory and, in particular, conflict dynamics, helps to analyze the diasporic component in contemporary conflicts. Clearly, the above ideas and concepts need further elaboration and fine-tuning. This can only be done, however, with the help of solid empirical case studies. Hopefully, this chapter has provided some useful directions for this kind of research.

NOTES 1 An earlier version of this chapter was published in Javnost/The Public: Journal of the European Institute for Culture and Communication, Vol. 9 (2002), 1, pp. 85–96. 2 Mary Kaldor, “Cosmopolitanism versus Nationalism: The New Divide?,” in Richard Caplan and John Feffer (eds), Europe’s New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 42–58. 3 See Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London and New York: Routledge, 1994); Arjun Appadurai, “The Production of Locality,” in Richard Fardon (ed.), Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (London and New York: Routledge, 1995), pp. 204–25. 4 See Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, “Armed Conflicts, Conflict Termination and Peace Agreements 1989–96,” in Journal of Peace Research, 34:3 (1997), pp. 339–58; Kalevi Holsti, The State, War, and the State of War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). 5 Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p. 69. 6 Mary Kaldor and Basker Vashee (eds), New Wars: Restructuring the Global Military Sector (London: Pinter, 1997), pp. 7–19; Hugh Miall, Oliver Ramsbotham and Tom Woodhouse, Contemporary Conflict Resolution (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1998), p. 69. 7 One estimate puts the total collected between 1991 and 1999 at DM 1 billion. 8 Miall et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution, p. 130. 9 Carolyn Nordstrom and JoAnn Martin, The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), p. 269. 10 Benedict Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism: World Capitalism and the Rise of Identity Politics, The Wertheim Lecture 1992 (Amsterdam: Centre for Asian Studies Amsterdam, 1992), p. 12. 11 Khachig Tötölian, “The Nation State and its Others: In Lieu of a Preface,” in Diaspora 1:1 (1991), pp. 4–5. 12 Linda Basch, Nina Glick Schiller and Cristina Szanton-Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects and the Deterritorialized Nation-State (New York: Gordon and Breach, 1994), p. 34. 13 James Clifford, “Diasporas, ” in Cultural Anthropology, 9:3 (1994), p. 304. 14 Steven Vertovec, “Conceiving and Researching Transnationalism,” in Ethnic and Racial Studies, March 1999, v. 22:2, pp. 447–63. 15 William Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return,” in Diaspora 1:1 (1991), pp. 83–4. 16 James Clifford, “Diasporas, ” in Cultural Anthropology, 9:3 (1994), p. 308.

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17 Arjun Appadurai, “The Production of Locality,” in Richard Fardon (ed.), Counterworks: Managing the Diversity of Knowledge (London and New York: Routledge, 1995) pp. 208–9. 18 Ibid., p. 213. 19 Ibid., p. 218. 20 Ibid., p. 219. 21 Loring Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995). 22 In fact, every nationalist attempt to create a nation or a “people” at the same time creates national minorities, and potential new nationalisms. Gellner’s remarkably simple and clear definition of nationalism is applicable to different kinds of nationalisms. “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent” (Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism [Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1983], p.1). 23 Ernest Gellner, Nations and Nationalism (Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1983), pp. 1–2. 24 Loring Danforth, The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 80. 25 In Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism. 26 Alynna J. Lyon and Emek M. Uçarer, “The Transnational Mobilization of Ethnic Conflict: Kurdish Separatism in Germany,” chapter presented at the International Studies Association annual meeting, Minneapolis, Minnesota, March 1998. 27 Miall et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution, pp. 19–20. 28 Johan Galtung, “Conflict as a Way of Life,” in Henry Freeman (ed.), Progress in Mental Health (London: Churchill, 1969); Johan Galtung, Peace by Peaceful Means: Peace and Conflict, Development and Civilization (London: Sage, 1996), p. 72. 29 Miall et al., Contemporary Conflict Resolution, pp. 14–15. 30 Anderson, Long-Distance Nationalism, p. 11.

3

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan* Shirin Akiner

INTRODUCTION Kazakhstan has a multi-ethnic population of great diversity, the product of an extraordinarily complex demographic history. It is home to over 100 ethnic groups. They vary considerably in size, historical experiences, and patterns of behavior. Consequently it is difficult to establish an organizational framework that could serve as an analytical tool for examining group dynamics. Yet without such a framework it is impossible to move beyond a mere recital of group designations. A project of this magnitude would require a full-length study. Here, owing to constraints of space, the aim is inevitably far more modest: a preliminary categorization, based on certain salient characteristics, is presented and this is developed into a tentative typology. In order to ground the discussion, some background reference material is included. Below there is a brief introduction to Kazakhstan, followed by an explanation of terminological usage. Part I surveys (in very truncated form) the origins of the ethnic groups that form the basis for the analysis in Part II. In Part III the threads of the arguments set out in the preceding section are drawn together and systematized. The findings are then tested within a broader, international framework.

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan is located in the heart of Eurasia, between the Caspian Sea and the Tien Shan mountains. To the north and west it is bounded by the Russian Federation, to the east by China, and to the south by Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. It covers an area of 2.7 million square kilometers, thus is almost as big as the whole of Western Europe. Yet it has a relatively small population, numbering (according to the 1999 census survey) just under 15 million. The country has a relatively diversified economy. It has world-class deposits of oil, gas, and coal, and also other minerals such as chrome, copper, gold, lead, wolfram (tungsten), and zinc. Most of its industrial base is connected with the extraction and processing of these resources. However, it also possesses extensive tracts

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of fine arable land and is an important producer and exporter of agricultural products, notably grain, meat, and dairy. Kazakhstan, as a modern political entity, with fixed borders, came into being after the establishment of Soviet rule in the early 1920s. In 1936 it acquired the status of a full Union republic, the second largest (in terms of territory) of the 15 constituent Soviet republics. It declared its independence on 16 December 1991, shortly before the formal demise of the Union. A week later, it became one of the founder members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).

Terminology and politics Since the mid-nineteenth century Kazakhstan has experienced huge movements of population. Most of these flows were immigration influxes, but since independence there has been a sizeable exodus from the country. There have also been several waves of internal migration, particularly during the early Soviet period and again in the 1990s. The demographic turbulence of the post-independence period has been a subject of much debate. Perhaps, not surprisingly, discussions have been dominated, explicitly or implicitly, by political considerations. There are two main thrusts to such arguments. One uses the issue of emigration as a gauge of trust in the government – its economic and social policies as well as its style of governance – and concludes that the exodus is an indictment of the conduct of government. This school of thought, moreover, emphasizes the risk of social conflict in the country and stresses the need for, among other things, ongoing monitoring of the situation. The other line of argument downplays the exodus and concentrates instead on the positive aspects of government policies, particularly the efforts that have been made to promote inter-ethnic harmony and to develop a viable multiethnic, multi-cultural state. Both these approaches are valid, but neither, on their own, gives a complete picture of an extremely complicated situation. The difficulties of discussing demographic issues in Kazakhstan are compounded by the problems of terminology. During the Soviet period a distinction was made between the legal concept of “citizenship,” and the ethnic concept of “nationality.” Since independence, there has been a blurring of this distinction. At the same time, however, the concept of the “titular nation” – that is to say, the people from whom the state takes its name – has been promoted as a special category. Thus, although the preamble to the 1995 constitution1 speaks collectively of the “people of Kazakhstan,” the territory of Kazakhstan is described as “primordial Kazakh land.” By implication, therefore, the titular nation is regarded as the “host,” while others are the “guests.” These “guests” may acquire full citizenship, but are not regarded as having an intrinsic stake in the land, or at least, not one that is on a par with that of the Kazakhs.2 It is against this background that in Kazakhstan today terms such as “ethnic minority” and “diaspora” have come to be regarded by some as political slurs, on the grounds that they carry overtones of discrimination and exclusion.3 These sensitivities are understandable and need to be taken into account, but the

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 23 projection of political interpretations onto terminology does not help to further scholarly debate. To be forced to take refuge in euphemisms or in vague, ill-defined categories leads to obfuscation. The problem is compounded when an attempt is made to broaden the scope of the discussion. It becomes almost impossible to draw meaningful comparisons with experiences in other societies if there are no generally accepted definitions of common terms. Terminological concerns of this nature are by no means unique to Kazakhstan. In many multi-ethnic societies there are concerns as to the most appropriate way of referring to communities of immigrant origin. The issue has acquired greater immediacy in recent years as new patterns of migration have emerged, accompanied by a sharp rise in the volumes of population movements round the world. This has prompted new interest in the formation and functioning of multiethnic states, which in turn is generating a new terminology to describe dispersed, transnational communities. Increasingly, the term “diaspora” (the etymological meaning of which is “dispersal”) is gaining currency as a neutral, inclusive label for such communities. In the past, this term (often spelt with a capitalized initial) was used mainly to refer to the Jewish experience of dispersal by forced expulsion. Since the 1980s, however, the semantic sphere has been steadily widened. The term is still fluid and different criteria are employed to define usage.4 However, communities as diverse as refugees, overseas merchants and guest workers now tend to be grouped together under this collective heading. This is indicative of the recognition that though the process of “dispersal” may take many forms, there are, nevertheless, common threads. Thus the expansion of the concept of “diaspora” lays the foundations for an analytical category within which the totality of the phenomenon of population movement can be examined. It is in this broad sense of a “dispersed community” that the term “diaspora” is used here. The Soviet-era term “nationality” is rendered synonymously by “ethnic group” or “people.” The term “titular nation” is a controversial usage, but it is retained here because it highlights an important issue, namely the special status of the Kazakh population within Kazakhstan. The great majority of Kazakhs regard this as their rightful due. Others observe that this special status is a reality, but do not necessarily condone it, regarding the privileging of any single ethnic group as inimical to the building of a modern, democratic state.

PART I: ETHNIC SURVEY (SELECTED GROUPS) In the 1989 Soviet census, the total population for Kazakhstan was estimated at around 16,200,000.5 Some 100 ethnic groups were listed separately. Just under half were represented by fewer than 10,000 individuals (some 20 by fewer than 100). Of the remainder, approximately 20 groups numbered 10,000 to 100,000, (e.g. Kurds, Dungans, and Greeks) and some 30 groups were in the range 100,000 to one million (e.g. Koreans, Tatars, Ukrainians, and Germans). The biggest groups by far were the Russian and the Kazakh, each numbering over six million. Below the history of the titular nation is described at some length, since it is the

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formative experiences of the Kazakhs – or more precisely, the perception of these experiences – that shape the psychological context in which contemporary inter-ethnic relations are conducted.6 The entries in the other groups are shorter and intended only as a cursory reference.

1. Titular nation The Kazakhs are predominantly of Turkic origin. It is impossible to date with certainty their first appearance on the territory of modern Kazakhstan, but in all probability they formed part of the larger migration of Turkic tribes to the west, which occurred during the sixth century ad. Prior to this, the Sakas, an IndoEuropean people, had dominated the steppe region for hundreds of years. The incoming Turks appear to have merged with the descendants of these earlier settlers. On this basis, some Kazakh historians trace the origins of Kazakh statehood back to the Saka era, a period of some two millennia. The dominant way of life of the Turkic tribes was nomadic pastoralism, although in the south an urban culture developed along a branch of the ancient “Silk Roads.” Islam was brought to Central Asia by the Arabs in the eighth century. It first took hold in the southern tier (modern Uzbekistan), then gradually spread northwards. In the early thirteenth century Kazakhstan came under Mongol domination. Although the Mongols did not survive as a separate ethnic group, the Kazakh aristocracy that subsequently emerged claimed direct patrilineal descent from Genghis Khan. Today, their descendants do not enjoy any formal privileges, but informally this lineage continues to command some respect. The same is true of the small number of Kazakhs who trace their genealogy back to the Arab scholars and holy men who brought Islam to the region in the medieval period. The first identifiable Kazakh state formation, known as the Kazakh Khanate, was established in the fifteenth century. By this time the Kazakh ruling elite had adopted Islam (of the Sunni sect, Hanafi school), but the main body of the population was not fully converted until some centuries later. In the seventeenth century the Kazakhs split into three tribal confederations, known as the Big, Middle, and Small Hordes (Kazakh Ulu, Orta, and Kishi Zhus respectively). These units were further divided into tribes and clans. Each Horde had a specific geographic territory within which it conducted its annual cycle of transhumance. In the eighteenth century, under attack from Oirot Mongols ( Jungars) in the east, most Kazakh tribes sought protection from Russia, though some turned to China. The lands of the latter were incorporated into the Chinese empire in the eighteenth century; today this region forms part of Xinjiang Higher Autonomous Province. Meanwhile, Russian influence in the steppe region gradually expanded until, in the first half of the nineteenth century, the Kazakh leaders (khans) were deposed and their territory annexed by the Russian empire. Members of the Kazakh aristocracy began to be educated in the Russian system at this time and several subsequently served in the Tsarist administration. In the late nineteenth

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 25 century, and more especially in the early twentieth century, there were large influxes of Slav settlers into Kazakhstan. Initially, relations between the Kazakhs and the immigrants were amicable, but tensions soon surfaced. One of the chief reasons was the fact that the newcomers expropriated broad swathes of land that formed part of the traditional pastures of the nomads. In 1916 Kazakh resentment erupted in a violent revolt. The Tsarist response was ferocious; many of the insurgents were brutally killed. In 1920 Soviet rule was established in the region. By this time the total Kazakh population on the territory of the USSR numbered close to four million. A Kazakh territorial-administrative entity, with the status of an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR)7 was formed in 1920, which encompassed almost all the traditional Kazakh lands; over 90 percent of the Kazakh population were located within this new formation. In 1936 the Kazakh ASSR acquired the status of a full Union republic, becoming the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic (or less formally, Kazakhstan). The Kazakhs suffered crushing population losses during the 1930s as a result of the Soviet government’s policies of enforced sedentarization of the nomads, collectivization, and destruction of the rich peasant class (“de-kulakization”). There were also sweeping political purges at this time that wiped out most of the small, pre-revolutionary intellectual elite. It has been estimated that some 1.75 million Kazakhs – almost half the total Kazakh population – died during these years. Over one million more emigrated. Of these, approximately 600,000 Kazakhs fled to China (where there was already a sizeable Kazakh population), Afghanistan, Iran, and Mongolia; some later moved on to Western Europe, North America, Turkey, and the Middle East. Another 453,000 Kazakhs relocated to Uzbekistan and other Soviet republics. Gradually, about 400,000 emigrants returned to Kazakhstan, but others remained abroad.8 In 1959 Kazakhs in Kazakhstan numbered 2.8 million, a third fewer than in 1926; in the Soviet Union as a whole, the Kazakh population had fallen to 3,622,000, a decrease of some 350,000 (see Table 3.1). In the 1920s and 1930s the destruction of the traditional life was accompanied by a wide-ranging program of social engineering, aimed at the rapid modernization and Sovietization of Kazakh society. Free and universal schooling was introduced, as a result of which the literacy rate rose from around 7 percent in 1926 to close to 99 percent by 1970.9 Similarly, free health care was introduced. After the catastrophic experiences of the 1930s, this helped to bring about a degree of demographic recovery. Moreover, in the early 1960s, following the crisis in Sino-Soviet relations, up to 100,000 Kazakhs from Xinjiang had moved to Kazakhstan.10 By 1970, the Kazakh population had increased to 4.2 million and this trend continued thereafter. Other changes that occurred at this time included the drive for female emancipation, as a result of which Kazakh women began to enter higher education in growing numbers and to play an active role in all spheres of public life. There was also a vigorous secularization campaign which had the effect of reducing the role of Islam (which some would argue had never been very strong among Kazakhs) to little more than a cultural identity.

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Table 3.1 Kazakh population movements in the twentieth century Period

(Re-)emigration

1920s–1930s

approximately 600,000 flee across Soviet border; 400,000 later return, but 200,000 settle permanently in Mongolia, China, etc.; 453,000 move to other Soviet republics

1960s

Repatriation

Internal migration large-scale dislocation, especially during period of forced sedentarization and collectivization

mass influx of repatriants from China following Sino–Soviet split

1980s

internal migration of environmental refugees from Aral Sea and Semipalatinsk regions

post-1991

flows of repatriants from Mongolia, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia, Uzbekistan, etc.

c. 1994– ongoing

small Kazakh exodus to Russia and other CIS states; small Kazakh re-emigration to Mongolia

Kazakh population (year)

in Kazakhstan

in USSR

abroad (CIS, Western Europe, Turkey, etc.)*

1926 1959

3,713,000 2,787,000

3,968,000 3,622,000

1989

6,497,000

8,136,000

1999

7,985,000

c. 400,000 in China c. 1.5 m., including some 600,000 in China c. 4 m., including some 1,100,000 in China c. 4.2 m., including some 1.5 m. in China

internal migration, mainly from rural to urban areas

*Figures very imprecise, owing to incomplete data.

By the 1970s a new generation of urbanized, highly educated Kazakhs had emerged. Kazakh representation in the republican government and Communist Party institutions was increasing. Nevertheless, over 70 percent of the Kazakh population still lived in rural areas, mostly in the less-developed southern belt.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 27 They tended to be conservative in culture and outlook, in sharp contrast to the Europeanized, Russian-speaking Kazakhs of the urban centers. In December 1986, soon after Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the longserving First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, Dinmukhamed Kunaev, was removed from office. He was replaced by a Russian from outside the republic. Kazakh students held a peaceful public demonstration to express their opposition to this move. They had expected that the Slav population would sympathize, if not actually join them in their action, since it was a protest against the heavy-handed policies of Moscow, not against Russians as such.11 However, this did not happen. Many of the demonstrators were hurt, allegedly assaulted by the police, and several were arrested. This triggered a wave of anti-Russian feeling among the Kazakhs. It subsided, but the incident left a bitter residue of resentment. At about the same time, public concern over the extent of environmental damage in Kazakhstan was surfacing. There were two major disaster areas. One was the Aral Sea region which, owing to the shrinking of the Sea, was experiencing chronic desertification and severe air, soil, and water pollution. The other was the Semipalatinsk nuclear test site, where prolonged exposure to radiation (nuclear tests were carried out from 1949–89) had caused incalculable damage to the local ecology and to the health of the population. In both areas, the environmental degradation was so severe that tens of thousands of Kazakhs were forced to abandon their homes and to move to other parts of the republic.12 It was against this background of growing awareness of the sufferings and injustices that had been inflicted on the Kazakh nation over the past century that a strand of xenophobic nationalism began to emerge. When independence was declared in December 1991, many Kazakhs regarded it as a form of restitution, a chance to regain control of their destiny and their land.13 Kazakhs from abroad began to return; by 2003, some 215,000 had come back.14 These repatriants (Kazakh oralmandar) were greeted enthusiastically, in the spirit of a “gathering-in” of the exiled peoples. However, consolidation of the nation proved to be more difficult than anticipated. Diasporization had had a profound effect on the social, economic, and linguistic development of the exiles and they found it difficult to adapt to life in modern Kazakhstan. Equally, the Kazakh authorities were not prepared for the practical problems of resettling large numbers of repatriants. Stringent annual immigration quotas were introduced to limit the flow of returning families.15 Meanwhile, some of the repatriants, dissatisfied with the conditions that they encountered, re-emigrated. Kazakhs within Kazakhstan were also in a flux. From the mid-1990s there was growing internal migration as Kazakhs from rural areas moved to urban centers in search of employment.16 At the same time, several thousand Kazakhs, mainly from the northern provinces, emigrated to Russia and other parts of the CIS. These various population flows gradually diminished but they brought about a geographic redistribution of the Kazakh population, both within the country and also in the Kazakh diaspora.

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2. Immigrants from European Russia 2.1 Slavs Russians The Russians are eastern Slavs. By religion the overwhelming majority are (at least by tradition) Orthodox Christians. The first significant wave of Russian migration into Kazakhstan dates from the nineteenth century. The settlers, drawn from a wide range of social categories, included members of the Tsarist “establishment” such as administrators, teachers, doctors, engineers, geologists, and surveyors; peasant farmers, some of whom came with official sanction and support, while others were illegal migrants; and several waves of political exiles (Social Democrats, Marxists, etc.). Cossack military units were stationed in the region to guard the frontiers and to maintain law and order. Four historic units – the Ural, Orenburg, Siberian, and Semirechie Cossacks – were (and still are) located wholly or partly on the territory of Kazakhstan.17 In 1926, some six years after Soviet rule had been instituted, there were already some 1,280,000 Russians in Kazakhstan. During the 1920s and 1930s this number was rapidly augmented by large contingents of Russian aid and development workers (teachers, doctors, engineers, etc.), as well as administrators, Communist Party officials, military, and security forces. Many political prisoners were also exiled to Kazakhstan. During World War II there was a new wave of Russian immigration when industrial plants as well as scientific, cultural, and higher educational institutions were relocated to Kazakhstan from the western regions of the Soviet Union. The last major movement of population came in the 1950s and 1960s, when there was an intensive campaign to develop the economic potential of this region; the largest and most controversial project was the plowing of the “Virgin Lands” of the steppe region in order to expand grain production. By 1959, there were almost four million Russians in Kazakhstan; two decades later, they numbered almost six million. Thereafter the natural demographic increase continued, but was offset to some extent by out-migration. In 1989, the Russian population in Kazakhstan stood at 6,062,000. During most of the Soviet period the Russians constituted the single biggest ethnic group, averaging around 40 percent of the population. The majority settled in the northern and northeastern provinces, where they soon substantially outnumbered the Kazakh population.18 By 1970 there were large concentrations of Russians in and around the major industrial centers of the north and in the republican capital (Alma Ata, now Almaty). Yet they were also well represented in agricultural areas, constituting over a quarter of the total rural population of Kazakhstan. The diaspora as a whole continued to comprise a broad spectrum of social groups. Russians held dominant positions in the highest political, administrative, and law enforcement echelons, also in education, science, the arts, and the professions. However, they were to be found in all spheres of activity and many were employed in low-status and low-income jobs.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 29 Ukrainians and Belarusians Ukrainians and Belarusians are, like the Russians, eastern Slavs. By religion some are Orthodox Christians, while others are Uniates (Roman Catholics of the eastern rite). Ukrainian immigration into Kazakhstan began during the Tsarist period and, like Russian immigration, was very diverse in social and economic character. It included political exiles from Ukraine’s intellectual elite, as well as farmers, administrators, and other servants of the state. By 1926 the diaspora numbered over 861,000 (some 13 percent of the total population of Kazakhstan). There was a new influx in the late 1930s, when many Ukrainians were deported from western Ukraine (formerly part of Poland, annexed by the USSR in 1939). The community was at its most numerous in 1970 (just under one million); subsequently there was a slow but steady exodus. Belarusian immigration followed a similar pattern to the Ukrainian, but on a much smaller scale. In 1970 the Belarusian diaspora in Kazakhstan reached its peak, numbering over 198,000 and constituting the seventh largest ethnic group in the country; thereafter it began to contract. During the Soviet period Ukrainians and Belarusians occupied the same niches in society as Russians and were generally regarded (by others and themselves) as part of this larger group. 2.2 Turkic, Finno-Ugric and Other Peoples Tatars (Volga) The Tatars are a Turkic, Muslim people from the Volga region. They are related to the Crimean Tatars, but have a different history and represent a different linguistic branch. In Soviet censuses both groups were listed collectively as “Tatars” until 1989, when a separate “Crimean Tatar” category was introduced. Large numbers of Volga Tatars moved into Kazakhstan in the nineteenth century, after the region had been incorporated into the Tsarist empire. The first wave consisted mainly of Muslim clerics and teachers; later, they were joined by entrepreneurs and civil servants. Some contemporary Kazakh intellectuals regarded the Tatar influx as pernicious, preferring Russian culture to the strict Islamic orthodoxy that the Tatars were trying to introduce.19 By the time Soviet rule was established, there was already a significant Tatar presence in Kazakhstan. They played an active role in the new administration, since, on average, they were better educated than the Kazakh population. Moreover, despite differences in religion and ethnic origin they tended to identify themselves culturally and socially with the Slavs. For the Kazakhs, the Tatars represented an intermediate group, not as alien as the Slavs, but more “sophisticated” than Central Asians. Consequently, several Kazakh intellectuals and senior Communist Party officials married Tatars. In 1960 Dinmukhamed Kunaev became the first Kazakh to head the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, a post which he held (with a brief hiatus in the early 1960s) until 1986. Partly of Tatar origin (his mother and paternal grandmother were both

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Tatars), he promoted Tatars to a number of key positions and, more generally, created an environment in which the diaspora prospered. In 1989 they were the fifth largest ethnic group in Kazakhstan, numbering 321,000. Mordvinians, Udmurts and others Other subjects of the Tsarist empire moved to Kazakhstan in the wake of the Russians. They included Mordvinians and Udmurts (Finno-Ugric peoples, mostly Orthodox Christians), also Bashkirs and Chuvash (mixed Finno-Ugric and Turkic descent, mostly Muslim, some Orthodox Christians) from the Volga region, and Moldovans (Indo-Europeans, Orthodox Christians) from the Dniester. Small groups of people such as these began to settle in Kazakhstan in the late nineteenth century. Some (especially the Moldovans) were engaged in agriculture, while others worked as manual laborers in the burgeoning industrial sector; a few served as petty bureaucrats. In the twentieth century these communities were swelled by new flows of immigrants, among them a sizeable influx of Moldovan evacuees in World War II. In 1959 the Udmurt, Bashkir, and Chuvash diasporas in Kazakhstan were still relatively small, each represented by fewer than 12,000 people; the Moldovans and Mordvinians were slightly more numerous (15,000 and 25,000 respectively). By 1970 all these groups showed a significant increase; there were now 34,000 Mordvinians, 26,000 Moldovans, 23,000 Chuvash, 21,000 Bashkirs, and 16,000 Udmurts. In the following years the Bashkir and Moldovan populations continued to expand (in 1989 numbering 41,000 and 32,000 respectively), but the other groups experienced a slight contraction. The first German immigrants also settled in Kazakhstan in the nineteenth century (see below under “Deported peoples”).

3. Central Asians Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Turkmen The Uzbeks are Muslims and, like the Kazakhs, Turkic, though from a different linguistic branch. For centuries they have lived in compact groups in the towns and villages on the territory of southern Kazakhstan, intermingled with Kazakhs. The latter were mostly nomadic or semi-nomadic, while the Uzbeks followed a sedentary way of life, engaged chiefly in trade, crafts, and irrigated agriculture. In 1924, when Soviet Central Asia was divided into territorial-administrative units, the Kazakh–Uzbek border was drawn through this area, thereby creating an “administrative” diaspora of some 213,000 Uzbeks. Since the borders at this time were fully transparent and there was no obstacle to movement backwards and forwards, they remained culturally, socially, and economically closely tied to Uzbeks in Uzbekistan. In 1989, the Uzbek diaspora in Kazakhstan numbered 331,000 and were still predominantly located in the area adjoining Uzbekistan. The Kyrgyz and Turkmen are also Turkic Muslims and have for centuries lived on the borders of Kazakhstan. Small groups were incorporated into Kazakhstan

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 31 following the delimitation of 1924. In 1989 the Kyrgyz diaspora in Kazakhstan numbered 14,000 and the Turkmen 4,000. Uighurs The Uighurs, too, are Turkic Muslims, linguistically and culturally more closely related to the Uzbeks than the Kazakhs. The majority (an estimated 10 million) live in the north-west of China, in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province. During the nineteenth century, as the Russian empire expanded eastwards, a number of Turkic peoples came under Tsarist rule. Later they came to be known collectively as Uighurs. The majority lived in the Ferghana Valley and were subsequently incorporated into Uzbekistan, but some were located in the Ili Valley, which became part of Kazakhstan. In 1926, there were 10,500 Uighurs and 52,000 Taranchis (later included with the Uighurs) on the territory of Kazakhstan. After Communist rule was established in China in 1949, thousands of Uighurs moved to Kazakhstan. When relations between China and the Soviet Union deteriorated in the 1960s, many more Chinese Uighurs crossed the border. Most settled in Kazakhstan. In the 1989 census it was recorded that they numbered 185,300, but some Uighurs claimed that this was an underestimation. Dungans The Dungans (self-designation Hui) are Chinese Muslims from Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang provinces. Little is known of their ethnic origins. They may have been Chinese who adopted Islam, or Muslim prisoners (Arabs, Persians, etc.) who were brought to China as prisoners by the Mongols and who then adopted the language and customs of the local population. They migrated to Russian-occupied territory in the aftermath of the Muslim Uprising of 1862–77 against Manchu rule. Mostly farmers, they introduced new crops to the region, including rice and opium poppies. Following the delimitation of Soviet Central Asia in 1924, the Dungans were divided between the Kyrgyz and Kazakh republics. In 1926, the population in Kazakhstan was estimated at 8,500; in 1989 it had reached 30,000. Agriculture is still their principal occupation. In their food, clothing, and general way of life they have retained Chinese customs (cases of foot-binding, for example, were recorded as late as the 1940s).

4. Deported peoples (by region of origin) 4.1 European USSR (Volga, Crimea, Ukraine, and Belarus) Germans There were several waves of German immigration into Russia.20 The earliest settlers were hanseatic merchants in the medieval period. They were followed by traders and master craftsmen, especially in the seventeenth century. The largest

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influx, however, was prompted by the manifesto issued by Catherine the Great in 1763, which invited foreigners to settle in Russia to assist with the economic development of the country. The immigrants were offered favorable conditions, including guarantees of religious freedom and local self-governance. Later monarchs confirmed and expanded these rights. Thousands of Germans – from Hesse, West Prussia, Württemberg, Alsace, and other parts of the country – took advantage of these opportunities. The majority were Mennonites, but there were also many Roman Catholics. German villages were established in the Volga region, also in the Black Sea region (including the Crimea), Volhynia, Transcaucasia, and Siberia. More Germans came under Russian rule as the Tsarist empire annexed new territories along the Baltic coast. By 1914, there were some 1.6 million Germans in the Russian empire, excluding the Baltic provinces, Poland, and Bessarabia.21 By this time, small groups of German settlers, mostly farmers, had begun moving to Kazakhstan. In 1926, they numbered just over 51,000. During World War I the German population in Russia was treated with suspicion and hostility, and threatened with the liquidation of their communities. They were no longer allowed to speak German in public; preaching in German was also forbidden.22 When Soviet rule was established, their situation improved somewhat. In 1918, they were allowed to establish their own Autonomous Commune on the Volga; in 1924 this became the Volga German ASSR. This was the largest geographic concentration of Soviet Germans and encompassed about a quarter of the total population. Elsewhere in the Soviet Union, 17 German National Districts were created in areas where there were large German communities (e.g. in Ukraine and Crimea). Conditions soon deteriorated again. The first major deportation of Germans to Central Asia and Siberia took place in the second half of the 1930s. In 1939 the Soviet Union annexed western Ukraine (previously Polish territory) and Germans from this region were also deported to the east. In 1941 there were further mass deportations of Germans from all parts of the Soviet Union, allegedly for collaborating with the Nazis. That same year the Volga German ASSR was abolished, likewise all the remaining German National Districts. Yet another influx of German exiles to Central Asia came after the war, when some 250,000 Soviet Germans who had found refuge in Germany (and acquired German citizenship) were repatriated to the Soviet Union; all were exiled to penal settlements. About 40 percent of the total number of German deportees were sent to Kazakhstan. In the mid-1950s, they were partially rehabilitated, but not given the right to return to their former places of residence. By 1959 they were the fourth largest ethnic group in the republic, numbering 660,000; by 1989 they had increased to 947,000 and ranked third (after the Kazakhs and Russians). Poles As western Slavs, the Poles are Roman Catholics. There have been several waves of Polish immigration into Kazakhstan. The first influx was in the

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 33 second half of the nineteenth century, when Polish intellectuals and revolutionaries were exiled to northern Kazakhstan by the Tsarist authorities. During the Soviet era there were two main influxes of Polish deportees. One wave arrived in 1936–38; these were “special settler” deportees from the border regions of Soviet Ukraine and Belarus. A separate wave of Poles arrived in 1940–41, following the Soviet annexation of the Polish parts of western Ukraine and western Belarus. Poles from these areas were regarded as internees; among them were many army officers and members of the Polish government. In 1941 most of them were amnestied, but remained in Kazakhstan. Several signed up for the Polish army that was formed in the Soviet Union under the command of General Anders. This body was later relocated to Iran and brought under British control, but many thousand former internees remained in Kazakhstan. In the mid-1950s the “special settlers” were rehabilitated.23 According to census surveys, in 1959 the Polish diaspora in Kazakhstan numbered about 53,000,24 and in 1989 just under 60,000 (though this was generally regarded as an underestimation). Crimean Tatars A Turkic, Muslim people, the Crimean Tatars were the dominant element in the Crimean Tatar Khanate, established on the Crimean peninsular in 1443. Politically this state had close ties with the Ottoman empire, but was annexed by the Russian crown in 1783. This triggered large migrations of Crimean Tatars to Turkey. Towards the end of the nineteenth century there was an awakening of Crimean Tatar national consciousness. Strongly pan-Turkic and pan-Islamic in orientation, it was much influenced by similar movements in Ottoman Turkey. Great emphasis was placed on education and, consequently, the rate of literacy among the Crimean Tatars was one of the highest in the Tsarist empire. In 1917 nationalist leaders proclaimed an independent Crimean Tatar state, which was immediately recognized by Turkey and Germany. However, in 1920 Bolshevik troops gained control of the region and in 1921 the Crimean ASSR was created. Many Crimean Tatars fled abroad at this time, the majority to Turkey. Nevertheless, within Crimea there was a flowering of Crimean Tatar culture and education during the early Soviet period. This came to an abrupt end in the late 1920s. There followed a period of increasing repression during which the intellectual elite were almost totally destroyed. By 1939 the population of Crimea numbered approximately 1,127,000, some 50 percent of whom were Russian. The Tatars constituted about 25 percent, while the remainder included Ukrainians, Germans, Greeks, and various other groups. From 1941–44 Crimea was occupied by German forces. On 18 May 1944, immediately after it had been liberated by the Soviet army, the entire Crimean Tatar nation was accused of collaboration with the Germans and deported. Most were exiled to Uzbekistan but a few thousand were sent to Kazakhstan. The Crimean Tatar ASSR was liquidated in June 1946; in 1954 the region was

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transferred to the jurisdiction of the Ukrainian SSR. The land and property confiscated from the Crimean Tatars was transferred to Ukrainian and Russian settlers. In 1954 the “special settler” restrictions were lifted, but the Crimean Tatars were not given the right to return home. According to the 1989 census, there were then just over 3,000 Crimean Tatars in Kazakhstan, though this was probably an underestimation.25 4.2 North Caucasus Balkars, Chechens, Ingush, Karachais, and Kalmyks These five peoples were deported en masse from North Caucasus in 1943–44. The Chechen and Ingush are indigenous Caucasian groups, the Balkars and Karachais are Turkic; all four peoples are Muslim. The Kalmyks are Mongols whose forebears migrated from Central Asia and settled in the coastal steppe region to the south of the Volga estuary in the mid-seventeenth century. By religion they are Buddhists. All these peoples came under Russian rule in the nineteenth century. There was ongoing unrest, however, particularly among the Chechens, who frequently took part in uprisings against the Tsarist authorities. After the 1917 revolution the region was swept by civil war. Soviet troops were not able to establish control until 1920. The administrative-territorial reorganization which was initiated over the following years provided these peoples with a degree of constitutional autonomy within the larger framework of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). In 1936 three of these units were elevated to the status of Autonomous Republics (still within the RSFSR), namely the Kalmyk ASSR, the ChechenIngush ASSR, and the united Kabardino-Balkar ASSR (the Kabardians were a neighboring Caucasian Muslim people). The Karachai unit remained at the level of an Autonomous Province. German troops occupied parts of the North Caucasus for a few months in 1942–43. After the region was recaptured by the Red Army, the entire population of Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachais, and Kalmyks were deported to Central Asia and Siberia. Of these, almost 500,000 were sent to Kazakhstan,26 mostly to the southern provinces. The Kalmyk ASSR was abolished, as were the Balkar region within the Kabardino-Balkar ASSR, and the Karachai region within the Karachai-Cherkess Autonomous Province; the Chechen-Ingush ASSR was retroactively disbanded in 1946. In all these areas the land was redistributed to new settlers. Soon after Stalin’s death in 1953, the people of the North Caucasus began spontaneously to return to their homelands. They were formally rehabilitated in 1957 and some state support was provided for voluntary repatriation. By 1959 many of these deportees had left Kazakhstan, though several thousand remained.27 Also, some of those who returned to the Caucasus later re-migrated to Kazakhstan. In 1989, there were some 49,000 Chechens and 20,000 Ingush in Kazakhstan, also groups of 1–3,000 each of Balkars, Kalmyks, and Karachais.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 35 4.3 South Caucasus Meskhetian (Akhyska) Turks The Meskhetian Turks (self-designation Akhyska Turkleri) are Muslims. Their ethnic origins are a matter of dispute: they may be Turks or Turkicized Georgians. In Soviet census surveys they were listed under the generic term “Turk,” but other Turkic or Turkicized Muslim groups (e.g. Armenian Muslim Khemshins/ Khemshils) were also sometimes included under this designation, so it is difficult to estimate numbers. Their historic homeland is Meskhetia, in south-west Georgia. This area came under Ottoman rule in the sixteenth century, but was partially annexed by the Tsarist empire in 1829. During World War II this part of the Caucasus was not occupied by enemy troops. Nevertheless, in November 1944, the entire Meskhetian population, numbering 115,500 people, was deported to Central Asia, allegedly for reasons of military security. Most were sent to Uzbekistan, but 28,000 were settled in Kazakhstan.28 In the mid-1950s they were rehabilitated, but not given the right of return to their homeland. In 1968 they were given back the right to reside anywhere within the Soviet Union, but in practice were prevented from returning to their place of origin. The 1989 survey listed some 50,000 “Turks” in Kazakhstan, most of whom would have been Meskhetian Turks.29 Pontic Greeks Hellenistic colonies settled in the Pontus – the narrow corridor of land that stretches along the southeastern coast of the Black Sea – over 2,500 years ago. Their descendants adopted Orthodox Christianity and came to be known as “Romei” or “Pontic Greeks.” Most of the Pontus was under Ottoman rule for several centuries. In the nineteenth century, in the wake of the numerous RussoOttoman wars, the Pontic Greeks began to move along the littoral to areas that were under Tsarist jurisdiction. In 1919, however, there were still an estimated 500,000 Pontic Greeks on Turkish soil. In 1919–23, as the Ottoman empire was disintegrating and the Republic of Turkey was being born, they suffered a series of massacres, as a result of which more than half the community perished.30 Those that survived were forced to leave their homeland under the terms of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, which stipulated an exchange of Greek and Turkish populations. Some of the Pontic Greeks moved to Greece, but most went to Georgia, now part of the Soviet Union, where there was already a substantial Pontic Greek diaspora, formed by earlier waves of immigration. Some still spoke a form of ancient Greek at home, though in public life they used demotic Greek. In the 1920s they were allowed to use Greek as a medium of education, also in cultural activities such as the theatre and publications of various sorts. It was a time of intellectual flowering. In the 1930s, however, the situation changed. The use of Greek was circumscribed and in 1937 many of the leaders of the community were

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arrested. In 1949 all the Pontic Greeks from Georgia were deported; so, too, were other small, historic groups of Greeks on the territory of the USSR, such as those in Crimea and around the Azov Sea. Most of the Greeks were sent to Uzbekistan, but several thousand were settled in the south of Kazakhstan. In the mid-1950s, when the restrictions on the deported peoples were relaxed, they moved to larger urban centers and entered higher educational institutions. They also began to migrate to Moscow and other major cites in the Soviet Union. Yet, in 1989, some 46,000 Greeks were still living in Kazakhstan. Others Many smaller groups were also deported from Caucasus to Kazakhstan c. 1938–44. They included several thousand Kurds, Khemshins/Khemshils (Armenian Muslims), and Iranians.31 They were partially rehabilitated in the mid-1950s, and in 1968 were given back the right to reside anywhere within the Soviet Union. Yet, as with the Meskhetian Turks, in practice the authorities prevented them from returning to their place of origin. 4.4 Soviet Far East Koreans The Korean migration into the Maritime Province of the Tsarist empire was prompted primarily by political and economic difficulties in Korea. There were several waves of settlement between 1863 and 1917. The migrants came from different parts of the Korean peninsula and spoke different dialects. They also professed different faiths. The majority were adherents of Buddhism and Confucianism (with large admixtures of syncretic elements), but there may have been some Catholics, too, since this religion was introduced to Korea in the late nineteenth century.32 Some of those who immigrated to Russian territory were later converted to Orthodox Christianity. By 1917 the Korean community in the Priamur Territory was estimated, probably too conservatively, at 85,000.33 The majority were engaged in agriculture, especially rice cultivation, as well as fishing and manual labor. Soviet rule was established in the early 1920s, after a fierce struggle between the Red Army and units of the White Army and foreign interventionists. When collectivization was introduced in 1929, several thousand Koreans re-emigrated to their ethnic homeland. In 1931, after the Japanese invasion of southern Manchuria, relations between Japan and the Soviet Union became strained. The border zone was militarized and travel restrictions were imposed on the local Soviet Koreans. Yet in 1933, in recognition of their loyalty to the Soviet regime, a Korean National Region was created. Thus, it was all the more unexpected when in 1937 the entire Soviet Korean population was suddenly deported to Central Asia as “special settlers.”34 Most went to Uzbekistan, but over 98,000 were sent to Kazakhstan.35 In the mid-1950s the “special settler” regime was relaxed and they were given back

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 37 the right of movement within the Soviet Union. They were now free to return to the Far East, but the majority chose to remain in Central Asia. In 1959 the Korean population in Kazakhstan numbered 74,000; by 1989 it had increased to 101,000.

PART II: ANALYSIS

Diaspora formation There were three main types of diaspora in Kazakhstan in the pre-Soviet and Soviet periods: ethnic, religious, and penal. These were not discrete categories, but overlapping sets of experiences and identities. Thus, members of a given ethnic group might form part of religious and penal diasporas that did not embrace other members of that ethnic group. Moreover, the loyalties generated by these different affiliations – ethnic, religious and penal – might fluctuate and change over time. Consequently, all three types of diaspora formation must be taken into account in order to understand the dynamics of these relationships.

1. Ethnic diasporas The ethnic diasporas were mostly formed by immigration, voluntary or forced. However, as discussed in the “Ethnic survey” in Part I above, diasporas were also formed by the drawing of boundaries in 1924. The biggest of these was the Uzbek community which, in 1926, numbered some 214,000. These “administrative” diasporas were located in border regions and formed part of larger, transnational ethnic groupings. The experience of diasporization was for them mainly passive and, during the Soviet period, did not greatly affect their daily lives. By contrast, the diasporas that were formed by immigration underwent far-reaching social, cultural, and economic change (Tables 3.2, 3.3).

2. Religious diasporas Islam is numerically the largest faith in Kazakhstan. Brought to Central Asia by the Arabs a few decades after the Hijra (beginning of the Muslim era, ad 622), it was gradually accepted, at least nominally, by all the Kazakh population. However, the nomadic way of life precluded the establishment of formal institutions. Until the nineteenth century, the only mosques on the territory of present-day Kazakhstan were in the south, in the valley of the Syr Darya. It was here, in the city of Turkestan, that the mausoleum of the renowned twelfthcentury Sufi teacher, Ahmed Yasavi, founder of the Yasaviyya order, was located. After the incorporation of Kazakhstan into the Tsarist empire, Muslims from Volga, Crimea, and Caucasus began to move into this region. They introduced a more orthodox form of Islam; during this period many mosques and Muslim colleges (madrassah) were established. In the twentieth century immigration

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Table 3.2 Ethnic diaspora formation by immigration in pre-Soviet period (late eighteenth–early twentieth centuries) Voluntary (spontaneous and/or state-directed)

Forced (penal exile)

Characteristics

Characteristics

Ethnic group

Military personnel, bureaucrats, settler farmers (legal and illegal) Entrepreneurs, traders, teachers, etc.

Slavs, mainly Russians, small numbers of Germans Slavs (mainly Russians), Tatars, small numbers of Mordvinians, etc. Religious dissidents Russians, Germans Refugees from China Dungans, Uighurs

Political dissidents, religious nonconformists

Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, small numbers of others

Population (on territory of present-day Republic of Kazakhstan) 1897*

Kazakhs: Russians: Ukrainians:

Ethnic group

3.4 m. (82%) 0.5 m. (11%) 0.08 m. (2%)

* Kazakhstan, as a separate formation, had not been created at the time of the census conducted by the Tsarist administration in 1897; population estimates for the territory of modern Kazakhstan were extrapolated by later demographers (Masanov, 2002: 16); as elsewhere in this chapter, figures have been rounded to the nearest 1,000.

Table 3.3 Ethnic diaspora formation by immigration in Soviet period Voluntary (spontaneous and/or state-directed)

Forced (penal exile to “special settlements” and prison labor camps)

Period

Characteristics

Ethnic groups

Characteristics

Ethnic groups

1920s

Agents of Sovietization: aid and development workers (teachers, doctors, engineers etc.), CP activists, bureaucrats, security and law enforcers

Mostly Slavs, especially Russian

“Class enemies” e.g., property owners, rich peasants (kulaks), political dissidents, religious believers, sent to penal settlements and/ or prison camps

Various, from within Kazakhstan and from other parts of USSR

Civil War refugees from all over USSR Agents of Sovietization

Various

1930s– 1959

Various

Political purges, Various, “nationalist” elites including sent to prison Kazakhs camps

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 39 Table 3.3 (cont.)

Period

Voluntary (spontaneous and/or state-directed)

Forced (penal exile to “special settlements” and prison labor camps)

Characteristics

Characteristics

c. 1936– 1949

1941– 1949

Evacuees from war zones, including many orphaned children; influx of skilled workers owing to mass relocation of industries; also relocation of elite scientific, academic and cultural establishments

Ethnic groups

Mass deportations to penal exile in “special settlements” Mainly Slavs from Further waves of front-line western mass deportation Soviet Republics

1946– c. 1955

1950s– 1970s

Ethnic groups

POWs and internees (repatriated Soviet citizens)

Koreans, Germans, Poles, and others Peoples of North Caucasus, Crimean Tatars, Pontic Greeks, many smaller ethnic groups (Kurds etc.); other internees

German troops, also repatriated Soviet Germans, Japanese and smaller groups of others in forced labor camps

“Virgin lands” Various and other major development campaigns, large influxes of agricultural workers, engineers, teachers and other professionals; refugees from China Uighurs

Total population in Kazakhstan in 1926: 6.5 m.

Total population in Kazakhstan in 1970: 13 m.

Kazakhs: Russians: Ukrainians: Kazakhs: Russians: Ukrainians: Germans:

3.7 m. (57%) 1.3 m. (20%) 0.9 m. (13%) 4.0 m. (33%) 5.5 m. (42%) 0.9 m. (7%) 0.9 m. (7%)

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increased, bringing new influxes of Muslims from other Soviet republics (see “Ethnic survey”, in Part I above). The second largest religion is Christianity, first brought by European immigrants (Slavs and Germans) in the nineteenth century. The main denomination is Russian Orthodox, but there have long been substantial congregations of Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and other Protestant denominations. The early Jehovah’s Witnesses were mostly penal exiles, though the community has since attracted other converts.36 Other faiths, likewise introduced by immigrants, are represented by smaller groups of believers.37 In the early Soviet period, all faith communities suffered persecution. The Protestants, however, were more severely treated than others, partly on account of their faith, but partly, too, because they were predominantly German. Many of their ministers, as well as ordinary believers, were sent to penal camps, including those in Kazakhstan. In 1951, the peak year of persecution, in the Karaganda forced labor camp alone there were some 95,000 Protestant prisoners of conscience.38 After World War II, the Soviet authorities adopted a slightly more tolerant policy towards religion. The main faiths were allowed to re-establish some institutions, albeit under strict scrutiny. In 1943 an official Muslim Spiritual Board for Central Asia and Kazakhstan was created, based in Tashkent. Its function was chiefly administrative. In Kazakhstan, as in the other republics that came under the jurisdiction of this body, there was a subsidiary Muslim organization. An independent Kazakh muftiat was established in 1990. Government policies towards religion were becoming slightly more liberal by this stage. This led to an upsurge of religious activity, a trend that was intensified after independence. In the 1990s foreign missionaries from all over the world began to flood into Kazakhstan. Some introduced new faiths, but many worked to strengthen existing communities.39 At the same time, however, some of the Protestant communities, likewise some of the Catholic communities, contracted sharply owing to the emigration of large numbers of Germans and Poles (Table 3.4).40

3. Penal diasporas Kazakhstan was used as a place of exile and punishment during the Tsarist period and much more extensively during the Soviet period (see Tables 3.2 and 3.3). The penal diasporas, like the religious diasporas, cut across ethnic cleavages (see Table 3.5). There were two types of penal exile during the Soviet period: the “special settlement” regime and the forced labor camp. Both forms of exile were applied in Kazakhstan. Exile under the “special settlement” regime was employed from the 1920s onwards. At first it was used selectively for “enemies of the people” – particularly rich peasants – who were deported in groups and resettled in remote, undeveloped regions within their own republic or in another republic.41 In the late 1930s the scope of these operations assumed a systematized, mass character as entire populations were uprooted and exiled to Siberia and the Central Asian republics,

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 41 Table 3.4 Main religious diasporas Denomination

Chronology

Traditional adherents

Islam

First introduced c. tenth century In Soviet era, Kazakh Muslim clerics subordinated to official Muslim administration (est. 1943) in Tashkent; independent Kazakh muftiat created 1990; 25 registered mosques in 1965, 59 in 1989, c. 1,000 in 1999, also c. 4000 unregistered mosques; several Muslim schools and colleges 1866 first chapels in southern Kazakhstan; 1872 first archbishop; 62 registered communities in 1989, 220 in 1998, also 3 bishoprics, 8 monasteries Introduced post-1863 by exiled Polish revolutionaries in northern Kazakhstan; 42 registered communities in 1989, 77 in 1998, also 3 bishoprics, 2 monasteries, 1 convent Introduced mid-nineteenth century; 171 registered communities in 1989, 84 in 1998; 1996, bishopric created.; weakened by internal sectarian divisions and by German emigration Introduced late nineteenth century; in 1944 merged with Lutherans, Pentecostals, etc. to form Evangelical Christian Baptists; 168 registered communities in 1989, 77 in 1998 Introduced nineteenth century.; most communities merged with Baptists (see above) in 1963 Introduced end nineteenth century; severely persecuted in Soviet times; 27 registered communities in 1989, 97 in 1998 Introduced late nineteenth century by immigrants, mainly craftsmen; first synagogue opened post-Soviet era; in 1998, 4 registered synagogues Introduced in 1938 by immigrants; in 1990s registered communities in all main cities; 3 training institutes

Kazakhs, Tatars, Uzbeks, Uighurs, Dungans, Chechen, Ingush, Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, Kurds, etc.

Russian Orthodox

Roman Catholics (and Uniates)

Lutherans

Baptists

Mennonites

Jehovah’s Witnesses Jews

Bahais

Russians and other Slavs

Poles, Germans, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Koreans, Balts Mainly Germans

Germans, Russians

Germans, Russians

Slavs, Balts, and others Slavs¸ especially Ukrainian

Penal exiles from Tajikistan and Azerbaijan

Source: Ivanov and Trofimov, 1999.

especially Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, allegedly for collective collaboration with enemy forces. It is difficult to estimate the total number of people who were deported to “special settlements” in Kazakhstan. The death rate in the early years was very high; most of the deported peoples lost at least a third of their population. For the year 1943–44 alone, archival evidence indicates that the number of deportees

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Table 3.5 Penal diasporas Period

Type of exile

1920s– 1950s

Penal exile in forced labor prison camps

1931– c. 1960

1937– c. 1953

1941– c. 1955

1936– 1949

Characteristics

Deportations of class enemies, political dissidents, religious believers; various ethnic groups from various parts of USSR Karaganda Forced Labor Camp In total, over 1 million prisoners held (Karlag) and branch camps – main in Karlag; mostly Russian, but also prison camp complex in Kazakhstan other ethnic groups from all over USSR; at end of sentence some returned home, others remained in vicinity Akmolinsk Women’s Forced Labor In 1940 alone, some 20,000 women Camp (ALZHIR), part of Karlag held in Karlag, many in ALZHIR; penal complex, for wives and relatives mostly Russian, but also other ethnic of “betrayers of the homeland” groups from all over USSR; at end of sentence some women returned home, others remained in vicinity POW camps, main camp Spasskii In total, some 66,500 POWs and internees held in Spasskii incl. almost 30,000 Germans and 22,000 Japanese; most eventually repatriated Exile to penal settlements with “special Mass deportations of peoples from regime”; some relaxation of Black Sea, Caucasus, Crimea, Soviet regulations c. 1956, gradual Far East, Volga rehabilitation of deportees

exceeded 406,000.42 In 1953, the number of “special settlers” was recorded as 974,900, over half of whom were Germans and another quarter Chechens.43 By this estimate, over a tenth of the total population of the republic consisted of deportees. In the mid-1950s, after Stalin’s death, measures were gradually taken to “rehabilitate” the deported peoples. Some of the victims of the mass deportations succeeded in returning home; others remained in their place of exile (see section on “Soviet-diaspora patterns of behavior” below). The forced labor camps (GULAG) were even more notorious than the special settlements for the cruelty and harshness of their penal regime. Here the inmates – allegedly guilty of political crimes – had no control over their fate. They were held in inhuman conditions and used as expendable slave labor. Prison camps were functioning in Kazakhstan in the 1920s, but the system was greatly expanded in the early 1930s. By far the largest camp (and one of the largest in the Soviet Union) was the Karaganda camp, known colloquially as “Karlag.” It was established in 1931 in central Kazakhstan, in an area that had been specially cleared of previous inhabitants (among them Kazakhs, also Slav and German settlers from the early twentieth century). It had numerous branch camps, one of which was the Akmolinsk Camp for Wives of Traitors to the Homeland, commonly known by the

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 43 Russian acronym ALZHIR. Thousands of women, some with their children, were incarcerated here for years on end merely because their male relatives had been charged with political crimes. They were brought from all parts of the Soviet Union, but over half were Russian.44 From 1941 on, prisoners-of-war (POWs) began to arrive in Karlag. The peak years were 1946–48 when the number of POWs held in Karlag averaged 27,000 a year; most of these were Germans and Japanese troops.45 During 1948–52, four special camps within the Karlag complex were allocated to POWs, the biggest of which was the Spasskii. Like other prisoners, the foreign servicemen were employed as slave labor. By the mid-1950s most had been repatriated. The ostensible motive for the penal deportations to Kazakhstan, both to “special settlements” and to labor camps, was political. However, there was another, and arguably more pressing, reason for this punitive relocation of population, namely, the need for cheap, captive labor to develop agriculture and industry in conditions that would have been utterly unacceptable to a voluntary work force. The Karlag, for example, was a gigantic economic complex, encompassing over 100 farms, numerous food-processing plants, clothing factories, coal mines, smelting works, and many other industrial units.46 It made a vital contribution to the war effort by producing vast quantities of armaments, uniforms, and other military equipment. After the war, it continued its colossal output of grain, meat, dairy products, and fruit; also of coal, electricity, processed metals, glass, china, and many other manufactured goods. There were many noted scientists among the prisoners and they carried out research in prison laboratories to develop new techniques in fields such as animal husbandry, crop production, and fuels. At its largest extent in 1951, Karlag covered 20,876 square kilometers, an area roughly two-thirds the size of Belgium. The number of inmates held in the camp at any one time could reach 75,000; in total, over one million prisoners passed through Karlag during the period 1930–56.47 They served sentences of up to 25 years. On release, some returned home but others remained in Kazakhstan, often in the vicinity of the camp. The “special settlers” also made an important contribution to the economic development of Kazakhstan. They opened up previously uncultivated land and with minimal state assistance – or even actual hindrance – created efficient, often highly, productive farms. Some became famous for their record harvests and received official recognition as models of good management. A third form of penal servitude that the Soviet authorities used on the territory of Kazakhstan was the Labor Army. This was another form of slave labor, initiated in 1941 to mobilize civilians aged 17–50 years old who were not actively serving in the Red Army. Thousands of men and women, mostly Germans (some 121,000), Koreans, and Poles, were drafted to work in heavy industry and largescale construction; in Kazakhstan, many were employed in opening up coal mines in the Karaganda region. Data on the Labor Army are still not fully available, but it has been estimated that in 1942–43 some 750,000 people were serving in its ranks.48 When the Labor Army was disbanded in 1946, the draftees were sent back to the “special settlements.”

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SOVIET-ERA DIASPORA PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR As the preceding sections indicate, the Soviet-era diasporas in Kazakhstan had very varied histories. The chief distinction, however, was the nature of the population movement: voluntary or enforced. These were two quite separate categories, setting fundamentally different parameters for diaspora behavior.

1. Voluntary migrants The voluntary migrants (see Table 3.3) in Kazakhstan were predominantly Slav, but there were also many Tatars and sizeable numbers of people from other ethnic groups. They were widely dispersed over a great expanse of territory. Moreover, within each group, there were historical, social, and economic cleavages, and sometimes also religious cleavages. Thus, although a particular ethnic group might have had a sense of local community, there was little awareness of belonging to a larger diaspora community. Indeed, among the voluntary migrants there was little sense of being a diaspora at all, since the supra-national Soviet framework created a unified space in which it was possible to feel “at home” almost anywhere within the state boundaries. This was underpinned by the fact that travel within the Soviet Union was relatively easy. Republican borders were not only open, but to all intents and purposes invisible. Transport links were good and fares were cheap. A single currency was used throughout the country; Russian, although not officially the state language, was spoken virtually everywhere and public life, whether in the western republics or in Central Asia, followed a similar pattern. Administrative hurdles could occur, but they were generally easily surmounted. These conditions facilitated geographic mobility, both long-term and short-term. This was particularly true of the younger, bettereducated stratum of the population, who might spend time studying and working in several different republics. Even those who did not travel much were nevertheless conscious of the fact that it was possible to do this if they so wished.

2. Central Asians The Central Asian diasporas in Kazakhstan were either created by administrative measures (drawing of the inter-republican boundaries), or by immigration in the nineteenth century. During the Soviet period, Uzbek and Uighur groups had some provision for education in their own languages, also publishing and media facilities and cultural activities. The Dungans likewise had some provision for mother-tongue education. Inter-ethnic relations between the Central Asians were generally good. However, although there was formal equality between all the ethnic groups, the Kazakhs, as the “titular people,” enjoyed informal privileges in employment and access to local government. This was resented by the larger diasporas – Uzbeks and Uighurs – though expressions of discontent were mostly confined to private exchanges and did not impinge on public life.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 45

3. Deported peoples For those who were forcibly transported from one region to another the situation was very different. Prisoners had no freedom of choice at all. The “special settlers,” however, although initially they had very little room for maneuver, gradually developed distinctive patterns of behavior. Over a dozen separate ethnic groups were deported to Kazakhstan in the 1930s and 1940s. There were many differences between them, but they had three features in common: •

• •

The state authorities perceived them to be “foreign” by race (e.g. Turkic, Mongol, western European) and/or by religion (e.g. Islam, Buddhism, nonOrthodox denominations of Christianity); They were located in areas of strategic importance near the external borders of the Soviet Union or in areas of vital economic significance; They had historical links – or were imagined to have historical links – with the “enemy” (i.e. Germany, Turkey, and “the Orient”).

If the territory of these peoples had been occupied by the German army, they were explicitly charged with treasonous collaboration; in other cases, they were implicitly accused of acting as a “fifth column.” In fact, whatever the actions of some individuals, the majority of these populations acted as loyal Soviet citizens. Among the deportees there were many senior Communist Party officials and servicemen who had fought in the ranks of the Red Army and had been decorated for valor. The process of deportation was implemented in a standard manner. People were rounded up with very little warning (sometimes literally within a few hours), given no information as to where they were going, or why, and were not allowed to take more than the bare minimum of possessions that they could carry. They were then transported thousands of miles in freight wagons. When they arrived at their destination, they were deposited in isolated, barren areas that lacked the most basic amenities; accommodation often took the form of tents or even primitive dugouts. Communities were broken up into smaller groups and sent to different parts of the country. Thereafter, they were subject to stringent controls and restrictions on all their activities, including a ban on travel beyond a certain radius – sometimes as little as three kilometers.49 During the early years they survived by organizing rudimentary collective enterprises or joining local labor units. They earned a pittance and lived on starvation rations. There was virtually no health care and very few schools. Several groups (e.g. Germans, Koreans, and Poles) were forbidden to speak their native languages. Religious observances were strictly banned. The local Kazakhs at first regarded the deportees with suspicion and were not always well disposed towards them. However, relations improved and the Kazakhs did much to make the conditions of exile more bearable. In time the “special settlements” began to prosper. The harshest regulations were relaxed and the deported peoples began to reassert their cultural identity and to renew intellectual pursuits. Initially it was

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intended that exile should be permanent. Yet, shortly after Stalin’s death, the process of “rehabilitation” – official denunciation of the act of deportation, withdrawal of the stigma of treason and restoration of civil rights – was started.50 The titular territories of the peoples of the North Caucasus were reinstated in 1957 and thereafter a phased program of repatriation was launched with some degree of state assistance. However, the process was far from smooth. One of the chief difficulties was that much of the land had been reallocated to new settlers. Eventually this was partially restored to its previous owners, often after violent confrontations. The Volga Germans and the Crimean Tatars were politically rehabilitated in 1964 and 1967 respectively, but neither were given the right to return. The other, smaller deported peoples were also not given the right to return. The deported peoples responded to exile in one of three ways: • • •

Rejection of exile and firm determination to return to homeland; Various attitudes, various strategies, inconclusive results; Pragmatic acceptance of exile and energetic efforts to assimilate into new environment.

The peoples of the North Caucasus exemplify the first type of response. In the early 1950s, before the restrictions on “special settlers” had been lifted, and while it was still prohibited to leave their place of exile, they began to return home. They were often arrested and sent back, but set off again almost immediately. This soon became an unstoppable mass movement. By 1956, some 25,000 to 35,000 Chechens and Ingush had made their own way home.51 Thus, before the official decree granting them the right of return had been published, they had already re-established a substantial presence on their native territory. The nature of their action was spontaneous and personal, an instinctive reaction rather than a planned strategy. It did not depend on formal organizations but in so far as it was a group response, it drew on traditional social and kin networks for moral and practical support. This was in keeping with the structure of these societies, which in the 1930s – and still today – places great importance on such informal institutions. The second group is represented by the Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, and Meskhetian Turks. The Germans, as indicated above, were a disparate group. This diversity is reflected in their responses to exile. Some integrated very successfully into their new environment and did not actively seek to leave (in the late 1970s there was even a move to create an autonomous German region within Kazakhstan). Others campaigned for the right to return to their former places of settlement, also for the restoration of the Volga German ASSR. Yet others wanted to emigrate to West Germany. The Meskhetian Turks, by contrast, were a small, homogeneous group. They were united in their determination to leave their place of exile, but were divided over the issue of self-identity and thus over their intended destination. Some felt themselves to be Georgian and campaigned for a return to Meskhetia (and for the establishment of an autonomous Meskhetian

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 47 republic), while others felt themselves to be Turks and wanted to emigrate to Turkey. The Crimean Tatars were different again. They, too, were single-minded in their determination to return to their homeland, but adopted different tactics to achieve this. A relatively small number moved spontaneously, by individual initiative. However, only a few thousand of these illegal returnees succeeded in re-establishing themselves in Crimea. The majority of Crimean Tatars, like the Germans and the Meskhetian Turks, used group tactics, resorting to communal actions such as demonstrations, petitions and appeals, coordinated through formalized structures.52 This organizational approach was something that the state authorities could understand – and take measures to counteract. Moreover, these formal bodies were often plagued by internal rivalries and power struggles and, consequently, were not always able to provide strong leadership. Thus, the group response proved to be less effective than the spontaneous, individual tactics used by the North Caucasians. There were, however, other obstacles that stood in the way of the return of these three peoples to their homelands. The most significant was surely the perceived linkage between these peoples and the historical enemies of the state (i.e. Germany and Turkey). Consequently their resettlement in areas of such strategic importance as Volga, Crimea, and the Black Sea was a highly sensitive issue and evoked strong resistance in many circles. Nevertheless, in 1989, the Soviet parliament passed a resolution that acknowledged the illegal and criminal nature of the deportations. The Crimean Tatars and Germans were finally given the right to return to their homelands (i.e. on Soviet territory), though no specific schedule was fixed. The Meskhetian Turks were not included in this dispensation, though it is possible that they would have secured a similar undertaking at a later date. However, before any further action could be taken the Soviet Union collapsed. The Koreans adopted the third course of action, that of pragmatic acceptance of their situation, coupled with a determination to make the best of it. From the very first years of exile they looked on Kazakhstan as their “new homeland.” Within some three years of arrival they had established highly productive collective farms. They excelled in the cultivation of rice; the agricultural achievements of one Korean farmer were so remarkable that while still subject to the “special settlement” regime he was awarded the Stalin Prize.53 They learnt to speak Russian well (encouraging the younger generation to adopt it as their first language) and assimilated Russian culture. Exogamous marriages, especially to Slavs and Germans, were common. Their efforts were directed towards building a future in Kazakhstan, not to seeking a return to the area from which they had been deported. Their institutions were weak and mostly devoted to cultural activities. Integration was an individual, or family initiative, rather than a community undertaking. The Koreans were unusual for the clarity of purpose that they exhibited. However, what is extraordinary to an outside observer is the way in which so many of the deportees, of all ethnic origins, overcame the trauma of exile. As soon as they were allowed to travel outside their immediate place of exile and to resume their education they began to make impressive progress. Once they were politically

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rehabilitated they moved back into mainstream society, apparently encountering little or no prejudice from the rest of the population. They themselves did not appear (at the time, at least) to harbor resentment against the treatment they had received, but rather to accept it as a tragic malfunction of the system – and many continued to believe in the wisdom of the Communist Party. A number of the deportees became respected figures in the academic world, also in the arts and professions, gaining distinguished reputations throughout the Soviet Union and in some cases internationally. The Greeks54 and the Koreans55 were notably successful. Some of the deported peoples played an active part in federal-level politics; for example, in 1970 three Germans were elected to the Soviet parliament and one became a minister in the central government;56 in 1991, a Pontic Greek, Gavriil Popov, became the first elected mayor of Moscow, while in that same year a Chechen, Ruslan Khasbulatov, was elected speaker of the Russian parliament and Congress of Peoples’ Deputies. In Kazakhstan, Koreans, Germans, and other deported peoples also came to occupy senior positions, including ministerial posts in the government. Thus, on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union, they had acquired a position that was equal to that of the voluntary migrants.

INDEPENDENT KAZAKHSTAN In order to understand the context in which diasporas made choices as to whether to remain in Kazakhstan after independence or to leave, it is necessary to know something of the dramatic changes that took place in the country in the early 1990s. Virtually every sphere of public and private activity was affected. However, there were three areas of change that had particular significance for the diasporas, in that developments in these areas had a direct influence on the way in which they assessed their future prospects in the country. One area of change was the rapid “Kazakhization” of public life. In a very short time, Soviet-era state insignia were replaced by new symbols that emblematically incorporated references to Kazakh history and culture.57 Russian, or Russified, names of cities, streets, and public institutions were discarded in favor of Kazakh forms. The use of the Kazakh language in official circles was actively promoted. In 1993, the first post-Soviet constitution gave Kazakh the status of state language, and Russian the lesser status of a “language of inter-ethnic communication.” The declared intention was that by 1995 all public administration and business would be conducted in Kazakh.58 This caused great concern among non-Kazakhs, few of whom had more than a bare smattering of Kazakh. They believed – with some justification – that their lack of linguistic competence would be used as a way of excluding them from employment in public institutions.59 Increasingly Kazakhs were appointed to the most senior and influential posts in national and local government, banking and finance, the security services, and all other public organizations.60 The emergence of small, but highly vocal Kazakh nationalist parties such as Azat (Free) and Alash (name of a legendary Kazakh hero) exacerbated the sense of insecurity felt by the diaspora communities.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 49 The nationalizing project was greatly assisted by the efforts of artists and craftsmen, writers, film makers, and broadcasters, who created images that gave substance to the new “nation(al)-state” identity. Popular works of history reinterpreted the past from the Kazakh perspective. The intellectual achievements, military prowess, and heroism of Kazakhs of earlier generations were lauded, while the actions of the “colonial masters” were decried. Numerous works appeared that examined, sometimes for the first time in print, such national tragedies as the 1916 uprising and the catastrophe of enforced sedentarization and collectivization. Such material helped to raise the consciousness of the Kazakh people and to strengthen their sense of group identity. At the same time it created an environment in which non-Kazakhs felt increasingly as though they were being ignored, or even deliberately excluded from the public space. Concurrently, with this refashioning of the self-image of the state, Kazakhstan experienced a difficult and painful economic transition from centralized socialist planning to a free market. Initial attempts at reform often exacerbated the situation. Hyperinflation soon took hold. Prices for industrial and domestic commodities rose from month to month. Wages and social benefits were increased at regular intervals, but could not keep pace with the rising cost of living. The disruption of inter-republic trade links – which in the past had been of vital importance to the Kazakh economy – had a crippling effect on industry and agriculture. Markets were lost and deliveries of essential materials ceased. Consequently many enterprises were bankrupted. Those that survived made drastic reductions in the workforce, causing a steep rise in unemployment. Many people, of all ethnic groups, were plunged into unaccustomed poverty. NonKazakhs were especially fearful about the future, not only because it seemed as though the economic decline would continue, but that they, as “outsiders,” would have reduced access to services and resources. By the mid-1990s the situation was showing signs of stabilization and recovery. Inflation had been brought under control and there was some growth in the macro-economy. Measures to attract foreign investors, such as new foreign investment laws and special tax incentives, began to yield results. In the period 1993–2000, total cumulative foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan amounted to US$10.4 billion, much of which was directed towards the oil and gas sector. A mass privatization program was initiated in April 1994. In the early stages the lack of appropriate legal, fiscal, and organizational structures, also of professional services such as Western-style banking systems, accountancy, and insurance, caused major problems. Moreover bribery and corruption were rampant. Yet the program continued more or less on schedule and, by 1996, the sale of major enterprises, including energy, mining, and metallurgy plants, was under way. In 2001 the private sector accounted for 60 percent of gross domestic product.61 International confidence in Kazakhstan’s economic prospects was relatively strong and the country increasingly came to be seen as a potential locomotive for the economic regeneration of Central Asia as a whole. By this time non-Kazakhs were no longer as deeply embedded in the economic life of the country as previously and were therefore less well placed to take advantage of this improved situation.

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In the political sphere, too, non-Kazakhs found themselves in a difficult position. There was no official discrimination against them, but unofficial harassment created pressures that excluded them from full and equal participation in the political process. Yet they were not alone in this: Kazakhs, too, found that any hopes they may have had that independence would produce a more open society were largely disappointed. Western democratic institutions provided the theoretical model for constitutional and parliamentary reforms, but, in practice, there was a steady return to an authoritarian style of government.62 At the leadership level, there was no transfer of power. Nursultan Nazarbaev, formerly First Party Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, won a landslide victory in the first nationwide, but uncontested, presidential election. His term of office was subsequently extended first by referendum and then by securing an overwhelming majority in a weakly contested election. In 2000 he was granted extraordinary powers and privileges for life, whether or not he remained in office. There was some attempt at institutional reform. In 1995 a bicameral legislature was created in place of the Soviet-era unicameral parliament. By this time a number of political parties had been formed. Most were very small and the majority were pro-government in orientation, but they did provide some scope for public debate. However, in the run-up to the first parliamentary elections held under the new system, the independent parties were constantly harassed and obstructed by officials. Moreover, since almost all media outlets were controlled, directly or indirectly, by the authorities, there was little opportunity to air views that expressed criticism of the regime. The result was the election of a parliament that was heavily weighted in favor of the president in both houses. There was a similar outcome to the next round of parliamentary elections held in 2000. Increasingly the political life of the country was dominated by power struggles at the highest level. Independent political activists, whether Kazakh or non-Kazakh, found it ever more difficult to make their views heard.63

POST-SOVIET DIASPORA PATTERNS OF BEHAVIOR It was in the context of the upheavals and uncertainties described above that during the 1990s there was mass emigration from Kazakhstan. As a result the population contracted by some 8 percent, falling from 16.2 million in 1989 to 14.9 million in 1999. The majority of the emigrants went to Russia, but some went to other parts of the CIS, and large numbers went “far abroad,” to Western Europe, USA, and Israel.64 In fact emigration was not a new phenomenon, since various diaspora communities had already seen a small but fairly persistent outflow during the previous decade or so. What was strikingly different was the scale and speed of the post-Soviet exodus. As mentioned in the “Introduction,” this phenomenon was seen by many commentators as a condemnation of the government’s policies and possibly a harbinger of ethnic conflict. Yet, with the benefit of a decade’s hindsight, the situation does not seem so alarming. On the contrary, the exodus was a natural reaction to what was a combination of

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 51 revolution and national liberation. That it was bloodless in no way diminishes the magnitude of the transformation. The old certainties were swept away, but there was no route map to provide bearings in this new world. It was a deeply unsettling time for the entire population, but particularly for the diaspora communities. They experienced, simultaneously, massive economic decline and dislocation of the social order. For many, it was the first time that they had felt themselves to be minorities, isolated and vulnerable in an alien environment. They were not subjected to any violence and there was no outright discrimination against them, but the highly visible – and audible – “Kazakhization” of society contributed to a sense of marginalization.65 Their anxieties were magnified by unfamiliar restrictions on travel to and from Kazakhstan, including the introduction of new passport and visa regimes, new national currencies, and the sudden rise in the cost of transport. The worst affected were the Russians, who had previously been associated collectively (even if not on a personal basis) with the ruling power. Very suddenly they were deprived of this perceived status of superiority and, concomitantly, expelled from their “comfort zone.” They began to leave Kazakhstan almost immediately after independence, the outflow reaching a peak in 1994–95. Over the decade between the last Soviet census (1989) and the first Kazakh census, they constituted the largest group of emigrants (1.6 million). Proportionally this outflow reduced the Russian diaspora by just over a quarter. At the same time the Ukrainian and Belarusian diasporas each fell by 37 percent, thus the Slav presence in Kazakhstan was substantially reduced within a very short period. The exodus was unplanned and often chaotic. Those who left tended to be the more recent immigrants. Also they were often the ones who had exportable professional skills, active contacts with friends and family at their intended destination, and/or were young enough to take on the challenge of starting a new life in unfamiliar surroundings. Yet four million Russians and several hundred thousand Ukrainians and Belarusians remained in Kazakhstan. Some of these might have liked to leave, but were unable to do so owing to inadequate material resources and social capital.66 Many others, especially in the long-entrenched communities in the north and north-east, saw no reason to leave. They felt they had earned a stake in Kazakhstan because of the contribution in time and effort that they had made to its development. In the first years of independence they tried to take an active part in the political life of the country. They formed a number of socio-political organizations, such as Harmony (Lad ), the Russian Centre, and the Society for Assistance to the Cossacks of Semirechie. However, partly owing to internal dissension and partly owing to external hindrance, these bodies were unable to consolidate their position and by the mid-1990s were all but moribund. Gradually, even from these areas of entrenched settlement in the north and north-east, there was an exodus of Slavs. By 2003 this was still in progress, though at a fairly modest level. The German exodus was numerically the second largest, with some 600,000 people leaving Kazakhstan in 1989–99. This represented almost two-thirds of the total German diaspora. A few thousand migrated within the CIS, but the overwhelming majority moved to Germany. The triggers for this population

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movement were somewhat different from those that had affected the Slavs. For the Germans, the experience of being a diaspora was not new. They had lived through pain and humiliation and re-emerged as respected and successful members of society. At the time of Kazakhstan’s independence, the “push” factors for this community were far weaker than for the Slavs. However, the “pull” factors were stronger. On the one hand, there were economic benefits: the German government provided immigrants with generous benefits and rights;67 there was also the prospect of free movement within the European Union. On the other hand, there was a growing desire for the security of de-diasporization: the freedom to live as “Germans among Germans” and thereby to ensure that future generations would not be exposed to the vagaries of minority status.68 The decision to leave was not taken lightly. In Kazakhstan the emigrants had homes, friends, and possessions, as well as established positions. Many did not know German and had little understanding of life in Germany. Thus the move was something of a leap in the dark – an act of faith and hope. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the conditions that they encountered upon arrival often fell short of their expectations. They had difficulties, culturally and socially, in adapting to their new environment. Also, in popular estimation, they were often regarded as “economic migrants” rather than “proper Germans.” Nevertheless, once it had begun, the exodus from Kazakhstan rapidly escalated. The German government tried to stem the flow by providing support for German-language education and cultural activities in Kazakhstan; also the level of benefits for emigrants was reduced and an annual quota was set. However, in 1999–2000, the number of those leaving, though showing a slight decrease, was still averaging around 26,500 per year.69 The exodus of the Germans had an unsettling effect on the Poles and the Pontic Greeks, who began to insist on the right to emigrate to Poland and Greece respectively. For some of the Poles and for all the Pontic Greeks, these countries were not their actual homelands – some of the Poles had originally come from territory that now forms part of Ukraine and Belarus, while the homeland of the Pontic Greeks lies mostly within Turkey. Nevertheless, the desire to emigrate to these “once removed” ethnic homelands became a driving force. As with the Germans the “push” factors for these groups were not as strong as the “pull” factors of economic security and the psychological comfort of becoming part of the majority in an environment, which they perceived to be “home.” However neither the Polish nor the Greek government was eager to receive large numbers of immigrants, many of whom were unable to speak the national language and would have problems in adapting to a new life. Nevertheless they were eventually unable to resist pressure from the emigrants. By 1996 it was estimated that about a third of the Poles in Kazakhstan had already returned to Poland or were in the process of trying to emigrate.70 Greeks at first began to move individually to join friends and relations who had previously settled in Greece. In the period 1987–93 an estimated 50,000 Pontic Greeks arrived in Greece from all over the Soviet Union/CIS. In 1990 an official organization was set up to receive and help immigrants. A phased program of induction and training was introduced, after which the newcomers were resettled in underpopulated mountain areas in

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 53 Macedonia and Thrace.71 Like the German immigrants in Germany, the Pontic Greeks often received a mixed reception from the local population; in popular perception they were often suspected of being linked to criminal activities.72 The Korean diaspora in Kazakhstan enthusiastically embraced the new opportunities of the post-Soviet era. Within a few years Korean cultural centers had been established in many parts of the country. Their priorities were twofold: the consolidation of the diaspora through the revival of Korean language, culture, and traditions; and inter-ethnic integration as citizens of Kazakhstan. Individually and organizationally the Koreans energetically pursued these goals.73 Today they play an important role in the newly emerging business sector and hold senior positions in government and state institutions. Proportionally the younger generation has one of the highest levels of higher education in the country.74 They are also exceptionally well represented in academic and intellectual circles. In recent years many Christian missionaries from South Korea, particularly those of an evangelical Protestant persuasion, have proselytized in Kazakhstan and attracted sizeable numbers of local Koreans. Koreans from Kazakhstan have also visited Korea. However, such contacts have generally served to highlight the differences in experience and outlook between “Soviet Koreans” and “Korean Koreans.” The former rarely feel at home in Korea and consequently there has been little demand for emigration to their ethnic homeland. Nevertheless, in the last few years, a few Koreans have started to seek a wider sphere of operation than is available in Kazakhstan. This has created a small-scale Korean emigration to other parts of the CIS (mostly to Russia) and a trickle of emigration to the West. As a result the Korean population in Kazakhstan has fallen slightly over the last decade, and now stands at just under 100,000. Almost all the other diaspora communities in Kazakhstan have experienced a significant reduction. The exceptions are the main Central Asian groups – Dungans, Uighurs, and Uzbeks – who show a steady demographic increase. Also, flows of refugees have boosted the numbers of Tajiks, Meskhetian Turks, and Chechens. In all, by the end of 2002, Kazakhstan was hosting some 20,600 asylum seekers.75 The huge exodus in the immediate post-independence period had an adverse impact on the economy. Many of those who left were skilled professionals. Their unexpected departure created serious problems in industry, also in public services, especially health and education. Some areas suffered a sharp contraction of manpower.76 In the mid-1990s, in an attempt to halt this hemorrhaging of valuable personnel, the government took steps to demonstrate that it was committed to building a civic state, based on inclusive, non-discriminatory policies. The new constitution, adopted in 1995, codified the principle of equality before the law for all citizens and specifically prohibited any form of discrimination based on race or religion. In 1997 a new “Law on Languages” was enacted, which confirmed the status of Kazakh as the state language (i.e. the language of public administration, legislation, etc.), but also raised the status of Russian, providing for its use in government service with the same validity as Kazakh.77 Some public role was likewise foreseen for languages of other diasporas living in

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large compact groups.78 The state support that was provided during the Soviet period for maintaining the linguistic and cultural identities of the non-titular peoples was partially continued. This currently includes state funding for mothertongue education in areas where there are large concentrations of diaspora communities, also some publishing and broadcasting facilities.79 In politicalideological documents (the constitution, election manifestoes, and so on) the term “people” (Kazakh halq/Russian narod ) is used generically for all ethnic groups, thus making no qualitative distinction between Kazakhs and non-Kazakhs.80 Another conciliatory act was the creation of the Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan, an innovative body dedicated to the promotion of inter-ethnic accord, established by presidential decree in 1995. Thirty ethnic groups are represented in this organization, comprising the twenty largest groups and ten of the smaller groups (e.g. Gypsies, Daghestanis, and Assyrians).81 Initially it seemed as though it was to have a wide-ranging brief to deal with social, economic, and political problems relating to the diaspora communities. In fact its chief function now is that of a coordinating body for the numerous “national” centers that have been established to develop cultural activities. Yet it could be argued that this is no bad thing: integration into the post-Soviet environment is succeeding – or not, as the case may be – on the basis of individual and local community relations. Problematizing diaspora issues could prove to be divisive, encouraging the consolidation of “national” blocs. This in turn might exacerbate inter-ethnic power struggles for control of key resources, thereby heightening the risk of conflict.82 The constitution guarantees freedom of conscience to its citizens. Since independence the main confessions have been able to function with relatively little state interference. All religious organizations have to be legally registered and this does allow the authorities to exert a certain amount of control over religious activities. During the 1990s there was an influx of foreign missionaries of all faiths into the country, some representing long-established religions, others bringing new-age faiths. They began to attract large followings, from diaspora groups as well as Kazakhs. This was regarded as a potential threat to social harmony and stability, not only because of concerns over the nature of the message that was being disseminated, but because these conversions cut across ethnic divides and fragmented existing communities. However, despite these difficulties, there has been a proliferation of religious organizations in Kazakhstan in recent years. All the religious diasporas that existed in pre-Soviet and Soviet times have seen a significant increase in size of congregations and in organizational infrastructure (see Table 3.4).

PART III: TOWARDS A TYPOLOGY OF DIASPORAS

1. Primary categories In the preceding sections the diasporas in Kazakhstan have been located within an organizational framework based on three cross-cutting categories: type of

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 55 formation (ethnic, religious, penal), cause of formation (voluntary, forced, administrative), and chronology (time of formation, length of existence, frequency of new influxes). These primary categories can be further refined by reviewing the way in which the diasporas functioned. This is of particular relevance in the Soviet period, when the process of diaspora formation was at its peak. The chief distinction, it is suggested here, was between voluntary migrants and penal exiles (see section on “Soviet-era diaspora patterns of behavior”). Within this latter group there were two sub-categories: prisoners and “special settler” deportees. The former had no control over their lives, but the latter were, eventually, able to exercise some choice. Thus the “special settler” category may be broken down according to the response to exile. Three main tendencies can be distinguished: rejection of diasporization and firm determination to return to homeland; partial acceptance of diasporization, but persistent efforts to return to homeland; pragmatic acceptance of diasporization and positive assimilation. Factors are identified that may help to explain why these strategies were adopted, including administrative-territorial status prior to deportation (i.e. whether or not they had their own Autonomous Republic or Province), and social organization. It might have been expected that there would be a correlation between the desire for de-diasporization and territorial autonomy prior to deportation. Yet the case studies above show that this was not the case. Rather, the determining factor appears to have been the nature of social organization within a given group, especially the level of cohesion and strength of informal networks. The disintegration of the Soviet Union and the emergence of independent Kazakhstan had a direct impact on diaspora behavior. The distinction between “voluntary migrants” and “penal exiles” was obliterated. Suddenly almost all the diaspora communities began to seek de-diasporization. The chief distinctions now related to the practicalities of the exodus, including: • • • •

Volume (numerical and proportional) of emigrants from a given ethnic group; Availability of transport, accommodation, and employment prospects at point of destination, exit/entry visa requirements, etc.; Destinations within or without the CIS; Foreign state support.

The categorization of these characteristics, as discussed in preceding sections, provides some insight into the dynamics of the post-Soviet exodus.

2. Secondary categories Establishing the primary categories identified above is an important first step towards the study of diasporas in Kazakhstan. However, in order to set this in a broader context, it is necessary to add a conceptual dimension. The experience of Kazakhstan has several unique features, but it also has much in common with the experiences of other newly independent states, particularly the Asian and African states that acquired independence as a result of decolonization in the second half

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of the twentieth century. Below, as a working hypothesis for further investigation, four overarching categories are posited, based on analogies with the British empire (used here for the sake of conciseness as the sole point of reference, though other nineteenth-century European colonial empires offer similar parallels). These are: “imperial agents,” “imperial settlers,” “imperial auxiliaries,” and “imperial deportees” (see Table 3.6). The use of these categories does not imply that the Soviet Union was a colonial empire – it was based on a very different ideology and functioned according to its own norms, some good and some bad – but there are, nevertheless, some similarities. The most relevant for the present purposes are such features as the large, transnational nature of the political entity; the structure of ethnic hierarchies; the unquestioning assumption of the superiority of the culture and language of the dominant people; the power that the metropolitan center had over the subject/constituent territories, not only with regard to administration and economic policies, but also in deciding the fate of the inhabitants of these territories; and finally, after the dissolution of these imperial entities, the sudden reversal of status of the former “rulers” and “ruled” and the tensions this created. “Imperial agents” The position of the Slavs in Kazakhstan – the Russians and their perceived surrogates, the Ukrainians and Belarusians – can be likened to that of the British – the English and their perceived surrogates, the Scots, Irish, and Welsh – in India and other Asian and African colonies. These were the “imperial agents” who occupied senior posts in the administration, the professions, and the law enforcement services. Even if particular individuals within these groups (i.e. Slavs or British respectively) were of lowly social status, nevertheless, by virtue of their ethnic association with the ruling power they were instinctively accorded – and accepted as having – a superior position in local society. In India and other colonies, as in Kazakhstan, after independence, the “imperial agents” experienced acute discomfort. They were not under any physical or economic threat, but the loss of status and uncertainty about future prospects persuaded the majority to “go home” rather than to “stay on.”83 “Imperial settlers” In some colonies, mainly in Africa, the “imperial agents” occupied an additional niche, that of settler. They contributed to the development of the country in a direct and personal manner, investing their own resources in this project. They came to regard this new environment as their home. After independence, most chose to “stay on,” since they believed that they had as much of a stake in the country as the indigenous population. They tried to participate in the political process on an equal basis with other groups, forming parties and taking part in elections. However, this proved to be a difficult undertaking. Even if the settlers met with some success in the early years of independence, in the longer run they often faced growing resentment (cf. white settlers in Zimbabwe). Sometimes they

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 57 had either to accept a degree of discrimination, albeit covert, or they had to leave. The Slav settlers in Kazakhstan (mostly agricultural and industrial workers in the northern tier) have exhibited typical post-colonial settler characteristics – and have encountered similar difficulties. If the experience of other former colonies is any guide, then it is possible that more Slav settlers will eventually decide to leave. “Imperial auxiliaries” In the British empire, the use of “imperial auxiliaries” was widespread. In many cases, this role was fulfilled by Indians who left India to work in other colonies as traders, teachers, petty civil servants, and so on, occupying a buffer zone between the “imperial agents” and the “natives.” Often they would be more distrusted and disliked by the local population than the “imperial agents” on whom they modeled themselves. After these colonies gained their independence, the “auxiliaries” at first tended to stay on, but in time some were pushed out by emergent indigenous elites. This usually took the form of indirect pressure but occasionally, as in Uganda, the Asian population was expelled very suddenly. The choice of destination for the “auxiliaries” was complicated by the fact that often they no longer had a base in their historical homeland, yet neither did they have the connections and administrative qualifications to enable them to relocate to the “imperial” homeland. Thus, if they wanted to leave, they had to invest time in carrying out the groundwork that would enable them to embark on a new life elsewhere. In Kazakhstan, the Tatars and other, smaller groups such as the Mordvinians, performed a similar function as “auxiliaries” first to the Tsarist authorities, later to the Soviet. Their experiences parallel those of other “imperial auxiliaries.” The Tatars in particular have had an ambivalent relationship with the local population; on the one hand, enjoying a certain amount of respect and prestige, but on the other, encountering hostility and resentment. They, too, are now beginning to leave Kazakhstan, but face difficult decisions over choice of destination. Some are returning to their ethnic homelands (the Republic of Tatarstan, Mordovian Republic, etc.), but many prefer to emigrate to Russia, where they feel more comfortable and see greater opportunities. “Imperial deportees” There is some comparison to be made between the penal exiles who were sent from Britain to Australia and those who were sent from parts of the Russian empire to Kazakhstan. Yet there are perhaps closer parallels to be drawn between the economic deportees of the British empire and the deported peoples of the Soviet period. The slave trade was abolished in British overseas possessions in 1833. However the system of indentured labor lasted much longer. Indian and Chinese workers, known derogatively as “coolies,” were transported to British colonies in North America, Africa, and Asia to work on plantations of cash crops such as tobacco, cotton, tea, coffee, and rubber. Conditions on the voyage, as well as at their destination, differed little from those endured by slaves. In theory, the

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Table 3.6 Tentative typology Characteristics

Ethnic groups

“Imperial agents” (a) Agents of Mainly Slavs, state control especially (e.g., Party Russians officials, administrators, security enforcers) (b) Aid and Mainly Slavs, development especially workers Russians (teachers, doctors, etc.) “Imperial settlers” e.g. Farmers, Mainly Slavs, industrial especially workers Russians “Imperial auxiliaries” Teachers, Mainly Tatars, doctors, traders, some middle-rank Mordvinians, officials, etc. etc. “Imperial deportees” (a) Homelands Balkars, within USSR, Chechens, granted right of Ingush, return Kalmyks, Karachais

Arrive

Stay/Leave/ Return

Length of diaspora existence

Nineteenth century onward

Post-1991 large exodus; small return flow

Approximately 150 years

Nineteenth century onward

Post-1991 large exodus; small return flow

Approximately 100 years

Nineteenth century onward

Post-1991 most remain

Approximately 100 years

Nineteenth century onward

Post-1991 gradual exodus

Approximately 150 years

Mass deportations 1943–44

Large exodus in 1950s; small return flow of Chechens and Ingush 1990s

Approximately 12 years

indentured laborers signed a contract for a fixed period with the overseer who organized their passage and employment. However, indentured labor often merged into debt bondage, which could last for years, or even a lifetime. Of the estimated 30 million Indian coolies who were transported overseas in the nineteenth century, some 24 million returned. The descendants of those who did not come back form the basis of present-day Indian communities in the Caribbean and West Africa. The economic significance of these British deportees bears comparison with that of the “special settlers” of the Soviet period. The coolies, however, were not only transported much greater distances from their homelands, and therefore suffered greater dislocation and isolation, they lacked the education and the social organization to raise questions about their terms of employment, let alone a possible return to their places of origin. “The system” was taken for granted, by the authorities as well as by their subjects. It was only after several generations that

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 59 Table 3.6 (cont.) Characteristics

Ethnic groups

Arrive

Stay/Leave/ Return

Length of diaspora existence

(b) Homeland within USSR, right of return withheld (c) Interim homeland within USSR, historical ethnic homeland outside USSR

Crimean Tatars

Mass deportations 1944

60 years

(i) Germans

(i) Mass deportations from Volga region, Crimea, etc. 1941; right of return to Volga withheld (ii) Mass deportations 1940s

Intermittent unofficial exodus since 1950s (i) Post-1991 mass exodus to Germany; small return flow

(ii) Pontic Greeks

(d) Ethnic homeland outside USSR

(iii) Koreans

(iii) Mass deportation 1937

Poles

Penal exile 1860s onwards; mass deportations 1936–41

(ii) Exodus to other parts of USSR 1950s; post-1991 exodus to Greece (iii) Post-1991 initially remain, small exodus begins late 1990s Post-1991 exodus to Poland

(i) Total approximately 100 years, but main period 60 years (ii) Total approximately 60 years, but peak approximately 10 years (iii) 65 years

Total almost 150 years, but main period 65 years

the descendants of the coolies began to be integrated into local communities. The experience of the Soviet-deported peoples was as harsh as that of the indentured laborers, but their social and economic reinstatement was far quicker. There have also been instances of British “imperial deportations” that were prompted by strategic considerations. An early twentieth century example was the forcible relocation in 1911–13 of certain sections of the Masai of Kenya (then British East Africa) to make way for white settlers. They were first expelled from their traditional lands in the Rift valley, and then again from the land which they had been allocated by treaty, to a barren area of southern Kenya. As a result of these moves, they lost between 50 to 70 percent of their territory.84 A much more recent example, dating from the mid-1960s, was the deportation of the entire population of Diego Garcia, a British Indian Ocean Territory, to make way for a US naval base. The descriptions of these deportations, as described by those who lived through them, bear a striking resemblance to the Soviet mass deportations.

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They tell of people being rounded up at gun point, forbidden to take more than a few basic personal items with them, and transported over long distances in terrible conditions. On arrival at their destinations they were abandoned, with no provision for accommodation or work, “to become squatters in a foreign land,” having “left paradise and landed in hell.”85 The Diego Garcia islanders (Ilois) today live in poverty in Mauritius and the Seychelles. They have protested to the British and the US authorities against their illegal exile. However, despite a British High Court ruling in 2000 that invalidated the immigration order whereby they were excluded from the Indian Ocean archipelago, they have not been given permission to return home. In 2004 the Masai were similarly planning to take their case to the British High Court. The struggles of these peoples to return to their homelands are reminiscent of that of the Crimean Tatars, Meskhetian Turks, and other Soviet deportees. Set in this broader conceptual framework, the population movements that have taken place in Kazakhstan over the past decade are not unusual. Rather, they echo the “end of empire” experience of other parts of the world. This could be regarded as a process of “normalization” – a reconfiguration of the social as well as the political and economic space in response to the conditions of independent statehood. In the first half of the 1990s there was a period of convulsive upheaval and uncertainty. That period has now passed. There is still a flow of outmigration, but it is far smaller than before. Moreover there is a trickle of a return flow as some people (including Germans and Russians) discover that their choice of destination did not live up to expectations. In all probability population movements will eventually stabilize at a manageable level. However the situation of diasporas is rarely entirely stable. Internal conditions can deteriorate, creating more “push” pressures. Equally, external conditions can improve so spectacularly that “pull” factors become too strong to resist. Thus the future of diaspora communities in Kazakhstan, though not an immediate cause for concern, is still a project in the making. NOTES * The author would like to thank Indira Aubakirova, Gul’mira Bilyalova, and Bayan Orumbaeva for their help in locating rare material. 1 Konstitutsia Respubliki Kazakhstan: S izmeneniami i dopolneniami . . . 1998 goda, 1998 (Almaty: Baspa, 1998), p. 12. 2 E. Karin and A. Chebotarev, “The Policy of Kazakhization in State and Government Institutions in Kazakhstan”, in N. Masanov et al. (eds), The Nationalities Question in PostSoviet Kazakhstan (Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization, 2000), p. 72. There is an inherent contradiction in this concept of qualified equality, but Kazakhstan is by no means the only country in the modern world that is struggling with this issue. In many parts of the world the “titular nation” regards itself as the “host” community and expects members of diaspora groups to conform to its values and mores. At times this impinges on what might be considered areas of personal freedom. Compare the debate in France in 2004 over the right of Muslim girls to wear the hijab (head scarf) in school; in Britain, too, there have been calls for diaspora

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 61

3 4 5

6 7

8 9 10 11

12

communities to become better integrated linguistically and culturally – even, as one former cabinet minister famously expressed it, to the extent of supporting the “host” cricket team when it plays in international matches against the “home” team of an ethnic diaspora. N. Masanov, “Perceptions of Ethnic and All-National Identity in Kazakhstan,” in N. Masanov et al. (eds), The Nationalities Question in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan (Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization, 2000), p. 42. N. Van Hear, New Diasporas: The Mass Exodus, Dispersal and Regrouping of Migrant Communities (London: UCL Press, 1998), p. 5; M. Bruneau, “Territoires de la diaspora grecque pontique,” in M. Bruneau, Diasporas (Montpellier: Reclus, 1995), p. 5. The 1989 census estimates for Kazakhstan, as published in Soviet sources (Vestnik 1990: 70), are higher than the results for the same year published by the Kazakh State Statistical Agency. Throughout this article references to 1989 are based on the Kazakh estimates. Data for 1926, 1959, 1970, 1989, and 1999 are drawn from the censuses of those years or from the statistical handbook Naselenie 1988. It should be noted that in this article most population estimates are rounded to the nearest 1,000. Census 1926, Vsesoiuznaia perepis’ naseleniia 17 dekabria 1926 goda (Moscow: TsSU Soiuza, 1929); Census 1959: Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naselenia 1959 goda (Moscow: TsSU Gosstatizdat, 1962–3); Census 1970: Itogi vsesoiuznoi perepisi naselenia 1970 goda (Moscow: TsSU Statistika, 1972–4); Census 1979: Vestnik statistiki (Moscow: Statistika, 1980–3); Census 1989: Vestnik statistiki, pp. 7–12 (Moscow: Statistika; also Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike, Almaty, 1999); Census 1999: Agenstvo Respubliki Kazakhstan po Statistike (Almaty, 1999) (reproduced in V. V. Primin, Materinskaia shkola v etnokul’turnom obrazovanii [Almaty, Iskander, 2002], pp. 125–8). For a fuller account of Kazakh history see S. Akiner, Formation of Kazakh Identity: From Tribe to Nation-State (London: Royal Institute of International Affairs, 1995); this also contains bibliographic information on other sources. The Soviet Union comprised 15 republics of equal constitutional status (Soviet Socialist Republics), each named after the main titular group on its territory, thus symbolically reflecting the idea of the nation-state. Some of these republics had within their boundaries smaller administrative units, which were likewise named after the main ethnic group on that territory. They represented lower levels of administrative jurisdiction; they had some control over their internal affairs, but only to the extent that there was no clash between their laws and policies and those of the Union republic within which they were located. The Union republic was in turn subordinated to the federal central government. The first level of republican subordination was the Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics (ASSR), followed by the Autonomous Province. M. B. Tatimov, Sotsial’naia obuslovlennost’ demograficheskikh protsessov (Alma-Ata, Nauka, 1989), pp. 120–6; G. M. Mendikulova, Istoricheskie sud’by Kazakhskoi diaspory (Almaty: Gylym, 1997), pp. 84–94. At its lowest level, this represented a very basic definition of literacy. However, the general level of education in Kazakhstan was high. By 1970, it was close to the Soviet average and not far short of the Russian average. Mendikulova, Istoricheskie sud’by, p. 226. Many writers have described this incident as an anti-Russian demonstration. However, Karshil Asanov, an outspoken Kazak nationalist (both during the Soviet period and since independence) was one of a number of eyewitnesses who gave a very different account of events (K. Asanov, Pravda o perestroike v Kazakhstane, Almaty, privately printed, 1991). He insisted that the meeting was not motivated by nationalistic sentiments, but by anger against the Party leadership, which included many Kazakhs. M. Kh. Asylbekov and V. V. Kozina, Demograficheskie protsessy sovremennogo Kazakhstana (Almaty: Atamura, 1995), p. 36; S. Akiner, Central Asia: Conflict or Stability and Development? (London: Minority Rights Group, 1997), p. 18.

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13 E. Karin and A. Chebotarev, “The Policy of Kazakhization in State and Government Institutions in Kazakhstan,” in N. Masanov et al. (eds), The Nationalities Question in PostSoviet Kazakhstan (Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization, 2000), p. 73. 14 World Refugee Survey 2003 (online, http://www.refugees.org/world/countryrpt/scasia/ 2003/kazakhstan.cfm). 15 Karin and Chebotarev, “The Policy of Kazakhization,” p. 95. 16 M. Kh. Asylbekov and V. V. Kozina, Demograficheskoe razvitie respubliki Kazakhstan v ¯ rkeniet, 2001), p. 67. usloviakh suvereniteta (Almaty: O 17 K. Nishiyama, “Russian Colonization in Central Asia: A Case Study of Semirechye, 1967–1922,” in H. Komatsu et al. (eds), Migration in Central Asia, Its History and Current Problems, Japan Center for Area Studies ( JCAS) Symposium Series no. 9 (Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies, 2000), pp. 65–85; R. Shigabdinov and G. Nikitenko, “Migration Processes in the West of Central Asia in the Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries,” in H. Komatsu et al. (eds), Migration in Central Asia, Its History and Current Problems, Japan Center for Area Studies ( JCAS) Symposium Series no. 9 (Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies, 2000), pp. 87–111. 18 I. Erofeeva, “Regional’nyi aspekt slavianskoi migratsii iz Kazakhstana,” in A. Vyatkin et al. (eds), V dvizhenii dobrovol’nom i vynuzhdennom (Moscow: Natalis, 1999), pp. 154–64. 19 S. Akiner, Formation of Kazakh Identity, p. 28. 20 There is quite a large literature on the Russian/Soviet Germans; for a concise survey of their history, see Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, A People on the Move: Germans in Russia and in the Former Soviet Union: 1763–1997, 4th edition, based on the manuscript of K. Stumpp, with contributions by M. Hagin et al., translated from German by I. Smith (Stuttgart: Cultural Council of the Germans from Russia, Landsmannschaft der Deutschen aus Russland, under the friendly patronage of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Bonn [on line], 1997). 21 A. Sheehy and B. Nahaylo, The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians: Soviet Treatment of Some National Minorities (London: Minority Rights Group, 1980), p. 18. 22 See Landsmannschaft, A People on the Move. 23 A sizeable collection of documents from the archive of the President of Kazakhstan relating to the Polish deportations of this period have now been published. See B. Zh. Abylkhozhin and L. D. Degataeva et al. (eds), Iz istorii poliakov v Kazakhstane (1936–1956) (Almaty: Kazakhstan, 2000). 24 According to the 1959 census, less than a quarter of these claimed Polish as their first language; about half were native Ukrainian speakers, while the remainder were Russian speakers. 25 There is a large literature in print and on the Internet on the Crimean Tatars in English and in other languages. See, for example, A. Wilson, The Crimean Tatars (London: International Alert, 1994). 26 These included 45,500 Karachais, 21,100 Balkars, 406,000 Chechens and Ingush, and 2,000 Kalmyks. See A. K. Kekilbaev et al. (eds), Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), p. 272. 27 These groups are not listed in the published results of the census surveys of Kazakhstan in 1959 or later. In the statistical handbook Naselenie (1988) estimates are given for the total populations of these peoples in the USSR and the RSFSR, but not for those in Kazakhstan. The difference between these figures indicates that even in 1970 there were over 60,000 North Caucasians, mostly Chechens and Ingush, located outside the RSFSR; many of these would have been in Kazakhstan. 28 T. Kurdaev, “Po chernomu stsenariu,” in A. K. Kekilbaev et al. (eds), Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, Almaty, Arys-Kazakhstan, 1988), p. 302. 29 One of the best studies to date on the Meskhetian Turks is OSI 1998; see also Sheehy and Nahaylo, The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans, and Meskhetians.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 63 30 M. Bruneau, “Territoires de la diaspora grecque pontique,” in M. Bruneau, Diasporas (Montpellier: Reclus, 1995), p. 115. 31 Kekilbaev, Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, p. 189. 32 The author is grateful to Valerii Khan, Institute of History, Uzbek Academy of Sciences, for helpful comments on this question. See also G. Kim, Istoria religii Korei (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2001). 33 G. N. Kim and E. S. Sim, Istoria prosveshchenia koreitsev Rossii i Kazakhstana (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2000), p. 63. 34 Ibid., pp. 136–51; N. Oka, “Deportation of Koreans from the Russian Far East to Central Asia,” in H. Komatsu et al., Migration in Central Asia: Its History and Current Problems, Japan Center for Area Studies ( JCAS) Symposium Series no. 9 (Osaka: Japan Center for Area Studies, 2000), pp. 127–45. 35 Kekilbaev, Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, p. 117. 36 A. I. Art’emev, Svideteli Egovy Kazakhstana i Srednei Azii: istoriko-religievedcheskii analiz (Almaty: privately printed, 2002), pp. 33–50. 37 V. Ivanov and Ia. Trofimov, Religii Kazakhstana: Spravochnik (Almaty: Edilet, 1999). 38 V. Fast (ed.), Ya s Vami vo vse dni do skonchaniia veka: Tiazhelye vremena gonenii i repressii 1931–1946 (Karaganda-Steinhausen: privately printed, 2001), p. 118. 39 V. Ivanov and Ia. Trofimov, Religii Kazakhstana, p. 4. 40 Kurganskaia et al., Rol’ religioznykh konfessii v zhizni nemtsev Tsentral’noi Azii: sbornik materialov (Almaty, Assotsiatsiia obshchestvennykh ob”edinenii nemtsev Kazakhshtana “Vozrozhdenie”, 2002), pp. 193–211. 41 Kekilbaev, Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, pp. 53–4; A. Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, translated from Russian by G. Sanders (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1978), p. 90. 42 Ai. Besbaev, Ob izvrashchenniakh natsional’nogo voprosa v SSSR (Almaty: KazGosINTI, 2001), p. 16. 43 Kekilbaev, Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, p. 100. 44 A. P. Kukushkina, Akmolinskii lager’ zhen “izmenikov rodiny”: istoria i sud’by (Karaganda: privately printed, 2002), p. 62. 45 A. A. Shaimukhanov and S. D. Shaimukhanova, Karlag (privately printed, 1997), p. 154. 46 Zh. Abylkhozhin, “Lagernaia ekonomika,” in A. K. Kekilbaev et al. (eds), Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), pp. 94–102. 47 Shaimukhanov and Shaimukhanova, Karlag, p. 19. 48 K. Aldazhumanov, “Trudarmeitsy Kazakhstana: Istoria i sud’by,” in A. K. Kekilbaev, et al. (eds), Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), pp. 315–40. 49 Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, pp. 111–19. 50 M. T. Baimakhanov, Gosudarstvenno-pravovye problemy obshchenatsional’nogo soglasiia i reabilitatsii zhertv politicheskikh repressii (Almaty: privately printed, 1997), p. 16. 51 Nekrich, The Punished Peoples, p. 135. 52 The Germans were the most highly organized. In the 1980s three bodies were formed, the largest of which was the International Union of Germans (known as Wiedergeburt – Rebirth), which at its height claimed a membership of 170,000. The other two were the International Association of Russian-Germans and the International Association for German Culture. 53 G. Kan, “Koreitsy v Kazakhstane: Deportatsiia i obretenie novoi rodiny,” in A. K. Kekilbaev et al. (eds), Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody (Almaty: Arys-Kazakhstan, 1998), p. 126. 54 K. P. Korzheva, Antichnost’ i obshchechelovecheskie tsennosti, no. 9 (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2002), pp. 98–102. 55 G. N. Kim and E. S. Sim, Istoria prosveshchenia koreitsev Rossii i Kazakhstana (Almaty: Kazak universiteti, 2000), pp. 232–44. 56 Sheehy and Nahaylo, The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians, p. 21.

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57 V. G. Kairbekov et al., Gosudarstvennye simvoly Respubliki Kazakhstan (Almaty: Ministry of Press and Mass Media, 1997). 58 This was not a new development: in 1989, thus before the collapse of the Soviet Union, a “Law on the Languages of the Kazakh SSR” had been adopted aimed at promoting the use of Kazakh in all areas of public life. 59 Karin and A. Chebotarev, “The Policy of Kazakhization,” pp. 83–92. 60 Ibid., p. 81. 61 EBRD, Transition Report (London: European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, 2002), p. 164. 62 S. Akiner, “Emerging Political Order in the New Caspian States: Azerbaijan, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan,” in Gary K. Bertsch et al. (eds), Crossroads and Conflict: Security and Foreign Policy in the Caucasus and Central Asia (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 93–109. 63 S. Akiner, “Kazakhstan,” in A. Day (ed.), Political Parties of the World (5th edition) (London: John Harper Publishing, 2002), pp. 281–3; S. Akiner, “Kazakhstan,” in B. Szajkowski (ed.), Revolutionary and Dissident Movements of the World (5th edition) (London: John Harper Publishing, 2004), pp. 262–4. 64 E. Sadovskaia, “Vneshniaia migratsiia v respublike Kazakhstana v 1990e gody: prichiny, posledstviia, prognoz,” Tsentral’naia Aziia i kul’tura mira, 1 (4) (Bishkek: privately printed, 1998), pp. 55–8; Asylbekov and Kozina, Demograficheskoe razvitie respubliki Kazakhstan, pp. 58–63. 65 The situation has been monitored fairly carefully by numerous governmental and nongovernmental bodies. Many surveys have been conducted to establish the reasons for the outflows of population. In general the findings are quite similar, with economic problems being the most frequently cited reason for emigration, followed by such issues as language policies and concern over the deterioration of law and order. See B. Abdygaliev, Gosudarstvennaya politika i mezhnatsional’nye otnosheniia v respublike Kazakhstan (Almaty: privately printed, 1996); Sadovskaia, “Vneshniaia migratsiia v respublike Kazakhstana;” N. Oka, “Nationalities Policy in Kazakhstan: Interviewing Political adb Cultural Elites,” in N. Masanov et al. (eds), The Nationalities Question in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan (Chiba: Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization, 2002), pp. 109–58; V. D. Kurganskaia (ed.), Monitoring prav etnicheskikh men’shinstv v Kazakhstane (Almaty: Iskander, 2003). 66 E, Sadovskaia, “Vneshniaia migratsiia v respublike Kazakhstana,” p. 65; Masanov, The Nationalities Question in Post-Soviet Kazakhstan, p. 52. 67 The right of return for ethnic Germans is guaranteed by the Basic Law (Grundgesetz, i.e. German constitution), Article 116, with some amendments in 1993. 68 See Landsmannschaft, A People on the Move. 69 A. Dederer et al. (eds), Germaniia-Tsental’naia Aziia – dialog kul’tur: istoriia, sovremennost’, perspektivy (Almaty: Assotsiatsia obshchestvennykh ob”edinenii nemtsev Kazakhshtana “Vozrozhdenie,” 2002), p. 113. 70 M. Gaw˛ecki, “Charakter zmian zbiorowo´sci polskiej w strukturze etnicznej wspólczesnego Kazachstanu,” Przegla˛ d Wschodni, no. 2 (1994), pp. 165–95; S. Akiner, Central Asia: Conflict or Stability and Development? (London: Minority Rights Group, 1997), p. 49, note 85. 71 Bruneau, “Territoires de la diaspora grecque pontique,” pp. 128–9. 72 Personal communications to the author by Greeks in Kazakhstan and in Greece, 2001–3. 73 Iu. A. Tskhai et al., Assotsiatsiia Koreitsev Kazakhstana (Almaty: Daik-Press, 2000). 74 In the 20–29 age cohort, 23 percent of Koreans have higher education; this is more than twice the level of the Kazakhs or Russians and second only to that of the Jews (who in Kazakhstan today, as in the Soviet Union, are counted as a separate ethnic group). V. D. Kurganskaia, and V. Iu. Dunaev, Kazakhstanskaia model’ mezhetnicheskoi integratsii (Almaty: Iskander, 2002), pp. 321–2.

Towards a typology of diasporas in Kazakhstan 65 75 World Refugee Survey 2003. 76 Asylbekov and V. V. Kozina, Demograficheskoe razvitie respubliki Kazakhstan, p. 15. 77 The earlier aim of moving to full public use of Kazakh by 1995 had been quietly dropped. The new law specified that official bodies must present most of their documentation in Kazakh, also that at least 50 percent of all television and radio broadcasting should be in Kazakh. However, by 2003, these provisions had still not been met in full by state organizations, let alone by the private sector. 78 G. T. Ileuova et al. (eds), Kazakhstanskaia model’ etnopolitiki (Almaty: Interligal, 2002), pp. 126–33. 79 V. V. Primin (ed.), Materinskaia shkola v etnokul’turnom obrazovanii (Almaty: Iskander, 2002), pp. 85–91; Kurganskaia and Dunaev, “Kazakhstanskaia model” mezhetnicheskoi integratsii, pp. 314–16. 80 In statistical surveys, however, and in passports, the Soviet usage of “nationality” (Kazakh ûlt/Russian natsional’nost’) is retained to denote ethnic origin. 81 The Assembly of the Peoples of Kazakhstan has 324 members; the number of seats allocated to each ethnic group has no clear relationship to its proportional representation in the country as a whole. The Kazakhs have 84 seats (26 percent), the Russians 49 seats (15 percent); the Koreans, Germans, Ukrainians, and Tatars have 16–21 seats each, but the Jews, who have a very much smaller population (under 7,000), have 17 seats. The other groups have 1–9 seats each. Kekilbaev, Deportirovannye v Kazakhstan narody, p. 380. 82 N. I. Mustafaev, “Kazakhstanskaia model” etnopolitiki: interesy, resursy i ogranichiteli,” in G. T. Ileuova et al. (eds), Kazakhstanskaia model’ etnopolitiki (Almaty: Interligal, 2002), pp. 53–68. 83 The psychological and social stresses that affected the British in India at the end of empire are brilliantly portrayed in P. Scott’s novel Staying On (London: Heinemann, 1977). 84 L. Hughes, Moving the Maasai: A Colonial Misadventure (unpublished doctoral thesis, manuscript copy in Bodleian Library, Oxford, UK, 2002); L. Hughes, “Fight for the Forbidden Land,” Sunday Times Magazine, 4 January 2003, pp. 24–31. 85 A. Bomford, “Diego Garcia: remembering paradise lost,” BBC News Online: 10 January 2001; C. Amanpour, “Diego Garcia: Exiles Still Barred,” CBS News, 60 Minutes, 16 June 2003.

4

Russians in post-Soviet Central Asia Issues and concerns Kulbhushan Warikoo

Central Asia has been of fundamental importance in the history and politics of Eurasia. Its geographical contiguity with Russia, China, Iran, and Afghanistan, lends a unique geostrategic importance to Central Asia vis-à-vis Russia. That Central Asia and Russia have been part of a single state system for more than 125 years makes the issue of Russians in post-Soviet Central Asia an important subject of study. Russia’s push southwards in the Kazakh steppes began long before Russia had initiated its forward policy toward Central Asia following its defeat in the Crimean War (1853–6), which led to the transfer of Russian interest from the Balkans to Central Asia. From the early 1860s onwards, numerous Central Asian cities and Khanates were taken over and incorporated. Thus began the migration of Russian farmers, artisans, and workers for work and settlement in the vast Central Asian region. Large settlements of Russians came to northern Kazakhstan. Soon after the October revolution, the new Soviet regime took concerted steps for economic development of the backward Central Asian region. With the launch of the first Five Year Plan in 1928, several industries were set up or relocated in Central Asia. A large number of skilled workers, engineers, technicians, technocrats, doctors, and teachers moved from Russia to Central Asia for work. During the period of the first Five Year Plan, more than 25,000 technicians and experts are reported to have been dispatched to Turkmenistan alone.1 Whereas the initial focus was on developing agro-industries in Central Asia, during World War II more than 300 large-scale manufacturing and engineering plants were evacuated from the western front of Soviet Russia and simultaneously moved “lock, stock and barrel to Central Asia.”2 Several hundred thousand Russian residents moved out of the western parts of the Soviet Union under attack from Germany, and settled in the Central Asian Republics. Another wave of Russians settled in Kazakhstan in the early 1950s under the Virgin Lands Scheme. From 1959 to 1970, about two million people from various parts of the Soviet Union migrated to Central Asia, of which about one million moved to Kazakhstan.3 Until the early 1970s, the main direction of migration to Central Asia was from Russia due to the development of communication, irrigation networks, hydro projects, construction works, mining, machine building, chemical, textile, and other heavy industries. This required employment of skilled

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Russian professionals, technocrats and engineers, as there were very few such professional cadres available from the indigenous communities. Thus ethnic Russians attained the numerical majority in Kazakhstan in 1959 and retained this status until the 1970s. In Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, Russians became the second largest community after the titular nationalities. And in Tajikistan, Russians were the third largest ethnic group after the Tajiks and Uzbeks. But the demographic map of Central Asia began changing fast after the 1970s, primarily due to the high population growth of Muslims in Central Asia and the low birth rate among Russians. In Central Asia, between 1960 and 1975, there was a fourfold increase in the number of indigenous scientific and technical cadres of doctors, scientists, engineers, managers, and teachers.4 The rise of educational standards among the local indigenous population and their tendency to secure leading positions in society, politics, and administration led younger Russians to secure employment either in urban centers or leave for Russia. The Russians started losing their privileged positions in spheres of trade, education, culture, public health, among others.5 The percentage of Russians in the total population of Central Asia began declining in the 1960s. In Kazakhstan, the Russian population declined from 42.7 percent in 1959 to 37.8 percent in 1989. So much so that Kazakhs became a majority in Kazakhstan for the first time since the early years of the Union in 1989, comprising now of 39.7 percent of the Republic’s total population as opposed to 30 percent in 1959. Similarly, Kyrgyz, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Turkmen increased their number consolidating their leading positions within their respective republics of Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. Simultaneously, there was decline in the population of Russians in all the Central Asian Republics. The 1970s and 1980s were marked by an increasing tendency among the Muslim peoples of Central Asia towards national exclusiveness and ethnocentrism.6 Demonstrations were organized by Uzbeks in Tashkent as early as May 1969 and by Tajiks in Dushanbe in May 1979, demanding that Russians get out. Violent demonstrations were held in Almaty in December 1986, to protest against the removal of Dinmukhamed Kunaev as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Kazakh Communist Party and his replacement by Kolbin, an ethnic Russian. Slogans like “Kazakhstan for Kazakhs” and “Kolbin go to Russia” were voiced openly. Various factors such as ethnic seclusion; nationalist and religious resurgence; socio-political assertion by indigenous educational, political, and bureaucratic elites; growing unemployment; and low productivity in farming and industry, resulting in shortages and a decline in the standard of living, led to heightened inter-ethnic tensions in Soviet Central Asia. Soviet efforts to achieve the goal of assimilation of different nationalities notwithstanding, there was interethnic discord in Central Asia. Though there was ferment among Muslims of Central Asia, they were only adjusting to Soviet linguistic, cultural, and religious policies to survive the system, without diluting or changing their religious allegiance.7 Young Muslims would join the Communist Party and yet remain firm believers and practice their religion privately.

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Table 4.1 Ethnic trends in Kazakhstan Ethnic group

1926

1959

1970

1989

1994

1999*

Kazakhs

3,713,300 (57.1%) 1,279,900 (19.6%) 860,800 (13.2%)

2,787,300 (30%) 3,972,000 (42.7%) 761,400 (8.2%)

4,234,100 (32.6%) 5,521,900 (42.5%) 933,400 (7.2%)

6,534,600 (39.7%) 6,227,500 (37.8%) 896,200 (5.5%)

7,636,200 (44.3%) 5,769,700 (35.8%) 820,800 (5.1%)

7,985,000 (53.4%) 4,479,600 (30.0%) 547,100 (3.7%)

Russians Ukrainians

Source: A. Elebaeva (ed.), Razvitiye mezhnatsional’nykh otnoshenii v novykh nezavisimykh gosudarstvakh Tsentralnoi Azii, Bishkek, Ilim, 1995, pp. 316–22, cited in Rafis Abazov, “Central Asia’s Conflicting Legacies and Ethnic Policies,” in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 62–90. * Census of Kazakhstan, 1999.

Table 4.2 Ethnic trends in Kyrgyzstan Ethnic group

1926

1959

1970

1989

1994

1999*

Kyrgyzs

661,100 (66.7%) 116,400 (11.7%) 64,100 (6.4%)

836,800 (40.5%) 623,500 (30.1%) 137,000 (6.6%)

1,284,700 (43.8%) 855,900 (29.2%) 120,000 (4.1%)

2,229,600 (52.3%) 916,500 (21.5%) 108,000 (2.5%)

2,595,600 (58.6%) 756,200 (17.1%) 81,200 (1.8%)

3,128,147 (64.9%) 603,201 (12.5%) 50,442 (1.0%)

Russians Ukrainians

Source: A. Elebaeva (ed.), Razvitiye mezhnatsional’nykh otnoshenii v novykh nezavisimykh gosudarstvakh Tsentralnoi Azii, Bishkek, Ilim, 1995, pp. 316–22, cited in Rafis Abazov, “Central Asia’s Conflicting Legacies and Ethnic Policies,” in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 62–90. * Census of Kyrgyzstan, 1999.

Table 4.3 Ethnic trends in Uzbekistan Ethnic group

1926

1959

1970

1989

1995*

Uzbeks

3,475,300 (65.9%) 246,500 (4.6%) 25,800 (0.4%)

5,038,000 (62.1%) 1,092,400 (13.5%) 88,300 (1.1%)

7,724,300 (65.4%) 1,473,400 (12.5%) 111,600 (0.9%)

14,142,400 (71.4%) 1,653,400 (8.3%) 153,100 (0.8%)

17,509,000 (75.8%) 1,386,000 (6.0%) 138,000 (0.6%)

Russians Ukrainians

Source: A. Elebaeva (ed.), Razvitiye mezhnatsionol’nykh otnoshenii v novykh nezavisimykh gosudarstvakh Tsentralnoi Azii, Bishkek, Ilim, 1995, pp. 316–22, cited in Rafis Abazov, “Central Asia’s Conflicting Legacies and Ethnic Policies,” in Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Vol. 5, No. 2, Summer 1999, pp. 62–90. * For 1995 figures (estimates) see Evraziiskoe soobschestvo, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1998, pp. 219–21, cited in Rafis Abazov.

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Gorbachev’s policies of perestroika and glasnost ushered in a new era of press freedom, political democratization, and decentralization of the decision-making process. This gave the people of Central Asia new confidence to assert their national and religious identity and to openly air their grievances and feelings that had long remained suppressed due to press censorship and party-cumbureaucratic control.8 Informal activist groups began to be established seeking restoration of their religious, cultural, and political rights. One such group, the Birlik (Unity) Movement for the Preservation of Uzbekistan’s Natural, Material and Spiritual Riches, was started in November 1989 by a group of Uzbek intellectuals. It led a successful campaign to declare Uzbek the state language of Uzbekistan. It was also critical of the Soviet cotton monoculture policy. Similarly, the political and social activist group Adilet ( Justice), set up in Kazakhstan, sought to preserve the memory of the victims of the Stalinist repression who perished in Kazakhstan. Another group, Atmaken, sought to promote the Kazakh language and culture. In Kyrgyzstan, the Kyrgyz Democratic Movement in early July 1991 organized rallies, meetings, and memorials to mark the seventy-fifth anniversary of the 1916 uprising against Tsarist colonial rule.9 Asaba (Banner) was formed in November 1990 to defend the social, economic, and political interests of the Kyrgyz people. These informal activist groups contributed to ethno-national resurgence in Central Asia. Bitter memories of Russian colonization, rebellions against Tsarist and Soviet regimes that were suppressed ruthlessly, collectivization and Stalinist repressions, famine, and neglect of Central Asian culture and languages have revived, accentuating inter-ethnic tensions between titular nationalities and Russians and creating a tenuous position for the Russian diaspora in Central Asia. The demise of the Soviet Union and the emergence of the independent Central Asian states, all having predominantly Muslim populations, drastically changed the balance of power in the region. Finding themselves in a changed political and social situation, Russians felt that they were suddenly reduced to the status of second-class citizens.10 With the titular nationalities assuming power and holding key positions in politics, government, and civil and other services, they claimed political, social, and economic privileges for the indigenous people. Homogenization and the construction of mono-ethnic states have been viewed by the Central Asian political elite as part of nation-building. Emphasis has been laid on the consolidation of Kazakhs scattered in Asia and Europe in their homeland. In fact, during the three years 1990–2, over 190,000 Kazakhs immigrated from Mongolia, Russia, and other Central Asian states into Kazakhstan.11 Affirmative discrimination in favor of indigenous nationalities has been seen as a way to undo the Soviet legacy. Consequently, the Russian diaspora in post-Soviet Central Asia was reduced to a vulnerable minority. In this odyssey of national rediscovery in Central Asia, language and race are seen as the symbols of nationhood. As part of the process of cultural revivalism, local writers, artists, and academics have idealized local history, culture, and society. Local history has been rewritten to remove the “distortions” introduced during the Soviet period. Ancient heroes and literature have been revived. Even old Communist leaders, who are credited as having promoted local nationalism in

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defiance of Moscow, have been resurrected as national heroes. Local languages have been declared as the official languages. The declaration of Uzbek, Kyrgyz, Tajik, Turkmen, and Kazakh as official languages in their respective states has spurred the exodus of Russians from Central Asia, since very few Russians know the local language and are, therefore, at a disadvantage in securing jobs. The problem of Russian minorities in Central Asia was further accentuated by Russia’s initial lack of interest in Central Asian affairs. In the immediate aftermath of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Russian foreign policy was oriented toward the West in the hope of integration into Western economies and political structures. Russia gave priority to building relations with Europe and the US, at the same time retreating from its previous geopolitical role in Asia. Preoccupied with its own domestic problems and obsessed with the Euro–Atlantic approach in its foreign policy, Russia was indifferent to the developments in its “near abroad.” There was a general feeling of viewing Central Asia as a “burden and an alien civilization.”12 Russia was in no position to lend any assistance to Central Asia, as it was besieged with financial problems. Previously, the Soviet Union had subsidized the Central Asian republics to the tune of twenty-five billion dollars a year. The Atlantists viewed Central Asia as a “burden for Russia” and “a source of instability, conflict, and problems” which were considered to be beyond Russia’s control.13 This perception was also based on the past Soviet experience in Afghanistan which cost the Soviet Union too dearly in terms of men, materials, and international prestige. Even at the peak of the civil war in Tajikistan, the Central Asian Border Guards and their Russian commanders defending the Tajik–Afghan border were facing acute shortages of men, fuel, and funds, preventing them from getting reinforcements or increasing mobility to effectively deal with increased border violations.14 On May 10, 1992 the Chairman of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan, Shodmon Yusufov, issued a public appeal to Afghanistan asking for aid in the ongoing conflict between pro-Nabiev and Islamic opposition forces and also against the “interference” of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) forces in “Tajikistan’s internal crisis.”15 Shodmon’s public threat that they would seek aid from “Afghan brothers” and that “minorities in Tajikistan could be used as hostages” created panic among Russians in Tajikistan spurring their exodus.16 However, Nabiev’s ouster on September 2, 1992 by Islamist extremist parties and the escalation of fighting in Tajikistan provoked prompt and strong reaction from Russia and the neighboring Central Asian states. Just one day after the removal of Nabiev, the Presidents of Russia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan issued a warning to the government and political organizations of Tajikistan describing the unrest as a threat to the CIS. They also announced their collective decision to deploy CIS troops along the Tajik–Afghan border to stop the large-scale smuggling of arms and cross-border movement of armed bands.17 Towards the end of September 1992, the Russian Defense Minister sent additional troops to strengthen the beleaguered 201st Motorized Rifle Division stationed in Tajikistan and authorized its commanding officers to prevent “seizure of arms, equipment and ammunition belonging to Russian troops and unlawful acts against

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Russian servicemen and their families.”18 But matters were made worse by the connivance of Tajik authorities with armed Tajik Islamist extremist groups and Afghan field commanders. Frustrated by this situation on the ground, the Russian Border Guards Officers Corps in Tajikistan sent an appeal to Russian President, Boris Yelstin, on November 13, 1992, questioning the “expediency of further stay of their units without guarantees of legal and social protection.”19 The problem was compounded by stiff opposition from the Tajik media and Islamic parties to the presence of Russian troops, who were accused of interference in the internal affairs of Tajikistan and were even charged with supplying and selling arms and fuel to anti-Islamist forces. Tajik Deputy Premier Davlot Usman, compared the ongoing conflict in Tajikistan to Russian intervention in Afghanistan and called it “a war between Tajikistan and Russia, a war between Islam and non-believers.”20 Protest rallies against the Russian presence were held in Dushanbe on October 6, 1992, which were also addressed by Tajik President Iskandrov and Chief Qazi Turadzonzoda.21 On the other hand, Kulyab and Khodjant oblasts and also Russian minorities sought additional CIS peacekeeping troops to bring order in Tajikistan. Russians held a rally in Kulyab on October 10, 1992, appealing to Yelstin to keep units of the 201st Motorized Rifle Division of Russian troops in Tajikistan.22 It was in these circumstances that the Eurasianists’ arguments in favor of restoring close relations with Central Asian republics gained ground in Russia. Whereas Russian nationalists drew attention to the problems of Russians and the Russian-speaking minorities in Central Asia, the Russian military pointed to the dangers implicit in dismantling Soviet military and strategic space facilities in Central Asia.23 Now the need to secure Russia’s southern flank and to retain control over the external border of the CIS was stressed. The Eurasianists wanted Russia to “prevent conflicts in Central Asia, neutralize attempts by third countries to take advantage of regional instability, and create an effective peacekeeping mechanism built on the basis of the Russian military potential.”24 Increasing attacks on Russians and their continuing exodus from Central Asia became important factors in determining Russia’s active policy in this region. Now senior leaders of the Russian government and military openly voiced their concern over the security of Russian minorities and vowed to discharge their responsibilities on this account.25 Whereas Khasbulatov, Chairman of Russian Federation Supreme Soviet, wrote to Tajik President Iskandrov asking him to “guarantee the security of Russians living in the Republic,”26 Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev warned that the “entire might of Russian state is poised to defend human rights, including the rights of Russian speaking people.”27 Similarly, Russian Deputy Defense Minister General Toporov viewed the presence of Russian troops in Tajikistan as necessary to protect Russians there.28 The Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strongly worded statement on October 15, 1992, expressing concern over the “expanding fratricidal civil war in Tajikistan and the danger of conflict spreading to adjacent countries.”29 It drew the attention of Tajik authorities, political groups, and leaders to “the attempt to provoke outbursts of anti-Russia and anti-Russian sentiments and use of violence

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against Russians and attacks on Russian servicemen.”30 It warned that, “Russia will do everything necessary to protect the legitimate rights and interests of the Russians.”31 This signaled an end to the drift in Russia’s policy towards Tajikistan. Now Moscow took the lead, and a summit involving the concerned Central Asian states and Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev was held at Almaty on November 4, 1992.32 It was agreed that the Russian 201st Motorized Rifle Division should remain in Tajikistan.33 The following day, Kozyrev led a CIS delegation to Tajikistan for an on-the-spot study.34 He met the Russians trapped in Kulyab. At the Minsk summit of the heads of CIS states on January 22, 1993 a formal decision was made to reinforce the Russian border troops with forces from the neighboring CIS states in order to effectively close the Tajik–Afghan border.35 The massacre of more than twenty-five Russian Border Guards on the Tajik border post on July 13, 1993 sent shock waves through Russian official and public circles, jolting the government out of its indifferent and ambiguous policy towards Central Asia. President Yeltsin called a special session of the Russian Security Council in Moscow on July 26, 1993 to take stock of the situation and take remedial measures.36 Yeltsin described the Tajik–Afghan border as “the frontier of Russia.”37 Soon after, Yeltsin organized a summit meeting with the Presidents of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan in Moscow on August 7, 1993. Four documents signed at the conclusion of this summit provided a basis to legitimize a direct Russian/CIS role in Tajikistan. The basic parameters of Russian policy towards Central Asia were outlined as preserving internal stability in Central Asia, protecting Russian-speaking minorities, preventing Islamist extremism from destabilizing the social and political situation in Central Asia, and treating the Tajik–Afghan border as the common CIS border. From 1993, “Russia began to link its policy towards Central Asia particularly with the treatment of the Russian-speaking population there.”38 Russian Foreign Minister Kozyrev visited Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan in November 1993. He pointed to Russian interest in developing mutually beneficial economic cooperation with the region but “linked it to the treatment of Russian speakers there.”39 Moscow was now getting concerned over the increasing influx of Russian-speaking refugees from Central Asia, which posed problems of their employment, housing, and rehabilitation. The 1990s have been marked by migration of Russians from Central Asian republics to Russia (see Tables 4.4–4.7). In Tajikistan, the civil war and the rise of Islamist extremist groups made it dangerous for Russians to stay. The 1989 Language Law stipulated Tajik as the sole state language, with Russian a language of inter-ethnic communication. However, the amended version of the language law, adopted in the summer of 1992, eliminated the status of Russian as a language for conducting official business. Incidents of hostage taking, violence against Russians, and threats to take away their apartments were the other factors contributing to the exodus of Russians from Tajikistan. Some 437,000 persons, mainly Russians, are reported to have migrated from Tajikistan.40 In the case of Uzbekistan, the new laws on state language and citizenship put non-indigenous ethnic groups like Russians into an unfavorable position. Initially,

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Russians working in industries, construction, communication, and education left Uzbekistan for Russia seeking new avenues of employment. According to a United Nations High Commission on Refugees’ (UNHCR) study, during the first quarter of 1994, the following categories of professionals had applied to the Russian Federation Embassy in Uzbekistan for permanent residency in Russia:41 (i) Engineers, technicians, technology and computer professionals (38 percent) (ii) Skilled industrial and construction workers (17 percent) (iii) Teachers, university tutors and lecturers, physicians, nurses, lawyers, and scholars (28 percent). Between 1981 and 1990, about 684,000 persons are reported to have left Uzbekistan for Russia.42 From 1991 to 1994, about 364,000 persons migrated from Uzbekistan to Russia.43 Whereas the migration before independence was due to economic reasons, it acquired an ethnic character afterwards.44 Since dual citizenship is prohibited in Uzbekistan, some people are reported to have secured Russian citizenship on their old passport, at the same time reporting the loss of their passport to the interior administration in Uzbekistan in order to get a new passport with Uzbek residency registration.45 One report pointed out that there were about 150,000 such individuals who had both Russian and Uzbek citizenship.46 As such, it becomes difficult to give an approximate number of Russian migrants from Uzbekistan. More recently, Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Kazakhs, among others, have also migrated to Russia in search of employment or for business. In Kyrgyzstan, economic difficulties due to the transition to a market economy and the adoption of Kyrgyz as the official language led to the exodus of Russians from Kyrgyzstan. The exodus was also, in part, a result of a discriminatory legal clause that was adopted in April 1991, which stipulated that “land in the Republic of Kyrgyzstan is the property of the Kyrgyz,”47 a provision that created dissatisfaction among non-Kyrgyz ethnic minorities. It was only after three successive attempts that President Askar Akaev was able to obtain approval from parliament for the amendment of this law, substituting the previous clause by “land belongs to the people of Kyrgyzstan”.48 However, the citizenship law instituted in June 1992, which ruled out dual citizenship for the citizens of Kyrgyzstan, dashed the hopes of Russian-speaking minorities.49 A movement was launched in Kyrgyzstan to encourage the immigration of Kyrgyz to attain a majority population of at least 70 percent. It was in pursuit of this objective that the First International Congress of Kyrgyz was held in Bishkek in August 1992 with, among others, representatives from the CIS countries, China, Turkey, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia. This meeting was scheduled for August 31, Kyrgyz Independence Day. Russian President Yeltsin, concerned over the Russian exodus, sent a special message to President Akaev in March 1993, with a request to give “special status to Russian language in the new constitution.”50 As a result, a Kyrgyz-Russian (Slavonic) University, using Russian as the medium of teaching, was opened with Russian financial assistance to alleviate the problems of Russian speakers in acquiring higher education in Kyrgyzstan.

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Table 4.4 Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia, 1990–4 (registered migrants)

Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan Central Asia (total)

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

Total (1990–4)

54,568 65,862 21,212 40,284 5,130 187,056

29,526 35,873 17,745 17,559 4,501 105,204

96,619 86,357 49,773 66,670 11,966 311,385

126,969 70,619 86,672 62,863 6,825 353,948

304,499 135,352 56,542 41,969 17,369 555,731

612,181 394,063 231,944 229,345 45,791 1,513,324

Source: Goskomstat, Rossiiskii Statisticheskii Ezhegodnik, Moscow, 1995, pp. 42–3.

Table 4.5 Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia (1981–94) (estimated)

Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan

1981–1985

1986–1990

1991–1994

Total

% of total population

403,000 205,000 76,000 46,000 42,000

482,000 497,000 106,000 113,000 39,000

840,000 364,000 285,000 166,000 20,000

1,725,000 1,048,000 467,000 325,000 101,000

11 5 12 6 3

Source: Z. A. Zainochkovskaia, “Migration in the Post-Soviet Territory,” Geography, No. 39, 1996.

Table 4.6 Migration from Central Asian Republics to Russia (1990–4)

Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan

1990

1991

1992

1993

1994

131,000 180,000 41,000 60,000 7,000

49,000 96,000 37,000 19,000 5,000

179,000 75,000 77,000 142,000 14,000

203,000 54,000 120,000 2,000 8,000

409,000 139,000 51,000 41,000 9,000

Source: Z. A. Zainochkovskaya, “Migration in the Post-Soviet Territory,” Geography, No. 39, 1996.

Table 4.7 Migration of ethnic Russians from Central Asia to Russia (1997) % of total emigration to Russia Kazakhstan Uzbekistan Kyrgyzstan Tajikistan Turkmenistan

167,475 23,803 9,424 10,987 10,621

Source: IOM, Migration in the CIS, 1997–98, Geneva, 1999, p. 127.

48.5 6.9 2.7 3.2 3.1

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In the first nine months of 1992, 70,000 people were reported to have left Kyrgyzstan, of which 50,000 were Russians.51 Russian Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, Mikhail Romanov, in an interview, ascribed the exodus of Russians to “worsening ethnic problems and the language law.”52 Over 231,000 immigrants from Kyrgyzstan were registered in Russia between 1990 and 1994, most of these Russian-speaking. In Turkmenistan, a decree was issued on May 30, 1992, granting citizenship to all Turkmen who had left the state. About 45,000 persons are reported to have migrated from Turkmenistan to Russia during the years 1990–4. The declaration of Turkmen as the state language and the introduction of the Roman script53 have played a significant role in the migration of Russians from otherwise peaceful Turkmenistan. However, after Turkmenistan and Russia signed an agreement on dual citizenship in 1993, the migration of the Russian-speaking population is reported to have “almost stopped.”54 Kazakhstan, which is geographically closer to Russia and where Russians form the second largest community (37.8 percent in 1989) after the indigenous Kazakhs (39.7 percent in 1989), presents a special case. Russians had settled in Kazakhstan, particularly in the northern parts, long before they did in other Central Asian republics. The Soviets never treated Kazakhstan as part of Central Asia and Russians “who lived there for several generations regard the steppes of northern Kazakhstan as their homeland.”55 Russians, particularly those in northern Kazakhstan, have strongly resisted the Kazakhization process. Cossacks organizing themselves under the banner of Vozrozhdenie and other societies demanded the secession of Cossack-dominated territory in Kazakhstan and its merger with Russia. Influential circles in Russia, including Nobel Laureate, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Russian nationalist leader, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, have called for the incorporation of Russian-speaking areas in the northern oblasts of Kazakhstan into Russia. A joint meeting of the Cossacks of Siberia and Kazakhstan, held in Omsk in early 1994, announced the merger of two Cossack Unions into a Siberian Cossack Force. Other Russian organizations, the Congress of Russian Communities and Lad, which are based mostly in northern Kazakhstan, have campaigned for decentralization, recognition of Russian as an official language, and dual citizenship for Russians. Ust Kamenogorsk has become the main center of Russian activism. In response, Kazakhstan’s authorities have dealt with the situation both tactfully and firmly. Kazakhstan’s citizenship law of 1991 provides citizenship to all those who resided in Kazakhstan permanently on the day of enactment of the law. Though citizenship was extended to ethnic Kazakhs living outside Kazakhstan, dual citizenship was prohibited, much to the discomfort of Russians. In April 1994, Yeltsin and Nazarbaev signed a memorandum in Moscow agreeing that Russian residents in Kazakhstan and Kazakhs living in Russia would be allowed to migrate freely between Russia and Kazakhstan. A Russian–Kazakh treaty on the legal status of Russians living in Kazakhstan and Kazakhs living in Russia was ratified by the Kazakh Parliament in early 1995, and later by the Russian State Duma on May 24, 1996. The Russian upper house ratified the treaty on June 5, 1996.56

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While the treaty sought to allay the fears of Russians in Kazakhstan, it in no way conferred dual citizenship upon them. The 1989 Kazakh language law, which made Kazakh the sole state language relegating Russian to the status of “language of inter-ethnic communication,” has been the primary cause for the exodus of Russian speakers from Kazakhstan. The 1993 constitution of Kazakhstan emphasized the precedence of Kazakh over other languages. Alexander Dokuchaev, the leader of the Democratic Progress Party of Kazakhstan, voiced the concern of affected Russian speakers when he stated that “language has become a political instrument of personnel selection and of elimination from managerial and government organizations.”57 However, the new 1995 constitution gives the Russian language the status of an official language alongside Kazakh. On November 22, 1996, the Majlis passed a new draft language law stipulating the Kazakh language as the “only official state and judicial language” of Kazakhstan.58 The law required ethnic Kazakh government employees to know the state language by 2001, and the Russianspeaking population by 2006.59 Furthermore, at least 50 percent of radio and television programs must be in Kazakh.60 The law took effect in July, 1997.61 Since less than 10 percent of non-Kazakhs claim to have basic knowledge of the Kazakh language,62 the new language policy has put Russians at a major disadvantage in matters of securing education and employment. Yuri Bunakov, leader of Kazakhstan’s Russian minority group Lad, in a press conference held at Almaty on October 18, 2000, sought to postpone implementation of the language law and demanded special programs to help Russian speakers learn the Kazakh language. Bunakov alleged that only 8 percent of government employees in Kazakhstan were Russian, which was the “most blatant form of discrimination.”63 While President Nazarbaev has tried to maintain friendly relations with Russia “at a healthy distance,” he moved the Kazakh capital from Almaty in the southeast to Astana (formerly Akmola) in the north-central region, which is predominantly Russian. With the shift of the capital, hundreds of thousands of Kazakh employees working in the administrative, political, law-enforcement, and trade sectors, are expected to take up residence in the new capital, marking the Kazakhization of the northern territory. In addition, this move would strengthen the Kazakh authorities’ ability to more effectively monitor any Russian secessionist or nationalist activity in the region. Stringent steps have been taken to deter any anti-Kazakh movements in the region. For instance, in UstKamenogorsk, capital of East Kazakhstan Oblast with a majority Russian population, Kazakh authorities arrested 22 persons on charges of “planning to overthrow the Oblast’s leadership and proclaim the region a Russian Altaic Republic.”64 Those arrested included 12 Russian citizens, who have yet to be extradited to Russia.65 The Kazakh authorities have tried to thwart any possible challenge by the Russians to their efforts of building a Kazakh nation-state, which has been facilitated by the exodus of nearly one million Russians66 from Kazakhstan to Russia and the immigration of over 200,000 Kazakhs. This has drastically altered the demographic situation in Kazakhstan with the balance of

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power shifting in favor of the Kazakhs. Even in the parliamentary elections, the Russians could secure fewer seats. In the March 1994 parliamentary election, Kazakhs, who constituted 42 percent of the population, occupied 60 percent of seats and Russians, 38 percent of the population, got only 28 percent of seats. Observers from the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) reported that only 128 Russians had succeeded in registering as candidates, as compared to 566 Kazakhs, contributing to the over-representation of Kazakhs in the new legislature.67 Similarly, in December, 1995, 12 Russians were elected to the Senate compared to 26 Kazakhs, and 19 Russians went to the Majlis as opposed to 42 Kazakhs.68 Between 1985 and 1994, the proportion of nonKazakhs in high-level posts was reported to have fallen from 50 to 25 percent in the state apparatus.69 The process of indigenization, political assertion by titular nationalities, ethnocultural resurgence, and Russian concerns about their economic and political future, have contributed to the exodus of Russian-speaking populations from the Central Asian republics. The pattern has been similar in all republics, except in Tajikistan, which witnessed bloody civil war. The problem was compounded by declining living standards, rising unemployment and inflation, and difficulties in reconciling the aspirations of indigenous peoples with the expectations of Russians. Language, religion, culture, historical memory of Tsarist Russian and Soviet regimes in Central Asia, and distinct social systems all combine to divide the indigenous titular nationalities and the Russian minorities in post-Soviet Central Asia. The problems faced by the Russians in Central Asia need to be viewed from the human rights perspective. Equal economic, cultural, and political opportunities can alleviate the problems faced by the Russian communities. Vice versa, the continued presence of skilled and professional Russian cadres can help the Central Asian states overcome a lack of technical manpower. The Russian Federation, which claims to look after the interests of Russians living in the “near abroad,” can help revive ailing enterprises and industries in Central Asia, which can provide employment opportunities for skilled Russians. Russia can also render assistance to the Central Asian republics in establishing and rejuvenating Russian educational and cultural institutions across Central Asia, in order to meet the educational and cultural needs of the Russians living there. For this, there must be a strong and vibrant political and socio-economic partnership between the Russian Federation and Central Asian Republics on a mutually advantageous basis. NOTES 1 Gengchen Liu, “Ethnic Harmony and Conflicts on Central Asia,” in Yangjin Zhang and Rouben Azizian (eds), Ethnic Challenges Beyond Borders: Chinese and Russian Perspectives of the Central Asian Conundrum (London: St Antony’s College, 1998), p. 75. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid.

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4 S. L. Burg, “Central Asian Political Participation and Soviet Political Development,” in Michael Rywkin (ed.), USSR and the Muslim World: Issues in Domestic and Foreign Policy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1984), p. 44. 5 UNHCR, “Population Migration in Uzbekistan, 1989–1996” (Tashkent, 1997), p. 17. 6 K. Warikoo, “Soviet Central Asian in Ferment,” in K. Warikoo and Dawa Norbu (eds), Ethnicity and Politics in Central Asia (New Delhi: South Asian Publishers, 1992), p. 62. 7 Ibid., p. 64. 8 Ibid., p. 65. 9 Slovo Kyrgyzstan, July 4, 1991. 10 Gengchen Liu, “Ethnic Harmony,” p. 79. 11 Argumenty i fakty, Moscow, January 4, 1993. 12 Andrei Kortunov and Sergei Lounov, “Russia and Russians in Central Asia,” in Ethnic Challenges Beyond Borders, p. 97. 13 Ibid., p. 98. 14 Maj. Gen. A Martovitsky, Commander of the Central Asian Border Guards lamented in early May 1992 that they had to restrict use of motor vehicles by 80 percent due to shortage of fuel (see Summary of World Broadcasts SU/1377, May 11, 1992). On June 20, 1992 a Russian commentary on Moscow TV ascribed the deteriorating situation on the Tadjik–Afghan border to lack of Russian support to the Border Guards. It claimed that the Border detachment had only 85 rubles in its cash office (see Summary of World Broadcasts US/1414, June 23, 1992). 15 Summary of World Broadcasts, US/1379, May 13, 1992. 16 Ibid., SU/1405, June 12, 1992. 17 Ibid., SU/1480, September 8, 1992. 18 Ibid., SU/1499, September 28, 1992. 19 Ibid., SU/1541, November 18, 1992. 20 Tadjik Radio, October 3, 1992. See SWB SU/1504, October 6, 1992. 21 Summary of World Broadcasts, SU/1506, October 8, 1992. 22 Ibid., SU/1509, October 12, 1992. 23 Andrei Kortumov and Sergei Lounov, “Russia and Russians in Central Asia,” p. 99. 24 Ibid., p. 100. 25 Summary of World Broadcasts, SU/1502, October 3, 1992. 26 Rossiiskaia Gazeta, Moscow, September 30, 1992. 27 Summary of World Broadcasts, SU/1922, October 27, 1992. 28 Ibid., SU/1507, October 9, 1992. 29 Ibid., SU/1514, October 17, 1992. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid. 32 Ibid., SU/1531, November 6, 1992. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid. 35 Ibid., SU/1595, January 25, 1993. 36 FBIS–SOV–93–142, July 27, 1993. 37 Ibid. 38 Andrei Kortunov and Sergei Lounov, “Russia and Russians in Central Asia,” p. 104. 39 Ibid. 40 Central Asia Monitor, No. 2, 2002, p. 29. 41 UNHCR, “Population Migration in Uzbekistan, 1989–1996,” p. 8. 42 Zh. A. Zainchkovskaia, “Migration in the Post-Soviet Territory,” in Geography, No. 39 (October 1996), cited in no. 41, p. 9. 43 Ibid. 44 Ibid. 45 Ibid.

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46 Timofei Zhukov, Nezavisimaia Gazeta, February 6, 1996. 47 K. Warikoo (ed.), Central Asia: Emerging New Order (New Delhi: Har Anand Publications, 1995), p. 21. 48 Ibid. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid. 51 Kurenty, Moscow, February 17, 1993, p. 5 (FBIS Daily Report: Central Eurasia, March 20, 1993, p. 101). 52 Ibid. 53 K. P. Dudarev, “Turkmenistan: A Post-Communist Authoritarian Region,” in Alexei Vassiliev (ed.), Political and Economic Challenges in the Post-Soviet Era (London: Saqi, 2001), p. 143. 54 Ibid. 55 Algis Prazauskas, “Ethnopolitical Issues and the Emergence of Nation States in Central Asia,” in Ethnic Challenges Beyond Borders, p. 63. 56 Kazakhskaya pravda, March 2, 1995; Itar-Tass, May 24 and June 5, 1996. 57 Sergey Skorokhodov and Vladimir Tyurkin, Rossiiskaia gazeta, June 5, 1993. 58 OMRI Daily Digest, November 26 and 27, 1996. 59 Ibid. 69 Ibid. 61 Kazakhstan: Forced Migration and Nation Building (New York: Open Society Institute, 1998), p. 58. 62 Ibid. 63 Central Asia Monitor, No. 6:2000, p. 34. 64 Liz Fuller, “Trial of ‘Separatists’ Highlights Plight of Kyrgyzstan’s Russians,” in Central Asia Monitor, No. 4:2000, pp. 29–30. 65 Ibid. 66 Kazakhstan: Forced Migration and Nation Building, p. 6. 67 CSCE, Report on the March 7, 1994 Parliamentary Election in Kazakhstan (Washington, 1994), p. 1. 68 OMRI Daily Digest, December 22, 1995. 69 Edward A. D. Schatz, “Framing Strategies and Non-Conflict in Multi-Ethnic Kazakhstan,” in Nationalism & Ethnic Politics, vol. 6, no. 2, Summer 2000, p. 85.

5

State, homeland, and diaspora The Armenian and Azerbaijani cases Stephan H. Astourian

Over the past decade, the concept of “diaspora” has proliferated in cultural studies and the social sciences. Perhaps as a result of a growing awareness of what has been called globalization, many scholars shifted their focus from phenomena bounded by the borders of nation-states to transnational ones, diasporas being one of them. While the use of diaspora as a concept increased, its conceptual clarity often decreased. In the inaugural issue of the journal Diaspora, its editor stated thus: We use “diaspora” provisionally to indicate our belief that the term that once described Jewish, Greek, and Armenian dispersion now shares meanings with a larger semantic domain that includes words like immigrant, expatriate, refugee, guestworker, exile community, overseas community, ethnic community. This is the vocabulary of transnationalism, and any of its terms can usefully be considered under more than one of its rubrics.1 This larger semantic domain is, indeed, related to the concept of diaspora. However, not all of the groups this domain encompasses are diasporas, even though some of them may be part of diasporas. In general, there seems to be a consensus that a diaspora exists in relation to some existent or projected homeland, which in the modern era at least is, or ought to be, a state. This study is a comparative reflection on the relationships among state, homeland, and diaspora in the post-Soviet Armenian and Azerbaijani cases.

THE CONCEPT OF DIASPORA In the social sciences, scholars have put forward various definitions of “diaspora,” from the loosest to the strictest ones. Walker Connor, for instance, argues that “a working definition of a diaspora might well be ‘that segment of a people living outside the homeland.’ ”2 On the opposite end of the semantic spectrum, William Safran offers perhaps the strictest definition of a diaspora. The concept should be applied, he states, to

State, homeland, and diaspora 81 Expatriate minority communities whose members share several of the following characteristics: (1) they, or their ancestors, have been dispersed from a specific original “center” to two or more “peripheral,” or foreign, regions; (2) they retain a collective memory, vision, or myth about their original homeland – its physical location, history, and achievements; (3) they believe that they are not – and perhaps cannot be – fully accepted by their host society and therefore feel partly alienated and insulated from it; (4) they regard their ancestral homeland as their true, ideal home and as the place to which they or their descendants would (or should) eventually return – when conditions are appropriate; (5) they believe that they should, collectively, be committed to the maintenance or restoration of their original homeland and to its safety and prosperity; and (6) they continue to relate, personally or vicariously, to that homeland in one way or another, and their ethnocommunal consciousness and solidarity are importantly defined by the existence of such a relationship.3 Only a few communities qualify as diasporas on the basis of this definition, including the Armenians, but “none of them conforms to the ‘ideal type’ of the Jewish Diaspora.”4 Yet, the paradigmatic Jewish case, as the model diaspora resulting from coercion, has been shown to be more complex and ambiguous. In the Hellenophone world of antiquity, for instance, the Jewish communities lacked “the element of traumatic and coerced departure . . . at their inception.”5 In addition, Safran’s third and fourth requirements – that diasporas feel they are not, or cannot, be fully accepted by their host societies and that their descendants will eventually return to the homeland – are far from being true in many cases. For his part, anthropologist James Clifford finds recourse to an “ideal type” too constraining. He suggests that “even the ‘pure’ forms [of diaspora] . . . are ambivalent, even embattled, over basic features.”6 Connor’s broad definition is certainly a good starting-point, but it should perhaps be modified to avoid confusion, for instance, with a community stemming from cross-border labor migration. In particular, the current subjectivist drift that emphasizes symbolic, hyphenated ethnicity – something like “feeling” ArmenianAmerican, for example – seems to me necessary, but not sufficient, in the definition of any diaspora.7 I would suggest that a diaspora is that segment of a people living outside the homeland in two or more countries that has developed institutions that demarcate it from the host society and connect it in cultural, psychological, political, or economic terms with an existing or envisioned homeland and with other such kindred communities outside that homeland. “Decentered, lateral connections” among those communities may, indeed, be as important as their focus on the homeland.8 In addition, although these communities are components of a given diasporic cluster, such as the “Armenian diaspora” or the “Azerbaijani diaspora,” they differ in their histories and lived experiences. It is only at the risk of indulging in vagueness that the experience of the French-Armenian diaspora on the one hand, and the Iranian-Armenian diaspora on the other hand, can be subsumed under the broad, undifferentiated concept of “Armenian diaspora.” Thus, as sociologist

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Avtar Brah puts it: it is the economic, political and cultural specificities linking these components that the concept of diaspora signifies. This means that these multiple journeys may configure into one journey via a confluence of narratives as it is lived and re-lived, produced, reproduced and transformed through individual as well as collective memory and re-memory. It is within this confluence of narrativity that “diasporic community” is differently imagined under different historical circumstances. By this I mean that the identity of the diasporic imagined community is far from fixed or pre-given. It is constituted within the crucible of the materiality of everyday life; in the everyday stories we tell ourselves individually and collectively.9

STATE, HOMELAND, AND THE ARMENIAN DIASPORA Even though the origins of the modern Armenian diaspora go back to the end of the nineteenth century, it is after the Armenian genocide of 1915 that the size of the pre-existing communities increased as a result of the influx of survivors. Concomitantly, their level of organization improved significantly in the interwar period. Three political parties played a significant role in forming the backbone of the twentieth-century Armenian diaspora: these are the Social Democratic Hnchakian Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), and the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADLP).10 In turn, each one of these parties established, or controlled, its own cultural, youth, and sports associations. In the field of philanthropic activities, the Dashnaktsagans controlled the Armenian Relief Society, while the Ramgavars dominated the Armenian General Benevolent Union. All of these parties also founded schools and published newspapers, thus striving to preserve and reproduce in their new host countries “Armenian identity” as seen through the prism of their ideologies. Whereas the Hnchakians fully supported Soviet Armenia from its inception, since it incarnated the realization of their Marxist ideology, the Ramgavars collaborated with it on patriotic and pragmatic grounds, despite their liberal outlook and their overall bourgeois social background. The ARF, for its part, sided with the US during the Cold War and adopted a radically anti-Soviet stance until the early 1970s. Such a stance reflected its nationalistic ideology more than its theoretically socialist worldview. The ARF toned down its anti-Soviet rhetoric subsequently and started viewing Soviet Armenia as the foundation upon which the “Free, Independent, and United Armenia” it envisioned should be built. In a nutshell, Armenian diaspora life was highly polarized until the late 1960s at least.11 Political polarization also affected the Armenian Apostolic Church. As a result of the Cold War, it split in 1956 around the issue of the election of the Catholicos of the Cilician See, located in Antelias (Lebanon). The Dashnaktsagans predominated in that election and numerous churches in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Greece,

State, homeland, and diaspora 83 Cyprus, the US, Canada, and South America sided with the new Catholicos and cut their ties with the Mother See of Echmiadzin in Soviet Armenia, which they viewed as being controlled by the Soviet authorities. Thus, religious polarization paralleled political polarization and served as a means of structuring the diaspora communities.12 By the time Armenia became independent, the diaspora had a long history of its own. Its agenda and leadership, split along political lines, had at least two things in common: first, most of the leaders were western Armenians, that is, their parents or they were born in the Ottoman Empire and the core of the Armenian “homeland” was, in their view, the western part of historic Armenia; second, they were survivors of the Armenian genocide and that issue was perhaps the only major one on which the three parties agreed. These common points were going to be challenged by the ideology and policies of the Armenian Pan-National Movement (APNM), the ruling party of independent Armenia, and its leader, President Levon Ter-Petrosian.

The “new thinking” and the Armenian genocide Before taking power, the ideologists of the APNM had already propounded a new approach to Armenia’s national security based on a critical reinterpretation of the Armenian past, especially the period from the seventeenth century onwards.13 Theirs was a vision akin to the opening sentence of one of L. P. Hartley’s novels: “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.”14 The Party’s intellectuals argued that the leaders of the new Armenian state should take a different approach than that adopted by previous Armenian leaders. Their main ideas were summed up in a series of articles that basically stated that Armenia had for too long relied on a “third force,” be that Russia or the West, to try to solve its problems.15 The title of one article referred to the past reliance on a “third force” as “Our Three-Hundred-Year-Old Mistake.”16 This had led to catastrophe, the argument went, especially during the period of the first independent Republic of Armenia (May 28, 1918–December 2, 1920), which had been governed by members of the nationalistic ARF. The key principle of the APNM that emerged from this reasoning was summed up by one of these ideologists: “The steps of the Armenian people must be proportionate to the degree of our strength.”17 The time had come to face reality and deal directly with all of Armenia’s neighbors, in particular Turkey. Independence from the Soviet Union and the consolidation of Armenian democracy were preconditions for putting their geostrategic vision into effect. They also argued in the late Soviet period that the best path to independence was a constitutional one, which meant adhering to the terms of the then newly adopted USSR law on secession. Thus, they advocated reducing tensions with Moscow, thereby depriving the latter of any pretext for taking drastic steps against Armenia, including military intervention.18 These elements were viewed as realism and pragmatism. But, the best that realism and pragmatism could offer – direct and normal relations with Turkey –

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had first to confront the touchy issue of the Armenian genocide and its consequences. It also had to deal with the fact that Armenians no longer lived on some 85 percent of their historic homeland for the first time in 26 centuries of Armenian history. The ideologists of the APNM argued that, for the sake of independence and state building, the Armenian genocide should be left off Armenia’s political agenda. As Rafayel Ishkhanian put it: “In general, it is purposeless to ask various states or the United Nations for the recognition of the genocide of the Armenians. Let’s say that all states and the United Nations were to recognize that they slaughtered us; what then?”19 The issue of the genocide gave rise to the longest and most heated debate when the Supreme Soviet of Armenia discussed the text of the soon to be promulgated “Declaration on the Independence of Armenia” (August 23, 1990). Ter-Petrosian, at that time President of the Supreme Soviet, argued against including a clause about the genocide because doing so would be wrong from both a political and a diplomatic viewpoint. A majority of deputies, however, did not agree with him. One hundred and thirty-one voted in favor of including a paragraph to the effect that the Republic of Armenia would support efforts to achieve international recognition of the Armenian genocide; only 25 voted against.20 To Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Armenian simplistic emotional elements [had] once more prevailed over rationality.”21 The position of the APNM did not reflect the sensibilities and views of the broad spectrum of organizations that voted for the inclusion of such a paragraph. These included the Armenian Communist Party (ACP) and the two main parties of the diaspora, the nationalistic ARF and the bourgeois conservative Armenian Democratic Liberal Party. Indeed, these organizations wanted the lost lands of “western Armenia” to be mentioned in the declaration as well. Edmond Azadian, a leader of the ADLP, speaking on behalf of his organization in his address to the legislature on August 20, 1990, put the point as follows: We have always maintained that the territory of this Republic of Armenia is the nucleus of tomorrow’s Greater Armenia. In this respect, we expect the newly formed government to commit itself to the restoration of our historic rights. More specifically, the new Republic must include in its on-going agenda the recognition of the Armenian genocide and our historic territorial claims by the international community. But the ways, means, and the opportune time to pursue those goals must be left to the best judgment of our far-sighted leader [i.e. Ter-Petrosian].22 Once the “Declaration on the Independence of Armenia” was adopted, TerPetrosian and his party came under virulent attack for having abandoned Hay Tad (The Armenian Cause), a concept that encompasses both genocide recognition and territorial claims. The ACP led the charge. Vladimir Darbinian, a member of the ACP Central Committee, argued in February 1991 that the APNM had promised to support Hay Tad but, “having come to power, it is now gradually ceding its position.” In another article, he complained:

State, homeland, and diaspora 85 These gentlemen have proclaimed that international recognition of the 1915 genocide, the territorial claims, [and] Hay Tad [collectively] constitute an ideology that can become state policy only when the possibility arises of resolving the Armenian question.23 While there was an obvious political motive behind the ACP’s criticism of the movement that had just won a parliamentary majority, the ACP was also pointing to a genuine shift in the position of the APNM. The program upon which the APNM had been founded, and thanks to which it had won popular support in the recent elections, left little doubt about its position with regard to the genocide and territorial claims. Three of the thirteen articles devoted to the goals of the APNM pertained to the Armenian genocide. Article 6 stated that the APNM would strive to make the supreme soviets of the Armenian SSR and the USSR recognize the Armenian genocide, and it demanded that the United Nations do so as well. Article 7 recommended that April 24 be proclaimed a Day of Remembrance for the victims of the Armenian genocide and a national holiday in the republic. Article 8 stated that the APNM would “constantly put forward the demand for reunification of those territories that were historically part of Armenia and are recognized in international documents as being Armenian.” It added, however, that “the realization of that demand is possible only through the application of such a national policy as is based on the ideological principles of our movement.”24 The ACP was not alone in finding the “Declaration on the Independence of Armenia” flawed, despite the fact that on the issue of the genocide Ter-Petrosian had been defeated. Usually supportive of the new government, the ADLP complained that the declaration did not mention territorial claims resulting from the massacres and deportations.25 Most members of the Dashnagtsutiun, for their part, felt vindicated in their deep suspicion about, and visceral dislike of, the APNM. In addition, it appears that the shift in the position of the APNM may not have reflected the feelings of its popular base. On April 24, 1965, at a time when large-scale street demonstrations were almost unheard of in the USSR, more than 100,000 Armenians had taken to the streets to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Armenian genocide and to make demands on Armenian authorities that they commemorate it in some fashion. The Azerbaijani pogroms against the Armenians of Sumgayit on February 27, 1988, the pogroms of Kirovabad (currently Ganja) on November 21, 1988, and the pogroms of Baku from January 13 to 18, 1990, had been met by widespread revulsion in Armenia, mobilizing the Armenian masses first around the Karabagh Committee and then the APNM. The pogroms in Azerbaijan also exacerbated the memories of the Armenian genocide that had already figured prominently in the popular discourse of the Karabagh mass demonstrations staged in Yerevan from February 1988 on. An Armenian anthropologist who collected some 1,000 individual placards displayed by Armenian protesters during the 1988–90 demonstrations has shown that by far the single most frequent theme was the Armenian genocide – there were 315 posters and banners devoted to it. The union of Karabagh

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with Armenia came a distant second with only 60 placards.26 Many of the placards devoted to the genocide also touched upon the Sumgayit pogroms and the fact that they had remained essentially unpunished. In an interview with the prominent linguist, Souren Zolian, who was part of the inner circle of the Karabagh Committee during those years, an Israeli-American journalist concluded the following in regard to the centrality of the genocide in the Armenian psyche: Zolian, more self-critical than most of his comrades-in-arms, acknowledges that Karabakh was elevated into a cause célèbre by default. The Armenians needed a current grievance that would evoke the ultimate past grievance, the 1915 genocide. They remembered, Zolian said, that back in 1965, the anniversary of 1915 brought Armenians to the streets in a spontaneous display of national fervor. (Moscow was unhappy but uncharacteristically tolerant.) “Karabakh was initially an abstract notion,” Zolian recalled. “People said ‘Karabakh,’ but what they really meant was ‘genocide.’ ” Karabakh had the right mix to become a grievance: it was an isolated Armenian community, separated from the rest of the nation, at the mercy of “Turks” (as the Armenians often refer to the Azeris), unarmed.27 This journalist goes on to refer to the pogroms in Sumgayit, the devastating earthquake of December 1988, the massacres in Baku, and the arrival of 300,000 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan, concluding: Karabakh was abstract no more. The defense of its 150,000 Armenians against “a second Sumgait” became a supreme national priority, to the detriment of almost everything else.28 The “southern” (Turkish) orientation of Armenian foreign policy in the years 1990–2 thus required that the “burdensome” matter of the genocide be relegated to the status of a secondary issue. Such was the view of Gérard Libaridian who on January 22, 1991 was appointed by Ter-Petrosian as director of the newly formed Department of Research and Analysis attached to the presidium of the National Assembly. This was to be the starting point of a remarkable political career for a diasporan Armenian who some two years earlier had worked for the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, which had been, and remained, completely opposed to Ter-Petrosian’s approach to the genocide and Armeno-Turkish relations.29 In his address to the Second Congress of the APNM in Yerevan on November 25, 1990, Libaridian critiqued the diasporan Armenian’s frame of mind thus: “[S]ince the diaspora was caused by the genocide, somehow all our problems could be traced to the Turk, and we could absolve ourselves of any responsibility.”30 And he wondered: “Did a strategy of liberation based on anti-Turkism and anti-communism, on fear of pan-Turkism and hatred of the Turk, cause the return of an inch of western Armenian territory or bring us any closer to Turkish recognition of the genocide?”31 To Libaridian, the answers were

State, homeland, and diaspora 87 clear – Armenians could expect at best a symbolic recognition of the Armenian genocide from Turkey, and even that would not be easy. If the purpose of obtaining recognition of the genocide is to obtain recognition by Turkey as a matter of moral and historical justice, then the strategy may require rethinking. If the purpose of recognition by Turkey is anything beyond that, then the prospect of never obtaining it could be accepted as a minor failure, as long as some “other” purpose is achieved. What Armenians need to understand is that these “other” purposes, legitimate or not, eliminate or lessen the possibility of a reversal in Turkish policy of denial; they also diminish the credibility of the argument with the international community.32 Beyond the genocide, normalization of relations with Turkey would be beneficial to Armenia: Finally, what if having normal diplomatic and economic relations with Turkey is in the interest of Armenia as well as of Karabagh? Would not improved Armeno-Turkish relations weaken the Azerbaijani negotiating position, the rigidity of which is based on a policy of strangling the Armenian economy? Should the answer to these questions be positive, [. . .] then the normalization of relations with Turkey would facilitate Armenia’s role as a transit route of Caspian Sea hydrocarbon resources.33 This argument was very close to the views propounded by American policymakers at the time. Washington argued that Yerevan should be flexible on the merely symbolic issue of the genocide as well as the Karabagh conflict in exchange for a “piece of the pie” – a reference to the huge reserves of oil and gas lying in the depths of the Caspian Sea and the economic benefits they could have for the Caucasian states. Forgetting the genocide was impossible, but it was best to leave it to historians on condition that they promote a “happy medium” between the “Armenian” position and the “Turkish” position, something that could be conducive to a symbolic recognition of the genocide by Turkey.34 To this end, Libaridian organized a carefully staged genocide conference in Yerevan in April 1995, which launched the search for what some of its advocates call the “happy medium.” This was the first in a series of such events.35 At a symposium held at the French Senate on June 17, 2000 (by then, it had been almost three years since Libaridian had held a position in the Armenian government), Libaridian made it clear that “neither the genocide nor its recognition” should serve as a basis for Armenia’s foreign policy and relations with Turkey.36 The “happy medium” required balanced judgment, equating the two sides, or narratives, of the issue: “It seems that the two sides struggling for and against the recognition of the genocide are repeating the logic of the past in order to justify it.”37 His speech, which was widely attacked in the Armenian press, received a glowing review by a journalist close to the APNM.38

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The APNM’s strong dislike of the Soviet Union and Russia was reflected in its advocacy of a reassessment of the past and “realism” with respect to the present. Many APNM ideologists, including members of the Karabagh Committee itself, even placed some of the blame for the genocide on Armenians. Upon returning from Yerevan, French historian Jacques Julliard marveled in his column of the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur at the comments of the late Hampartsoum Galstian, then Mayor of Yerevan. Galstian told him that whereas the reality of the genocide was beyond doubt, “Armenians had to have the courage of examining directly the attitude that was theirs at that time and their inability to keep the balance even between the Turks and their Russian foes. . . ”. Julliard was enthusiastic: Formidable courage, by which Turkish leaders might do well to get inspired. When, then, will President Turgut Özal kneel down to ask forgiveness from the Armenians, as Willy Brandt had the capacity to do from the Jews?39 Ter-Petrosian himself gave a speech in which he blamed the ARF for indirectly abetting the genocide. The ARF had collaborated with the Committee of Union and Progress, he said, as a result of which “the vigilance of the Armenian people came to a standstill.” He also argued that at its Eighth General Congress, the ARF had decided that the Ottoman Armenians should take part in the general mobilization of their country for World War I and accept conscription. Had they resisted conscription, Ter-Petrosian argued, Armenians might not have escaped the planned extermination, but they could have organized self-defense in many places and avoided total extermination.40 Anti-Soviet and anti-Russian inclinations also led the APNM’s ideologists and leaders to deride the existence of “pan-Turkism.” Thus, Rafayel Ishkhanian wrote: I was curious whether today foreign sources are writing about the existence of contemporary Pan-Turkism and about its plan to annihilate Armenia. I could not come across any information.41 In fact, the term “pan-Turkism” referred to Ankara’s foreign policy which at that time hoped to draw on kinship ties among Turkic peoples to increase Turkey’s influence in Central Asia and Azerbaijan. The hope was that linguistic and cultural ties would foster collaboration and enable Turkey to achieve one of its long-term goals, namely, the establishment of territorial continuity with Azerbaijan and, if possible, Central Asia. For the APNM, however, pan-Turkism was the bogeyman that the Armenian Communist Party and the ARF were using to maintain Armenia’s dependence on the Soviet Union, and after the latter’s collapse, on Russia. These very same forces had opposed independence.42 Thus, the ARF and the late Hrair Maroukhian, its leader at the time, were accused of collusion with Moscow and the KGB.43 “There are truths best perceived by mediocre minds, because they are most suited to them,” said Nietzsche.44 The fate of Ter-Petrosian’s “southern” orientation corroborated the skepticism, if not hostility, of the more parochial leaders

State, homeland, and diaspora 89 of Soviet Armenia and the diaspora toward that policy. Certainly, it could be that their views were suffused with ignorance, narrow-mindedness, prejudice, or selfinterest. It could also be that some of those leaders were following Moscow’s directives. Whatever the case, the ideas of the often brilliant intellectuals that formed the Karabagh Committee failed the test of practice, at least during Ter-Petrosian’s tenure. There were reasons for such a failure. The ideas were based on a great number of assumptions, some of which were highly dubious. One was that Turkey would be as interested in normalizing relations with Armenia as Armenia was with Turkey. After all, it takes two to make a happy marriage. Second was the assumption that Mountainous Karabagh could be united in one way or another with Armenia and normal relations could be established with Turkey at the same time. Third, it was expected that Turkey could “forget” the genocide issue, since Armenia was putting it aside. Fourth, it was assumed that attachment to kinship, not to say racial, ties, and to pan-Turkic feelings, was not important in Turkey and would not hinder a policy that the APNM viewed as highly rational. Finally, one must add the APNM’s poor judgment about, or perhaps ignorance of, the political views prevailing in the Turkish ruling class and the state of Turkish public opinion. In response to the various factors that shaped Turkish foreign policy, Turkey did not establish diplomatic relations with Armenia. It set “Armenia’s explicit abandonment of territorial designs on Turkey, of allegations of Turkey’s culpability for the ‘genocide’ of Armenians, and a Karabakh solution as preconditions to diplomatic ties.”45 From an Armenian perspective, these preconditions were “groundless and unacceptable for Armenia as humiliating for its national dignity,” as the Director of the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences suggested.46 In sum, all the assumptions upon which the views of the APNM and Ter-Petrosian’s subsequent foreign policy toward Turkey were based proved unrealistic. Nevertheless, armed with the ideas of what came to be called “the new thinking,” Ter-Petrosian attempted throughout his tenure to establish normal relations with Turkey. He did so despite the fact that the late Turkish president, Turgut Özal, stated on March 6, 1992 that, “on the matter of Karabakh, it is necessary to scare the Armenians a little bit.” Özal also dispatched several dozen officers to advise and train the Azerbaijani army, and he deployed about 50,000 military reinforcements along the Armenian border.47 When the Armenians captured the town of Shushi (or Shusha) in May 1992, Özal accused the Armenians of aggression and threatened to send the Turkish army into the Caucasus. This public threat was immediately answered by Marshal Evgenii Shaposhnikov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Joint Armed Forces of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). He warned that such a move could lead to a third world war, which served to define more clearly the limits of acceptable Turkish activities in the region.48 Nevertheless, shortly before his death in April 1993, President Özal, clearly alluding to the 1915 genocide, stated that “Armenia has not learned its lesson from the experience in Anatolia and the punishment inflicted.”49 This statement, which figured prominently in the

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Armenian press, further undermined the credibility of Ter-Petrosian’s “southern” orientation and the political position of its proponents. Thus, after more than seven years in power, Ter-Petrosian had little to show for his efforts to improve relations with Turkey. People close to the regime would put a brave face on it by pointing to the vital shipments of wheat that reached Armenia from Turkey during the harsh winter of 1992–3, while glossing over the Turkish blockade of the country. They would not mention that Ankara forced Armenian civil flights to land in Turkey and delayed for months the delivery of humanitarian relief.50 They also did not account for the financial details of that arrangement: After many Byzantine tactics and months of delay, Turkey finally agreed to ship Armenia 100,000 metric tons of wheat, which the European community had promised to replace. After humiliating Armenia’s entire population in bread lines, Turkey at last began shipping the wheat across the border, at a very slow pace and at a very high price. The transportation of wheat all the way from Russia to Armenia costs only $2 per metric ton, payable in devalued rubles; Turkey charged $56 per ton in hard currency. Armenia was forced to deplete her foreign currency reserves to avoid bread riots.51 Libaridian has argued that more progress was made with regard to recognition of the genocide under Ter-Petrosian than during the three preceding decades. The first breakthrough, according to him, was the participation of a Turkish sociologist at the 1995 genocide conference in Yerevan. The second occurred when the mayor of a city near Istanbul visited Yerevan and the Martyrs’ Monument. Libaridian construes both events as having occurred with the acquiescence of the Turkish government.52 In addition to these achievements, Ter-Petrosian’s policies secured the on-and-off opening of an air corridor.53 In fact, what was at first a wise policy became, at least in the medium run, a humiliating embarrassment for most Armenians. Many, including the current Armenian President, Robert Kocharian, believe that Ter-Petrosian’s policy toward Turkey proved counter-productive, for it gave Ankara the impression that Armenia was so desperate as to be inclined to accept anything to establish normal relations and lift the Turkish blockade. A modicum of flexibility on the part of the Turkish governments toward Armenia might have gone a long way to legitimate Ter-Petrosian’s policies and improve the economic plight of the Armenian population. It might also have been an important step in the much needed confidence building process required to establish normal relations. Finally, it might have facilitated a number of regional arrangements about pipelines and other matters, arrangements that would have been, first and foremost, in Turkey’s interest. But no such flexibility was forthcoming. All the issues concerning political orientation and ideology came together in a heated debate on the so-called “national ideology” (azgayin gaghaparakhosoutyoun or gaghaparabanoutyoun) of Armenia. The concept itself was rather fuzzy. It seems to have referred, in the minds of the opposition at least, to the historical myths, “half-

State, homeland, and diaspora 91 truths,” and truths that often form the foundation for the self-image of nations and their political agendas. Some nations feel “chosen,” others believe in some kind of “destiny” shaping their history, and others feel blessed with a “mission” to spread “civilization” or “democracy.” Ter-Petrosian and his allies inserted into the debate a question about the very existence of a “national ideology.” Presidential advisers, Ktrich Sardaryan and Ashot Bleyan, a former MP and ex-First Deputy Minister of Sciences and Education, were particularly active in denying that the Armenian nation had values and ideals inherited from the past that defined its identity and position in the world. In response to a question about “national ideology” in his fateful press conference of September 26, 1997 that served as the launch pad for his resignation, Ter-Petrosian expressed his administration’s position on the matters as follows: Q: The necessity of a national ideology and a national mission has recently been the focus of our politicians, and you have called national ideology a pseudo-category. Was it a political, scientific, or philosophical comment? Ter-Petrosian: It was neither a philosophical nor a political or scientific. It was a very simple human idea coming from my conception of democracy. I called national ideology a pseudo-category and I repeat it today. What do they mean by a national ideology? Only one thing – which the whole nation should accept. A whole nation accepts one single ideology only in totalitarian systems, only in ideologized states. If there is democracy, no one can impose any ideology. Today, every ideology in Armenia is a national one to me, because each of them projects the best way of solving the national issues in itself. If a nation is forced to accept a national ideology, that is the end of democracy.54 Thus, to Ter-Petrosian the concept of “national consensus” (azgayin hamadzaynoutyoun) was “a fake political category.”55 In an interview with the Armenian International Magazine (AIM), he added that “history is a fake science.”56 None of this sat well with the Armenian intelligentsia in general and the academic establishment in particular, most of whom loathed Ter-Petrosian and his regime. Academic articles were published showing that a “national ideology” did exist in the course of Armenia’s history and that of various nations, and that “national ideology” has a specific content and function. One scholar argued that it formalizes national mythologies and provides a sense of mission linking one’s internal spiritual life with the historic experience and role of one’s nation in the world. It also shapes national identity, of which the main stable foundation was the homeland.57 Another scholar began his article as follows: “National Ideology is a real concept (Haskatsoutyoun), and it is entirely knowable scientifically.”58 Yet another stated that the propaganda and activities of the new regime had attempted to sow “disappointment, denial, and even hatred in the people toward what they themselves have created.” This is “the bitter mentality of nihilism,” with which this new generation of Armenians came to power.59 For his part, the head

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of the Communist Party of Armenia (CPA) Sergei Badalian stated in his report to the 33rd CPA Congress that one of the tasks of the party was “to protect the nation from spiritual genocide.”60 Perhaps the most devastating criticism, however, came from the holder of the chair in Armenian history at Yerevan State University, Lendroush Khourshoudian. In a book published shortly after his death in 1999, Khourshoudian put forward a number of themes that were then used efficiently against Ter-Petrosian and his allies. The APNM, he argued, rejects “national ideology, because it wants to replace it with a “state ideology” (petakan gaghaparakhosoutyoun). He continued: However, the problem is that the APNM was not in a condition to create its own original state ideology. The defeatist leadership of Armenia was guided by disparate, a-national (apazgayin), populist ideas, which were borrowed from the international arsenals of a-national forces.61 Indeed, the opposition portrayed the president and his associates as being “a-national” (apazgayin), in their essence. The criticism only intensified after Bleyan went on a peace mission to Azerbaijan in the spring of 1993, and after Sardarian and Bleyan founded a political organization called “Nor Ughi” [New Path] that same year that advocated the return of Mountainous Karabagh to the status quo ante as an autonomous region within Azerbaijan. As a result, the opposition began to charge the Ter-Petrosian administration with treason. When Ter-Petrosian repeated most of the arguments of Nor Ughi during his press conference on September 26, 1997 and was then publicly supported by presidential adviser Sardarian, he ended up being associated even more closely with widely despised individuals in the minds of the people and a substantial segment of the diaspora.62

The APNM approach to the diaspora Ter-Petrosian’s policies toward the Armenian diaspora did not help his popularity either. From the start, he and his advisers put down diaspora Armenians as being inept romantics in the political arena. The first signs of the tension between the Karabagh Movement and the three political parties of the diaspora appeared in the “joint statement” that these parties issued in October 1988 that called upon their “valiant brethren in Armenia and Karabagh to forgo such extreme acts as work stoppages, student strikes, and some radical calls and expressions that unsettle public life in Armenia.” In a rare show of unity, the Hnchakian Social Democratic Party, the ARF, and the ADLP were worried at the time about harming “the good standing of our nation in its relations with the higher Soviet bodies and other Soviet republics.”63 The least one can say is that this statement was not well received by the Karabagh Committee members. The tension between the APNM and the ARF increased. At the second congress of the APNM (November 23–5, 1990), Libaridian delivered a speech dealing with the diaspora. It was not kind to the three traditional parties.

State, homeland, and diaspora 93 Before it can wear its age as a sign of strength, the Hunchakian Party must explain why it was possible to declare for decades that the Sovietization of Armenia represents the realization of all political dreams of Armenians. Before it can impatiently demand that the new government of Armenia lay claim to Western Armenian territories, the Ramgavar Party must explain why it could live without any such concerns for decades without feeling it was betraying national interests. Before it can use the issue of genocide as a stick against the new government, the Dashnaktsutiune [sic] must explain how the party could be [so] engulfed in the 1950s anti-communism of the Cold War for two decades that it would forget about Turkey. This most important of diaspora political parties must explain why it is that in November 1988 its leadership could ask everyone to dedicate themselves solely to issues of economic development of an Armenia governed by the Communist Party, thus helping extend the rule of the former regime and delaying the coming of democracy. But then, as a democratic government is elected, the party leadership reverses its stand, questions the legitimacy of that government, and seeks to replace it.64 In the view of the APNM, diaspora Armenians should not meddle in the political life of Armenia; rather, they should content themselves with providing financial aid and “strengthening statehood,” which meant more or less supporting the policies of the government.65 Those who provided such aid soon discovered that it had a tendency to evaporate. This is what one of the top leaders of the very moderate ADLP, whose well-to-do members were not ill-disposed toward the new regime and often supported the country financially, wrote in 1993: Although the country is in dire need of foreign investments, it has not yet developed laws to protect foreign capital. Almost all joint ventures have turned sour. Diaspora Armenians who (motivated by patriotism or profit) have tried to start businesses or engage in joint ventures have soon found out that they are being ripped off. But the saddest realization comes when they learn that their corrupt partners enjoy protection from higher echelons in the government. . . . Another factor is the attitude of the ruling class to the opposition. The tolerance level of that ruling class is dangerously low. . . . Even responsible people make irresponsible pronouncements: they deplore the multi-party system, or naively call for a docile opposition policy, completely ignoring the dynamics of social and political forces in a healthy democracy.66 The wealthy honorary consul of the Republic of Armenia in India fully shared these concerns about deepening corruption and the difficulties that Diaspora Armenians experienced trying to do business in Armenia. “Without a kopeck,” without any knowledge of the language of his new country, “with the just sweat of his brow, with his labor,” the diaspora survivor succeeded. “[The Armenian] did not beg in a foreign country, why should he beg in his homeland?”67 As the longest serving diaspora Armenian in the government and a close associate of the president, Libaridian was one of the few members of the leadership who

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knew anything about the diaspora.68 He was, indeed, instrumental in shaping the government’s diaspora policies. His views about diaspora aid and benefactors were unlikely to endear him to diasporan Armenians trying to do business in Armenia: And the price this government pays and these people, when every goddamned rich Armenian, who comes, or organization [sic], to give 50,000 dollars or something, they have to negotiate your pride and dignity, bring you down to the level of a fourth world country and insult people. Unwittingly.69 In the US, an elaborate network of Armenians dissatisfied with the established organizations of the diaspora was mobilized to support the goals of the government. In the 1980s, many of them had been involved in, or had gravitated around, the Zoryan Institute. By the 1990s, the supporters of the Ter-Petrosian regime had gathered around AIM, or were under the influence of its coverage of news from Armenia. Efforts were made by the government to splinter diaspora political parties. In the case of the ADLP and the Hnchakian party, these efforts were fully successful. The ARF, which had adopted a negative attitude toward the Karabagh Committee and the APNM from their very inception, also underwent some internal agitation. It did not, however, split. After its dismal showing in the 1991 presidential elections, that party stepped up the intensity of its criticism of the regime and of Ter-Petrosian personally. Faced with substantial discontent in the National Assembly, where a majority of deputies had just voted to put the recognition of the Republic of Mountainous Karabagh by Armenia on the agenda, Ter-Petrosian took a bold step.70 On June 29, 1992, he delivered a 90-minute televised address to the nation, accusing the leaders of the ARF of collusion with the KGB and of having raised funds for Armenia and Mountainous Karabagh that never reached their destinations. He also gave its top leader, the late Hrair Maroukhian, 48 hours to leave the country at a time when the general congress of that organization was scheduled to open the next day.71 This was not merely a message to the ARF – it was a warning shot for the opposition in general and the diasporan parties in particular. Libaridian explained the attack on a man whose protégé he had once been until they parted in a bitter dispute in 1988 as follows: [Ter-Petrosian] took on the most powerful man of the most powerful [diaspora] organization and it was a message [that said] in a way, from my point of view to the diaspora: Know your place! You are not running this republic! . . . This is not an all-Armenian government.72

Dual citizenship and corruption The symbolic issue of dual citizenship also became a major source of discord. The government decided to deny its citizens the right to be simultaneously a citizen of another country. For many diasporan Armenians who thought naively that their Armenian ethnicity entitled them to Armenian citizenship, this was a major

State, homeland, and diaspora 95 disappointment. It meant that there was no such thing as a one and indivisible Armenian nation. The president, however, justified his decision during the fateful interview of September 26, 1997 with the following words: Now about dual citizenship – I have already expressed my opinion in [sic] that issue. I think the Diaspora must be so generous as to understand why we have denied the double citizenship. I have tried to explain it. We have very serious problems. If we had adopted the double citizenship, today we would not have had an army. Would the Diaspora want Armenia not to have an army? Would the Diaspora want Karabakh to be defeated? It is a shame. A great many young Armenians ran away from Armenia together with their families not to serve in the army. If they had double citizenship, none of them would serve in our army.73 A well-known Armenian political observer and columnist responded as follows: “[The president’s] answers concerning dual citizenship . . . were also extremely unconvincing.”74 Indeed, all existing evidence suggests that the absence of dual citizenship has not prevented tens of thousands of young Armenian males from settling abroad and avoiding military service. At least one million Armenians have emigrated since 1990. For the sons of the wealthy, who enriched themselves under Ter-Petrosian’s rule, avoiding conscription became a matter of several thousand dollars paid as a bribe. The real reason for forbidding dual citizenship was to secure the monopoly of the indigenous “nouveaux riches” on the Armenian economy, the political system (cf. the financing of parties), and the media. It was used, to quote Heidegger, “as a bulwark against the on-rush of the alien.”75 The same mentality inspired some groups that opposed selling Armenia’s large enterprises to foreign companies. For instance, the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs headed by Telman Ter-Petrosian favored “protecting heavy industry from international pressure.”76 The result of these policies was to undermine potential support from the diaspora, to sharpen its pre-existing dissentions and hatreds, and to co-opt a few individuals and organizations, most of whom represented little other than themselves. On the other hand, many, even among those who kept providing some help to Armenia for patriotic reasons, viewed these policies as detrimental to the future of the Armenian people. For members of the ARF, the government’s policies were viewed as “a-national.” In general, most diasporans “privatized” or “personalized” their help by circumventing official channels, giving their money directly to a specific group or family. Nevertheless, the potential of diasporan Armenians, whatever one might think of their organizations and leaders, could not be dismissed easily. Tigran Sargisian, chairman of the Association of Armenian Banks, reported that $350 million entered Armenia yearly from abroad as financial aid.77 This figure represented almost 19 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) for 1998 ($1.85 billion). Forty percent of such transfers came from Russia, which suggests that about 50 percent

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came from the West and the Middle East, areas where the historic parties of the diaspora have solid roots, especially the ADLO and the ARF.78 More generally, corruption, lack of confidence in the regime, an inadequate and unreliable legal and judicial system, and arbitrary taxation kept foreign direct investment (FDI) in Armenia at very low levels. The EBRD estimated the cumulative total of FDI from 1991 to 1997 at a mere $102.8 million. In 1998, after Ter-Petrosian’s resignation and the launching of a reasonably rational privatization program that was more open to foreign investors FDI jumped to $228 million.79 The APNM’s views and policies, the growing authoritarian tendencies of the Ter-Petrosian regime, the rigged presidential elections of 1996, and the violence that the elections provoked also contributed to diminishing aid to Armenia from the diaspora, as suggested by the difficulties the Armenia Fund had in raising money during its 1997 telethon in North America: only about $1 million was pledged, which billionaire Kirk Kerkorian matched with another million. The total was about threefold less than the amount of money raised the previous year. FDI is extremely important for a small, landlocked country of less than three million inhabitants undergoing a transition from a planned to a market economy. In the opinion of two economists, “[I]t is likely that the Armenian Diaspora, by itself, could provide sufficient foreign investment to improve the country’s macroeconomic performance.”80 This is all the more true in view of the fact that the average foreign investment package in Armenia varied from $100,000 to $200,000 up through 1998.81

Legitimacy Growing authoritarianism, unsolved political killings, politically motivated trials, pressures, and restrictions on the press constituted additional factors undermining the regime’s popularity.82 Preliminary blows were the rigged parliamentary elections and the rigged referendum on the adoption of the constitution that took place on July 5, 1995.83 Even more important, however, were the fraudulent presidential elections of September 22, 1996. The election results were made public by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) on September 29. According to the official tally, Ter-Petrosian had received 51.7 percent of the vote, while his main challenger, Vazgen Manoukian, had received 41.29 percent. A runoff between these two candidates had thus been avoided.84 In addition to the earlier disappointments, the legitimacy of the regime was now in question for many diasporan Armenians, especially ARF sympathizers and a significant number of ADLP sympathizers and so-called neutral Armenians. The Armenian State had failed to control the diaspora and had in fact generated disappointment and resentment.

The thaw After the forced resignation of Levon Ter-Petrosian in February 1998 and the subsequent presidential elections, the current President, Robert Kocharian, and

State, homeland, and diaspora 97 his then Prime Minister, the late Vazgen Sargsian, tried to bridge the damaging gap between the State and the diaspora. They decided to convene the first Armenia-Diaspora conference. In an interview with Armenpress on July 11, 1999, Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian hinted at some of the above-mentioned difficulties to explain the purpose of the conference: It is crucial that Armenia-Diaspora relations be reexamined, and recognized in order to meet new, contemporary demands and imperatives. . . . Following independence, neither the state nor many of our Diaspora institutions seemed prepared to adequately deal with the challenges. During eight years of independence, Armenia and the Diaspora have come to know each other better, but there is still plenty to learn. While there is still a long way to go, we believe that we must spare no effort in constructively and collectively reviewing ways in which we can improve the relationship.85 Asked what is the ideological premise of the conference, Oskanian introduced a clear distinction between homeland and state: We have one nation and one homeland. However, this slogan: [sic!] one nation and one homeland, is more than anything else, a moral, psychological, and emotional statement. The adoption of an alternate slogan – one nations [sic!], one state, [sic] – is more likely to lead to real and practical vistas, to new ideological ground.86 The goal of the conference was twofold: to create an umbrella organization to organize coordination and cooperation between the Diaspora and Armenia, and to identify issues of “critical national significance.” Oskanian recognized that the creation of a mechanism for coordination required “absolute consent by all parties.” Indeed, consensus, and not majority vote, was the principle adopted to resolve issues. In addition, the Steering Committee of that conference, established on December 24, 1998 by President Robert Kocharian, consulted broadly with most significant diaspora organizations and the Armenian Apostolic, Evangelical, and Catholic Churches. Things had changed from President Ter-Petrosian’s time. The conference, attended by over 1,000 delegates from all over the world, took place on September 22–3, 1999. In his weekly column, one well-known diaspora journalist adequately used the following title: “Armenian-Diaspora Conference: A Global Family Reunion.”87 This was indeed what it was: an emotional event that marked a new beginning. The conference adopted “A Statement of Principles” and issued a “Statement on Karabagh.” It also laid the foundation for the formation of various committees over the subsequent months. The assassination of Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsian and Parliament Chair Karen Demirchian on October 27, 1999, however, and the subsequent period of relative political instability in Armenia, seem to have thrown many things off course. That little of practical significance was achieved is clear, for the second Armenia-Diaspora conference, which was held on May 27–8, 2002, dealt again with the creation of

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a mechanism to coordinate the diaspora’s activities and to prioritize its goals. But the format of the conference was more practical. In an interview preceding it, Foreign Minister Oskanian underlined this aspect of the event: The second conference will definitely be more focused, with various sectors more directly examined, with one or two or more projects – of specific interest to either Armenia or Diaspora or both – formally adopted for followthrough and implementation. All attendees will not spend the entire two-day period in plenary sessions. This year, most of the time will be allocated to smaller, simultaneous sessions covering specific topics.88

STATE, HOMELAND, AND DIASPORA: THE AZERBAIJANI CASE The origins of the developing Azerbaijani diaspora can be traced back to the mainly elite expatriate community that sought refuge in Turkey and Germany after the Sovietization of the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in April 1920. Official documents from the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis, which took place in Baku on November 9–10, 2001, stress that the founding event in the development of diaspora consciousness was the decree of the Supreme Majlis of the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, dated December 16, 1991, that made December 31 of every year the Day of Solidarity of World Azerbaijanis. As the then Chairman of that Majlis, President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev was thus the main initiator of that decree.89 A similar decree was adopted subsequently by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan, making December 31 a day of celebration for the whole Azerbaijani nation.90 The role of the president is further stressed in the “Resolution of the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis”: Though the history of emigration of Azerbaijanis to different countries occurred in the dawn of the XX century, the formation of Azerbaijani diaspora was essentially late. To a great regret that its formation takes place in the period of after regaining state independence, exactly after 1993. Beginning just from this period, during the visits of President of the Republic of Azerbaijan to foreign countries, in the course of meetings, held by him with the Azerbaijani communities in these countries, as a task was put forward the necessity of formation and organizing the Azerbaiajani diaspora [sic, throughout].91 The official statement does recognize that the Azerbaijani diaspora, in the sense we defined that term, is a late phenomenon. On the other hand, it essentially overlooks developments that preceded the decree of the Nakhichevan Majlis, let alone the subsequent decree of the Supreme Council of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Many Azerbaijani intellectuals were indeed very much interested in late-Soviet

State, homeland, and diaspora 99 times in their ethnic brethren living outside their republic, be it in Iranian Azerbaijan or in Soviet Armenia, Central Asia, Dagestan, or Georgia.92 As early as the end of 1987, the Vätän (Homeland) society was thus founded to develop and monitor relations with Iranian Azerbaijan, as well as with Azerbaijanis throughout the world. This society grew out of the department dealing with compatriots abroad at the Azerbaijani Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries.93 More importantly perhaps, this statement erases the role of the leader of the Popular Front of Azerbaijan and first post-Soviet President of that country, Abulfez Aliyev, known as Elchibey, whose speeches, interviews, and writings were undoubtedly more influential in the awakening of the sense of Azerbaijani national identity and solidarity worldwide. Certainly, the latter were focused not so much on the theme of the Azerbaijani diaspora in general as on panAzerbaijanism, the unification with Iranian Azerbaijan.94 Even after being overthrown from the Presidency in June 1993, Elchibey stressed the theme of Azerbaijani solidarity and pursued the goal of unifying the Republic of Azerbaijan with Iranian Azerbaijan (“southern” Azerbaijan) consistently. He remained thus faithful to the statement he made in an interview to Literaturnaia gazeta on March 1, 1995 that he would devote the rest of his life to reunification.95 In December 1997, Elchibey brought together many opposition groups to found the United Azerbaijan Union (Bütov Azerbaycan Birliyi), which aimed at uniting the Republic of Azerbaijan with Iranian Azerbaijan, in order to free the southern Azerbaijanis from what the Union views as Persian oppression.96 He chaired that organization and subsequently a committee charged with drafting its program, which was adopted on May 13, 2000. The irredentist agenda of the latter is clear.97 On April 22, 1999, a new committee was formed to defend the rights of Azerbaijanis throughout the world, in particular in Iranian Azerbaijan, and to coordinate their activities. Bäkhtiyar Vahabzade, the iconic nationalist poet of Azerbaijan, and Abulfez Elchibey sat on its board of directors. This is the Dünya Azerbaycanlılarının Haqlarını Müdafie Komitesi, the Committee for the Defense of the Rights of the Azerbaijanis of the World.98 With the advantage of hindsight, it is somewhat ironic that the theme of “southern Azerbaijan” is so central to the emerging sense of pan-Azerbaijanism and to the activities related to it, for it was originally a Soviet propaganda tool aimed at destabilizing Iran after the demise of Sayyid Jafar Pishevari’s short-lived autonomous government in Iranian Azerbaijan (December 1945–December 1946).99 With independence from Moscow, the “southern” theme has taken a life of its own, reflecting perhaps the feeling of kinship with their southern brethren, which many Azerbaijanis had felt earlier, but could express only as part of Soviet propaganda.

State-sponsored mobilization In this context, the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis was an attempt by President Aliyev to bring under the control of the State the issue of the Azerbaijani diaspora and the development of its organizations. This is all the more the case, since an organization established earlier in the diaspora itself was already trying to bring

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together Azerbaijanis worldwide – the World Azerbaijanis Congress, to be discussed later. The overall participation in the First Forum was significant. A press release dated November 9, 2001 mentions 1,105 delegates as taking part in the event, 400 of whom came from 31 countries and the remainder being “representatives of the NGOs of Azerbaijan, well-known musicians, scientists, poets, politician [sic] and others.” There were, in addition, guests.100 Another document suggests that “1,105 representatives out of the 1,193 elected, as well as 906 guests” were present.101 On the whole, it would seem that the majority of the delegates were from Azerbaijan itself. The President of the Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, Mahmud Kerimov, chaired the forum and was subsequently elected chairman of the Coordination Council that will pursue the tasks defined during the forum. The forum accomplished little of practical significance, except sending “addresses” to the Azerbaijanis of the world, to international organizations, and to world leaders. The central theme in those addresses is the solidarity of the Azerbaijanis, the Mountainous Karabagh conflict, the occupation of Azerbaijani lands outside Karabagh by Armenians from that region itself, the controversial massacre at Khodjaly, and the situation of the Azerbaijani refugees. In a nutshell, a state-sponsored agenda, certainly of concern to most Azerbaijanis, replaced issues specific to diaspora-homeland relations. The first point of the final statement of the forum is also revealing: Azerbaijanis of the world highly appreciate the success achieved by the independent Republic of Azerbaijan in the last decade in numerous fields, fully supports [sic] the external and internal policy of the Azerbaijani State.102 Negative reactions have come to the open, in particular on the part of some Azerbaijanis from Georgia’s Azeri-inhabited region of Borchalu (district of Kvemo Kartli). At a meeting held in Tbilisi on November 17, 2001, they protested against the Azerbaijani ambassador in Georgia, Hacan Haciyev, whom they accused of having handpicked the delegates from Georgia. They also “deemed unsatisfactory the activities of the delegation, which participated in the congress.”103 Similar discontent could also be heard from Azerbaijanis living in Russia. Criticism was perhaps even stronger, however, on the part of some Iranian Azerbaijanis. Radio Free Europe reported that Aslan Khalidi, a politician from Iranian Azerbaijan, stated that no “southern” Azerbaijani working in the Azerbaijani State had been invited to the forum. He found it unfortunate that the said Southern Azerbaijanis who form 70 percent of the world Azerbaijani population were excluded from the event. This was, in his view, a Baku concession to Tehran.104 On the other hand, the Azerbaijani opposition either boycotted the forum, or asserted that it was not invited to it.105 Many articles in the opposition press also derided the event. Two of these, appearing in Azadlig and Yeni Musavat respectively, pointed out for instance that the majority of the invitees, in particular those from Russia, were people who had fled the country because of Heydar Aliyev’s regime.106

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The western diaspora The Forum is not the only attempt at mobilizing the Azerbaijani diaspora. The World Azerbaijanis Congress, an organization made up essentially of Iranian Azerbaijanis, was founded in Washington DC in 1997, and held its fifth congress in Malmo, Sweden, from August 10–12, 2001. It now has branches in 36 countries, stretching from Australia to Russia and the US. Even though its latest proclamations are quite similar to those of the Forum of World Azerbaijanis, its main focus is the independence of Iranian, or southern, Azerbaijan, and its unification with the Republic of Azerbaijan.107 Its bylaws emphasize, among many other things, democracy and human rights, the defense of the rights of Azerbaijanis in the motherland, and the necessity to appeal in these regards to international organizations. Clearly, the sources of inspiration of this organization are to be found in the Tabriz revolt of 1920 led by Shaikh Muhammad Khiabani and in Sayyid Jafar Pishevari’s autonomous regime in the same region in 1945–6.108 To these must be added the “literature of longing” and the creation and institutionalization of the “Southern Question” which the Soviet regime promoted in Soviet Azerbaijan from the end of the 1940s on.109 The chairman of the World Azerbaijanis Congress, Dr Javad Derakhti, attended the Forum of World Azerbaijanis. In an interview with the newspaper 525ci Qazet (Baku), he touched upon the relationship between the two organizations and between his and the Azerbaijani State: We have no problem. Simply, there appeared certain misunderstanding [sic]. Somebody wanted to establish an alternative organization to CWA [World Azerbaijanis Congress]. Therefore, I talked with Azerbaijan’s government official Hidayat Orujov and Rustam Mammadov. We told them that they must send an invitation for CWA [sic]. However, they wanted to invite us via telephone.110 President Heydar Aliyev’s attempt at controlling the diaspora was also clear in the way the first All-Russian Congress of Azerbaijanis, which took place in Moscow on October 4–5, 2001, was organized.111 Zahid Gojayev, President of the Congress of National Minorities working in Russia, told RFE/RL Azerbaijan’s service that “not all the Azerbaijani communities were represented in the session held on October 4 in Moscow.” The participants were mainly “Azerbaijanis living in Russia who support the interests of the Azerbaijani government.” In Gojayev’s opinion, “official Baku intends to use the event to create a loyal Azerbaijani Diaspora in Russia, but in fact it may result in the fragmentation of the Azerbaijani community in Russia.”112 The crucial importance of the Azerbaijani community in Russia, estimated at about 2.2 million individuals, lies in the role it may play in Azerbaijani–Russian relations and the fact that it was supposed to send a 130-strong delegation to the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis.113 The potential importance of that community for Azerbaijani–Russian relations was not lost on the Russians. Thus, Aleksey Chesnokov, the director of the Russian

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Center for the Study of the Political Situation, published last summer an article entitled “Russia Needs a Stable Azerbaijan” in Nezavisimaia Gazeta. Whether it was a trial balloon matters perhaps less than the fact that it was reprinted in official Azerbaijani newspapers on August 1, within a few days of its publication in Russia. Chesnokov states the following: Incidentally, the vast Azerbaijani diaspora in our country could become an important “ally” for Russia. Any attempts to solve the problems in Azerbaijani–Russian relations without involving the Azerbaijani diaspora can be regarded as utopian. The Azerbaijani community in Russia is a powerful unifying tool, unlike the Russian diaspora in Azerbaijan, which has failed to adapt itself to the new political reality.114 On the whole, the mobilization of the Azerbaijani diaspora, whether by the State or by some Iranian Azerbaijanis, is faced with a number of divisions. Writing shortly after both congresses had taken place, the editor of an Azerbaijani-– American newsletter pointed to those divisions, but sounded optimistic. Although divided by issues of political views [sic], origin of most of the participants (North or South Azerbaijan), attitude toward Iran and Russia, Azeri Diaspora communities have reached the point of uniting.115 Dr Jeyhun Mollazade, President of the US–Azerbaijan Council, underlined for his part the divisions plaguing the Azeri-Americans. Another challenge has been the split within the Azeri-American Diaspora. Amongst Azeri-Iranian,s [sic] there is split between those who support the former Shah of Iran, those who support various leftist parties in Iran and others with various political affiliations. Many of these Azeri-Iranians may identify themselves culturally with Azerbaijan but their identification does not translate into support for our political or national causes such as for example over Nagorno-Karabakh. Within the Azeri-American Diaspora from Azerbaijan proper, there are differences, which further divide us. There are for example people who support the government and then there are those who support Azerbaijan’s opposition political parties.116 The small size of the Azeri-American diaspora from Azerbaijan proper, he adds, further weakens the diaspora’s ability to influence policy in the US.

CONCLUSION The main difference between the Armenian and the Azerbaijani diasporas is that the former developed in the absence of a state, whereas the latter is taking

State, homeland, and diaspora 103 shape in the context of Azerbaijani independence. Indeed, insofar as Azerbaijanis from the republic are concerned, we are witnessing a process of statecentered diasporization, or even diasporization from above. Even in the case of Iranian Azerbaijanis, at least those who feel close to the World Azerbaijanis Congress, independence made a difference, as a statement of that organization suggests: During the Soviet period, the Azerbaijan cause was backed nominally by the Soviet threat. From the Southern standpoint, the Soviet affiliation made unification with the North less palatable. Now that Azerbaijan is independent, however, unification is no longer tied to the threat of Marxism–Leninism. On the other hand, Azerbaijan’s first years of independence have been fraught with economic, political, and social difficulties.117 The second difference between the Armenian and Azerbaijani diasporas has to do with time and evolution. The Armenian diaspora has passed the test of time. A French scholar sums up that issue aptly: The maintenance of the feeling of belonging and the certainty of identity is, in minority situations, a matter of will, of conscious decision and, one might even say, determination. Certainly, the word diaspora is used today to describe any community that has emigrated whose numbers make it visible in the host community. But in order to know whether it is really a diaspora, time has to pass.118 Thus, the Azerbaijani diaspora is best defined, in the terminology used in diaspora studies, as an “incipient diaspora.” The final difference lies in the degree to which the diaspora is dependent on the State. Perhaps as a result of its longer history and its older political parties, the Armenian diaspora tends to be fairly autonomous from the Armenian State, some parties collaborating with its President’s agenda if it fits their own. On the other hand, the Azerbaijani diaspora is much more dependent on the Azerbaijani State, at this point in time at least. Indeed, even the World Azerbaijanis Congress, which was formed in the diaspora by Iranian Azerbaijanis, yearns to benefit from its full recognition by the State. These two diasporas have also a number of things in common. In both cases, the States that carry their ethnonyms do not coincide with their claimed homelands. As a result of this discrepancy, States and diasporas pursue different agendas: whereas the diasporas put forward an irredentist agenda with abandon, the States avoid doing so, even though they might encourage covertly, or even support to a certain extent, the activities of their diasporas. On the other hand, “long-distance nationalism,” which has characterized diverse segments of the Armenian diaspora in the post-Genocide period, is now spreading among the mobilized elements of the incipient Azerbaijani diaspora.119

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NOTES 1 Khachig Tölölyan, “The Nation-State and Its Others: In Lieu of a Preface,” Diaspora 1:1 (Spring 1991), pp. 4–5. 2 Walker Conner [sic], “The Impact of Homelands Upon Diasporas,” in Modern Diasporas in International Politics, ed. Gabriel Sheffer (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1986), p. 16. 3 William Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return,” Diaspora 1:1 (Spring 1991), pp. 83–4. 4 Safran, “Diasporas in Modern Societies,” p. 84. 5 Khachig Tölölyan, “Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment,” Diaspora 5:1 (Spring 1996), p. 11. 6 James Clifford, “Diasporas,” Cultural Anthropology 9:3 (August 1994), p. 306. 7 See, inter alia, Anny Bakalian, Armenian-Americans: From Being to Feeling Armenian (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press, 1993); for a discussion of that issue, Tölölyan, “Rethinking Diaspora(s),” pp. 15–16. 8 Clifford, “Diasporas,” p. 306. 9 Avtar Brah, Cartographies of Diaspora: Contesting Identities (London and New York: Routledge, 1996), p. 183. 10 The Hnchakian Party was founded in Geneva in 1887; the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was formed in Tiflis in 1890; and the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party was established in Istanbul in 1921, even though its roots go back to the Armenagan Party formed in Van in 1885. In Armenia, the members of these parties are respectively called Hnchakians, Dashnaktsagans, and Ramgavars. For the historical background and ideologies of these parties, see Louise Nalbandian, The Armenian Revolutionary Movement (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1963) and Vache Ghazarian, Hamarod Badmutiun RAG-i (Short History of RAG [Democratic Liberal Party]) (Beirut: Mshag, 1978). 11 For a social-psychological interpretation of that polarization, see Sarkis Atamian, The Armenian Community: The Historical Development of a Social and Ideological Conflict (New York: Philosophical Library, 1955), pp. 257–463. Atamian’s views tend to be favorable to the ARF. 12 For a summary of these events and their context, see R. Hrair Dekmejian, “The Armenian Diaspora,” in The Armenian People from Ancient to Modern Times, vol. II: Foreign Dominion to Statehood: The Fifteenth Century to the Twentieth Century, ed. Richard G. Hovannisian, pp. 417–19 (New York: St Martin’s Press, 1997). For the years of polarization leading to the split, see Atamian, The Armenian Community, pp. 424–63. For a few examples of Soviet manipulation of the Armenian Church in the post-World War II period, see S. F. Jones, “Religion and Nationalism in Soviet Georgia and Armenia,” in Religion and Nationalism in Soviet and East European Politics, ed. Pedro Ramet, pp. 178–9 (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 1989). 13 The main articles that defined this new approach appeared in a number of newspapers, particularly Hayk, the official organ of the Armenian Pan-National Movement. These articles were subsequently collected and republished in 1990–1. See A[shot] Bleyan, ed. Vorn e Mer Chanaparhe [Which is Our Path?] (Yerevan: Arevik, 1990); Rafayel Ishkhanian, Yerrort Ouzhi Batsarman Orenke: Hodvatsner [The Law of Exclusion of the Third Force: Articles] (Yerevan: Azad Khosk, 1991); and Ktrich Sardarian, Patmoutyoun yev Irakanoutyoune [History and the Truth] (Yerevan: Parberakan, 1991). Ishkhanian, Sardarian, Vazgen Manoukian (the first prime minister under Ter-Petrosian, until he fell out with him and resigned in July 1992), and to a lesser extent Bleyan were the main ideologists of the movement. Some of these articles were translated into English, see Gérard J. Libaridian, Armenia at the Crossroads:

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Democracy and Nationhood in the Post-Soviet Era (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1991). L. P. Hartley, The Go-Between, ed. Douglas Brooks-Davies (1953; London: Penguin Books, 1997), p. 5. The most famous article in this regard is Rafayel Ishkhanian’s “Yerrort Ouzhi Batsarman Orenke.” It is reproduced in Bleyan, pp. 93–115 and Ishkhanian, pp. 49–73. Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Mer 300 Tarvay Skhale” [Our Three-Hundred-Year-Old Mistake], in Ishkanian, pp. 128–35. Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Mahvan Chanaparhe yev Kyanki Chanaparhe” [The Path of Death and the Path of Life], Hayk, January 28, 1990, p. 3. Vazgen Manoukian, “Gnatskits Trchelou Zhamanakn E” [It is Time to Jump off the Train], in Vorn E Mer Chanaparhe, ed. A. Bleyan, pp. 27–8. For the law in question, see “Law of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on Procedures for Resolving Questions Related to the Secession of Union Republics from the USSR,” The Current Digest of the Soviet Press 42: 15 (May 16, 1990), pp. 20–21, 32. Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Yerrort Ouzhi Batsarman Orenke,” in Ishkhanian, p. 68. Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Patmakan Iradardzoutioun” [Historic Event], in Ishkhanian, pp. 136–7. By that time, 195 seats had been filled out of 259. It is unclear how many deputies were present when that issue was discussed. On August 23, 1990, 187 deputies were present. Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Patmakan Iradardzoutioun” [Historic Event], in Ishkhanian, p. 136. Edmond Y. Azadian, “Address to the Parliament of Armenia: On Independence and the Future of the Republic,” in History on the Move: Views, Interviews and Essays on Armenian Issues, ed. Agop J. Hacikyan and Edward S. Franchuk (s.n.: 1999), p. 6. Both quotations are in Elizabeth Fuller, “The Challenges to Armenia’s Non-Communist Government,” Report on the USSR 3: 18 (May 3, 1991), p. 21. Gharabaghyan Sharzhman Hayastani Komite [Armenia’s Committee of the Karabagh Movement], Hayots Hamazgayin Sharzhoum [Armenian Pan-National Movement] (Yerevan: typewritten, August 19, 1988), p. 3. For some reason, this key document is not included in Libaridian’s translated essays, speeches, and other writings of that time. For a French translation of parts of the APNM program, see “Le programme du mouvement national d’Arménie,” in La Crise des nationalités en URSS, ed. Charles Urjewicz (Problèmes politiques et sociaux 616 [September 29, 1989]), pp. 16–18. See footnote 4 in Libaridian, p. 110. Haroutioun Maroutian, “Hay Poezian Vorpes Inknoutyan Patkeragroutyoun (est Kharabaghyan sharzhman tseghaspanoutyane nvirvats tsoutsapastarneri)” [Armenian Poetry as Representation of Identity (according to the placards of the Karabagh movement devoted to the genocide)], p. 2 (typewritten, still unpublished paper). Maroutian states that these placards touched upon 20 themes. For an English version of this paper, see Harutyun Marutyan, “Iconography of the Gharabagh Movement: An Index of the Transformation of Armenian Identity,” Armenian Forum: A Journal of Contemporary Affairs 2:4 (s.a.), p. 43. Yo’av Karny, Highlanders: A Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000), pp. 389–90. Zolian, like many others, distanced himself from the APNM within a few years and turned into one its more serious critics in the mid-1990s. In particular, he struggled for the establishment of the rule of law in Armenia. Karny, p. 392. Once Armenia became independent, Gérard Libaridian served as adviser to the president until 1994, at which point he was appointed Senior Adviser and Secretary of

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Stephan H. Astourian the Security Council. From March 1993 to September 1994, he was concurrently the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs. Throughout his years in Armenia but even more so during his tenure as Senior Adviser to the president, Libaridian played a leading role in the negotiations with Turkey and those regarding the Mountainous Karabagh conflict. He was also very influential in shaping Ter-Petrosian’s policy toward the Armenian diaspora. Libaridian was a student of Professor Richard G. Hovannisian at UCLA. He held executive positions in the Armenian Revolutionary Federation as he was close to its “iconic” leader, the late Hrair Maroukhian. He was involved with the upper echelons of that organization at a time when that party had moved from the ideology of “Hayapahpanoum” (Preservation of Armenianness) to “Heghapoghakanatsoum” (for lack of a better word, “Revolutionization,” meaning active struggle against Turkey on various fronts). Libaridian was the keeper of the ARF archives in Boston and the editor of the ARF-sponsored Armenian Review. He also founded the Zoryan Institute for Contemporary Armenian Research and Documentation with the full support of the ARF. The main goal of that organization was to document the Armenian genocide. In December 1988, he resigned from the ARF when he “concluded that the party’s opposition to the popular movement in Armenia and Karabagh and to the leadership of that movement was neither accidental nor based on ignorance.” See Gérard J. Libaridian, The Challenge of Statehood: Armenian Political Thinking Since Independence (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1999), p. x. See Libaridian, “Democracy, Diaspora, and the National Agenda,” in Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 161. His speech was also published under the title “An Overview of the Role of the Diaspora in the Lights of Recent Changes in Armenia,” The Armenian Reporter, January 24, 1991, p. 2. Libaridian, “Democracy, Diaspora, and the National Agenda,” in Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 162. Libaridian, The Challenge of Statehood, p. 117. Libaridian, The Challenge of Statehood, p. 116. Edmond Azadian, who met with Libaridian and invited him directly or indirectly to speak in Michigan a number of times, published a fairly laudatory article about him on April 8, 1995, shortly after a trip by Libaridian to Turkey. The article was based on the false assumption that, under US pressure, Turkey would soon make concessions to Armenia concerning its blockade of that country. Azadian writes, “Before giving in to US pressure, Turkey had to be reassured on certain issues. The genocide issue has haunted and will continue to haunt Turkey until she decides to come to terms with her own bloody past. Libaridian seems to have indicated that it is up to historians to determine the facts of that issue, which is what Turkish leaders wish to hear.” See Azadian, History on the Move, p. 189. The participants in that conference had been selected by the organizer. The event was “disrupted” by Richard Hovannisian, whom it was difficult not to invite in view of his seniority in the field. Among other things, Professor Hovannisian argued that political expediency could not substitute for historical truth. The conference was in fact supported financially by Kourken Sarkissian, a wealthy Armenian from Canada who had almost single-handedly financed the Zoryan Institute and backed Libaridian over the years. Primarily as a result of that conference, their relationship soured and Sarkissian broke up his partnership with Libaridian. See the text of his lecture entitled “Verapatkerelov Apagan, Verakhorhelov Nerkan” [Re-imagining the Future, Re-thinking the Past], Aravot, July 22, 2000. August 4, 2000; , p. 4. Aravot is a newspaper representing the views of the APNM. Libaridian, “Verapatkerelov Apagan,” p. 5.

State, homeland, and diaspora 107 38 Gayane Sargsian, “Patmoutyan yev Irakanoutian Karoughiner” [Crossroads of History and Reality], Aravot, July 29, 2000, p. 5. 39 Jacques Julliard, “Renaissance d’une nation,” Le Nouvel Observateur, 1403, September 26–October 2, 1991, p. 31. 40 As quoted in Volker Jacoby, “Geschichte und Geschichtsschreibung im Konflikt um Berg-Karabakh,” Ethnos-Nation 6:1–2 (1998), p. 82. 41 Rafayel Ishkhanian, “Miatsial Ankakh te Ankakh Miatsial” [United Independent or Independent United], in Ishkhanian, p. 126. 42 Ibid., and Ishkhanian, “Tourkakan Gortsone” [The Turkish Factor], in Ishkhanian, p. 175. 43 Among many other such articles, see for instance Hakob Chghlian, “Andradardz Nakhkin Tsaverin” [Reflection on Previous Sorrows], Hayk, June 26, 1991, p. 3. 44 Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the Future, trans. and ed. Marion Faber; with an introduction by Robert C. Holub; Oxford World’s Classics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 144. 45 Carol Migdalovitz, “92109: Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict (Updated December 3, 1996),” in CRS [Congressional Research Service] Issue Brief. November 15, 2000, , p. 11. 46 Nikolay Hovhannisyan, The Foreign Policy of Armenia (Yerevan: Noyan Tapan, 1988), p. 32. 47 See “Özal: ‘Ermeniler biraz korkutmak lazim’” [Özal: “It is Necessary to Scare the Armenians a Little Bit”], Hürriyet, March 7, 1992. For the military advisers and the deployment of troops, see Mark A. Uhlig, “The Karabakh War,” World Policy Journal 10 (Winter 1993–4), p. 51. 48 Stephan H. Astourian, “The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: Dimensions, Lessons, and Prospects,” Mediterranean Quarterly: A Journal of Global Issues 5:4 (Fall 1994), p. 103. 49 As quoted in Hovhannisyan, The Foreign Policy of Armenia, p. 34. 50 See Aschot Manutscharjan, “Die Aussenpolitik der Republik Armenien: Ein Jahr nach dem Zerfall der Sowjetunion,” Orient 34:2 (1993), p. 262. 51 Azadian, History on the Move, p. 72. 52 Gérard J. Libaridian, The Challenge of Statehood: Armenian Political Thinking Since Statehood (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1999), pp. 117–18. 53 For instance, in November 1992, Turkey agreed to allow international aid to Armenia to cross its territory. In April 1993, it decided to suspend aid and foreign transit through its territory and airspace. In October 1995, the air corridor was reopened, etc. See Migdalovitz, p. 11. 54 “Ter-Petrosyan Holds Press Conference,” Asbarez, October 4, 1997. November 12, 1999, , p. 2. 55 The original statement appeared in the official organ of the republic, Hayastani Hanrapetoutyoun [Republic of Armenia], on April 26, 1994. As quoted in Lendroush Khourshoudian, Hayots Azgayin Gaghaparakhosoutyoun [The National Ideology of the Armenians] (Yerevan: Zangak 97, 1999), p. 227. 56 The interview is in the March 1994 issue of AIM. 57 Ara Nedolian, “Natsional’naia ideologiia i mifologiia,” in Inknoutyoun/Identitas [Identity], vol. 1, eds. L. Abrahamian, V. Barkhoudarian, A. Bakhchinian et al. (Yerevan: Kamar, 1995), pp. 80–7. 58 Sergey Sarinian, “Haykakan Gaghaparabanoutyoun” [Armenian Ideology], in Abrahamian et al., pp. 123–33. 59 Hrachya Hovhannisyan, Ankakhoutyan Perchankn ou Kheghchoutyoune: (Mtoroumner Chanaparhi Skizbin) [The Ostentation and Misery of Independence: (Reflections at the Start of the Journey)] (Yerevan: Gitoutyoun, 1994), p. 66. 60 “CPA Seeking to Protect Nation from Spiritual Genocide,” in Noyan Tapan Daily Information Bulletin (December 1, 1997); , December 1, 1997.

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Stephan H. Astourian Unless otherwise stated, all Noyan Tapan reports mentioned hereafter were read on the Groong list. Lendroush Khourshoudian, Hayots Azgayin Gaghaparakhosoutyoun, p. 226. On the themes developed by Bleyan and Sardarian as early as 1993 and their similarity to the arguments put forward by Ter-Petrosian to justify his conditional agreement to the peace plan proposed by the co-chairmen of the so-called Minsk group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), see David Petrossian, “Big Bluff of Levon Ter-Petrossian,” in Review and Outlook. October 8, 1997, . Unless otherwise stated, all columns in the Review and Outlook series mentioned hereafter were read on the Groong list. See “Joint Statement by the Three Armenian Political Parties in the Diaspora,” in Armenia at the Crossroads, pp. 128–9. See “Democracy, Diaspora, and the National Agenda,” in Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 168; and “An Overview of the Role of the Diaspora in the Light of Recent Changes in Armenia,” The Armenian Reporter, January 31, 1991, p. 20. Azadian comments on those views thus: “One of the prominent leaders of the ANM [Armenian National Movement, used instead of APNM], and a member of parliament at that, recently made a revealing statement in the official organ of the ANM, Hayk. ‘The only goal of Armenian diaspora organization,’ he said, ‘should consist of the development and strengthening of the statehood of Armenia and the development of its international relations. These are the only guarantees of the unity of the Armenian people. It would also be beneficial if once and for all diaspora Armenians could rid themselves of tendencies to develop political sphere of influence in Armenia.’ ” “We have no quarrel with the first part of the above statement, provided that our conduct is not prescribed by novices in politics; but the last segment of that statement could be taken as a prescription for dictatorship, if it did not sound so provincial. Indeed, it is the very institutionalization of provincialism. . . . “Granted, no political group must entertain presumptions of running Armenia’s affairs from abroad; at the same time, the same new and inexperienced leaders in Armenia must not pontificate to diaspora Armenians by demanding that they support certain policies or define patriotism.” See Azadian, pp. 51–2. Azadian, p. 117. Hovsep Seferian, “Tntesakan Iravichaki Akhtachanachman yev vorosh Gortsarar Kayleri Masin” [About the Diagnosis of the Economic Situation and Certain Entrepreneurial Steps], in H.H. Tntesoutyan yev Dzernarkatiroutyan Zargatsman Arti Khntirere, ed. T. Manaserian (Yerevan: Noyan Tapan, 1988), p. 192. After the first Minister of Foreign Affairs, Raffi Hovannisian, resigned at the request of the president on October 16, 1992, Mr Libaridian was the only person who knew the diaspora well and had access to Levon Ter-Petrosian. Interview given to Soren Theisen on September 1, 1992, as quoted in Razmik Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion; Politics and Identity in ArmeniaDiaspora Relations,” Diaspora 7:2 (Fall 1998), p. 178. It is significant that the ADLP, which had supported the president until then, joined the parliamentary opposition in this vote. The text of the president’s speech can be found in “L. Ter-Petrosiani Yelouyte” [L. Ter-Petrosian’s Address], Haratch, July 2, 1992, pp. 1, 4; July 3, 1992, pp. 1, 4; July 4, 1992, pp. 1, 4. As quoted in Panossian, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion,” p. 173. “Ter-Petrosyan Holds Press Conference,” Asbarez, October 4, 1997, p. 4. David Petrosyan, “Step-by-Step Settlement Is Unlikely in Karabakh,” Review and Outlook, October 2, 1997, p. 2.

State, homeland, and diaspora 109 75 As quoted in Leslie Paul Thiele, Timely Meditations: Martin Heidegger and Postmodern Politics (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), p. 173. 76 Freedom House, Nations in Transit 1998: Armenia. December 14, 1999, , p. 10. 77 Armenpress, “$350 Million Enter Armenia As of Financial Aid to Some Armenian Residences,” December 1, 1997; , December 1, 1997. Unless otherwise stated, all Armenpress reports mentioned hereafter were read on the Groong list. 78 For the datum pertaining to Russia, see Central Bank of Armenia. General Economy Overview. May 7, 2000, , p. 13. 79 For the FDI data, see European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Armenia: 1999 Country Profile. March 18, 2000, , p. 9. 80 Gagik Bakhshian and Michael Wyzan, “Armenia’s Economic Recovery Slows Down,” RFE/RL Newsline, September 10, 1997. 81 See Atom Markarian, “Inadequate Legal Framework, Arbitrary Taxation Cited as Major Hindrance for Foreign Investment in Armenia,” RFE/RL Armenia Report, September 21, 1998, p. 2. This approximate volume of investment was the most common among the 1,200 businesses with foreign participation registered in Armenia by the time the above-mentioned article was published. Experts estimated that no more than 20 percent of them were still operational then. 82 On most of these issues, see for instance, British Helsinki Human Rights Group (BHHRG). Human Rights in Armenia. November 12, 2000, , pp. 1–10. Among the unresolved killings, one should single out, perhaps, that of Hampartsoum Galstian on December 19, 1994. Galstian was a Karabagh Committee member and the Mayor of Yerevan at the time of his assassination. As one observer puts it, “Galstian had been a thorn in the government’s side for some time, saying that the failure to clear up any of the thirty or so murders that had taken place in the past year put Armenia on par with Duvalier’s Haiti.” See BHHRG, Parliamentary Elections and Referendum 1995. November 12, 2000, , p. 1. On the context of Galstian’s assassination, see also David Petrosyan, “The People Should Know Its Heroes,” Review and Outlook, February 3, 1999, p. 2. Ironically enough, the government put the blame for this murder on an alleged secret outfit of the ARF, the “Dro” organization. On December 23, 1994, many members of that party were arrested on charges of having committed a number of assassinations, including that of Galstian, of conspiracy to overthrow the government, and of involvement in drug-trafficking. All defendants were pronounced guilty, but the leader of that outfit, Hrant Markarian, was found guilty of only minor crimes. The link between “Dro” and the ARF was not proven. Clearly, the ARF does have a history of involvement in terrorist acts, but most observers agree that it had nothing to do with Galstian’s assassination. The party was banned for six months and the ban was subsequently extended. Not until Robert Kocharian came to power was the party reinstated. See Nora Dudwick, “Political Transformations in Postcommunist Armenia: Images and Realities,” in Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, eds Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), pp. 88–9. 83 On the parliamentary elections and the referendum, see Dudwick, 91–8; Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Report on Armenia’s Parliamentary Election and Constitutional Referendum (August 5, 1995). April 9, 2000, , pp. 1–20. See also BHHRG. Parliamentary Elections and Referendum 1995, pp. 1–7. 84 On the presidential election, see Dudwick, pp. 103–5.

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85 Embassy of the Republic of Armenia, “10 Questions and Answers About the Armenia-Diaspora Conference,” e-mail 7/11/1999. 86 Ibid. 87 Harout Sassounian, “Armenia-Diaspora Conference: A Global Family Reunion,” California Courier On-Line, September 30, 1999. 88 Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, “Interview with Vartan Oskanian, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Republic of Armenia,” e-mail, 30/1/2002. 89 I Forum of World Azerbaijanis, February 25, 2002, . 90 “1st Congress of World Azeries [sic],” in Azeri Voice 1, 3 (Summer 2001). February 6, 2002, , p. 4. 91 “Resolution of the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis,” February 25, 2002, , p. 2 of 4. 92 Mark Saroyan, “Beyond the Nation-State: Culture and Ethnic Politics in Soviet Transcaucasia,” in Minorities, Mullahs, and Modernity: Reshaping Community in the Former Soviet Union, ed. Edward W. Walker, pp. 147–9, 153–5, 157–8 (Berkeley: University of California, Berkeley, International and Area Studies, 1997). 93 Ibid., 155; also Brenda Shaffer, Borders and Brethren: Iran and the Challenge of Azerbaijani Identity (Cambridge, MA, and London: The MIT Press, 2002), pp. 120–1. On the use and meanings of the concept of “homeland” in a few late-Soviet Uzbek and Azerbaijani poems, see James Critchlow, “Vatan and the Concept of ‘Homeland’ in the Muslim Soviet Republics,” in Passé turco-tatar, Présent soviétique: études offertes à Alexandre Bennigsen/Turco-Tatar Past, Soviet Present: Studies Presented to Alexandre Bennigsen, eds Ch. Lemercier-Quelquejay, G. Veinstein, and S. E. Wimbush, pp. 484–8 (Louvain and Paris: Peeters/Éditions de l’École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, 1986). . . . 94 Ibid., 197, Ebülfez Elçi Bey, “Deyirdim ki bu qurulu¸s da˘sılacaq” [“I Have Said This . System Will Collapse] (Baku: Genclik, 1992), pp. 56–62. 95 As quoted in David Nissman, “Baku Looks South,” in Prism, 1:2 (May 12, 1995). September 1, 2002, , p. 3 of 4. See especially his numerous articles and interviews under the entries “Cixislari [Statements],” “Meqaleleri [Articles],” Musahibeler [Interviews],” [sic for all of them]. December 15, 2003 . 96 Liz Fuller, “Support Grows for a United Azerbaijan,” in RFE/RL Caucasus Report 1:11 (May 12, 1998). November 19, 2000, . 97 “Butov Azerbaycan Birliyinin Meramname Komissiyasi [sic] [The Program Committee of the United Azerbaijan Union],” under the entry “BAB.” December 15, 2003, . 98 “Dunya Azerbaycanlilarinin Haqlarini mudafie komitesi informasiya bulleteni: nomre 1 [sic],” in Chagdash Azerbaycan 99, 21 (May 9, 1999). May 9, 1999, TURKISTAN-N @NIC.SURFNET.NL, p. 1. For the statutes of that organization and some of its prominent members, including Isa Qambar, the leader of the Musavat Party, see “Güney Azerbaycan milli herekatı müdafie komitesinin nizamnamesi” [sic] (Baku, September 27, 2002), under “Xeberler [News]” [sic]. December 15, 2003, . 99 See David B. Nissman, The Soviet Union and Iranian Azerbaijan: The Use of Nationalism for Political Penetration (Boulder and London: Westview Press, 1987), pp. 41–99; Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), pp. 163–70; and Shireen Hunter, “Azerbaijan: Search for Identity and New Partners,” in Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States, eds Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras, pp. 23–32 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

State, homeland, and diaspora 111 100 “Press Realize [sic], The First Forum of World Azerbaijanis Was Opened,” February 25, 2002, , p. 2 of 3. 101 “First Forum of World Azerbaijanis,” February 25, 2002, , p. 1 of 3. 102 “Resolution of the First Forum of World Azerbaijanis,” February 25, 2002, , p. 3 of 4. 103 Elxan, “Protest: ‘Hacan Haciyev is exceeding his powers’ ” (in Azerbaijani Turkish), Yeni Musavat (Baku), November 19, 2001, p. 7, translated by the BBC Monitoring Service under the title “Georgian Azeris Dissatisfied with Azeri Envoy,” November 19, 2001. 104 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [hereafter, RFE/RL], “Azerbaijan Report,” November 12, 2001; February 14, 2002, , p. 2 of 5. 105 RFE/RL, “Azerbaijan Report,” November 13, 2001; February 14, 2002, . 106 RFE/RL, “Azerbaijan Report,” November 12, 2001; February 14, 2002, , p. 4 of 5; and RFE/RL, “Azerbaijan Report,” November 16, 2001; February 14, 2002, . 107 For the program of that organization, see “Dunya Azerbaycanlilari Konqresinin Meramnamesi,” February 7, 2002, , pp. 1–3. 108 On those events, see Touraj Atabaki, Azerbaijan: Ethnicity and Autonomy in Twentiethcentury Iran (London and New York: British Academic Press, 1993); see also Swietochowski, Russia and Azerbaijan: A Borderland in Transition, pp. 61–5, 74–5, 94–100, 135–62. 109 Nissman, The Soviet Union and Iranian Azerbaijan: The Use of Nationalism for Political Penetration, pp. 41–55; idem, “The Origins and Development of the Literature of ‘Longing’ in Azerbaijan,” Journal of Turkish Studies 8 (1984), pp. 197–207. 110 Javad Derakhti, “I am pleased with my visit to Azerbaijan,” 525ci Qazet, November 14, 2001; February 7, 2002, , p. 1 of 2. Orujov is the adviser of the President of Azerbaijan on National Policy Issues. 111 On that congress, see “First All-Russian Congress of Azeris Held in Moscow,” in Azeri Voice 1: 4 (Fall 2001). February 6, 2002, , p. 6 of 7. 112 Zerkhanim Akhmedli, “First Session Of All-Russia Azerbaijanis’ Congress Held In Moscow,” in RFE/RL, “Azerbaijan Report,” October 5, 2001; February 8, 2002, . 113 For the size of the Azerbaijani population in Russia, see ibid.; for the number of delegates, see “First All-Russian Congress of Azeris Held in Moscow,” in Azeri Voice 1: 4 (Fall 2001). February 6, 2002 , p. 6 of 7. 114 Translated from Zerkalo (Baku), 2 August 2000, pp. 1 and 3 in Azerbaijan Daily Digest, August 8, 2000; February 8, 2002, , p. 3 of 4. 115 Fariz Ismailzade, “How Many Congresses Do We Have?” in Azeri Voice 1, 3/2 (Summer [2] 2001); February 6, 2002, , p. 1 of 9. 116 “Interview,” in Azeri Voice 2: 1 (Winter, January 2002); [online]: http://www.angelfire. com/az3/AzeriVoice/newsletter5.pdf >, p. 7 of 10. 117 “Two Azerbaijan: A Common Past and a Common Future,” February 8, 2002, , p. 5 of 5.

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118 Richard Marienstras, “On the Notion of Diaspora,” in Minority Peoples in the Age of Nation-States, ed. Gérard Chaliand (London: Pluto Press, 1989), p. 125. 119 For the concept of ‘long-distance nationalism,’ see Benedict Anderson, “LongDistance Nationalism,” in The Spectre of Comparisons: Nationalism, Southeast Asia and the World, pp. 58–74 (1998; London and New York: Verso, 2002). For a detailed analysis of the workings and implications of long-distance nationalism in the case of the Haitian diaspora, see Nina Glick Schiller and Georges Eugenes Fouron, Georges Woke Up Laughing: Long-Distance Nationalism and the Search for Home (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2001).

6

Diaspora and global civil society The impact of transnational diasporic activism on Armenia’s post-Soviet transition Armine Ishkanian

INTRODUCTION Within the growing body of literature on post-socialist transitions, most scholars have tended to focus on the interactions and encounters between post-socialist and Western states and international organizations; local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international donors and INGOs; and post-socialist migrants with the global economy. Relatively little has been written about the interactions between the post-socialist states and societies in Central Asia and the Caucasus and their diasporas, with the notable exception of Armenia. Scholars writing about diaspora-Armenia relations in the post-Soviet period have examined how certain events in the twentieth century and prevailing diasporan political ideologies have shaped diaspora-Armenia relations and the impact of these relations on Armenia.1 This chapter builds on that body of knowledge and seeks to advance our understandings about subjectivity and agency in the Armenian diaspora, the impact of transnational diasporic activism on Armenia, and to situate this discussion within the discussions of globalization and global civil society.2 Since 1993, I have been studying the post-Soviet transition in Armenia and the development of local NGOs. I have examined how imported Western models and discourses about democratization, civil society, sustainable development, and feminism are translated, interpreted, contested, and adapted at the local level and the impact of external actors and institutions on the development of civil society in Armenia.3 Shifting my focus from NGOs in Armenia to NGOs/non-profit organizations in the diaspora,4 in this chapter I examine the impact of Americanbased non-profit diasporic organizations on Armenia’s transition.5 I maintain that since Armenia regained independence in 1991, non-profit diasporic organizations have contributed to the local level development of various institutions and practices that have assisted Armenia’s transition from communism. However, due to corruption in Armenia and the ambivalence within diaspora communities regarding the meaning of the diaspora and its relations vis-à-vis Armenia, the impact of diasporic organizations has largely been limited to specific projects. Nevertheless, since diasporic organizations remain actively engaged and some

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(e.g. the Jinishian Memorial Foundation and the Tufenkian Foundation) even provide funding to local NGOs, the interaction is ongoing and promises to make important contributions to the development of civil society and sustainable development in Armenia.6

DIASPORAS AND GLOBAL CIVIL SOCIETY: THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES

Diasporas In recent years there has been a shift from the restrictive definition of “diaspora,”7 according to which only the Jewish, Greek, and Armenian social formations were considered diasporas, to a more accommodating definition in which any group of people living outside their homeland are considered diasporans. This shift is the result of several factors including changes in the politics of discursive regimes as well as changes in extra-discursive phenomena including increased economic globalization and international migration in the second half of the twentieth century. Communities of dispersion, that were once referred to as exile, immigrant, overseas, expatriate, refugee, or guest worker communities, are increasingly being renamed “diasporas.”8 The chapters in this book attest to the growing interest in “diasporas” in the humanities and social sciences where scholars addressing issues of globalization, migration, identity, postcolonialism, and even ethnic conflict and terrorism have begun to study diaspora populations.9 One of the primary questions that has been raised in this growing interdisciplinary field of diaspora studies is: “What implications do diasporas have for their homelands and for the multi-cultural states in which they live?”10 Khachig Tölölyan describes diasporas as the paradigmatic Other of the nationstate, that have been the ally, lobby, or even the precursor of the nation-state (e.g. Israel), the source of ideological, political, or financial support for national movements (e.g. Palestinian), or the source of new ideas, new money, and new languages to newly independent homelands (e.g. Armenia, Lithuania).11 George Bisharat, Karen Leonard, and Liisa Malkki underscore the contingent historicity of imagining of place by diasporans and how “locality” and “identity” are mediated as individuals strive to make sense of their transnational existence.12 James Clifford claims that the diasporic experience isn’t necessarily one of rupture versus merger, but rather that diasporans often long to be part of both the host country and homeland on their own terms through a sustained and nurtured transnational existence.13 Pnina Werbner argues that diasporas as transnational social formations challenge the hegemony and boundedness of the nation-state and of any pure imaginaries of nationhood.14 As such, diasporas are both ideologically and materially involved and implicated in the nationalist projects of their homelands, in which case they can be described as mobilized transnational actors.

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Global civil society Transnationalism and transnational activism are also examined by scholars of global civil society whose focus has not tended to be on diasporic activism. Yet examining diasporic transnational within the framework of global civil society is constructive because such involvements are representative of the transnational connections discussed by scholars of global civil society. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the idea of civil society was attractive to many intellectuals in socialist states because it combined democratic pluralism with a continued role for state regulation and guidance, making it seem the right form of social organization for societies seeking to recover from the excesses of state socialism.15 While in the late 1980s the study of civil society primarily focused on the development of civil societies within national boundaries, in the past five years greater focus has been directed toward the study of global civil society. As Jude Howell and Jenny Pearce maintain, civil society is in the process of being reinvented in the contemporary, globalized phase of late capitalist development.16 In spite of the problems of defining and locating civil society, let alone global civil society, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the idea became a central part of Western aid programs to the former Soviet republics. US agencies and other First-World donors embraced the idea of civil society development as critical to democratization and “successful transition.”17 It became a new mantra in both aid and diplomatic circles.18 In these countries, civil society came to be equated with the development and growth of NGOS. Policy-makers hailed NGOs as “stakeholders in the transition and development of [post-socialist] countries”19 and the “connective tissue of democratic political culture.”20 Even in the industrialized world, non-profit organizations and voluntary sector organizations are also considered to be the primary actors within civil society and some policymakers and activists have taken NGOs to be shorthand for civil society.21 Currently, scholars have begun to examine the horizontal ties between individuals and non-profit organizations or NGOs living in different nation-states with one another as an attempt to map and analyze the emerging civil society. Civil society is no longer confined to the borders of the territorial nation-state. On the contrary, as Mary Kaldor argues, the end of the Cold War and increasing global interconnectedness have provided like-minded groups in different parts of the world opportunities for addressing demands not just to their respective states, but to global institutions and other states.22 This, Kaldor maintains, has led to the territorial restructuring of social and political relations in different realms and the formation of horizontal transnational global networks.23 She describes the different types of actors who are or may be considered participants of global civil society, including nationalist diaspora networks.24 Defining such transnationally connected groups of actors as transnational advocacy networks (TANs), Margaret Keck and Kathryn Sikkink argue that in the past few years, alongside states, many non-state actors have emerged that interact with states, with each other, and with international organizations. Some of these TANs are economic actors and firms, some are networks of scientists and experts,

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while others are networks of activists.25 Although Keck and Sikkink do not directly address or discuss the role of transnational diasporic networks, it is clear that such networks exist and their efforts have intensified in recent years due to advances in communication and travel technologies. While Keck and Sikkink point out the beneficial possibilities of transnational networks, there is another side of transnational activism, long-distance nationalism, which Benedict Anderson describes as a “menacing portent for the future.” He writes: First of all it [long-distance nationalism] is the product of capitalism’s remorseless, accelerating transformation of all human societies. Second it creates a serious politics that is at the same time radically unaccountable. The participant rarely pays taxes in the country in which he does his politics; he is not answerable to its judicial system; he probably does not even cast an absentee ballot in its elections because he is a citizen in a different place; he need not fear prison, torture, or death, nor need his immediate family. But well and safely positioned in the First World he can send money and guns, circulate propaganda, and build intercontinental computer information circuits, all of which can have incalculable consequences in the zones of their ultimate destination.26 The diasporic non-profit organizations that I discuss in this chapter have remained outside the realm of politics and have not engaged in long-distance nationalist projects. On the contrary, over the last ten years these diasporic organizations have provided relief and contributed to the local level development and given their relationship with local partners, they have maintained a level of accountability. Before examining the case study of two US-based diasporic non-profit organizations, it is important to discuss the history of the diaspora-homeland relations in the twentieth century.

ARMENIA AND DIASPORA COMMUNITIES IN THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Diasporics versus ethnics Although dispersion and exile have been a near constant in Armenia’s two and a half millennia history,27 in the twentieth century the Armenian diaspora underwent a tremendous transformation as the Genocide and deportations from 1915–1920 by the Ottoman Turks resulted in the deaths of one and a half million Armenians and the emptying of the villages and towns they had once populated in eastern Anatolia. The modern Armenian diaspora was created because of the Genocide and the Genocide has subsequently shaped the identity construction, collective memory, and politics of survivors and their children. These survivors

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sought refuge in various countries in the Middle East, Europe, and North and South America where they established new diaspora communities or joined pre-existing centers.28 They began to rebuild their lives and communities by establishing schools, churches, social and cultural organizations, sports teams, and compatriotic organizations. Maintaining the Armenian language, religion, and traditions became sacred objectives in these communities. According to most estimates there are four to five million Armenians in the diaspora. Diaspora communities are divided into two broad categories: “internal” and “external.” The first is called “internal,” because until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it consisted of the Armenian communities outside Soviet Armenia but within the same overall state (i.e. the USSR). The second category, “external,” refers to the communities in the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas.29 In recent years, due to the emigration of Armenians from Armenia and the Middle East, the US30 has become the largest “external” diaspora community (with approximately one million Armenians) and the center of diaspora life in the twenty-first century.31 The members of the various diaspora communities speak different dialects of Armenian and possess different ideas about Armenianness (hayootyoon) and the homeland (hayrenik). In spite of these differences, non-assimilated Armenians continue to identify themselves as “Armenian” (Hai), consider themselves part of the Armenian nation (azg), and believe that they share a common origin and history. To be a true member, Tölölyan argues,32 it was not enough to claim that one was an Armenian, it was necessary to act as one, which meant one had to accept certain responsibilities and duties for the nation (azg) and Armenian Cause or Question (Hai Thad ).33 Carolann Najarian explains how her parents and grandmothers instilled a “deep sense of gratitude and allegiance to the country [United States] that provided them protection and the opportunity for a new life” and she adds, they also “passed on a pride in being Armenian, and a sense of responsibility that came with that. To dishonor oneself in any way was to dishonor our ethnic heritage; the converse was equally true.”34 Tölölyan refers to these ethnically conscious Armenians as “diasporics” and distinguishes them from the “ethnics” and those Armenians who are assimilated in all but name. According to this definition, a “diasporic” is a dedicated Armenian who maintains ties with counterparts in other parts of the world and with the homeland. Diasporics share the “ruling assumptions” that (a) despite all its faults and whatever its borders, the Republic of Armenia must survive and (b) that the diaspora must help Armenia to survive. In this shift from subjectivity to agency, internalized sentiments and beliefs about one’s identity and origins lead diasporics to “help Armenia.” An “ethnic,” meanwhile, is an Armenian who acknowledges his/her Armenian identity and demonstrates it in small ways such as going to an Armenian church once or twice a year but is not as committed to any Armenian organization or cause in particular.35 When Armenia regained independence in 1991, there was a great deal of excitement and anticipation in Armenia and the diaspora communities over the

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impending reunion of Armenians in the homeland. On an emotional and abstract level the people of Armenia were devoted to the idea of one Armenian nation (azg) and one Armenian people (Hai zhoghovoort). On a practical level, however, questions and concerns were raised about what was the proper role for diasporans.36 More than ten years after independence many of these questions remain unanswered. There is still disagreement on the extent to which the Armenian government should claim, let alone assume responsibility, for Armenians beyond its borders and the degree to which diasporans should influence or help determine Armenia’s state and national policies, agendas, and priorities. While repatriation was a cognitively and emotionally resonant concept in the immediate aftermath of the Genocide, in the twenty-first century the myth of return has lost its meaning as most diaspora Armenians prefer to interact with Armenia transnationally. In the next section I examine the evolving relationship between the diaspora and Armenia throughout the twentieth century and the impact of independence on those relations.

The Soviet years From the 1920s until 1945 there was relatively little contact between the diaspora communities and Soviet Armenia. Then, immediately following World War II, the Soviet government initiated a campaign to encourage diaspora Armenians to repatriate to Soviet Armenia as the Armenian population had significantly diminished due to the losses suffered during the war. The authorities also claimed that repatriation was a prelude, to an ultimately unsuccessful attempt, to seize the formerly Armenian inhabited lands that were now part of Turkey and to repopulate them with Armenians.37 Excited by the prospect of returning to the homeland and reclaiming the “lost lands” in Turkey, diasporans in communities throughout the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas organized repatriation (nerkaght) caravans.38 From 1946 to 1949 over 100,000 diaspora-Armenians immigrated to Soviet Armenia. These repatriates (hairenadartsner) had high hopes of living in their homeland. Hagop Touryantz, a repatriate from Egypt who later emigrated from Armenia to the US, writes: Subjugated and dispersed for centuries, the first call to our people for immigration instead of emigration was received with tremendous verve. The movement was baptized most suggestively “repatriation.” . . . Taking advantage of its post-war prestige the Soviet government considered this an opportune moment to manipulate the sentiments of the people in dispersion, originally from countries of the old Russian Empire. People who for one reason or other had never totally adjusted to the environment of their adopted countries, and still to a much lesser extent assimilated. This appeal was very effective with the Armenians which almost instantly created enthusiasm. Deprived for so many centuries of a homeland, they sincerely believed that the time had come at last for them to end their itinerant life . . .

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All of us, regardless of our backgrounds, economic conditions, education, political affiliations, regardless of all our differences, thought, hoped, and believed, the land we were about to go to would be our homeland. We were fed up with being on foreign soil, members of an often despised minority group.39 Upon arrival in Armenia, instead of being welcomed as returning compatriots, the repatriates were mistreated, disparagingly referred to as “aghpar,”40 and suspected by the Soviet authorities of being Western spies. Until Stalin’s death on March 5, 1953, the repatriates lived in constant fear of being jailed, tortured, exiled to Siberia, or executed. As one repatriate who now lives in Los Angeles told me: We went to Armenia with great hope. We were so excited that we were going to live in the hairenik (fatherland). We did not expect to be treated as criminals and punished not only by the authorities but also by our own compatriots who had such hatred and contempt for us. We could not understand why this was so but we deeply regretted having come to Armenia and only waited and prayed that we would to be able to leave. Upon arrival we realized that we were different, culturally and socially from the deghatziner (locals). The Soviet authorities played up these differences to hinder any unified efforts. They sought to sow the seeds of hatred, mistrust, and animosity between the locals and repatriates. (“Hovsep.”) Tens of thousands of repatriates who were disillusioned at having been treated as second-class citizens by Soviet Armenian authorities and being discriminated against by local Armenians left Soviet Armenia in the 1970s and early 1980s.41 Knowledge about the difficulties the repatriates experienced in Soviet Armenia, the cultural differences between them and the locals, and their eventual emigration served to inform non-repatriated diaspora Armenians of the risks and dangers involved in returning to the “homeland.” Subsequently this knowledge reinforced the prevailing transnational model of diasporic activism.42 Although the Armenians who did not repatriate in the 1940s escaped Soviet oppression, they were treated as minorities and sometimes even discriminated against in their adopted homelands. Political developments in the Middle East, including the civil war in Lebanon, repression in Syria and Turkey, and Islamic fundamentalism in Iran in the late 1950s through the 1970s, eventually created an inhospitable climate for non-Muslim minorities. These developments made the future of the Middle Eastern Armenian communities increasingly precarious and led to emigration from the region to the US and less frequently to Canada and Australia.43 Until the emigration of the Armenians from the Middle East, diaspora activism was the strongest in Aleppo and Beirut. When the majority of Aleppo and Beirut-based Armenians emigrated to the West, they brought with them their political parties and structures and patterns of community organization. In these communities, Armenians belonged to one of the three

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traditional diaspora political parties, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsootyun), the Ramgavar Liberal Democratic Party, and the Hunchakian Social Democratic Party. These parties remained on opposite sides of the “homeland” fence for the better part of the twentieth century.44 The choice for or against Soviet Armenia, Ronald Suny argues, was a harsh and difficult one for most diaspora Armenians; Ramgavars and Hunchaks accepted Soviet Armenia as the legitimate Armenian homeland, while the Dashnaks, who had ruled Armenia during the independence of 1918–1920, were very critical of Soviet rule and instead planned and longed for the creation of a free and independent Armenia (azad angagh Hayastan).45 Some Dashnak party leaders rejected any claims that Soviet Armenia was the “homeland.”46 They maintained that the true homeland was much larger than the territory of the Soviet republic and that it encompassed the “lost lands” in present day Turkey. And for many diaspora Armenians the “homeland,” until 1991, was the village or town which their parents or grandparents had been forcefully driven from during the Genocide. As Carolann Najarian, the leader of the Armenian Health Alliance non-profit organization, which I discuss later in this chapter, writes: This Armenia [the Soviet Republic of Armenia] held little interest for me. My heritage, the land I thought of as “Armenia,” was the region that today is part of the modern Turkish state. Armenians who had come out of Turkey, like my parents, were cut off from the new Armenian SSR, isolated behind the Iron Curtain . . . With the rise of Gorbachev and the beginning of glasnost (openness), however, the republics of the Soviet Union started to attract the attention of Americans . . . Armenia began to be in vogue and traveling there was no longer an extraordinary thing to do. My husband, George, made his first visit with a group of Armenian-Americans from Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1987 . . . When he returned, he was full of enthusiasm for the place he now called his ancestral homeland . . . For George there was no longer any difference between the two parts of Armenia; they had merged in his thinking. He tried hard to convince me to go see for myself, but I remained unconvinced.47 In the following paragraph Najarian explains how “a dramatic change” took place in her feelings when she heard about Nagorno-Karabagh. In May 1988, when she traveled to Armenia for the first time, she writes how her feelings changed and there was “no longer an issue of whether this was the same land from which my ancestors had been purged.”48 Mihran Agbabian, the founding president of the American University of Armenia, an organization discussed later, writes the following about his feelings toward Armenia: My interest in Armenia was casual before the December 7, 1988 Spitak earthquake. My parents traced their ancestry to Cilicia,49 and my Armenian activities had taken place mostly in the Armenian communities of the Middle

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East and the United States. I had no nationalistic feelings toward Armenia. I was, therefore, surprised when I was hit by an emotion that I could not comprehend when I set foot on Armenian soil for the first time in 1978. I was there with an American group of scientists and engineers, escorted by our Russian counterparts from Moscow, to visit the seismic zones of the Soviet Union and for scientific exchange . . . We stayed two days in Armenia, and the rest of the trip took us to different Republics. I kept thinking of Armenia as my homeland during the entire trip, and I knew there was going to be a change in my life . . . The December 7, 1988 Spitak earthquake was not unexpected . . . I knew that the tragedy in Northern Armenia would make its permanent impact on me.50 The pre-independence era visits described by Agbabian and Najarian became possible following a thaw in Cold War relations that had begun in the late 1960s when the Soviet government created the Committee for Cultural Relations with Diaspora Armenians in 1964 and began to permit strictly monitored contacts between the diaspora and Soviet Armenia. These contacts and Soviet concessions to Armenian national feelings, including the building of monuments to the Genocide, Armenian national heroes, and the victory over the Turks at Sardarabad as well as greater freedom of expression contributed to the lessening of the hostility between the diaspora and Soviet Armenia. In the 1980s, even the anti-Soviet Dashnaks became less critical of, and opposed to, Soviet Armenia. This, Razmik Panossian maintains, was because Soviet Armenia’s communism had become more tolerable and the diaspora political parties shifted their focus from the debate over Soviet rule to Genocide recognition. This shift, he adds, came with the realization that decades had passed since the beginning of the Genocide in 1915 and that “nothing” had been achieved vis-à-vis Turkey.51 Genocide recognition continues to be the diaspora’s primary political cause and source of identity construction and has affected the development of diasporaArmenia relations in the post-Soviet period. With more amiable relations established with Soviet Armenia, the diaspora during the 1980s was at peace with itself and with its transnational existence. Some intellectuals, Jirair (Gerard) Libaridian claims, even started talking about the diaspora as a “value” in itself, independent of a homeland, as a kind of permanent though “spiritual” home.52 As diaspora intellectuals pondered the existential meaning of a diaspora freed from the constraints of a “homeland” and the political parties pursued the cause of Genocide recognition, the citizens of Soviet Armenia were joining a grassroots social movement that would eventually redefine the meaning of “homeland.”

An independent Armenia and the diaspora Armenia’s struggle for independence began in October 1987, when Green Union protesters took to the streets of Yerevan and began demanding improvements in Soviet ecological policies in Armenia. These ecological demonstrations were held

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to protest the pollution caused by the Nayarit chemical plant and the Medzamor nuclear power plant in and near Yerevan respectively.53 Unlike in the past,54 the government did not immediately crush the demonstrations, but in the spirit of glasnost allowed for peaceful meetings to continue.55 While the demonstrations had begun as protests against Soviet ecological policies, by February 1988, it was quite clear that the ecological issues were thinly veiling the true motivations and spirit of the demonstrations. In late February 1988, the ecological demonstrations evolved into calls for the reunification of the territory of NagornoKarabagh (hereafter Karabagh) with Armenia. This shift occurred in response to the February 20, 1988, declaration of sovereignty by the Karabagh National Assembly.56 Although after World War I and during the early 1920s the population of Karabagh was 95 percent Armenian, the territory was allocated to Azerbaijan instead of Armenia by the Soviet government in 1923. This was a reflection of the Soviet policy of divide and rule. From the 1920s until 1988 Armenians in Karabagh attempted to have this decision reversed but all efforts failed and their complaints of Azeri mismanagement and injustice fell on deaf ears. When the Soviet government failed to recognize the February 20 declaration of sovereignty, 150,000 people came to Opera Square in Yerevan on February 22 to demand that the Armenian Central Committee of the Communist Party call for a meeting of the Supreme Soviet and recognize the decision of the Karabagh National Assembly. This is considered the official beginning of the national independence movement, which came to be known as the Karabagh Movement (Karabaghian Sharzhoum). By February 26, 1988, there were approximately one million demonstrators in Yerevan as Yerevantsis (residents of Yerevan) were joined by people from the villages and provincial towns. As Mark Malkhasian points out, no one, neither the activists nor the authorities, had expected that people would turn out with such force and enthusiasm to define the movement.57 Workers and peasants participated in the demonstrations, but it was the intellectuals who formed the 11-member Karabagh Committee to lead the movement, which would begin by calling for the self-determination and reunification of the territory of Karabagh with Armenia and end with the demand that Armenia secede from the Soviet Union and establish its own independent state. Initially the Karabagh Movement was not an anti-Soviet independence movement. It sought to address the problems facing Armenians in Karabagh within the context of the Soviet Union. Only after it became clear that the Soviet authorities were opposed to Armenian demands and were willing to allow acts of violence against Armenians in Azerbaijan (e.g. Sumgait and Baku) did the Movement put forth the demands of autonomy and independence. Although some diaspora organizations and parties had claimed to want a free and independent Armenia (azad angagh Hayastan), the Karabagh Movement came as a surprise to them.58 Libaridian maintains that the diaspora political parties were in a difficult situation: they were scrambling to find an explanation to offer to the public on the momentous events that had received the world’s attention but in which they had no role and next to which all else was eclipsed.59 But instead

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of rejoicing and joining the struggle, the three diaspora political parties, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Ramgavar Liberal Democratic Party, and the Hunchakian Social Democratic Party issued a joint communiqué on October 1, 1988, that was in direct opposition to the steps taken by homeland Armenians involved in the Karabagh Movement. These parties, Joseph Masih and Robert O. Krikorian contend, felt that the overriding national interests demanded extreme caution and that precipitous action could lead to disaster. The final paragraph of the communiqué states: We call upon our valiant brethren in Armenia and Karabagh to forgo such extreme acts as work stoppages, student strikes, and some radical calls and expressions which unsettle the law and order of the public life in the homeland and subject to heavy losses the economic, productive, educational, and cultural life as well as the good standing of our nation in its relation with the higher Soviet bodies and also with the other Soviet republics. These zealous attitudes also provide the fodder for the ulterior motives of the enemies of our people. Above all, we should safeguard the unity of our people, wherein lies our strength, and we should pursue our ultimate interests with farsightedness and determination.60 Armenians in the homeland and Karabagh reacted with consternation and felt betrayed by the diaspora political parties. The National Self-Determination Union Group, led by Soviet dissident Parouyr Hayrikian, wrote the following in response to the diaspora parties that had produced the communiqué: Your silence was insulting; but your words were even more so . . . ; what a disappointment to see [that what you had produced] was a rehash of appeals received from the “Soviet Union.” This is when we said, “As if our pain wasn’t enough, now you have become a pain yourself.” What can we do? You merely accelerated [the process of] our assessment of your [position]. As if there was no other way you could have made your existence felt in Armenia. Months after the beginning of major events inspired by [our love] of our people [in Armenia] your “national leaders” sat around a round table, measured the good and the bad in Marlboro smoke-filled rooms and outlined their position with regard to events taking place in Armenia and to Hayastansis [Armenians living in then Soviet Armenia] living a critical time.61 Many people in Armenia felt that these three political parties, having been isolated and detached from the developments in Armenia for decades, had lost touch with the reality of life in Soviet Armenia and misunderstood the democratic nature of developments there. Masih and Krikorian write, “This declaration came as a blow to the people of Armenia who were actively engaged in what they saw as a struggle for human rights and democracy and planted the seed of suspicion towards the diaspora which would eventually lead to serious conflict in the years

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after independence.”62 Of course the political parties’ position was not shared by all diaspora Armenians. On the contrary, on the west and east coast of the US Armenians held rallies and meetings in support of the Armenians in Armenia.63 Two months after the diaspora political parties issued the aforementioned communiqué, the already volatile situation in Armenia intensified. On December 7, 1988, a 6.8 earthquake struck northwestern Armenia destroying the cities of Leninakan and Spitak, killing 25,000 people and leaving another 500,000 homeless. These survivors became internally displaced people and joined the 400,000 Armenian refugees from Azerbaijan who were awaiting resettlement. The Soviet local and central authorities proved incapable of dealing with the enormity of the task confronting them, prompting Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev to appeal to the international community for assistance. When the earthquake struck Gorbachev had been in New York City on an official visit to the United Nations. Upon learning of the earthquake, he cut his trip short and traveled to Leninakan to personally inspect the damage and console the survivors. In Leninakan he told Armenians to forget politics and to focus on rebuilding. Most diasporans thought this was wise advice, only to be shocked when a survivor took Gorbachev to task by asking him why he was not doing the right thing and allowing Karabagh to be united with Armenia.64 Gorbachev instead used the ensuing chaos to incarcerate the Karabagh Committee members first in Yerevan and then have them transferred to a Moscow prison. The Committee members were released on May 31, 1989, after months of protests in Armenia. Shortly thereafter, in June 1989, the Karabagh Committee institutionalized its role as the nucleus of the national movement and became the Armenian National Movement (ANM).65 Although the diaspora political parties were ambivalent with regard to the Karabagh Movement, many diaspora individuals and organizations sent assistance to Armenia in the aftermath of the earthquake. Others traveled to Armenia to provide medical care, equipment, supplies, medicine, as well as psychological counseling and support for survivors of the quake. As I will discuss below, the leaders of both non-profit organizations, including Agbabian and Najarian, whom I mentioned earlier, describe the earthquake as having played an influential role in the participation with Armenia. Agbabian describes diaspora assistance and relief to Armenia as an “infusion of blood to a wounded country.”66 Najarian, meanwhile, describes how the relief effort in the earthquake was so massive that it, in itself, became a breaking news story. She adds, “For the Armenian diaspora, the call for help was the most compelling we had ever had.”67 The author of the “Diaspora Humanitarian Assistance to Armenia” report, Hratch Tchilingirian, points out how diaspora assistance, which began after the earthquake and intensified after Armenia’s declaration of independence in 1991, has tended to peak when major national emergencies (e.g. earthquakes, energy crises, etc.) occur.68 The assistance from the diaspora to Armenia would continue and intensify after Armenia declared independence on September 21, 1991. As the blockade which

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Azerbaijan had initiated in 1989 continued, Armenia began to face gas, fuel, food, and electricity shortages that became particularly acute following the collapse of the Soviet Union in December 1991.69 Following independence, the predominant discourse among diaspora Armenians emphasized the Republic as the homeland to which the diaspora was attached70 and bound to assist. The questions concerning the role of the diaspora vis-à-vis Armenia, however, remained unanswered. Were diasporans going to repatriate to Armenia from their adopted homelands? Were they going to receive dual citizenship? What role were they going to play in Armenia’s nation-building process? What rights would/should diasporans have in a newly independent Armenia? What responsibilities would accompany those rights? Finally, were the diaspora and homeland, as some intellectuals in the diaspora and Armenia maintained, the two wings of the same bird?71 After independence some diasporans, including Jirair Libaridian, Raffi Hovannisian, and Sebouh Tashjian, were invited to work in the new government. But given the dire economic situation in Armenia, the continuing conflict in Karabagh, and the difficult daily living conditions, most diasporans continued to interact with Armenia transnationally. Only a tiny number of diasporans repatriated to Armenia after independence and presumably even fewer have received Armenian citizenship.72 Transnational methods of diasporic interaction vary based on personal connections to individuals in Armenia, length of residence in diaspora, and the strength of ruling assumptions of helping the homeland. Recent emigrants and those who have family and friends in Armenia (i.e. the repatriates of the 1940s who now live in the West) tend to send money directly to their relatives. According to the 1996 UNDP Human Development Report, in 1995 nearly one out of five registered residents of Armenia was living abroad temporarily or permanently and that every fifth family out of 1,000 families interviewed reported having received assistance from relatives and friends in the previous month. Every tenth family reported having provided such assistance to others with remittances they had received from abroad. These remittances have helped tens of thousands of Armenian families survive the difficult economic conditions in Armenia. On average, during the 1990s, diasporic Armenians sent around $350 million annually to family and friends in the homeland. In 1998, this figure represented almost 19 percent of the GDP ($1.85 billion) in Armenia.73 But because the hundreds of millions of dollars were sent in $100–$500 increments by over 700,000 people a month, the impact of remittances on the Armenian economy has been negligible. Most recipients have used the remittances to survive from one month to the next; they have not been able to save the remittances in order to invest in business ventures that would provide longer-term earnings. Diasporics who have no immediate or kin-based ties to people in Armenia tend to “help Armenia” by supporting the work of the many diasporic non-profit organizations that sponsor projects in Armenia. In the following section, two organizations that were created by diasporics for the purpose of “helping Armenia” and the primary motivations of some of their founders will be

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discussed, as well as the impact these organizations have had on Armenia’s transition. Out of dozens that have provided and continue to provide assistance to Armenia, these two organizations were chosen for two reasons: (1) these organizations exemplify two different types of non-profit organization: large/ institutional and small/grassroots and (2) they work in two different yet equally important sectors: education and healthcare.

DIASPORIC ORGANIZATIONS AND ARMENIA’S TRANSITION: BRIDGES OF HOPE AND HELP

The American University of Armenia The American University of Armenia (AUA) was established in 1991 and, quite symbolically, the first day of classes were held on September 21, 1991, the day Armenia declared independence. The impetus for establishing the AUA had come nearly one and half years earlier when many Western specialists traveled to Armenia in order to provide assistance in the aftermath of the December 7, 1988 Leninakan earthquake. Earthquake engineers were among these specialists who, after visiting the earthquake region, began dialogues with their Armenian counterparts on the steps that needed to be taken to prevent future disasters. It was during one of these meetings in 1989 that the idea of a US-style technical university in Armenia was proposed by Yuri Sarkissian, then rector of the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute, to Armen Der Kiureghian, a UC Berkeley Professor of Civil Engineering. Initially the idea was to establish an earthquake-engineering program, since, during the Soviet period, Der Kiureghian contends, “No serious scientific work had been done to understand the nature of the earthquake or why the buildings collapsed.”74 When asked about his motivation for becoming involved in the effort to create such a program, Der Kiureghian explained, “The motivation was to help my homeland. I did not need more than that. But the specific idea for establishing the University came about during my second visit to Armenia after the earthquake (third visit ever) . . . As an earthquake engineer myself, I saw the need for education in modern methods of earthquake engineering to help the country. This was the impetus for the proposal that Mihran [Agbabian] and I wrote, which then led to the establishment of the University one and a half years later.” Agbabian describes how he and the other founders were motivated to create a university which would become “a constructive alternative to the existing educational system of Armenia”75 and that it would “contribute to the long-term welfare of Armenia through the education of students of distinction at the highest standards of academic excellence.”76 This idea soon evolved into the specific goal of founding a graduate university based on the US academic model. What followed was a period of steadfast effort led by two Armenian-American earthquake engineering professors, Mihran Agbabian of the University of Southern California and Der Kiureghian of UC Berkeley. The vision of a US graduate university in Armenia soon became a

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goal to which other academics in the US and Armenia lent their support. The late Professor Stepan Karamardian, formerly Dean of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Riverside, joined the Agbabian and Der Kiureghian team early on.77 This team of diaspora Armenians then approached the Armenian government and several diaspora organizations seeking support to achieve the stated goal. From the very beginning, the government of Armenia and specifically the Ministry of Higher Education and Sciences (now the Ministry of Education and Science) provided logistical and financial support for the establishment of the university. The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU),78 a diaspora organization, also agreed from very early on to underwrite a major share of the operational funding necessary to launch the university. As the idea of the American University of Armenia (AUA) developed, the team expanded their objectives with the aim of creating a university that would become the leading educational institution in the Caucasus. Over the past decade, the AUA, in addition to the aforementioned entities (e.g. AGBU), has also received funding from private donors, the Lincy Foundation, the Eurasia Foundation, and USAID.79 The effort of the team members was institutionalized with the creation of the American University of Armenia Corporation (AUAC). The Oakland, California-based AUAC is a California Public Benefit Corporation that is organized exclusively for educational and charitable purposes under the US Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3). The AUAC is affiliated with the Regents of the University of California (UC) and under the affiliation agreement, the UC provides academic and administrative guidance. This agreement allows the AUAC to consult appropriate members of the staff and faculty of the UC in planning curriculum, selecting faculty, structuring University administration, and in developing programs in various disciplines. Currently AUA provides graduate education in Business and Management, Industrial Engineering, Information and Communication Technologies, Political Science, Health Sciences, Law, Comparative Legal Studies, and Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Its emphasis on graduate programs is intended to complement the State Universities and Institutes in Armenia that provide undergraduate education. Parallel to its academic programs and as a public service to the community, AUA also provides courses through its Extension Program. The AUA has succeeded for a variety of reasons. First, its founding members had a long-term vision and were committed to the goals and objectives of the project. Second, they were able to receive the financial and logistical support from multiple parties including the Armenian government, diaspora Armenian individuals and organizations (most notably the AGBU), the UC, and the US government. By attracting such broad-based support, the AUA succeeded where other projects have failed. Der Kiureghian explains the success of the AUA as one of timing, he says: “AUA succeeded because it was the right idea at the right time and for the right place.” He attributes the failure of other promising and wellintentioned diaspora projects to the prevailing corruption and inefficiency in Armenia, saying, “One has to fully understand the past and the fact that such

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transitions take time. So, one has to have a long-term outlook and be optimistic and dedicated to the cause.” AUA has become a prototype for other universities in the region. An American consultant to the American University of Kyrgyzstan recently told me, “Because of its phenomenal success, everyone is trying to replicate the AUA model.”80 The AUA has provided Armenia with a positive model in the transition to a market economy and democratic style of governance by providing teaching, research, and public service.81 By training cadres that are fluent in English and well versed in Western political and economic discourses, the AUA has also played an important role in integrating Armenia into the global economy. Agbabian describes AUA graduates as the “greatest contribution.”82 There are now more than 800 graduates, the vast majority of whom (73 percent) are working in Armenia. Der Kiureghian adds, “They [the AUA alumni] are functioning as bridges between Armenia and the Western world. This has been and will become an even more important factor in the ongoing transition as time goes on.” Agbabian describes the AUA as “ a bridge during the long transition from a Soviet system to one based on democratic values.” In addition to training graduate students, the AUA sponsors research centers, which in recent years have been in the forefront of developments in Armenia and are helping to improve the daily life of the average person by promoting better healthcare, housing, environmental consciousness, business, and the rule of law.83 Currently the AUA is seeking accreditation with the Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC).84 Accreditation indicates that the institution operates at a high level of quality consistent with its stated purposes and, among other things, has committed itself to institutional improvement, periodic selfevaluation, and continuing compliance with the WASC Commission standards, policies, and procedures. The WASC accreditation assures the educational community, the general public, and other organizations that an accredited institution has met high standards of quality and effectiveness.85

The Armenian Health Alliance The Armenian Health Alliance (AHA), which was registered as a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization in 1989, is led by founder and president Dr Carolann Najarian. Unlike the AUA, the AHA is a small grassroots organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 1989, the AHA has worked with US and Armenian partners to provide healthcare, medical supplies, equipment, food, and clothing to Armenians in the homeland. Its work began during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake when AHA members collected and delivered medical supplies, equipment, and medicine to the earthquake-ravaged regions of Armenia. In addition to the provision of supplies and equipment, the AHA members, particularly its founder, Dr Carolann Najarian, provided medical treatment to patients she met during these visits. Since 1989 the AHA has provided supplies and assistance to three hospitals in Gyumri and the Yerevan Pediatric Infectious Disease hospital; it has helped to implement an Adopt-a-Sister

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project for the refugees from Getashen, and has been involved in numerous other assistance programs for individual patients who need treatment in the US. Since 1988 Najarian has made over 50 trips to Armenia. During these trips she has met several individuals who would play an important role in AHA projects. Following the period of acute crisis (1988–93), the AHA decided to shift its strategy and to move away from immediate relief work and instead to concentrate its work on projects that would, as Najarian states, “make a more lasting contribution to health care in Armenia.”86 Through discussions with ArmenianAmerican primary care physician from California, Dr. Krikor Soghikian, the AHA drew up a proposal for a primary care training center and clinic to be established in Gyumri. This center would be based on the Western mode of a primary care system in which primary care physicians treat most of their patients’ medical problems and only refer complicated cases to specialists. This is considered a more efficient and cost-effective system of healthcare provision. Najarian presented the plan to Ruben Khatchaturian, head of the Health Department for the Shirak region in April 1994 who was supportive of the idea. Najarian writes: The long-term effects of the earthquake, the breakup of the Soviet Union, the blockade, and the war were forcing major cuts in every area of the nation’s federal budget, including health care. Regional administrators like Ruben had to fire hundreds of healthcare workers, eliminate hospital beds, and reduce the amount of money spent on patient care. Ruben quickly grasped the benefits of the primary care system. His doctors would be better utilized and patients would receive better care for less money. He wanted to know how soon we could get started.87 In September 1994, the Primary Care Center of Gyumri opened and began providing healthcare services out of the six ground-floor rooms in a polyclinic building which had been provided for them by the government. The government had also promised to cover the rent and electricity costs. The AHA renovated the building, shipped supplies from the US to Gyumri, and began to train the local doctors and nurses. Dr Armen Pirouzyan, who had been the head of the intensive care unit at the Armenian Samaritar Hospital and who had trained in Boston in 1993, provided the oversight for the project. Initially the AHA sent doctors from the US to work for extended periods (three to four months) at the clinic, but currently local staff train new hires. This has been an important project in that it has provided a new model of medical care in Armenia. Since establishing the Center, the AHA has paid and continues to pay staff salaries. As a small grassroots organization, the AHA’s sole source of support are private donors in the US. In spite of operating on a shoestring budget, the AHA has accomplished much for the past 14 years and Najarian sees the success of the organization as being due to several factors including drawing on local sources of expertise, working with partners, and serving as a bridge to the West.

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She explained: We [the AHA] have been like a bridge. I think in those worst years of the crisis period [1988/9–94] people in Armenia began to feel very much alone and isolated. Much more so than during the Communist period when we thought they were isolated. After the break up of the Soviet Union they felt as though they were cut off from the world and blockaded. So this connection with us and others like us was a bridge for them and a link of communication with the outside world. It was important that they saw that they hadn’t been forgotten. People always asked me, “When are you coming back?”88 In order to sustain this bridge, frequent trips to Armenia were necessary in addition to having a commitment to working with Armenian partners and on long-term projects. For Najarian this has meant that she has made over 50 trips to Armenia since 1988 and that she and other AHA members have invested time and energy in building working partnerships, mutual trust, and respect. Listening to local concerns and responding to local needs has also been important as Najarian explained: It is important to listen to locals and I would say that this is the key to our success. It does not work to go over [to Armenia] with your idea of what should be done and to begin telling people in Armenia what they should do. On the contrary, it is important to listen to what people tell you and try to understand their concerns. The AHA now has a successful track record of projects, and it is continuing its work with the Gyumri Primary Care Center and other programs.89

CONCLUSION Through sustained, committed contact, organizations such the Armenian University of Armenia, the Armenian Health Alliance, as well as the Armenian General Benevolent Union, the Armenian Relief Society, Aznavour Pour l’Armenie, the Armenian Assembly of America, the Lincy Foundation, the Armenian American Mammography University Center, Medical Outreach for Armenia, Organization for Developmental Services in Armenia, the United Armenian Fund, among others, have provided important guidance and assistance to aid Armenia’s post-Soviet transition.90 At the project level these organizations have been quite successful and many homeland Armenians have benefited from their services. Unfortunately, however, these organizations have not been able to alleviate widespread poverty, mitigate emigration, and promote long-term sustainable development in Armenia. The reasons for this, which I will discuss below, include corruption and lack of transparency in Armenia and the

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ambivalence within diaspora communities regarding the meaning of the diaspora and its role vis-à-vis Armenia.

Corruption in Armenia In spite of continued diasporic support and 6 per cent growth in gross domestic product (GDP) in 2000, 54.7 percent of Armenians are considered poor and 27 percent are considered very poor.91 These high rates of absolute poverty, the lack of economic growth, growing social polarization, and crumbling infrastructure have had a serious impact at the micro-level where people have lost their jobs, status in society, and are faced with harsh material conditions. These factors have led to high rates of both permanent and temporary migration and by different estimates anywhere from 700,000 to one million people have left the country since 1991. The Armenian authors of the UNDP report argue that the reasons for this predicament are inefficient state governance, the lack of economic development strategies, the incongruence between economic and political reforms, bureaucratic corruption, arbitrary tax collections, and the lack of guarantees for investors.92 They single out corruption as the primary obstacle to economic development and poverty alleviation stating, “Over ten years neither a framework for competition nor equal conditions for all entrepreneurs have been established in RA [the Republic of Armenia]. Clans operate in various spheres, enjoying the patronage of influential persons, which makes them in fact monopolists, exempting them from taxes.”93 According to the Transparency International 2000 Annual Report, Armenia is one of the top 20 most corrupt countries in the world with a score of 2.5 on the Corruption Perception Index. On a scale of one to ten, ten is “highly clean” and one is “highly corrupt.” Transparency International assigns these numbers based on surveys with businesspeople, risk analysts, and members of the public and at least three surveys are needed to include data from a country in the Report. While corruption is certainly prevalent in Armenia, the situation, according to Transparency International, is not as bad as in other post-Soviet countries including neighboring Azerbaijan and Russia, which had scores of 1.5 and 2.1, respectively.94 Many diasporics have become disillusioned with Armenia’s progress and believe that diaspora funds are being misused or misappropriated by certain officials. This has engendered donor fatigue in virtually all the diaspora communities.95 As one diaspora Armenian from Lebanon who now lives in Los Angeles told me: It is difficult to keep sending money when you see that nothing of much significance has been accomplished in Armenia. I just visited there last year and I was surprised to see first of all how poor people were and that Leninakan was still not re-built. Where is all the money going? We [diasporans] have sent millions [of dollars] since 1988. But you would not know that simply by looking at Armenia. It appears to have gone to those who

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This belief is shared by many diasporics who point to the growing impoverishment of the majority of Armenians and unrelenting migration from Armenia and argue that with such corruption and lack of transparency it is not wise to invest money in Armenia. While corruption has certainly diminished the impact of diasporic interactions on Armenia’s transition, it is not the only mitigating factor.

An ambivalent relationship Although the “ruling assumption” of helping Armenia was strengthened after independence, given the heterogeneity and diversity of opinions and affiliations within and between Armenian diaspora communities, there has been a lack of consensus regarding the meaning and role of the diaspora vis-à-vis Armenia. The Hayastan All Armenia Fund, which was created in 1992 by a decree from then President Levon Ter-Petrosian, was intended to integrate the diaspora in Armenia’s nation-building projects. Although the Fund has been successful in implementing over 200 projects in Armenia including building schools, water pipelines, and roads, it has not provided an adequate answer to the question, “what role should the diaspora play in Armenia’s future?” Different historical experiences and interpretations of those experiences have shaped the ideologies, cultural beliefs, and political priorities of Armenians in the diaspora and the homeland. In the diaspora communities, political affiliation continues to influence diasporics’ perceptions of and relations with Armenia. In Armenia, the government’s policies regarding the diaspora, including, but not limited to the refusal to grant dual citizenship to diasporics, have also affected the development of diaspora–homeland relations. Intellectuals and political leaders on both sides continue to disagree on issues ranging from orthographic reform in Armenia (classical versus modern)96 to Armenia’s relations with Turkey and Genocide recognition.97 Hence certain government policies, different cultural understandings and ideologies about the nation (azg) and the homeland, and conceptions about national priorities have mitigated the impact of diasporic interactions on Armenia. In recent years the Armenian government has attempted to overcome these differences and encourage greater dialogue and cooperation between the homeland and diaspora by hosting Armenia-diaspora conferences.98 At the most recent conference in May 2002, participants from various diaspora communities and the homeland discussed economic and social developments, education, culture, science, and issues related to Armenia-diaspora organizations and structures. These conferences, along with numerous other formal and informal events that have taken place over the last ten years, have provided Armenians from the homeland and the diaspora opportunities to deal with each other on multiple levels (i.e. institutionally and individually). Libaridian contends that these “intense relations have provided time to all to disabuse themselves of idealized images of the other, of most of the unrealistic expectations.”99 As idealized images and unrealistic

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expectations have disappeared, more pragmatic steps have been implemented to develop diaspora-Armenia relations. Hence, despite the continued ambivalence and prevailing donor fatigue, diasporic organizations and individual diasporics remain engaged and committed to the cause of “helping Armenia.” Only time will tell how these relations and interactions will develop and what role the diaspora will play in Armenia in the future.

NOTES 1 Libaridian, Gérard J., Armenia at the Crossroads: Democracy and Nationhood in the Post-Soviet Era (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1991); Libaridian, Gérard J., The Challenge of Statehood: Armenian Political Thinking Since Independence (Watertown, MA: Blue Crane Books, 1996); Masih, Joseph and Robert O. Krikorian, Armenia at the Crossroads (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1999); Panossian, Razmik, “Between Ambivalence and Intrusion: Politics and Identity in Armenia-Diaspora Relations,” in Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 7(2), 1998; Pattie, Susan P.,“Longing and Belonging: Issues of Homeland in the Armenian Diaspora,” http://www.transcomm. ox.ac.uk/working%20papers/pattie.pdf; Suny, Ronald G., The Revenge of the Past (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993); Tölölyan, Khachig, “The Nation-State and Its Others: In Lieu of a Preface,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1(1), 1991; Tölölyan, Khachig, “Rethinking Diaspora(s): Stateless Power in the Transnational Moment,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 5(1), 1996. 2 Global civil society refers to the type of work conducted by and the discourses related to the growing number of NGOs that are active in the international arena. See Kaldor, Mary, Global Civil Society: An Answer to War (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2003); Hardt, Michael and Antonio Negri, Empire (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000); Alvarez, Sonia E., “Latin American Feminisms ‘Go Global’: Trends of the 1990s and Challenges for the New Millennium,” in Culture of Politics/Politics of Culture. 3 Ishkanian, Armine, “Importing Civil Society?: The Emergence of Armenia’s NGO Sector and the Impact of Western Aid on Its Development”, in Armenian Forum, 3(1), 2003; “Is the Personal Political? How Domestic Violence Became an Issue in Armenia’s NGO Sector in the Late 1990s”, published as a Berkeley Program in Soviet and PostSoviet Studies Working Paper (2003), ; “Gender and NGOs in Armenia,” The Anthropology of East Europe Review: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia, 18(2), Fall, 2000. 4 The US law on non-profits states that an organization must have the purpose of benefiting the community or society as a whole, not just the organization’s members and their families or other select individuals. The enumerated purposes under the 501(c)(3) non-profit law include: religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, or educational purposes, or to foster national or international amateur sports competition (but only if no part of its activities involve the provision of athletic facilities or equipment), or for the prevention of cruelty to children or animals, http://www. taxexemptlaw.com/lr-04.shtml. The two organizations I discuss in this chapter have 501(c)(3) status. Leading scholars of non-profit organizations, Lester Salamon and Helmut Anheier, define non-profits as such entities as “hospitals, universities, social clubs, professional organizations, day care centers, environmental groups, family counseling agencies, sports clubs, job training centers, human rights organizations, and many more.” Despite their diversity, they argue, these entities also share common features, which include that they are: (1) organizations: i.e. they have an institutional presence and structure; (2) private: i.e. they are institutionally separate from the state; (3) non-profit distribution, i.e. they do not return profits to their managers or to a set of

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“owners”; (4) self-governing, i.e. they are fundamentally in control of their own affairs; and (5) voluntary, i.e. membership in them is not legally required and they attract some level of voluntary contribution of time or money. Salamon, Lester M., Helmut K. Anheier, et al., “Civil Society in Comparative Perspective”, in Global Civil Society: Dimensions of the Nonprofit Sector (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies, 1999), p. 3. I have chosen to focus on US-based non-profit diasporic organizations rather than the diaspora as a whole because to do so would be to claim that the diaspora is a homogeneous monolithic community when in fact there is great diversity between and among Armenian diaspora communities throughout the world. These various diaspora communities were created as a result of diverse historical circumstances and are comprised of Armenians who differ based on their religious affiliations (e.g. Apostolic, Protestant, Catholic), diaspora political party affiliations (e.g. Dashnak, Hunchak, Ramgavar), countries, regions, or cities of origin, socio-economic backgrounds, and degrees of assimilation. In June and July 2003 I conducted research on diaspora non-profits based in Armenia. I am currently analyzing this data for future publication. According to this restrictive definition, “diaspora” only refers to those groups of people with a clearly delimited identity who were coercively uprooted and resettled outside the boundaries of their homeland, who maintained a collective memory that was a foundational element of their distinct identity, who patrolled their communal boundaries in order to avoid assimilation, and maintained communication and contact with other communities of the diaspora and with the homeland when/if it existed in an identifiable form (lacking that, they exhibited loyalty to a mythicized idea of the homeland). Tölölyan, “Rethinking,” pp. 12–15. Ibid., p. 3. Anderson, Benedict, “Exodus,” in Critical Inquiry, 20(2): 314–327, 1994; Arthur, Paul, “Diasporan Intervention in International Affairs: Irish America as a Case Study,” Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1(2): 143–162, 1991; Basch, Linda, Nina Glick Schiller and Cristina Szanton Blanc, Nations Unbound: Transnational Projects, Postcolonial Predicaments and Deterritorialized Nation-States (Basel, Switzerland: Gordon and Breach Publishers, 1994); Clifford, James, Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997); Gunter, Michael M., Transnational Armenian Activism (London: Research Institute for the Study of Conflict and Terrorism, 1990); Kelley, Ron, Irangeles: Iranians in Los Angeles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993); Rouse, Roger, “Mexican Migration and the Social Space of Postmodernism,” in Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies, 1(1): 8–23, 1991; Tölölyan, Khachig, “Terrorism in Modern Armenian Political Culture,” in Political Parties and Terrorist Groups, ed. Leonard Weinberg (London: Frank Cass Publisher, 1992). Pattie, “Longing and Belonging,” p. 2. Tölölyan, “The Nation-State and Its Others,” p. 5. Bisharat, George E.,“Exile to Compatriot: Transformations in the Social Identity of Palestinian Refugees in the West Bank,” in Gupta, Akhil and James Ferguson, eds, Culture, Power, Place: Explorations in Critical Anthropology (Durham: Duke University Press, 1997); Malkki, Liisa H., “National Geographic: The Rooting of Peoples and the Territorialization of National Identity among Scholars and Refugees,” in Gupta and Ferguson, Culture, Power, Place; Leonard, Karen, “Finding One’s Own Place: Asian Landscapes Re-visioned in Rural California,” in Gupta and Ferguson, Culture, Power, Place. Clifford, James, Routes. Werbner, Pnina, “The Place which is Diaspora: Citizenship, Religion and Gender in the Making of Chaordic Transnationalism,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 8(1): 119–33, 2002.

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15 Krishan Kumar, “Civil Society: An Inquiry into the Usefulness of a Historical Term,” British Journal of Sociology, 44(3), p. 375. 16 Howell, Jude, Civil Society and Development: A Critical Exploration (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2001), p. 1. 17 The term “transition” has been problematized by various scholars including Michael Burawoy, Katherine Verdery, and Barbara Einhorn, who argue that “transition” implies an evolutionary development that has a single, well-defined objective and trajectory. 18 Maria Ottaway and Thomas Carothers, Funding Virtue: Civil Society Aid and Democracy Promotion (Washington DC: Carnegie Endowment, 1998), p. 6. 19 World Bank, Armenia Country Assistance Strategy Report, no. 22111-AM, 25 April 2001. 20 Janine Wedel, quoted in Chris Hann, “Introduction,” in Hann, Chris and Elizabeth Dunn, eds, Civil Society: Challenging Western Models (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 1. 21 Lewis, David, The Management of Non-Governmental Development Organizations (London: Routledge, 2001), p. 44. 22 Kaldor, Global Civil Society, pp. 1–2. 23 Ibid., p. 6. 24 Ibid., p. 10. 25 Keck, Margaret and Kathryn Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1998), p. 1. 26 Anderson, “Exodus,” p. 327. 27 Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, p. 214. 28 Pattie, “Longing and Belonging,” p. 4. 29 Panossian, “Ambivalence and Intrusion,” p. 151. 30 There are Armenian diaspora communities in San Francisco, Fresno, New York/ New Jersey, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC, but with over 800,000 Armenians, Los Angeles is now the largest community of Armenians in the US. 31 The largest community of “internal” diaspora Armenians is in Russia. 32 Tölölyan, “Rethinking,” p. 7. 33 In the early twentieth century, the Armenian Cause was the political goal of creating an independent homeland for Armenians. By the 1970s, the recognition of the Genocide became a very important objective of the Armenian Cause and diaspora political parties linked the recognition of the Genocide and the dream of a greater Armenia because Turkey’s recognition of the Genocide would constitute the legal basis for Armenian claims on Western Armenia (Libaridian, Challenge of Statehood, p. 128). 34 Najarian, Carolann S., Call From Home: Armenia and Karabagh My Journal (Cambridge, MA: Arpen Press, 1999), p. 14. 35 “Fresh Perspectives on Armenia-Diaspora Relations: Khachig Tölölyan and Krikor Beledian Speak with Haratch,” Armenian Forum 1(3), Autumn, 1998, p. 62. 36 Masih and Krikorian, Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 38. 37 On June 7, 1945, Soviet Foreign Minister Viacheslav Molotov told the Turkish ambassador to Moscow that the USSR demanded a revision of the Soviet–Turkish border in the region of Kars and Ardahan. Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, p. 225. 38 The idea of “homeland” has been a contentious issue for diaspora Armenians throughout the twentieth century. Pattie describes the different conceptions of “homeland” among diaspora Armenians. For the majority, she contends, the Republic of Armenia is the homeland. For some political activists and intellectuals, however, the homeland is a more abstract entity. For these diasporans, the “homeland” of “greater Armenia” includes all the ancient kingdoms and territories, embedded with the 2,500-year history of Armenians. There are also a few Armenians for whom the homeland is related to a more intimate vision and locality – their or their ancestors’ village or town of origin,

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p. 6. As Panossian points out, Soviet Armenia was only 20% of “greater Armenia” in its landmass, but it nevertheless remained the only tangible homeland for Armenians in the twentieth century, p. 154. Touryantz, Hagop J., Search for a Homeland (New York: H. J. Touryantz, 1987), pp. 7–8. “Aghpar” is a miscomprehension by Eastern Armenians of Western Armenian pronunciation for the word “brother” ( yeghpayr). “Aghpar” is a disparaging term and was used by locals in Soviet Armenia (deghatziner) to denigrate the Western Armenian repatriates and mark them as “other.” There are few repatriated Armenians left in Armenia today, yet the term continues to be used particularly in reference to diasporans. The first president of the Republic, Levon Ter-Petrossian, was born in Syria in 1945. Although he was only a year old when his family repatriated to Armenia in 1946 and Ter-Petrossian grew up as a Soviet Armenian citizen, during his tenure as President some locals continued to refer to Ter-Petrossian as “aghpar Levon.” This was made possible because during those years the Soviet government had relaxed its emigration policies to allow for the emigration of Russian Jews to Israel. I am not claiming this is the only factor preventing repatriation to Armenia, because clearly the dire economic situation in Armenia is also a mitigating factor. Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, p. 228. Pattie, “Longing and Belonging,” p. 11. Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, p. 222. There was a great deal of animosity between the Dashnaks and the Soviet government in the early years of Soviet rule. In the diaspora, this animosity culminated in bloodshed in 1933 with the murder of Levon Tourian, the Archbishop of the Armenian Church in New York. Tourian was ordained by the religious center of Echmiadzin (Armenia), the seat of the head of the Armenian Church, the Catholicos of All Armenians. Tourian was opposed by the Dashnaks for being explicitly pro-Soviet. On July 2, 1933 he refused to speak at the Armenian Day celebration at the Chicago World’s Fair until the tricolor flag of the independent republic was removed. He considered the tricolor “a manifestation of revolt and disdain against the state organization of present Armenia.” A month later, he was beaten by a group of young Armenians (Suny, Looking Toward Ararat, p. 223). The dispute, Panossian writes, became so bitter that on Christmas Eve 1933, the Archbishop was stabbed to death while celebrating mass in the Holy Cross Church in New York City. Nine members of the Dashnak party were found guilty of the murder, although the party as an organizational entity denied any involvement and avoided indictment in the crime. This left the US diaspora community deeply divided (“Ambivalence and Intrusion,” p. 186). Even today Armenians who belong to the Armenian Apostolic Church in the US attend rival churches that are either allied or subordinate to the Church and Catholicos in Echmiadzin, Armenia or the Church and Catholics in Antelias, Lebanon. Najarian, Call from Home, pp. 18–19. Ibid., p. 22. A territory of Cilicia is in Asia Minor on the southeastern coast of what is now Turkey. The Armenian kingdom of Cilicia flourished from 1080 until 1375. Agbabian, Mihran S., A New Beginning for a New Generation (Oakland, CA: American University of Armenia Corporation, 2002), pp. 12–13. “Ambivalence and Intrusion,” p. 160. Libaridian, Challenge of Statehood, p. 134. Also see Tölölyan’s Sp’iwrk’i mej (Dia-Spores) (Paris: Matenashar Haraj, 1980). The ecological demonstrations eventually forced the shutting-down of the huge Nayarit chemical plant in Yerevan, the Medzamor nuclear power plant, and parts of several other chemical plants. Nayarit is a huge chemical plant that produced chloroprene, a synthetic rubber used in high-tensile latexes. The plant once employed over 4,000 workers.

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54 The only Soviet era non-state/non-Party-sponsored grassroots social movement occurred in April 1965. On April 24, the day of remembrance and mourning for the victims of the 1915 Genocide, public officials, representatives of the Armenian Apostolic Church, and diaspora representatives were to meet in the Spendarian Opera House in Yerevan to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the Genocide. Down the street from the Opera House, in Lenin Square, thousands of people gathered to also commemorate the event. This was the first time that this event was being publicly commemorated in Soviet Armenia. By mid-afternoon the crowd of demonstrators began to march from Lenin Square toward the Opera House via Stalin Boulevard chanting, singing, and carrying Soviet flags and banners celebrating the Soviet brotherhood of peoples. The demonstrators’ aim was not to challenge the authority of the Soviet government; instead it was to draw the government’s attention to the 1915 Genocide of the Armenians and to ask the Soviet government to assist them in reclaiming their lost lands. While the demonstration had begun and proceeded in a peaceful manner, it turned disorderly when the police and KGB intervened and began to harass the peaceful demonstrators. At this point rocks and punches were thrown and the demonstration ended as many of the young demonstrators were arrested and jailed for several days. The Soviet government subsequently officially recognized the Armenian Genocide and built a memorial on Tsitsernakaberd Hill with a pylon and the eternal flame dedicated to the memory of the 1.5 million Armenians who were killed by the Ottoman Turks from 1915–18, but never pursued any of the other demands of the demonstrators. 55 In Armenian the demonstrations were called “mitings” (meetings). 56 Chorbajian, Levon, Patrick Donabedian and Claude Mutafian, The Caucasian Knot: The History and Geo-Politics of Nagorno-Karabagh (London: Zed Books, 1994). 57 Malkhasian, Mark, “Gharabagh”: The Emergence of the National Movement in Armenia (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1996), p. 41. 58 Libaridian, Challenges of Statehood, p. 136. 59 Ibid., p. 137. 60 Quoted in Libaridian, Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 129. 61 Ibid., p. 131. 62 Masih and Krikorian, Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 13. 63 Najarian, Call From Home, pp. 18–24 with regard to East Coast events and personal observations regarding West Coast events. 64 Libaridian, Challenge of Statehood, p. 139. 65 Masih and Krikorian, Armenia at the Crossroads, p. 16. 66 Agbabian, New Beginning, p. 223. 67 Najarian, Call from Home, pp. 28–9. 68 Tchilingirian, Hratch, “Diaspora Humanitarian Assistance to Armenia in the Last Decade,” prepared for the Armenia Diaspora Conference, Yerevan, September 22–23, 1999”, available from . 69 The crisis reached its peak in the winter of 1992 when there were long periods of blackout, stoppage of state provided heat and hot water services, and closures of factories and institutes. Without energy, only a tiny number of private enterprises continued to operate and tens of thousands of state employees were indefinitely laid off. At this time Armenia’s infrastructure was seriously debilitated and there was mass impoverishment. The winter of 1992–93 came to be known as “the bad winter” (vat tzemeruh) when in order to survive the cold temperatures people began to cut down trees from city streets and parks and to tear apart park benches and wooden stairway railings to use for heating and cooking fuel. During these years people also began to sell off their household goods and collections to buy food and fuel and tens of thousands of Armenians began emigrating to Russia, the US, and various countries in Europe.

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70 Panossian, “Ambivalence and Intrusion,” p. 184. 71 Ibid., p. 165. 72 The “Repatriation” page on the ArmeniaDiaspora.com website (http://www. armeniadiaspora.com/repats/repats.html) lists the names of these repatriates but does not indicate the percentage of those that have acquired Armenian citizenship. The web site is maintained by the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The fact that diaspora relations are mediated through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been a point of contention. See comments by Krikor Beledian in “Fresh Perspectives on ArmeniaDiaspora Relations: Khachig Tölölyan and Krikor Beledian Speak with Haratch,” Armenian Forum, 1(3), Autumn 1998. 73 From the Armenpress report, “$350 Million Enters Armenia As Financial Aid to Some Armenian Residents,” December 1, 1997, cited in Astourian, Stephan, “From TerPetrosian to Kocharian: Leadership Change in Armenia” (Berkeley: Berkeley Program in Soviet and Post-Soviet Studies Working Paper, 2001), p. 42. 74 Author interview on March 13, 2002, Berkeley, CA. 75 Agbabian, A New Beginning, p. 15. 76 Ibid., p. 18. 77 Armenian University of Armenia website, http://www.aua.am/aua/about/history. htm. 78 The Armenian General Benevolent Union (AGBU) was established in 1906 with the purpose of preserving and promoting the Armenian identity and heritage through educational, cultural, and humanitarian programs. AGBU has had a long history in Armenia, initiating its first projects in the late 1920s with the construction of the village of Nubarashen, a maternity hospital, eye clinic, and an apartment building in Yerevan. Even though all foreign participation was banned by the Soviet Union in the 1930s, AGBU was permitted to continue its allocations to universities, hospitals, and Holy See of Echmiadzin through the ensuing years. With the devastating earthquake in 1988 and the independence of Armenia in 1991, AGBU began a new era of major educational, cultural and humanitarian projects, which employ 1,000 people annually and have to date served at least 500,000 individuals (http://www.agbu.org/). The organization has an international budget of $27 million and in addition to AUA, AGBU also sponsors the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery Center in Yerevan, the Armenia Philharmonic, the Nork, Arapkir and Malatya Children’s Centers, the Gyumri Cold Food Storage facility, the Yerevan, Sevan, Hrazdan and Echmiadzin Soup Kitchens, etc. 79 Agbabian, A New Beginning, pp. 190–5. 80 Personal communication on 13 October 2001, Madison, WI. 81 Armenian University of Armenia web site http://www.aua.am/. 82 Agbabian, A New Beginning, p. 143. 83 “Inside AUA: An Official Publication of the American University of Armenia,” Summer 2002, p. 1. 84 The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC) is one of six regional associations that accredit public and private schools, colleges, and universities in the US. The Western region covers institutions in California and Hawaii, the territories of Guam, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Republic of Palau, Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands, the Pacific Basin, and East Asia, and areas of the Pacific and East Asia where American/International schools or colleges may apply to it for service (http://www.wascweb.org). 85 According to WASC, “Voluntary, non-governmental, institutional accreditation as practiced by the WASC and other regional commissions is a unique characteristic of US education. In many other countries the maintenance of educational standards is a governmental function” (http://www.wascweb.org/senior/accreditation.htm). 86 Najarian, Call from Home, p. 197. 87 Ibid., p. 198.

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88 Author interview, August 24, 2004. 89 For more see Najarian, Call from Home. 90 Although not all of the organizations (e.g. Aznavour Pour l’Armenie) listed here have 501(c)(3) status, I have included them here because during the last ten years these organizations have played an important role in delivering assistance to Armenia. 91 Individual families are considered “poor” whose current average per capita expenditures fall below the calculated factual minimum subsistence basket of US$25 and “very poor” if the expenditures fall below US$15. UNDP, Human Rights and Human Development: Action for Progress Human Development Report (Yerevan: UNDP, 2000), p. 61. 92 UNDP, p. 56. 93 Ibid., p. 57. 94 Corruption exists everywhere in the world and is not particular to any country or culture. One need only read the business section of any US newspaper to learn about the latest corporate corruption scandals. In recent months executives from Enron, Tyco, Rite Aid, Arthur Andersen, and WorldCom corporations have been indicted or are facing prosecution for corrupt business practices, http://www.salon.com/tech/wire/ 2002/07/08/worldcom_testimony/index.html?x. 95 Tchilingirian, Hratch, “Diaspora Humanitarian Assistance to Armenia in the Last Decade,” report prepared for the Armenia Diaspora Conference, Yerevan, September 22–23, 1999; http://groong.usc.edu/ADconf/199909/reports/humanitarian.html. 96 The Armenian alphabet was derived primarily from the Greek alphabet in the fifth century and consists of thirty-eight (originally thirty-six) letters. Armenian’s script is easily distinguished from other scripts. In 1922 Manoug Abeghian changed the orthography and several letters characteristic of Classical Armenian (also known as Mesrobian Armenian) and that are not used in Eastern Armenia. The diaspora and Church resisted the change and continued to use the old orthography. (The UCLA Language Materials, http://www.lmp.ucla.edu/profiles/profa02.htm.) Regarding orthographic reform, some diaspora Armenians contend that continued use of the Abeghian orthography compromises the purity of the Armenian language and Armenians the link with the past. Homeland Armenians, on the other hand, argue that the changes in the orthography of the state language would create monumental economic and political difficulties since Armenian teachers would have to be retrained, the entire population would have to be taught anew, books would have to be printed (or in some cases reprinted) using the new orthography, and road signs, paper money, seals, passports, and anything else bearing Armenian writing would have to be replaced. They argue that the only purpose this reform would serve would be to appease some diasporics at an immense cost to homeland Armenians. 97 Given Armenia’s current problems and its geo-political context, government leaders from the Ter-Petrossian and the Kocharian administrations have attempted to develop normal relations with neighboring Turkey, thereby relegating the matter of the Genocide to the status of a secondary issue. Diaspora political parties, particularly the Dashnaktsootyun, however, have objected to government attempts at normalizing relations with Turkey arguing that the matter of the Genocide should not be compromised. See Astourian, “From Ter-Petrosian to Kocharian,” for an extensive discussion of this debate. 98 The first conference was held in September 1999 and the second was held in May 2002. 99 Challenge of Statehood, p. 144.

7

Afghan communities in Uzbekistan A preliminary case study Natalya Khan

This chapter focuses on the main characteristics and patterns of the Afghan communities in Uzbekistan. First, it reviews the relationship between Afghanistan and Soviet- and post-Soviet Uzbekistan. Second, it considers Uzbekistan’s refugee policy and the United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) activities as the two main factors affecting the situation of Afghans in Uzbekistan. And third, it discusses some findings based on in-depth interviews conducted with the members of the Afghan communities in Tashkent. To elaborate briefly on the connections between Uzbeks residing in Uzbekistan and those in the northern part of Afghanistan, it is worth noting that the vast majority of Uzbeks in Northern Afghanistan settled there in the late 1920s and early 1930s, following the suppression of Central Asia’s “Basmachi” National Liberation Movement1 and Soviet collectivization. After World War II, the links across the Amu Darya grew stronger and eventually resulted in the development of cross-border trade and the involvement of the Uzbek SSR in the construction of irrigation and power-generating facilities in Afghanistan, including the 1960s Naglu Power Station on the Kabul River, west of Jalalabad. The Soviet Union was inter alia extensively engaged in training Afghanistan’s national workforce. According to Russian scholar L. B. Teplinsky, from the late 1950s through the early 1980s, tens of thousands of Afghan students and specialists were trained at Soviet universities and institutes,2 including those in Tashkent, Samarkand, and other Uzbek cities. From the early 1980s, with Soviet military involvement in Afghanistan, the number of Afghans being educated in the USSR increased significantly, in particular in the neighboring Central Asian republics. As a student at the Tashkent State University during the 1980s, I remember the presence of large groups of Afghan students in each department, a situation observed at other major Tashkent institutes as well. Aside from the students, Uzbekistan never hosted any major Afghan communities on its territory before the late 1980s–early 1990s. The withdrawal of Soviet forces from Afghanistan in 1989, the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, and the fall of Najibullah’s government to the Mujaheddin in 1992 were milestones that radically changed the nature and social composition of the Afghan communities in Uzbekistan.

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As indicated by Alikhan Aman in the early 1990s, “Tashkent became a transit port for people en route to other areas. After the Uzbek declaration of independence in 1991, a number of Afghan people who had USSR visas became refugees sur place as the war spread among the various contending factions throughout Afghanistan.”3 In 1993, the UNHCR estimated that there were 8,000 Afghans in Uzbekistan.4 Interestingly, today the UNHCR estimates the number of Afghan refugees in Uzbekistan at 8,000–8,800 individuals,5 suggesting just a tiny increase over the past eight years. However, and as indicated by Aman in his report, the actual number of Afghans in Uzbekistan had never been registered due to the government’s refusal to grant the UNHCR permission to undertake any field assessment and ascertain the real number of refugees from Tajikistan6 and Afghanistan on Uzbek territory. The insignificant increase in the Afghan population in Uzbekistan indicates that Uzbekistan was able to avoid the large-scale refugee inflow faced by Pakistan and Iran over the past decade. For example, in 1990, there were 3.3 million UNHCR registered Afghan civilians in Pakistan and three million in Iran. How was Uzbekistan able to escape the overwhelming refugee waves affecting countries bordering Afghanistan to the south? There are, at least, two possible explanations. First, Uzbekistan’s geographical location, far from the battlefields in southern and central Afghanistan, spared the country from a large influx of refugees. Until 1998, the northern part of Afghanistan was relatively calm and enjoyed a near autonomy from the central government in Kabul. In addition, when in 1998 Taliban militants captured Mazar-e-Sharif and imposed their control over the northern Balkh Province, Uzbekistan sealed and reinforced its southern borders, closing a checkpoint in Termez and cutting electricity supplies to northern Afghanistan. Second, the flow of refugees from Afghanistan was curbed by Uzbekistan’s restrictive policy toward refugees and asylum seekers. Uzbekistan is not a signatory to the UN Refugee Convention of 1951 or Protocol of 19677 and no national law on refugees and asylum seekers has been adopted so far. The absence of refugee legislation in Uzbekistan, together with the strict regulations on foreign and stateless citizens’ legal status, resulted in almost no legal protection and difficult living conditions for Afghan refugees in a republic with a struggling transitional economy. Uzbekistan’s refugee policy has primarily been shaped by security concerns, with security being significantly tightened after the February, 1999, bombings in Tashkent, and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan’s (IMU) military incursions. In August, 1999, the IMU directed operations into Kyrgyzstan and, in 2000, into Uzbekistan. Additionally, the Uzbek government does not appear to consider refugees to be people in need of protection. On the contrary, those who enter Uzbekistan “illegally” are subject to arrest, detention, and deportation. Very few refugees hold a residence permit in Uzbekistan, and even those who do are at risk of having their permits cancelled at any time. The US Committee for Refugees’ Country Report states that, until 1999, the Uzbek authorities routinely arrested and detained as illegal immigrants even those

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Table 7.1 UNHCR resettlement of Afghan refugees in 1996–9 Year

Cases

Persons

Country of resettlement

1996 1997 1998 1999 Total

2 10 3 13 28

2 13 5 27 47

Sweden, United Kingdom Canada, Norway Denmark Finland, Germany, Australia, Sweden, Norway

Source: Compiled on the basis of data provided in Population Migration in Uzbekistan (1989–98), (Tashkent: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2000).

refugees who had been officially recognized by the UNHCR. It was only in April, 1999, that the Uzbek authorities made a verbal commitment to the UNHCR not to arrest or detain the UNHCR-recognized refugees. The agreement did not cover asylum seekers, whose claims were pending. This agreement led to a reduction in, but not the complete elimination of, the detention of refugees in Uzbekistan.8 The Human Rights Watch World Report 2001, “Uzbekistan: Human Rights Developments”, mentions that in early July, 2001, Uzbek law enforcement agencies used a UNHCR confidential list of Afghan refugees awaiting placement in a third country to track the refugees down and demand that they sign a document agreeing to leave the country within five days or else face arrest and deportation. At least ten individuals were threatened in the first days of the door-to-door campaign. The UNHCR later reported that 12 refugees were placed under house arrest for one week, but that the “misunderstanding” was resolved with yet another verbal agreement between the UNHCR and the Uzbek government.9 Since Uzbekistan has not created a legal structure to deal with refugees, the UNHCR has remained the only agency involved in determining the legal status of Afghan refugees in Uzbekistan. The UNHCR country office was established in Tashkent in 1993 and, to date, 2,579 persons, mostly Afghan nationals, have been granted Mandate refugee status. Before September 11, 2001, the UNHCR was also involved in the repatriation and resettlement of Afghan refugees from Uzbekistan, while today, the UNHCR’s main emphasis is on voluntary repatriation. Resettlement, as an important component of the overall protection strategy for Afghans in Uzbekistan, was undertaken only for the most vulnerable refugees. Among these were the Afghan orphans who had been brought to Uzbekistan for education during Soviet times and who had completed their studies with the UNHCR’s help and were supposed to leave Uzbekistan after graduation. The overall number of UNHCR-conducted resettlement and repatriation cases was very small, apparently due to the lack of funds (Tables 7.1 and 7.2). Among other UNHCR activities in Uzbekistan, special attention has been given to collaboration with local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) assisting refugees directly, to awareness building, and to establishing a legal and administrative framework for dealing with asylum seekers and refugees. These include

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Table 7.2 UNHCR repatriation of Afghan refugees in 1996–9 Year

Cases

Persons

1996 1997 1998 1999 Total

16 0 1 0 17

58 0 1 0 59

Source: Compiled on the basis of data provided in Population Migration in Uzbekistan (1989–98), (Tashkent: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 2000).

the Tashkent-based NGO “Hayot Yullari” (Roads of Life) and another NGO in Termez where the UNHCR opened its field office at the end of 2000 to proceed with activities to determine refugee status. These NGOs provide social services (material and medical assistance, social counseling and income generation), as well as vocational education for refugee children and adolescents. Additionally, the UNHCR continues discussions with the Uzbek government on issues related to refugees and asylum seekers, in particular concerning migration law and procedures for the protection of refugees. As mentioned above, the number of Afghans in Uzbekistan is estimated by UNHCR at 8,000–8,800 individuals, most of whom live in the capital city Tashkent. In addition, a small group of Afghans, approximately 250 according to the UNHCR field office, are located in Termez, in Surkhandarya province in southern Uzbekistan. The vast majority of Afghans arrived in 1998, after the Taliban captured Mazar-e-Sharif and imposed their control over a larger part of northern Afghanistan. This particular group of Afghans consisted mainly of persons related to General Rashid Dostum. Although initially welcomed by the Uzbek government, their status became more precarious as the conflict in Northern Afghanistan continued and Afghanistan’s future became increasingly unclear. Their visas were subsequently cancelled and they no longer had a legal basis to remain in the country. As a result of numerous campaign visits by the UNHCR Tashkent Protection staff to Termez, 57 families (217 persons) were registered as asylum seekers, out of which 49 families (206 persons) were recognized as Mandate refugees.10 Given the negligible number of Afghans in Termez and their isolated position from the rest of the community, this chapter focuses on the Afghan communities in Tashkent. In order to better assess these communities, a survey among the heads of the Afghan households in Tashkent was conducted by taking a “snowball sample.”11 Because of the uncertain legal status of the overwhelming majority of Afghans in Tashkent and their extreme reluctance to be exposed, the snowball sampling seemed to be the only possible way to conduct a survey. Due to the limited number of persons interviewed (slightly over 90), it is difficult to reach any quantitative conclusions regarding these communities. In particular, caution should be exercised in using these results to generalize about the entire Afghan

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community. Nevertheless, certain qualitative characteristics on the basis of the survey can be discerned. Afghans in Tashkent live primarily in one district, the Yunusobod Tumani in the northeastern sector of the city. Another, smaller, community resides in the Chilonzor Tumani in the Qatortol quarter. The survey conducted among these communities demonstrated the presence of all major Afghan ethnic groups, such as the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazara. The majority of those surveyed reported arriving directly from the provinces of Gazni, Nangarhar, Qandahar, Bamian, Kunduz, Balkh, Kunar, Samangan, Paktiya, Herat, Kabul, and Parwan. Unlike the case of Afghan Pashtuns seeking refuge in northern Pakistan, no pattern based on ethnicity was discernible in this migration from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan. Interethnic cleavages back in Afghanistan do not seem to have a serious impact upon the Afghan communities in Tashkent. The people interviewed consider themselves as one Afghan nation in Uzbekistan. All reported having close friends among various Afghan ethnic groups in Tashkent. Interestingly, very few of them listed non-Afghan local people among their friends. Similar to Afghanistan, the lingua franca of Afghans in Tashkent is Dari, even though they speak their own languages with family members and Afghans of the same ethnicity. Thus, despite separate ethnic identities, it is evident that all members of the Afghan communities in Uzbekistan refer to themselves as Afghans, and not, for example, as Pashtuns, Tajiks, or Uzbeks. As Richard Jenkins has written, “although two groups may be different from each other as A and B, in a different context they may combine as C in contrast to D.”12 The prevailing Afghan self-identification regardless of ethnicity observed among those interviewed serves as a good example of the model described by Jenkins. The Afghans surveyed also reported maintaining extremely close relations within their communities, which they estimate to be in the hundreds. Families tend to be quite large, with an average family comprising six individuals with an average of 2.8 children. In most cases, Afghans married Afghans, often of the same ethnicity. In a few exceptional cases, Afghans reported being married to Russian women. The families interviewed maintain Afghan traditions, are in constant contact with each other, gather for wedding parties, and celebrate both Islamic and Persian festivals. Men usually wear, as they put it, “normal European clothes” while women wear their traditional dress – a long shirt and shalwar, but do not wear a veil. The level of education among those interviewed was high, all having completed secondary, special vocational or higher education. The majority of higher education graduates were trained at Tashkent institutes, mainly at Tashkent State University, the Polytechnic Institute, and the State Medical Institute, and received their degrees in the early 1990s. These are the individuals who had come to Uzbekistan to study in the Soviet period between 1983 and 1990, and never went back after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989 and the fall of Najibullah’s government in 1992. None of those interviewed with a higher education works in his field of specialization. The majority reported running small businesses or being occasionally employed. Interestingly, in most cases, Afghans are employed by other Afghans

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and very few are employed by Uzbek companies. In addition, no Afghans are currently employed by government organizations, institutes, or enterprises, though in the past some of them worked within the public sector, such as at the Uzbek Radio Foreign Services or hospitals. According to the survey, two main waves of migration from Afghanistan took place. Representatives of the first wave came to Uzbekistan directly from Afghanistan under student visas issued by the Soviet Embassy in Kabul in the 1980s. They were trained at Uzbek institutes (mostly in Tashkent), are more welloff and engaged in running small, or sometimes larger, businesses which provide employment to other Afghans. Additionally, they usually do not reside in the Yunusobod district. They own or rent apartments in other areas, such as the more respectable Halklar Dustligi Avenue. The second wave of migration to Uzbekistan commenced after 1992, when refugees fleeing war-torn Afghanistan came to live with their relatives in Tashkent. Afghans of the second wave mostly live in more remote city districts, such as Yunusobod. Their communities are visibly larger in number and their members are mostly unemployed or employed occasionally as car mechanics, bakers, plumbers, among others. Their standard of living and their level of education is lower in comparison with those who came during the first wave. Some of them reported coming directly from Afghanistan, while many came to Tashkent from Tajikistan via Leninabad (Khujand) in the Ferghana Valley. They even claim to be registered with the Tajikistan UNHCR office in Khujand. Some declined to comment on whether they crossed the Uzbek border legally. As to their legal status in Uzbekistan, the majority of those interviewed reported being registered with the UN organization (implying UNHCR) and the Afghan Embassy in Tashkent. Interestingly, none of those surveyed reported having any problems with local law-enforcement agencies. The main problem encountered was the refusal by the Uzbek authorities to grant them a residence permit (vid na zhitel’stvo) and, according to some, visas to travel abroad. All those interviewed expressed a unanimous desire to leave Uzbekistan at their earliest convenience. The majority indicated that they would gladly return to Afghanistan as soon as peace, stability, and effective government had been restored. Few reported having plans to go to countries other than Afghanistan, in part because most had already tried but failed to obtain visas for Germany, the US, and Pakistan.

CONCLUSION Despite common ethnic, historical, religious, and cultural ties, Uzbekistan never had any sizeable Afghan communities on its territory before the early 1990s when, due to the demise of the Soviet Union and the raging civil war in Afghanistan, it unexpectedly found itself becoming a home to Afghan refugees. In 1993, the UNHCR estimated the number of Afghan refugees at 8,000 and no significant increase over the last decade has been reported.

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The survey conducted among Afghans in Tashkent established that at least two major waves of migration from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan took place. The first wave comprises a group of people who came to the former Soviet Union to study and became refugees sur place after the demise of the USSR in 1991. They are relatively well-off and have a higher level of education. The second wave came during the first years of independence, when the government policy was still relatively flexible. Later on, Afghans started arriving from neighboring Tajikistan, usually via the Ferghana Valley. The majority of this group is less educated, unemployed or employed occasionally, and live on the outskirts of the city. It appears that the multi-ethnic Afghan communities in Uzbekistan are not affected by the interethnic tensions. In Uzbekistan, they consider themselves as one nation, maintain strong intra-communal ties, and pursue their traditional way of life. The Afghan communities are densely clustered in specific districts in the capital Tashkent and struggle to earn their livelihood in highly unfavorable economic circumstances aggravated by the restrictive attitude of the Uzbek government. A small isolated group of Afghan Uzbeks, who arrived in 1998, is also located in Termez. Since local integration is not generally an option for Afghans, mainly due to the government policy toward refugees and asylum seekers, the future of the Afghan communities in Uzbekistan is entirely dependent on the situation in Afghanistan. It is very unlikely that the position of the Uzbek government is going to change in the near future. With the lack of legal protection, employment, and social guarantees, the only prospect for members of the Afghan communities in Uzbekistan lies with voluntary repatriation when peace and stability is restored in Afghanistan.

NOTES 1 For more details on the Basmachi Movement, see H. B. Paksoy, “ ‘Basmachi’: Turkistan National Liberation Movement 1916–1930s,” in Modern Encyclopedia of Religions in Russian and the Soviet Union (FL: Academic International Press, 1991), vol. 4, pp. 5–20. 2 Teplinsky, L. B., SSSR i Afghanistan (Moscow: “Nauka” Publishers, 1982), p. 201. 3 Alikhan Aman, Population Migration in Uzbekistan (1989–1998) (2000: United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees: Tashkent), p. 27. 4 Ibid., p. 27. 5 UNHCR: Afghanistan Information Management Service, at http://www.hic.org.pk/. 6 The number of refugees from Tajikistan (mostly ethnic Uzbeks) is currently estimated at 30,000 (Aman, p. 28). Aman mistakenly refers to them as Tajiks, considering at the first place their country of origin rather than ethnicity. 7 Out of all Central Asian states, only Tajikistan signed these documents. The Afghan refugee population in Tajikistan estimated at 15,400 individuals is the biggest one in the region. 8 US Committee for Refugees, Country Report: Uzbekistan, at http://www.refugees. org/world/countryrpt/scasia/uzbekistan.html. 9 For details see Human Rights Watch World Report 2001: Uzbekistan: Human Rights Developments at http://www.hrw.org/wr2k1/europe/uzbekistan.html. 10 Data provided by the UNHCR office in Tashkent.

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11 “Snowball sample” is a method of conducting sociological survey based on disseminating questionnaires among acquaintances, then acquaintances’ acquaintances and so forth; it is used to describe samples otherwise difficult or impossible to describe. 12 Jenkins, Richard, “Social Anthropological Points of View”, in Ethnic and Racial Studies, vol. 19, no. 4, October 1996, p. 816.

8

Uighur community in 1990s Central Asia A decade of change Ablet Kamalov

Uighurs are the largest group of Turkic people indigenous to the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region of China (Eastern Turkestan).1 They also have communities in almost all of the newly independent Central Asian republics, the largest being in Kazakhstan. A distinguishing feature of the Central Asian Uighur diaspora is that it serves as a bellwether of Sino-Soviet and now Sino-Central Asian relations. In the post-Soviet period, Uighurs face new challenges raised by both the transformation process and the growth of Chinese influence in Central Asian countries.

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND Historically, the establishment of Uighur communities in Central Asia was to some degree simply a result of Xinjiang’s geographic proximity. In addition, political conflicts in the Uighurs’ home region have led to some migration, in particular since the eighteenth century when their territory was incorporated into the Qing Empire, various anti-Qing uprisings have resulted in the flight of their leaders (or most active participants) to Russian Turkestan. However, mass migrations of Uighurs to Russian Turkestan did not commence until the second half of the nineteenth century and were a product of Russian imperial policy in Xinjiang. At the end of the nineteenth century, with the establishment of Muslim states in Xinjiang as a result of a local national liberation movement, Chinese power was temporarily eliminated in Eastern Turkestan. To prevent the spread of Muslim separatism from Eastern Turkestan to the Russian colonies in Central Asia, Russia decided to occupy the Taranchi Sultanate in the Ili (Kuljia) valley in northwest Xinjiang. In 1871, Russian troops occupied the Kuljia area and eliminated the local administration of the Taranchi sultan. Simultaneously, the Russian administration relocated Taranchi Sultan Abil-oghly, his family, and numerous relatives and followers, to the town of Verny (modern Almaty) in Semirechie. A decade later, in 1881, in accordance with the St Petersburg agreement, the Russian government returned the Kuljia area to the Qing Empire. By this time the Qing had already restored its control over other parts of Xinjiang.2

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The return of the Kuljia area to the Chinese was once more accompanied by forced migration, as a considerable number of Uighurs, desiring to retain Russian citizenship, were moved from the Kuljia area to the frontier districts of the Russian Empire. Resettlement of Uighur farmers was orchestrated by the Russian administration between 1881 and 1884. Approximately 43,000 Uighurs moved from the Kuljia area to Semirechie, at that time making Uighurs, along with Kazakhs and Russians, one of the three main ethnic groups in the region. The Russian authorities established five districts (volosts) for the new Uighur migrants – Djarkend-Taranchi, Aksu-Charyn, Malybay, Koram, and Karasu. In addition, Uighurs settled in the Ketmen district. Initially, there were 42 Uighur (Taranchi) settlements in Semirechie, increasing to 99 by the end of the nineteenth century. Uighur immigrants settled strictly according to kinship ties and named their new villages after places they had abandoned in the Kuljia area. P. G. Galuzo, who studied the social and economic situation among settlers in Semirechie, concluded that these villages had no affluent settlers but were inhabited primarily by poor people and some farmers.3 The formation of a Uighur community in another part of Central Asia, the Ferghana Valley, differed from that of the Semirechie area. While the Uighur community in Semirechie was comprised of immigrants from the Ili valley of Xinjiang, the Ferghana group of Uighurs consisted of migrants from Southern Xinjiang. Unlike the migration to Semirechie, which took place within a couple of years and involved a significant number of Uighurs, the migration to the Ferghana Valley was characterized by an infiltration of small groups of Uighurs moving from Kashgar, Aksu, and Yarkend. The motives for their migration were not only political, such as Chinese expansion and the struggle of differing faiths, but also economical, such as the shortage of lands. By the middle of the nineteenth century, ancestors of today’s Ferghana Uighurs had established a number of settlements along the Karadarya and Naryn rivers in the eastern part of the Ferghana Valley. Here, too, the Uighur immigrants established settlements in accordance with kinship patterns. When discussing the reasons for the mass migration of Uighurs from the Kuljia area to Semirechie, Soviet historians underscored the destination’s purported progressive character. Focusing on the severe exploitation endured by the Uighur population from both local land-owners and the Chinese authorities, they claimed that these emigrants “rushed to Semirechie, thinking naively that under the Russian military-feudal imperialism they would find more favorable conditions for their existence.”4 Soviet historiography traditionally explained the migration of Uighurs was a result of their desire to escape Qing oppression. The migration to Semirechie, however, was not only instigated by the Russian authorities but planned and organized by them. Bringing a significant number of sedentary settlers to Semirechie met Russian needs for agricultural manpower and served to advance the economic development of the region. In addition, this migration was also politically motivated by Russian strategic interests in Central Asia. By resettling the Uighurs in Semirechie, the Russians created an ethnic structure on its frontier territory that was similar to that across the border in China. By having

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an “inner” Uighur population, Russia acquired a significant card for future use in political maneuvering with China. Russia’s policy of expanding its economic influence over Xinjiang was further developed by the Bolsheviks after 1917. Initially, the new Soviet leadership discussed the possibility of setting up two socialist republics in Xinjiang: in Jungaria, in the northern part of Xinjiang, and in Kashgaria, in the south. However, over the course of intensive discussions, two alternatives prevailed: (1) exporting revolutionary ideas and “revolutionizing” this Chinese province by turning it into a new socialist country (a view supported by Bolshevik Ya. E. Rudzutak), or (2) a more pragmatic approach by enjoying the advantages of economic cooperation with Xinjiang by strengthening Soviet influence in the province. In the end, the Soviet leaders decided on the latter.5 Nevertheless, Soviet Uighurs were actively involved with the Bolsheviks in promoting communist ideas in Xinjiang.

SOVIET UIGHURS AND SINO-SOVIET RELATIONS The Soviet Union inherited and further developed Tsarist Russia’s expansionist policy in Central Asia. The primary goal of this policy was to create a zone of friendly, pro-Soviet regimes along the borders of the Soviet Union. Political developments in neighboring Xinjiang in the 1930s proved very beneficial for this purpose. Struggle for political leadership in Xinjiang enabled the USSR to set up the pro-Soviet regime of governor Sheng Shih-tsai in 1933. Although publicly declaring their support for national liberation movements all over the world, the Soviets in fact helped suppress Xinjiang’s indigenous peoples’ uprisings against the Chinese government and worked to destroy the Eastern Turkestan Islamic Republic established in Southern Xinjiang in 1933. Soviet influence in Xinjiang in the 1930s–40s was so comprehensive that some scholars consider Xinjiang to have been a virtual satellite of the USSR.6 Soviet influence in Xinjiang was paradoxical. On the one hand, the Soviets helped the Xinjiang government to suppress local peoples by providing military assistance. On the other hand, the Soviets, enlisting the aid of Soviet Uighurs, pressured on Sheng Shih-tsai to carry out a moderate cultural policy toward the local peoples of Xinjiang. With regard to the latter, Uighur educational and cultural institutions in Central Asia supported not only the needs of their own local Uighur community but also the needs of Xinjiang Uighurs. Soviet Uighur publishing houses printed textbooks for Xinjiang schools and colleges, and institutes trained Xinjiang Uighur specialists in different fields. The most substantial example of how the Soviets used the Uighur community to advance their own interests was the establishment of the pro-Soviet Eastern Turkestan Republic (ETR) in 1944–49, in the three westernmost districts of Xinjiang bordering on Soviet Kazakhstan – Ili, Tarbaghatai, and Altai.7 The ETR existed independently from China for about six years, thanks to military support from the Soviets who exploited the economic resources of the republic until

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1949, when it was transferred to the Chinese Communists. The new Sino-Soviet friendship, however, soon ended in a rift between the two great Communist powers. During the short period of “great friendship” in the 1950s, as well as during the following decades of tension, the Soviet Uighur diaspora was an element in the shifting Sino-Soviet political relationship. Many episodes of Sino-Soviet relations during the 1950s–60s were concealed by Soviet historiography because they would have discredited Soviet foreign policy and unmasked Soviet imperialistic intentions in Asia. Among such episodes is the 1962 exodus of Uighurs and other ethnic groups of Xinjiang, which, from its outset, was a forbidden theme in Soviet academic circles.8 As a result of economic difficulties in China evoked by the “Great Leap Forward” as well as encouragement from Soviet diplomatic missions in Xinjiang, large groups of Uighurs migrated to the USSR in the 1950s and early 1960s. As soon as it was obvious that the deterioration of Sino-Soviet relations would lead to the rupture of diplomatic relations, the Soviets organized the “exodus of 1962.” This migration was to demonstrate the failure of Chinese national policy and to cause internal problems for Chinese authorities in Xinjiang. The exodus marked the culmination of Sino-Soviet political tension, as about 100,000 people from Xinjiang, including Uighurs, Kazakhs and Dungans, crossed the border to seek asylum in Soviet Kazakhstan.9 G. Baratova believes that approximately 35,000–40,000 Uighurs came to Kazakhstan at that time.10 It should be noted that the migration of Uighurs during the 1950s–60s was the second wave of largescale mass migration to Central Asia. In supporting the migration of Uighurs from Xinjiang in the early 1950s, the Soviets satisfied their own labor needs created by the Virgin Lands Project in northern Kazakhstan. By 1962, however, the labor needs had been met and the Uighurs were allowed to settle in Alma-Ata and its environs instead. Only a handful of Uighurs were sent to northern Kazakhstan but, unable to adjust, they finally moved to Semirechie.11 In addition, the migrations played an essential role in the particular development of the social and cultural life of Soviet Uighurs and is, therefore, of great interest from the standpoint of diasporic studies. The migration of Uighurs in the 1950s–60s injected new life into the Uighur communities in Soviet Central Asia. Culturally, it was particularly significant for Soviet Uighurs since numerous Uighur intellectuals migrated to the USSR and became leading specialists in their fields. Among them were well-known writers, journalists, scholars, artists, musicians, and teachers. For example, the brochure, “Uighur writers of Kazakhstan,” published by the Pushkin State Library of Kazakhstan in 1982, provides information on 34 Soviet Uighur writers, including 24 contemporary ones. Among the latter, 11 had migrated during the 1950s–60s, the most prominent of whom was Ziya Samadi, a writer who had been Minister of Education in the Xinjiang government in the 1950s.12 The fact that numerous officials of the Eastern Turkestan Republic, including some of its leaders and many senior officers (including State Secretary Abdurauf Makhsum, Minister of Education Ziya Samadi, and officer Masimjan Zulpikarov), also migrated to the USSR strengthened support among the local Uighur community for an independent

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Eastern Turkestan. The anti-Chinese feelings of the Uighur migrants were used by the Soviets when Sino-Soviet relations cooled. For example, the activist Yusufbek Mukhlisov, who in the early 1990s organized the National Front for Liberation of Eastern Turkestan, was allowed to conduct anti-Chinese activity by distributing his leaflet “Sharki Turkestan avazi” (“Voice of Eastern Turkestan”). The growth of anti-Chinese feelings among the Uighur intellectuals led them to establish political organizations to support the struggle for Eastern Turkestan’s independence during perestroika and the first years of Kazakhstan’s independence. One of the main features of the Uighur migration to Central Asia was the creation of two distinct groups of Uighurs in the region of Soviet Central Asia, designated as “yarlik” (“local”), descendants of those who had migrated earlier, and “Khitailiq” (“those from China”), migrants of the 1950s–1960s. At first, there existed significant cultural differences between these groups. The yarliks looked down on the newcomers who did not speak Russian, and the language barrier was a serious obstacle hampering the incorporation of new immigrants into Soviet Central Asian society. Gradually, however, cultural and psychological differences between these two groups of Uighurs began to disappear, in particular among the younger generations, although they did not vanish completely. The Soviet Union instituted a special policy toward Uighurs after 1949, when the Uighurs’ historical homeland, Xinjiang, became part of Communist China. Initially, during the era of Sino-Soviet friendship, this special attitude was necessary to support the cultural development of the Uighurs in a friendly China. During the last three decades of the USSR, Soviet treatment of its Uighur population aimed to show the superiority of Soviet national policies over the Chinese attitude toward their own ethnic minorities. The cultural achievements of Soviet Uighurs were widely publicized, and special governmental efforts were undertaken to support Uighur education and culture. As a result of this policy, a wide network of Uighur cultural institutions were established, especially in Kazakhstan and its capital city of Alma-Ata. These institutions included a full secondary educational system in the Uighur language (the only non-titular nationality in Kazakhstan which had a secondary educational system in its own language), mass media in Uighur (five Uighur newspapers, magazines, radio, and television broadcasts), Uighur theatre, and Uighur music and dance groups. In addition, there were Uighur departments at some institutions of higher education and in the main publishing houses (including that of the Kazakhstan Academy of Science); a Uighur Section at the Association of Kazakhstan Writers and the Ministry of Education; and a special department of Uighur Studies at the Kazakh Academy of Science (transformed during the last decade of the USSR into the Institute of Uighur Studies). Some Uighur cultural institutions also existed in Uzbekistan. Among them was a Uighur radio station broadcasting programs to Xinjiang and a Uighur music and dance group, as well as a Department of Uighur Studies at the Institute of Asian and African Studies (formerly the Department of Oriental Studies) at Tashkent State University. The special attention paid to Uighurs in Kazakhstan is

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also illustrated by the appointment of Uighur Communist Ismail Yusupov as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan from 1962 to 1964.13 As T. Rakowska-Harmstone noted, Yusupov’s tenure as Kazakhstan’s First Secretary was “an unusual departure from the placement pattern in Central Asian republics, according to which the position is reserved for a member of the republic’s titular nationality. Yusupov was removed along with Khrushchev; as is well known, the new leadership attempted initially to improve Sino-Soviet relations.”14 Although providing Uighur cultural institutions with special support, the Soviet authorities never recognized Uighurs as indigenous people of Soviet Central Asia and avoided giving them any administrative autonomy. This attitude was reflected in Soviet scholarship on the origins of the Uighurs. Drawing a new ethnic map of Central Asia in 1924, the Soviet authorities made official historiography responsible for the justification of the new policies in Central Asia. From that time on, “ethnogenesis” became a main topic in Soviet historiography. Theoretical works and official histories of republics, in particular, substantiated the idea of the indigenous origin of titular “nations” and their historical right to the territory of the republics. While official Soviet historiography described titular ethnic groups of Central Asian Republics as indigenous peoples, Soviet writings on Uighur history were different, considering Eastern Turkestan as the historical homeland and ethnic territory of the Uighurs and considering them immigrants from that region. These assertions automatically excluded any discussion of Uighur autonomy within the Soviet Republics. Soviet authorities prohibited any deviation from their concept of Uighur origins. For example, when Uighur historian M. Kabirov, during the perestroika period in 1987–88, took pains to prove that Uighurs were the native people of Semirechie,15 his unpublished manuscript on this issue was officially criticized by the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Kazakhstan, G. Kolbin, who accused him, as well as other Uighur intellectuals, of Uighur nationalism. The Soviets encouraged research on “neutral” episodes of Uighur history, such as the ancient and medieval periods and the migration of Uighurs from Xinjiang to Russia, and promoted scholarship on the social and cultural achievements of the Uighurs in the USSR.16 The propagandist nature of academic and popular writings on Uighurs is witnessed by books such as The Revived Uighur People (by M. Ruziev)17 or The Blossoming of Uighur Culture (by M. Khamraev), whose objective was to demonstrate that only in the Soviet Union were the Uighurs able to revive their culture and have it blossom. As discussed before, Soviet policy toward the Uighur communities in the Central Asian republics was determined by the particular character of Sino-Soviet relations. The Soviet Union used its Uighur communities as a means of manipulating its political interests in Xinjiang. Although the promotion of Uighur culture was made in the context of general Soviet policy on nationalities policy, the Chinese factor had an impact on the special attention paid to Uighur institutions by the Soviet government. Looking at the establishment of Uighur cultural institutions or at significant Uighur cultural events in Soviet Central Asia, in conjunction with Sino-Soviet relations, reveals a direct correlation between them.

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Table 8.1 Uighur population in Central Asian countries Countries

1959

1970

1979

1989

1999

USSR Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Uzbekistan Turkmenistan

95,208 59,840 13,757 19,400 –

173,276 120,881 24,872 23,942 –

210,612 147,943 29,817 29,104 –

262,643 181,500 36,779 35,762 ~1,400

– 210,300 46,733 NA NA

Such a correlation can be seen, for instance, in the development of Uighur Studies in the USSR. In 1949, when the Eastern Turkestan Republic had been handed to the Chinese Communists and the Peoples’ Republic of China had been declared, a special research center for Uighur-Dungan studies was established within the Kazakh Academy of Sciences in Alma-Ata. In 1963, after the exodus followed by the closure of the Soviet diplomatic missions in Xinjiang, this center was reconfigured as the Section of Uighur Studies. During the late 1980s, when Sino-Soviet relations gradually began to improve, the Section of Uighur Studies became the Institute for Uighur Studies.

UIGHURS IN POST-SOVIET CENTRAL ASIA In analyzing the situation of Uighur communities in Central Asia in the postSoviet period, it should first be noted that, with the fall of the Soviet Union, erstwhile Soviet Uighurs living in different Soviet republics were now divided by the national borders of the newly independent states, separated and even isolated from each other (see Table 8.1).

Kyrgyzstan In 1999, 46,733 Uighurs lived in Kyrgyzstan, or about 1 percent of the total population (see Table 8.2).18 Their communities were located in two regions of Kyrgyzstan; one in the north and one in the south, with different cultural traditions. The Uighur population in the northern part of the country totaled 32,300 people, distributed in the oblasts as follows: Chu – 14,706, Talas – 166, Naryn – 527, Issyk-kul – 3,969, and the capital city of Bishkek – 12,932. A smaller number of Uighurs, 14,433, inhabited the southern districts, with the largest group in Osh oblast (10,352), a smaller one in Jalalabad oblast (3,776), and the smallest group in Batkend oblast (305).19 The Uighurs of northern Kyrgyzstan consist of two subgroups, those of the Issyk-kul region, who were originally migrants from Kazakhstan and China of the 1950s–60s, and those of the capital city of Bishkek and its environs (the villages of Lebedinovka, Pokrovka, Malovodnoe, et al.) who came from Kuljia and Kashgar during the last wave

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Table 8.2 Ethnic composition of Kyrgyzstan, per 1999 census Rank

Ethnic group

Number

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Kyrgyz Uzbek Russian Dungan Ukrainian Uighur Kazakh Tajik Turkish German Korean Azeri Kurd Belorussian Chechen Karachaev Jewish Armenian Polish Moldavian Georgian Greek

3,128,144 664,953 603,198 51,766 50,441 46,733 42,657 42,636 33,327 21,472 19,764 14,014 11,620 3,208 2,612 2,167 1,571 1,364 786 778 710 703

Source: Taken from the newspaper Ittipaq, no. 08 (63), 31 August 2000, p. 3.

of migration. In southern Kyrgyzstan, Uighurs live in Osh oblast. Together with the Uighurs of Andijan Vilaet of Uzbekistan they comprise a special group of Ferghana Valley Uighurs. During the Soviet period there were no Uighur cultural organizations in Kyrgyzstan, and the cultural needs of the local Uighur community were served by institutions located in Kazakhstan. As the links between Central Asian Uighur communities weakened during the post-Soviet period, this practice also ceased. More recently, a Uighur newspaper and the Uighur Department at the University in Bishkek were established.

Uzbekistan In Uzbekistan, Uighurs live in the Pakhtabad district of the Andijan Vilaet and the city of Andijan. The overwhelming majority of Ferghana Uighurs, as mentioned before, are descendants of migrants from southern Xinjiang (Kashgaria). In both parts of the Ferghana Valley, Uighurs have been under the strong cultural influence of Uzbeks. The so-called Uzbekization of Uighurs was facilitated by cultural and linguistic ties. Both Uighur and Uzbek belong to the same Karluk subgroup of the Turkic linguistic family. In addition, it should be noted that people of different ethnic groups in Uzbekistan were forced to change their

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Table 8.3 Uighur population in Semirechie and Ferghana districts of the Russian Empire Districts

1884

1885

1888

1892

1897

1900

1906

1911

1917

Moved Semirechie 45,373 47,911 49,202 51,097 55,999 62,044 77,492 86,562 – Ferghana – – – – 14,915 – – – 35,992

official nationality to “Uzbek” under pressure from the Soviet government, and many Uighurs fell victim to this policy, which is even more pervasive in post-Soviet Uzbekistan. The process of assimilation of Uighurs was also hastened by the absence of favorable conditions for the development and preservation of their language. The only school with instruction in Uighur existed in Kashgar Kishlak in the Karasu district of Osh oblast in the 1940s, and was closed long ago. Today, only secondary education in Uzbek or Kyrgyz gives Uighur students the opportunity to continue on to higher education and jobs. The process of Uzbekization of the Ferghana Uighurs was already strong during the Soviet period. Scholarly expeditions under the direction of G. Sadvakasov, organized in the 1960s by linguists of the Section for Uighur Studies, Kazakh Academy of Sciences, have revealed the prevalence of bilingualism.20 Describing the linguistic situation in the village of Kashgar Kishlak, G. Sadvakasov concluded that its Uighur population consisted of those Uzbekized, those mixed, and those who well preserved their spoken Uighur. New expeditions held by Institute researchers in 1991–2 showed that the process of assimilation had been completed and the Uzbek language prevailed over Uighur.21 Though there are still groups of people, mostly elderly, who identify themselves as Uighurs in both parts of the Ferghana Valley, these Uighurs no longer are linked with their ethnic relatives in other parts of Central Asia and are at risk of disappearing. We have already mentioned the Ferghana Uighurs living on the Uzbek side of the valley in the Andijan Vilaet (for the number of Uighurs in the Semirechie and Ferghana Valleys during the Russian Empire, see Table 8.3). Although we have no current data on the number of Uighurs in Uzbekistan, in 1989 the total number of Uighurs in this republic was more than 23,000, including 14,009 (39 percent of all Uighurs of this republic) in Andijan oblast, 7,964 (31 percent) in Tashkent oblast, and 1,107 (22 percent) in the capital city of Tashkent.22

Turkmenistan The smallest group of Uighurs in Central Asia is in Turkmenistan. The history of the Uighur community in Turkmenistan commenced with the migration of a group of 272 families of Uighurs (1,308 people from Semirechie to the oasis of Murghab) in 1890. They settled at Bairam-Ali.23 During the first years of Soviet power, some Uighur schools were opened in Bairam-Ali and its vicinity. The process of assimilation of Uighurs by the Turkmen majority has resulted in a lack

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of population growth. According to unofficial information provided by the Uighur cultural center of Turkmenistan (official information was not available), the number of Uighurs in the early 1990s reached 1,400.24 In Bairam-Ali, the number of the Uighur minority was 704, or 1.6 percent of its population. Some groups of Uighurs live in Mary and the villages of Turkmen-kala. The Turkmenistan Uighurs are the most isolated group of Central Asian Uighurs, who have practically lost all ties with Uighur communities in other parts of Central Asia. Some researchers believe that this will lead to the disappearance of the Uighur language in Turkmenistan.25

Tajikistan There are no significant numbers of Uighurs in modern Tajikistan.

Kazakhstan The largest group of Uighurs in Central Asia is in Kazakhstan. According to the census of 1999, Uighurs comprised 210,300 or 1.4 percent of the total population (14,953,000) (see Tables 8.4, 8.5, and 8.6). The Uighurs are densely situated in the southeastern part of Kazakhstan, mainly in Almaty oblast – in the Uighur, Chilik, Enbekshi-Kazakh, and Panfilov districts – and in and around the city of Almaty itself. As Table 8.4 shows, Uighurs rank seventh in population among the ethnic groups of Kazakhstan. Between the census of 1989 and 1999, the number of Uighurs in Kazakhstan increased 15.9 percent from 181,500 to 210,300. This increment is less than that of Kazakhs (1,488,200 or 22.9 percent), but higher than those of other substantial ethnic minorities (Kurds and Dungans showed the highest percentage of growth, 29.1 percent and 23.3 percent respectively). During the Soviet period, the Central Asian republics differed primarily in terms of culture, while economic, social, and political conditions did not differ from republic to republic. This resulted in quite a similar development of all Uighur groups in Soviet Central Asia, with local variants related to linguistic and cultural surroundings only. Today, the Uighur diasporas of independent Central Asia are becoming more and more isolated from each other, due in large part to the breakdown of communication. Separated by custom control posts, different currencies, and immigration regulations, as well as suffering from economies in transition, the Central Asia Uighur diaspora are being forced further apart. There is, however, a shared trend within all Uighur communities, which induces the governments of different countries to form a common attitude toward the Uighur diaspora. This is a restoration of ethnic links between the Central Asian Uighurs and their ethnic relatives in the historical homeland – Xinjiang (Eastern Turkestan). After the long period of separation from Xinjiang, when all relationships between the Soviet Uighurs and Xinjiang were interrupted, perestroika saw an improvement in Sino-Soviet relations and state borders opening up for commerce and mutual visits. This restored the links between Uighurs across

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Table 8.4 Dynamics of number of ethnic groups in Kazakhstan for the period between two censuses (1989–99) Ethnic groups

Number

Entire population 1. Kazakh 2. Russian 3. Ukrainian 4. Uzbek 5. German 6. Tatar 7. Uighur 8. Belorussian 9. Korean 10. Azeri 11. Polish 12. Dungan 13. Kurdish 14. Chechen 15. Tadjik 16. Bashkir 17. Moldavian 18. Inghush 19. Mordva 20. Armenian 21. Greek 22. Kyrgyz 23. Bulgarian 24. Lezgin 25. Turkmen

Increase (⫹) Decrease (⫺)

1999

1989

14,953,100 7,985,000 4,479,600 547,100 370,700 353,400 249,000 210,300 111,900 99,700 78,300 47,300 36,900 32,800 31,800 25,700 23,200 19,500 16,900 16,100 14,800 12,700 10,900 6,900 4,600 1,700

16,199,100 6,496,900 6,062,000 875,700 331,000 946,900 320,700 181,500 177,900 100,700 89,000 59,400 30,000 25,400 49,100 25,300 40,900 32,400 19,500 29,200 18,500 46,300 13,700 10,200 13,800 3,700

⫺1,246,000 ⫹1,488,200 ⫺1,582,400 ⫺328,600 ⫹39,700 ⫺593,500 ⫺71,700 ⫹28,800 ⫺66,000 ⫺1,000 ⫺10,700 ⫺12,100 ⫹6,900 ⫹7,400 ⫺17,300 ⫹400 ⫺17,700 ⫺12,900 ⫺2,600 ⫹13,100 ⫺3,700 ⫺33,600 ⫺2,800 ⫺3,300 ⫺9,200 ⫺2,000

In % to total population %

1999

1989

⫺7.7 ⫹22.9 ⫺26.9 ⫺37.5 ⫹12 ⫺62.7 ⫺22.4 ⫹15.9 ⫺37.1 ⫺1.1 ⫹12 ⫺20.3 ⫹23.3 ⫹29.1 ⫺35.2 ⫹1.3 ⫺43.3 ⫺39.9 ⫺13.5 ⫺44.6 ⫺20.1 ⫺72.5 ⫺20.6 ⫺32.4 ⫺66.6 ⫺53.5

100 53.4 30 3.7 2.5 2.4 1.7 1.4 0.7 0.7 0.5 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1 0 0 0

100 40.1 37.4 5.4 2 5.8 2 1.1 1.1 0.6 0.5 0.4 0.2 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.3 0.2 0.1 0.2 0.1 0.3 0.1 0.1 0.1 0

Source: M. B. Tatimov, “Opasnost’ depopulatsii Kazakhstana” [Danger of depopulation in Kazakhstan], Almaty Times, 1(16), July 2000, p. 2.

Table 8.5 Urban Uighur population in Kazakhstan

Verny (Almaty) Djarkend (Panfilov) Urban Uighur population

1897

1906

1959

1970

1979

1989

1,970 8,723 –

2,551 14,653 –

– – 12,194

– – 29,618

– – 41,482

40,880 – 63,407

Table 8.6 Uighurs in Kazakhstan

1989

Almaty oblast

Taldykurghan oblast

City of Almaty

103,469

30,469

40,880

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the border. These links were different for two main groups of local Uighurs already mentioned above – “yarlik” (local) and “Khitailiq” (from China). The representatives of the former group of Uighurs did not have personal family ties with the Uighurs of Xinjiang, though they were involved in private businesses that required frequent travels to Xinjiang to transport goods from Central Asian markets. These interactions, though not based on family ties, brought these Uighurs into close contact with their co-ethnics in Xinjiang. Another group of the local Uighur community “Khitailiqs” had not lost their family ties with Uighurs living across the border, though these ties were inactive during the last three decades of the Soviet Union. They had relatives left in Xinjiang, sometimes very close ones, and the restoration of family ties was accompanied by frequent visits to and from China and also stimulated trade based on kinship ties. This intensification of cross-border cultural and economic contacts was of great importance for both sides. One of the most impressive results of these interactions was a revival of a cultural movement, “mashrap,” among the Uighurs of the Ili valley on both sides of the Kazakh-Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR) border, as described by S. R. Roberts.26 He defines mashrap as a Uighur male ritual which has multiple functions as a rite of passage into manhood, a vehicle for teaching and regulating moral, religious, and social etiquette, and a means of forming male peer groups in local social structure. More generally, the ritual is meant to unite Uighur men locally under a common ideology and, thus, has the potential in the modern context to be central to the creation, maintenance, and regulation of Uighur national culture both in local mahallas and in the larger de-territorialized Uighur nation.27 This movement was first revived among the young Kuljia Uighurs in Xinjiang in the early 1990s and was subsequently proscribed by Chinese authorities following a Uighur protest against a Chinese ban on an organized sports competition among the Uighur youth teams in 1995. After brutally suppressing another peaceful demonstration of Uighur youth in Kuljia in 1997, which led to a full-scale anti-Islamic, anti-nationalist Chinese campaign in Xinjiang, many young Uighurs had to leave for Kazakhstan. As a result, a cross-border community of Uighurs in Almaty developed and the Kuljia Uighurs began to practice the mashrap gatherings among the Almaty Uighurs. Roberts concluded that the mashrap movement produced a deterritorialized ritual space which the Uighur nation can inhabit, albeit temporarily, in the absence of statehood and landed sovereignty. This liminal deterritorialized ritual space is empowering to Uighurs as a symbol of what their people can accomplish on their own, and, as such, it can be viewed as an act of resistance to their marginalization in the world political and economic system.28

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It should be added that the mashrap movement, currently banned in Xinjiang, spread in the Uighur community of Semirechie in the early twentieth century. However, anxious of its growing influence on the local Uighur community, the Bolsheviks banned it as a movement harmful to communist ideology and Soviet power. Revival of the mashrap movement among Kazakhstan Uighurs was a temporary phenomenon of the late 1990s which was fed by the presence of Uighurs coming from Xinjiang to trade. After the Kazakhstan authorities expelled most Uighur traders, with only a handful of traders remaining, the mashrap movement ceased to play a ritual role and turned into gatherings of peer groups of all generations as it was practiced traditionally in the Uighur communities of Central Asia, especially among the “Khitailiqs.” The emergence and decline of the mashrap movement among Kazakhstan Uighurs all occurred within the last decade. The transformation of Soviet Kazakhstan into an independent nation-state created a problem of identity construction. For the multi-ethnic society of Kazakhstan, this problem is complex. Under the Soviets, state national policy nourished an artificial nationalism, which led to the formation of strong common identifications among all ethnic groups. As W. Fierman indicated in his work devoted to the problem of language and identity in Kazakhstan, during the late Soviet era most inhabitants of the USSR were acutely aware of their officially prescribed affiliation with at least two communities. One, formally cultivated throughout the educational system, was “the Soviet people,” which was embodied in USSR citizenship. The other category, based on “nationality” or “ethnicity” [natsionalnost], was historically rooted in such criteria as a common territory, language, history, and economic community.29 The cultivation of Soviet identity was not generally successful, though it was beneficial for small ethnic groups as a form of protection against majority nationalism. Uighurs felt comfortable identifying themselves as “Soviet Uighurs.” Special governmental attention to the development of Uighur culture in Soviet Central Asia fostered a feeling of superiority over the Xinjiang Uighurs. This was especially evident within the Uighur intelligentsia, who identified themselves as Soviet Uighurs, though they recognized that their historical homeland was Eastern Turkestan. The idea of the historical homeland for the Soviet Uighurs, especially “yarliks,” had an abstract character, sharpened by the absence of any communication with Xinjiang because of the “iron curtain” that existed between the USSR and China. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, affiliation with the community called “the Soviet people” vanished, but a new Kazakhstani identity has not yet been formed. Under such conditions, the idea of a historical homeland has acquired more realistic outlines for Central Asian Uighurs, who feel themselves to be a stateless nationality, and the idea of Eastern Turkestan’s independence has captured their imagination. During the late Soviet era and initial years of independence, the notion of an independent Eastern Turkestan that circulated among the Uighur intelligentsia seemed beneficial for the new republics than national authorities, who at first

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showed a rather tolerant attitude toward the “Uighur problem.” Numerous Uighur organizations were established during perestroika and were encouraged by the state to propagate the idea of an independent Eastern Turkestan. This policy was aimed at turning the attention of the Uighurs away from a discussion of administrative autonomy within the territory of Kazakhstan (which was rather popular among the Uighur intellectuals before the collapse of the USSR) and towards the XUAR. Once discussions of Uighur autonomy became unrealistic in the Soviet context, they were replaced by the idea of independence for their historical homeland, Eastern Turkestan. In the early 1990s, the Kazakh government’s new approach to the “Uighur problem” was first outlined under increasing Chinese influence. One element of this policy was to erase all official data on the Uighur community in Kazakhstan. For example, all information on the local Uighur population was removed from official statistics. Demographic data issued by the Central Department of Statistics no longer provided any information on the internal migration of the Uighur population. Gradually this tentative attitude to the Uighur problem was replaced by openly anti-Uighur actions undertaken by the Kazakh government under Chinese pressure. As mentioned before, the opening of communications across the KazakhXUAR’s border increased interactions between Uighurs living in both countries. The emergence of newly independent states inspired Uighurs both in Central Asia and Xinjiang to struggle for independence for Eastern Turkestan, while democratic changes in post-Soviet societies activated the Uighur political movement in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. The break-up of the USSR made Chinese leaders fear the disintegration of their country along similar lines. A series of Uighur uprisings in Xinjiang made Uighur separatism one of the most serious internal problems of contemporary China. Muslim uprisings and disturbances in Xinjiang induced the Chinese government to shift from a liberal policy to a policy of strict control over the Muslim population of Xinjiang. Despite accusations of human rights violations in Xinjiang by international human rights organizations, Chinese authorities continued to persecute the Uighurs.30 The Uighur anti-Chinese movements were inspired and supported, at least morally, by the political organizations of Uighur communities abroad, especially those in Central Asian countries, particularly Kazakhstan. For this reason, Uighur organizations in Central Asia became a serious threat to Chinese integrity. Political changes in Central Asia frightened the Chinese, and keeping the Uighurs of Xinjiang away from the influence of Central Asian organizations and their propaganda for independence became one of the main aims of Chinese foreign policy in Central Asia. China used its economic and political power to pressure the governments of the newly independent countries of Central Asia, in particular Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, to halt external Uighur influences from penetrating Xinjiang. Kazakhstan and the other countries were too weak to oppose Chinese pressure and began to make concessions in exchange for Chinese economic investments. During his visit to China in October 1993, the president of Kazakhstan “promised he would no longer harbor Uighur separatists in his

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country.”31 Chinese pressure on the Kazakh government increased after the formation of the political alliance known as the Shanghai Five. Established in 1995 and made up of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, it was subsequently reorganized, in 2001, into the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation with the inclusion of Uzbekistan. Under Chinese pressure the government of Kazakhstan stiffened its policy toward the Uighurs. As a result many Uighur cultural institutions established during the Soviet Union were closed down. Every meeting of the Shanghai Five resulted in actions undertaken against Uighur organizations in Kazakhstan. For example, in 1996, the Institute for Uighur Studies of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences ceased to function. Though its closure was officially attributed to economic reasons, it was actually one of many concessions made by the Kazakh government to China. Since one of the main articles of the international agreement was a joint struggle against separatism and terrorism, discussions of Uighur separatism became a permanent subject of the Shanghai Five meetings. In 1999, a resolution to limit the hours of Uighur television broadcasts and to close the Uighur newspaper Yeni hayat (printed in Arabic script) was announced in Kazakhstan. It should be noted that the Uighur Department at the Institute of Asian and African Countries at Tashkent State University had already been closed. Today, practically no Uighur departments at publishing houses exist, the sole exceptions being publishing houses that print textbooks for secondary schools in Kazakhstan. The system of secondary education in Uighur still exists in Kazakhstan, but the role of Uighur schools is restricted to the preservation of Uighur language and culture. As the Uighur sections at institutions of higher education exist only to train teachers of Uighur language and literature, Uighur secondary schools are not meant to prepare students for continuing education. One of the main successes of Chinese diplomacy in Central Asia was the liquidation of Uighur political activity. Local Central Asian authorities do not allow any political organization by Uighurs, permitting only cultural associations that conduct educational and cultural programs within a so-called “Assembly of Peoples.” This review of the formation and presence of Uighur communities in Central Asia reveals that the Uighur political card created by Tsarist Russia, and subsequently used successfully by the Soviets, is now being played by some Central Asian governments in their relations with China. Kazakh authorities, in particular, seem to realize the importance of this card in obtaining concessions from China. It could be said that the Chinese government purchased control over the activity of the local Uighur diaspora through economic investment. In recent years, under Chinese pressure through the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation, Kazakh authorities have attempted to create a negative image of the Uighurs as terrorists, long before the tragedy of September 11 but particularly after it. Uighur intellectuals in Kazakhstan claim that “a paradoxical situation is taking shape in Kazakhstan. Though there is no social or political basis for extremism or separatism here, constant attempts are being undertaken to label Uighurs as enemies of Kazakhstan.”32 The Russian mass media of Almaty is

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especially active in these attempts. Some Kazakh political observers, such as Dosym Satpaev, even argue that the Uighurs threaten the national security of Kazakhstan. Such conclusions are supported by some mysterious incidents involving Uighurs, like the battle between policemen and so called “Uighur terrorists” in Almaty in spring 2000. This event, which led to the murder of the “terrorists,” has not been investigated yet, and nobody knows what actually happened. But during the time of that incident, Uighur neighborhoods of Almaty suffered from police maltreatment and Uighurs living there were accused of being terrorists. These incidents made the Uighurs increasingly uncomfortable and suspicious of the government. In fact, Uighur leaders in Kazakhstan consider the two main issues facing the community to be the “returning of the dignity of the people” and “instilling a confidence guaranteed by government that only Kazakhstan is their real homeland.”33 This reveals the particularities of the present complex situation of the Uighur diaspora in Kazakhstan, where the Chinese factor is aggravating the already difficult post-Soviet transition period. Although the relationship of its Uighur community to Xinjiang is considered by some researchers as a potential threat to Kazakh national security, in discussing inter-ethnic relations as potential sources of danger for Kazakhstan some political observers believe that the more serious problem for Kazakhstan today revolves around the two main ethnic groups of the country, the Kazakhs and the Russians, and their relative social and political positions. A third potentially destabilizing “ethnic” component, the “southern,” has appeared in the last decade and includes those ethnic groups traditionally professing Islam: Uzbeks, Tajiks, Azeris, Kurds, and the peoples of the north Caucasus. The ethnic composition of Kazakhstan generally corresponds to two of the three geopolitical partners of the country – northern (Russia) and southern (Uzbekistan and Tajikistan).34 In this classification, Uighurs have a peculiar position. They are not included in the “southern” group, because they differ in terms of their Islam. Though defining themselves as Muslim, under the long-term influence of the Russian, and partly the Kazakh, cultural environment, they in fact became very secularized. The Uighurs in Kazakhstan comprise a special group which corresponds to the Chinese-Xinjiang geopolitical counteragent of the country. This is well reflected in the new ethno-cultural processes that they have undergone during the post-Soviet period.35 The significance of the Uighur political factor in Kazakhstan may increase as a result of tragic outcomes of ethnic clashes in neighboring Xinjiang. A comparison of Uighurs with other minority groups in Kazakhstan, as well as in Central Asia as a whole, shows that they comprise not only a stateless and deterritorialized nation, but also, more interestingly, that they are the only diaspora being pressured by the country which is considered their historical homeland. Many ethnic groups in Central Asia such as Koreans, Germans, Greeks, Jews, Turks, as well as Central Asian titular nationalities, have nation-states which back them and protect their interests. In this sense, Uighurs are very often compared with the Kurds, also a deterritorialized nation. China’s oppressive policy toward its Uighur population in Xinjiang and its pressure on Kazakhstan’s

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Uighurs helped worsen the position of the Uighur diaspora, making it very vulnerable and undefended in the host countries. However, the Uighur communities in Central Asia, especially in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan which border China, are not completely isolated from their historical homeland and maintain regular contacts with Uighurs in Xinjiang. It should be noted that the Kazakh government very well realizes how it can benefit from the Uighur problem in its relationship with China. For this reason, despite the strict measures undertaken to eliminate any anti-Chinese activity by local Uighurs, the Kazakh government continues to support secondary education in Uighur and, to a certain extent, Uighur culture. At present, there are 64 Uighur schools in Kazakhstan totaling 21,000 Uighur pupils. Of these, 15, including three schools in Almaty, are “pure” Uighur, 31 are mixed, and the remainder only have Uighur groups. In addition to the existence of Uighur schools, the authorities permit the dissemination of private Uighur publications of an anti-Chinese nature, including newspapers printed in Germany and Turkey, as well as some anti-Chinese articles in the local private newspapers. The last decade of the twentieth century intensified the mobility of populations and the migration of peoples throughout the world. Uighur mobility likewise increased, resulting in the emergence of new Uighur diasporas in Europe and North America. While during the previous period Uighur communities outside Soviet Central Asia could be found in Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Australia, now small but politically very active communities have appeared in Germany, England, Sweden, Belgium, Norway, the USA, and Canada. These diasporas are formed by Uighurs migrating from both China and Central Asia for economic and political reasons. The country of departure is a very important distinguishing feature of the newly formed Uighur communities in Europe and North America. Though all these new communities consist of Uighur immigrants from both Xinjiang and Central Asia, communities in Sweden, Norway, Belgium, and Canada are made up primarily of Central Asian Uighurs. The emergence of new worldwide diasporas intensified relations between Central Asian Uighurs and these new diasporas. With the economic difficulties faced in Central Asia today, relatives living in developed countries provide financial support for local Uighur families. Contacts between Central Asian Uighurs and the Uighur communities in Europe and North America also help support political activity for an independent Eastern Turkestan. Dissemination of political information among the Uighurs outside China reveals the effectiveness of new information technologies. With the emergence of new Uighur communities, the center of activity of the Uighur political organizations has moved from Turkey to Europe and North America. Political organizations, including the World Uighur Congress in Munich and the Uighur American Association located in Washington, DC, aim to inform the international community about human rights violations in the XUAR of China. For this purpose they use not only traditional means of mass media such as newspapers, magazines, and radio, but also their own websites. The on-line anti-Chinese propaganda, which Dru Gladney has referred to as “cyber-separatism,” is supported in part by wealthy Uighurs from

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the Middle East. The effectiveness of the websites in disseminating separatist ideas among the Uighurs of Central Asia can be seen from the fact that some independent newspapers in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan reprint materials from the Uighur websites. Such newspapers include Yengi zaman (New Times, published in Almaty) and Vijdan avazi (Voice of Consciousness, published in Bishkek), which appears in Uighur and Russian. The new information technologies are becoming one of the most effective resources of Uighur mass media in Central Asia. As we have seen, changes in the Uighur communities in Central Asia over the last decade were mostly due to Chinese influence. However, there are other factors as well. One of the new features in Central Asian society is increasing religiousness. For example, in post-Soviet Kazakh society, both Islam and Christianity improved their position. The religious situation among the Uighurs in Kazakhstan is characterized, on the one hand, by the activation of Islam. Over the last decade, more than 50 new mosques have been constructed in Uighur neighborhoods (mahalla) throughout the country. On the other hand, a Christian Uighur community has emerged. Though Uighur Christians are comparatively small in number, they show signs of steady growth. Increases in this religious community are witnessed mostly among the “yarlik” group of Uighurs, who had been less religious during Soviet times, while the “Khitailiq” Uighurs adhere to Islam. Generally speaking, the majority of local Uighurs remain ethno-religious, with Islam playing a role in cultural and ethnic identity.

CONCLUSION The Uighur communities of Central Asia were formed as a result of Tsarist-– Chinese relations in the late nineteenth century. During the Soviet period, Central Asian Uighurs were successfully used by the Soviets to promote their economic and political interests in neighboring Xinjiang. For this reason, Uighur cultural institutions were provided with special governmental support, which resulted in the creation of a number of institutions in Kazakhstan, where the majority of the non-Xinjiang Uighur population lived. With the collapse of the USSR, Central Asian Uighurs lost their common political and socio-economic space and became isolated from each other, forming separate diasporas in the newly independent Central Asian states. Moreover, the Uighur culture lost special support from the state, and this new situation led to confusion and disillusionment when Uighurs became merely an ethnic minority. Today, Uighurs in all Central Asian countries face the task of constructing a new identity, a complicated issue for the multiethnic societies of this region. The liberalization of post-Soviet societies also led to restoration of ties between local Central Asian Uighur communities and their ethnic relatives in their homeland, the XUAR of China. Economic difficulties of the transition period in Central Asia and ethnic clashes in Xinjiang have put pressure on Uighur populations on both sides of the border, resulting in the migration of Uighurs to Europe and North America and the emergence of small Uighur communities

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there. The growth of the Uighur diaspora and increased connections between Central Asian Uighurs and Uighurs living in Xinjiang and in other parts of the world is a major characteristic of the post-Soviet history of the Uighurs. The Chinese factor still plays an important role in the life of the Uighurs in Central Asia, and has acquired a more serious character. The future of the Uighur communities of Central Asia depends on both the internal development of the new post-Soviet states and stability in Xinjiang. In the case of conflict in Xinjiang, the possible forced exodus of Uighurs to Central Asia would change the cultural and religious orientation of the Uighurs. NOTES 1 On Uighurs in Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous region of PRC, see: Dru C. Gladney, “Ethnogenesis of the Uighur,” Central Asian Survey, v. 9:1, pp. 1–28; Dru C. Gladney, “Sedentarization, Socioecology, and the Definition: The Ethnogenesis of the Uighur,” in Rulers from the Steppe: State Formation on the Eurasian Periphery, ed. Gary Seaman (Los Angeles: s.n., 1991), pp. 307–40; Dru C. Gladney, “Transnational Islam and Uighur National Identity: Salman Rushdie, Sino-Muslim Missile Seals, and the TransEuarasian Railway,” Central Asian Survey, v. 11:3, pp. 1–22. 2 I. C. Y. Hsu, The Ili Crisis: A Study of Sino-Russian Diplomacy, 1871–1881 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965). 3 P. G. Galuzo, Agrarnye otnosheniia na iuge Kazakhstana v 1867–1914 gg. [Agrarian Relations in the South of Kazakhstan in 1867–1914] (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1965), p. 277; N. E. Bekmakhanova, Mnogonatsionalnoe naselenie Kazakhstana i Kirgizii v epokhe kapitalisma [The Multiethnic Population of Kazakhstan and Kirgizia during the Epoch of Capitalism] (Moscow: Nauka, 1986), p. 107. 4 Galuzo, Agrarnye otnosheniia, p. 273. 5 V. Barmin, SSSR i Sinjian. 1918–1941 [USSR and Xinjiang. 1918–1941] (Barnaul: Izd. BGPU, 1998), pp. 85–7. 6 A. Barmine, One Who Survived (New York: Putman’s Sons, 1945), pp. 231–2. 7 On the history of the Eastern Turkestan Republic see Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang 1944–1949 (East Gate, New York: Sharpe, 1990). 8 We could find only one Soviet publication that appeared during the years of Sino-Soviet enmity that mentions this issue: A. Bazilbaev, Chetyre goda v khaose [Four Years in Chaos] (Alma-Ata: “Kazakhstan,” 1978). This book was also published in Uighur as Qalaimiqanchiliqta otken tort jil (Almuta: “Kazakhstan,” 1980). It only became possible to discuss these events in the early 1990s with the breaking-up of the USSR. It turned out, however, that only the Uighurs were interested in raising this problem, as the main participant of those events, the USSR, had already disappeared, while for the new Kazakhstan authorities this theme was not of any importance. Hence, some articles on this theme were published in the Uighur newspaper Yengi Hayat, in Arabic script, in Almaty: “29 May qanliq vaqiasi” [Bloody event of May 29], 63(3562), 28 May 1992, p. 4; “20 May pajiasi” [Tragedy of May 29] by Muhammad Zahidi, 64 (3563), 30 May 1992, p. 3; “Astin chiqmas shu bir kunlar yaki 1962-jilqi koch-koch togriliq aslimilar” [Those days will not be forgotten or reminiscence of the 1962 exodus] by Ibrahim Barat, 10 (4071), May 9, 1997, p. 7. 9 The number of refugees is unknown. This figure is given in Bazilbaev, Chetyre goda, p. 12. 10 G. Baratova, “Uigury v Kazakhstane i Srednei Azii v XIX–XX vv. (dinamika chislennosti)” [Uighurs of Kazakhstan and Central Asia in the 19th–20th Centuries

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12 13 14 15 16

17 18

19 20 21

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(Dynamics of Population Growth)], Izvestiia Natsionalnoi Akademii nauk Respubliki Kazakhstan, ser. Obshchestvennikh nauk, 6 (198), 1994, p. 17. Before the exodus, 1962 migration involved only those Uighurs who could get Soviet citizenship through the Soviet Consulate in Xinjiang, granted since the ETR period. We have evidence that already in 1946 the Soviet Consulate in Kuljia issued Soviet passports for those whose families had migrated back to China from the USSR in the 1930s. A fairly significant number of people migrated before the exodus, but these numbers did not compare to those of the exodus itself. Among them were many families of Uighur intellectuals, including active participants of the events connected with founding and existence of the ETR. Many of them had close ties with the Soviets and were pro-Soviet elements, and it was understandable that the Soviet diplomatic missions supported them when they were endangered of being imprisoned. Qazaqstan Uighur yazghuchiliri: Uigurskie pisateli Kazakhstana [Uighur Writers of Kazakhstan] (Alma-Ata: s.n., 1982), pp. 38, 89. For a biography of Ismail Yusupov see: A. Ganiev, Ismail Iusupov: “S chistotoi pomyslov” [Ismail Yusupov: “With purity of intentions”] (Almaty: “Kazakhstan,” 1997). T. Rakowska-Harmstone, “Islam and Nationalism: Central Asia and Kazakhstan under Soviet Rule,” Central Asian Survey, v. 2:2, p. 78. M. Kabirov, Uigury: avtokhtony Semirech’ia [Uighurs: Autochthonous People of Semirechie], unpublished essay. M. Kabirov, Pereselenie Iliiskikh Uigurov v Semirechie [Migration of the Ili Uighurs to Semirechie] (Alma-Ata: s.n., 1951); Iu. G. Baranova, “K voprosu o pereselenii musulmanskogo naseleniia iz Iliiskogo kraia v Semirechie v 1881–1883” [The Problem of Muslim Migration from the Ili area to Semirechie in 1881–1883], Trudy Sektora vostokovedeniia, t.1, pp. 34–7; M. Kabirov, Ocherki istorii Uigurov v Semirechie [Essays on the History of Uighurs in Semirechie] (Alma-Ata: s.n., 1975); M. Kabirov, Sotsialnye i kulturnye preobrazovaniia v zhizni Uigurov Kazakhstana [Social and Cultural Changes in the Life of the Uighurs of Kazakhstan] (Alma-Ata: s.n., 1975); G. M. Iskhakov, Etnograficheskoe izuchenie Uigurov Vostochnogo Turkestana russkimi puteshestvennikami [Ethnographic Study of Eastern Turkestan’s Uighurs by Russian Travelers] (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1975; D. I. Tikhonov, “Vosstanie 1864 goda v Vostochnom Turkestane” [Rebellion of 1864 in Eastern Turkestan], Sovetskoe vostokovedenie, t.2, 1948. M. Ruziev, Vozrozhdennyi Uigurskii narod [The Revived Uighur People] (Alma-Ata: “Kazakhstan,” 1982); M. Khamraev, Rastsvet kultury uigurskogo naroda [Blossoming of the Culture of the Uighur People] (Alma-Ata: s.n., 1967). “Chislennost’ postoiannogo naseleniia Kyrgyzskoi Respubliki po otdelnym natsionalnostiam i regionam (po perepisi naseleniia 1999 goda)” [Ethnic Structure of Permanent Population of the Kyrgyz Republic per the 1999 Census], The Uighur newspaper “Ittipaq,” 08 (63), 31 August 2000, p. 3. Ibid. G. S. Sadvakasov, Yazyk Uigurov Ferghanskoi doliny [Language of the Ferghana Valley Uighurs], Alma-Ata, “Nauka,” Part 1, 1970; Part 2, 1976. D. J. Kasimova, “Ob osobennostiakh razvitiia Uigurskogo iazyka na sovremennom etape”[On Particularities of the Development of the Uighur Language at the Present Stage], Izvestiia Natsionalnoi Akademii nauk Respubliki Kazakhstan, Ser. Obshestvennykh nauk, 6, 1993, pp. 49–50. S. Dautova, “Iazykovaya situatsiia raionov kompaktnogo prozhivaniia Uigurov Srednei Azii i Kazakhstana” [Linguistic Situation in Regions of Dense Residence of the Uighurs of Central Asia and Kazakhstan], Uighurlar hayati yashlar nezeride (Almaty: Gylym, 1996), p. 118. On history of moving of the Uighurs to the Murghab oasis see: G. B. Nikolskaya, “K istorii poiavleniia Uigurov-vykhodtsev iz Sinzhiana v Iuzhnom Turkmenistane v kontse XIX v.” [History of Emergence of the Uighurs, Immigrants from Xinjiang,

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25 26 27 28 29 30

31 32 33 34 35

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in Southern Turkmenistan in the End of the 19th c.], Izvestiia AN Turkmeskoi SSR. Ser. obshestvenikh nauk, 6, 1962; D. Isiev and M. Mamatov, Bairam-Alilik Uygurlarning otmushi ve hazirqi hayati [Past and Present Life of the Uighurs of Bairam-ali], Alma-Ata, 1976, pp. 33–45. D. J. Kasimova, “Mustaqil doletler hemkarlighidiki Uighurlarning bezi bir etnodemografiyaliq jiaryanliri” [Some Ethno-demographic Processes among the Uighurs of the Commonwealth of Independent States], Uighurlar hayati yashlar nezeride (Almaty, Gylym, 1996), p. 84. Dautova, op. cit., pp. 121–2. S. R. Roberts, “Negotiating Locality, Islam, and National Culture in a Changing Borderlands: The Revival of the Mashrap Ritual among Uighur Men in the Ili Valley,” Central Asian Survey, 17(4), (1998), pp. 673–699. Ibid., p. 675. Ibid., p. 695. W. Fierman, “Language and Identity in Kazakhstan: Formulations in Policy Documents 1987–1997,” Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 31(2), 1998, p. 171. Amnesty International announced several reports on violation of human rights in Xinjiang-Uighur Autonomous Region of PRC: “Appeal for Uighurs Arbitrarily Detained,” AI: Index: ASA 17/02/99, January 1999; “People’s Republic of China: Gross Violation of Human Rights in the Xinjinah Uighur Autonomous Region,” AI Index: ASA 17/18/99, April 21, 1999. C. Christoffersen, China’s Intentions for Russian and Central Asian Oil and Gas, Analysis of the National Bureau of Asian Research, March 1998, 9(2), p. 25. Sh. Nadyrov, “Uigury Kazakhstana v rakurse sotsialno-economicheskikh preobrazovanii” [Uighurs of Kazakhstan and Social and Economic Reforms], Respublika-2000, 32, August 23, 2001, p. 14. Ibid. R. Aitkaliev, “Polietnichnost i natsionalnaia bezopasnost” [Poly-ethnicity and National Security], Al Pari, 1, 2000, p. 13. S. Roberts and Dautova, S. “Etnokulturnye protsessy u Uigurov v postsovetskom obshchestve” [Ethno-Cultural Processes in Post-Soviet Uighur Society], in Piatiie Sadvakasovskiye chteniia, Almaty: Akyl kitaby, 1998, pp. 85–8.

9

The Afghan diaspora Reflections on the imagined country Eden Naby

Among the millions of refugees who streamed out of Afghanistan over the 20-plus years of war (1978–2003), approximately 250,00 managed to leave the region for Europe, the US, and Australia. Their influence on Afghanistan’s future has increased as that of the Taliban and its supporters within the region has declined. Unlike past emigres, such as Russians following the revolution of 1917, Caucasians after 1922, Turkestanis following World War I, Iranians after 1979, Iraqis throughout the Baathist period, and Assyrians and Armenians after the genocide of 1915–23, the Afghan emigres have regained the opportunity to run their country of origin before their children fully assimilated into foreign societies. No laws, as yet, deny them the right of return. Indeed, their professional skills, powers of investment, and ability to bridge the cultural gap between those who remained in the country and those external societies intent on helping to rebuild an Afghan nation, has given them, for the time being, a privileged position. At the same time, Afghan emigres reflect their fragmented society of origin, all the more so due to their exile in waves reflecting successive regimes in Kabul. This chapter provides a general background to the Afghan emigre picture: their communications and institutions; prospects for the continued role of returned emigre leaders; and an examination of the future effects of the skilled emigre on the development of Afghanistan. In addition, it proposes that the returning, mostly Pushtun elites, from the US and Europe to some extent have a vision of Afghanistan frozen in the much idealized democratizing phase of Afghan political history. 1963–73 may well be considered the period when Afghanistan showed the greatest promise of unity and opportunity for building a democratic state. There is a large question, however, about whether mechanisms are in place to attune returning Afghan elites to in-country developments so that they might marry their 1960s ideals to a region and a country that has experienced an avalanche of political change. The Afghan diaspora may be able physically to return, as few other diasporas can, but it remains to be seen whether its return will lead to progress or division.

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THE REPATRIATION OF THE AFGHAN DIASPORA AS A MODEL Afghanistan’s diaspora and its ability to return to effect change may well serve as a model for other groups such as, notably the Iraqi and, possibly, the Palestinian diasporas. The long-term stability of Baathist rule in Baghdad set the Iraq example apart from Afghanistan, which since 1973 has experienced political instability and social and economic deterioration. Similar to the Iraqi case, however, the Afghan emigre community is ethnically and religiously fractured and its sense of patriotism toward a unified Afghan state has been eroded by communal tensions. The initial redesigning of post-Taliban Afghanistan in 2001 failed to take into serious consideration the increased role that communal divisions have played inside the country and among the emigres during the past 20 years. Hence the continued warlordism, escalating opium cultivation, need for outside military presence for the foreseeable future, and continued chafing of several ethnic groups at what some regard as the restoration of Pushtun power. Discussions of a federated Afghanistan never matured because of the heavy influence of Pushtun emigres in the US and Europe, especially in Geneva in the fall of 2001, where a majority of the delegates came from the diaspora. Pushtuns, who form a major portion of the Afghan diaspora in the West have gained much influence and thus far have learned the effectiveness of compromise. In the case of Iraq, consideration of federalism has appeared in discussions, reflecting the organized presence of ethnic and religious minorities among Iraqi emigres such as the Shi’a, Kurds, Assyrians, and Turkomans.1 Why the Afghan diaspora has not organized itself in the same manner is part of this analysis of this particular diaspora.

WHO IS AN AFGHAN? In discussing the Afghan diaspora, it is important to keep in mind the double definition of “Afghan” identity. The term “Afghan” has come to be defined popularly, especially in the West, to include all the people of Afghanistan, despite their ethnic diversity and at least two major language families. This definition assumes a national identity based on a dominant ethnic eponymous model such as Turkmenistan. Such a model, for example, assumes that all those living in Israel can be uniformly called Israelis despite the clear division of society into at least two major components, Arab and Jewish/Israeli, one of which gives its name to the state. For legal purposes all are Israelis, when in reality the divisions carry an overriding significance in internal and regional politics. Likewise in Afghanistan, the political identity of Afghan includes not only a diverse ethnic make-up but also the fact that, prior to the 1920s and for many in today’s Afghanistan, “Afghan” meant exclusively the Pushtun ethnic group. It was these Pushtu/Pukhto-speaking “Afghans” (western and eastern confederations of tribes plus those unaffiliated

The Afghan diaspora 171 with either), who through conquest and colonial pressure forged the geography of the current state and gave it its name.2 While Soviet ethnographers retained this original, more precise, usage, Americans have tended to adopt the language designation – Pushtun – as an ethnic term while applying the term “Afghan” to all inhabitants of the country. (The fight to prevent the term “Afghani” from entering English for something other than the nation’s currency has been lost, as has the fight to keep “Farsi” from being used for the national language of Iran.) Among European historians and anthropologists, terminology has vacillated. In political discussion, the tendency to adopt American usage grows out of a desire to deal with the region in simple, if not simplistic terms. This tendency arises from post-World War I nationalism which obscures, as much as internal factors will allow, the existence of non-conforming ethnicities. A supra-national identity works well in the case of a term like “Iran” as it applies to Persians, Lurs, Kurds, and others within the Iranian linguistic and historic fold, but less so when applied to Azeris, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, and Jews. Other examples in the Middle East are “Turks” for all those living within the boundaries of Turkey, “Iraqi” for all those within Iraq, and so forth. The countervailing attempt in the Soviet nationality system, still lingering in many countries of the former Soviet Union, to allow official ethnic identity to some degree prevented the destruction of stateless cultures. In the Middle East, however, where rampant nationalism prevailed as a legacy of World War I, most stateless cultures are all but wiped out.3 In Afghanistan, the tendency to apply the term “Afghan” to all ethnic groups within the country has been less successful than in countries where the central government has exerted legal and military pressure to achieve its nationalist goal. But the real unraveling of the legitimacy of a single name in Afghanistan, as in Iraq, has come as a result of war and the organization of opposition groups along secure ethnic lines. War has made the Tajiks focus on their separate identity in Afghanistan, just as in Iraq it has made the Kurds more aware of how their goals diverge from those of Arabs. As Iraq and Afghanistan undergo restructuring, it may be useful to recognize the extent to which, in the realm of diaspora and ethnic relations, the two countries are similar.

ORIGINS OF THE AFGHAN DIASPORA Prior to the Afghan diaspora of the late 20th century, the small number of emigres from Afghanistan nearly always consisted of Pushtu speakers. Thus the Afghans living in the Soviet Central Asian areas of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan came from original Pushtu speakers. The same is true of Afghans who arrived as camel herders from British India to trade along the desert routes of northwest Australia. In large part, these early Afghan immigrants left as a result of contacts with British India. In the case of Central Asia, they left Afghanistan during the 1920s, either as part of the army that was sent to support the Basmachis resisting the Red Army or as dissident, Indian-influenced communists.4

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In addition, individual families left, or were exiled, throughout India and the Middle East, sometimes on British pensions. Among these were some of the most prominent Afghan families within the ruling Pushtun elites – the Tarzi, the Luynab, and the Musahiban – who had come into conflict with various monarchs. This category of exiles might be considered to have been in temporary diaspora, since they intended to return to Kabul as soon as it was politically possible. Those prominent families who emigrated to the West have been less likely to return, among them the Zabouli family who settled in New England after World War II; the Sibghatullah Mojaddidi family who left for Sweden in the 1970s; the family of King Amanullah, who abdicated in 1928 for residence in Rome; and, until the defeat of the Taliban, the family of Zahir Shah, the last Afghan royal family who also left for Rome when the country was declared a republic in 1973. Extraordinarily, Zahir Shah, the last, overthrown, monarch briefly returned to Kabul at the age of 88 to serve as a ceremonial figure-head in the creation of a post-Taliban government. Zahir Shah’s return symbolizes the late 20th-century Afghan diaspora which, despite long absence, several changes in international and regional politics, and the rise of local leadership in their country, has succeeded not only in returning but playing a key role in Afghanistan’s political and economic reconstruction. The repatriation of the Pushtuns to Afghanistan has historically been a question of political expediency. For example, Abdul Rahman waited in Tashkent exile for an opportunity to return, which came when the British invited him to become Amir in 1880. Similarly in 1903, Mahmud Tarzi returned from exile in Syria to head the gradually modernizing Afghan cultural system during the reign of Habibullah (1901–18). A few decades later, Nadir Khan Muhammadzai returned from British Indian exile to become the Afghan king in 1929. Two prominent Pushtuns who did not return to Afghanistan after exile were former King Amanullah, who died in Rome 1960, and Zahir Shah, whose role has been symbolic rather than political.5 Today, this historical pattern might well be repeated if the Pushtuns, in particular from the US, decide to return to Afghanistan only if they are able to exercise political power.6

THE SHIFT FROM IMMIGRATION TO DIASPORA Across the Middle East and Central Asia, educational opportunities in the West enticed young men, and a few women, from upper-class families to leave their homes. From Baku, Tashkent, and Dushanbe, they went to Moscow to become scientists. From Kabul and Tehran, they left to pursue careers in medicine and engineering in Europe and the United States. Increasingly, from the 1950s onward, those who left did not return. Instead, they married (or in some cases took second wives) in the West and built successful professional careers that allowed them the luxury of visits home. Rarely did their extended families join them in the West. Although initially consisting of a few thousand Afghan students and professionals in Europe and the US, as the Afghan political situation deteriorated,

The Afghan diaspora 173 the diaspora increased to include thousands more who arrived either as political refugees or as members of extended families of the original immigrants. The change came after 1978, when the communist regime took power in Kabul, and 1979, when the Soviet Union invaded. Resistance to the regime and war against Soviet troops drove five million refugees out of the country. This time, unlike previous periods of instability in Afghanistan such as 1929, it was not only Pushtun elites who scattered, but also landed peasants, bureaucrats, technocrats, and members of the military. Still, many of the families fleeing, to Pakistan in particular, came from Pushtun ethnic backgrounds. Many settled in and around Quetta and Peshawar, the eventual power bases of the western and eastern Pushtuns from Afghanistan. A much smaller number of Tajiks from the Panjsher, some Hazaras, Turkmen, and Uzbeks, also managed to make their way through the high mountain areas north of the Khyber Pass into Pakistan. With regard to the latter groups, it should be noted that opportunities for non-Pushtuns to gain political stature in Afghanistan have historically been limited; with the exception of a nine-month period in 1929, all Afghan ruling elites have been Pushtun/ Afghan since 1747 when the country was formed. Although the Soviet invasion drastically increased the number of emigres, it did not dramatically change the pattern of migration. With the installation of a Communist regime in 1978, through the Saur Revolution that brought to power first one (Khalqi) then the other (Parcham) branch of the Afghan Communist Party known as the PDPA (the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan), some families began leaving. Among those were families of men who had been targeted for prison or elimination. On the whole, these were prominent Pushtuns who had been active in public life and whose families resided in Kabul, Kandahar, or Jalalabad, the towns most susceptible to control by the PDPA. Thus the remnants of the Mujaddidi family and the Gailani families left, as well as less well-known ones. Refuge was sought in the Pakistani border area where the resistance mujahidin groups were forming. The 1979 Soviet invasion, as it began penetrating the countryside, forced out more refugees from the largely Pushtun villages near Pakistan. As a result, most of the refugees in Pakistan came from among the Pushtuns. Many living in the more tightly controlled northern plains had little means of escaping, since across the Amu Darya were the plains of Soviet Central Asia. Those from non-Pushtun ethnic groups who fled often ended up in Iranian refugee camps. There were also refugees in both Iran and Pakistan who did not fit neatly into the geo-ethnic breakdown described above. For example, some Turkmen and Uzbek groups found their way to Pakistan, perhaps eschewing Iran as a Shiite area in favor of Pakistan’s Sunni culture which corresponded more closely to their background.

STAGES OF DIASPORA Much study has gone into the developing Afghan refugee situation, not the least from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) which, together with the United

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Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR), took on the enormous task of providing shelter and food for one of the largest populations of refugees in the world. The expectation was that the refugees would return once the political situation in Afghanistan was settled. For this reason, both Iran and Pakistan placed barriers in the path of refugees from Afghanistan who did not wish to live in refugee camps, wanted to work, or wished to enter the educational network of the host countries. However, those families with sufficient means left both the refugee camps and these host countries entirely. Due to Iran’s near-pariah status during much of the 1980s (and the Iraq–Iran war), leaving Iran was difficult even for Afghan refugees of means. From Pakistan or India, however, emigration to the West was more likely, as was the possibility of seeking political asylum. Therefore, most of those finding their way to the West, through Pakistan and India, were Pushtuns. Eventually, Afghan emigres formed into two distinct groups: those with education and position who left for the West, and those without means and connections who stayed in refugee camps within the general region. A handful among the educated resisted the option of seeking safety and comfort and instead stayed in Peshawar or Quetta, working as best they could within the Afghan resistance. Many among this group became targets for successful assassination by either the Kabul regime, when it had the means, or by the increasingly extremist Islamic mujahidin political parties.7 Those who remained in Pakistan depended on three sources of sustenance: international in-kind support, money from family living abroad, and local work. Among the most successful private work programs developed was the establishment of a carpet-weaving industry, mainly among the Turkmen, where traditional carpet-weaving skills were put to use with the reintroduction of natural dyes.8 During the late 1980s, as prominent members of the PDPA began to see a diminished future for themselves in a weakening communist state, a number bundled their children off to Central Asian institutes and universities, especially in Dushanbe and Tashkent. Their families followed, and finally the head of family. In addition to these mainly well-placed Pushtuns, others from among the northern ethnic minorities also sought shelter in Central Asia, although most non-Pushtuns headed for Iran. The withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989 coincided with the quick collapse of the Soviet state. Chaos in parts of Central Asia, especially in Tajikistan, was related in large part to the direct and indirect role of the Afghan mujahidin in the Islamic insurgencies that rose and which combined with secular forces in Tajikistan that challenged the old Communist oligarchy in the country. In Afghanistan, a similar struggle for political power gripped Kabul as competing mujahidin leaders grappled for control. The near destruction of Kabul occurred through the actions of well-armed mujahidin leaders who stepped into the political vacuum left after the common Afghan and Soviet enemy had been ousted. In Kabul, in particular, these competing ethnic and religious mujahidin groups vented their ethnic and ideological rivalry.9 As the Taliban gained control of much of the country in 1996, the “freedom fighter” phase of the Afghan resistance came to a close, except for the remaining

The Afghan diaspora 175 non-Pushtun resistance formed by an uneasy Tajik–Uzbek union known as the Northern Alliance. The Taliban’s accession to power did not encourage refugees to return from the West, save for a few prominent Pushtuns who sought to gain international support for the new regime. These individuals returned temporarily during the first year or so of Taliban rule. The relative calm and security that descended on the country after nearly 20 years of turmoil was seen by some as a chance for an Afghanistan that would not only be run by Afghans but would also be dominated by tribal, rather than urbanized, Pushtuns. In addition, a few members of the Afghan diaspora in Europe and the US felt obligated to lend their professional expertise to a struggling country. But the euphoria about the future of Afghanistan under the Taliban was short-lived. Soon, two tendencies among the Taliban became evident. First, their standards of Islamic behavior became increasingly severe and restrictive. This had a significant effect on Afghans from the Western diaspora who might otherwise have returned. Second, their particular, seemingly bizarre, understanding of Afghan culture and history isolated them from other educated Afghans.10 Some Afghans returned from the near diaspora, including farmers and villagers from both Iran and Pakistan, especially those who were encouraged and facilitated to return home under United Nations (UN) pressure. But the rate of return from diaspora was no more than a trickle. Hope for return only took root when the Taliban were overthrown. The extent to which Afghan refugees can and will return from diaspora depends in great part on the relative opportunities they have in their host countries as measured against the prospects that await them in Afghanistan.

AFGHAN EMIGRE SETTLEMENT PATTERNS IN THE WEST Afghans who settled in the US following the Soviet invasion were well-educated and/or professionals, some well-suited to US employment and some not. A large number were physicians, and a handful among them had trained in the US. Others, graduates of Kabul University’s Faculty of Medicine, found their way through examinations and internships and began to establish themselves. Afghan communities clustered in Virginia, North Carolina, New Jersey, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Orange County, California. Fremont, California, in particular, became a mecca of sorts. The majority of these clusters are made up of Pushtuns, most belonging to tribes affiliated with the western Pushtun confederacy (the same as with Hamid Karzai, the interim President of Afghanistan), most of whom were urbanized in Afghanistan. Family repatriation and relatively lax examination of Afghans seeking political asylum expanded existing communities in the US from about 500 families in 1980 to no less than 37,982 in the US census of 2000.11 A tightly knit multi-generational family structure, widespread arranged marriages, and a distinctive native language helped to maintain cohesion and prevent evaporation of identity. Non-Pushtuns, with few exceptions, remained culturally and physically outside these communities. Politically, most of the families backed

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mujahidin parties that advocated the return of the constitutional monarchy. Through extensive intermarriage and tribal heritage, many had distant blood ties to the former royal family, which cemented the urbane, educated, and multilingual emigrants to each other. They built ties to political power brokers and awaited the end of communist rule in 1992 and the end of Burhanuddin Rabbani’s rule in 1996, but became divided over support for the Pushtun Taliban. A similar pattern may be observed in Europe. Settling in Germany, France, Italy, the UK, and elsewhere, Europe’s Afghan population has grown rapidly over the past 20 years, in part due to an initially generous social welfare system for refugees. Europe also saw illegal immigration on a scale apparently greater than in the US. As in the US, during the years of Communist rule in Kabul, Europe’s Afghans demonstrated annually to mark the Soviet invasion and lobbied for increased aid to the mujahidin. Unlike US aid, European aid took the form of humanitarian rather than military assistance. Moreover, European capitals, less prone to fallout from the US–Iran political combat, saw a greater number of non-Pushtuns arrive through Iran, at European destinations such as Germany and the UK. Similarly, European contacts with non-Pushtuns such as the Jami’at-e Islami were far stronger while US contacts, channeled through Pakistan, went to Pushtun groups.12 When the ouster of the Taliban began, following the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Afghan emigre community in the US had already begun to back away from the Taliban. It is too facile, however, to attribute the repudiation of the Taliban to issues of human rights, gender, or other such causes popular in the Western arsenal long before September 11. Rather, the Afghan emigre community’s ardor for the Taliban cooled when two Taliban political attitudes became evident: they would not welcome back emigre Pushtuns into government positions and they specifically rejected the return of Zahir Shah in any capacity.13 In the 2000 US census, the general category “Afghan” is accepted for all those born in Afghanistan, without separating the emigrants into ethnic components. Likewise, the census does not indicate citizenship of the Afghan resident. Most Afghans sought and received green cards and eventually citizenship, especially those who agreed to serve in the military. For those returning to Afghanistan, even on a temporary basis, the decision of whether to use Afghan or US travel documents, as well as whether to maintain dual citizenship, will become issues. Perhaps, like others from uncertain political situations, Afghans, too, will send pregnant wives to extended families in the US to ensure the right of the newly born to choose US citizenship during times of insecurity.

AFGHAN EMIGRE INSTITUTIONS IN THE US Over the past two decades, many Afghan associations have spawned on US soil. Afghans have also knitted themselves into existing Muslim communities through the system of community mosques and schools. But there is a distinct lack of formal institutions of the sort seen among Armenians, Iranians, Iranian Jews, or Assyrians. Afghan diaspora associations are informal and often function around an

The Afghan diaspora 177 information source or personality, much as political parties did in Kabul during the 1960s. If Afghan diaspora organizations were not built on specific affiliations, then how, if at all, did the community build and maintain associations and communications? An overview of a few such vehicles for community preservation will suffice here to convey the unique and broadly “tribal” nature of these organizations. One caveat is this: it must be emphasized that both the direction and energy of the Afghan emigre community shifted once the Soviet army crossed the Hairaton Bridge back into Soviet Central Asia in 1989. In 1980, under 1,000 Afghans had applied for either US citizenship or alien resident status.14 Throughout the 1980s, a fast-growing Afghan community in the US functioned as an outreach for various Afghan mujahidin factions operating out of Pakistan or Iran. With the several shifts in the Communist regimes in Kabul, the solidly anti-communist US community began to be augmented by often very unwelcome former communists: at first Maoists, then Khalqis, and Parchamis. Some of these people could rely on family ties to emigre families, but chiefly they were shunned by the larger community. Along the East Coast of the US, pro-monarchy parties promoted and welcomed visiting Afghan political party leaders, especially Pir Gailani, and often bemoaned the direction of US military supply to Islamist, anti-monarchy factions, such as the Pakistani favorite, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Others, especially in the San Francisco Bay Area, supported Pushtun Islamist factions and began to take on increasingly stricter Muslim habits. Scattered academics supported the non-Pushtun party of Burhanuddin Rabbani. Afghan emigres traveled with increasing frequency to Peshawar to participate in rounds of unity talks among the mujahidin parties and in attempts to form a government-in-exile. Some, especially from the pro-monarchy parties, served in the provisional government that took power in Kabul in 1992 when the Russian supply of military aid to Najibullah dried up and the mujahidin took control of the city.15 Those from the US often carried the “portfolio” of ambassador-at-large, or representative of one group or another. Serious conflicts with the Afghan emigre community in the US emerged as a reflection of the conflicts taking place in Kabul between late 1992 and 1998. During this period, a civil war raged in Afghanistan which pitted not just armed political factions against each other, but also saw the barely disguised ethnic camps of the mujahidin emerge into the open. The trigger came when Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, refused to relinquish the presidency which had been established on a rotating basis by the Peshawar Agreement. Through a series of blatantly rigged elections, in which long-settled Afghan Americans acquired voting rights, he was re-elected.16 Kabul was besieged and bombarded by Uzbeks, Tajiks, and Pushtuns in turn. Insecurity reigned in all areas except in Mazar-e Sharif and other parts of the north, which enjoyed an uneasy stability under the banner of the Northern Alliance, a loose confederation of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmens. With the major exception of the United Nations, these groups were powerless in the US. In the UN, the representative of the Rabbani government, a

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seasoned Afghan diplomat of Tajik background and a respected scholar, held the chair for Afghanistan and succeeded in fighting off all challengers, even after the Taliban took Kabul. Some among the Afghans in the US saw this as part of an anti-Pushtun intrigue on the part of the US State Department, which would not extend recognition to the Taliban.

AFGHAN COMMUNICATION IN THE US DIASPORA The three leading means of communication among Afghans in the US are newsletters, radio, and the internet, and their overlapping forms: radio and newsletters over the internet. Visions of Afghanistan differ considerably among these. Most media forums came into being during the period when the Taliban began to alienate many fellow Afghans. Afghanistan Voice, first published in 1996 from New Jersey, circulates among Afghan elites outside the main centers of Pushtun power. The appeal of the newsletter, which has a website as well as a postal address, lies in the homage it pays to the Islamic culture of Afghans (“In the Name of God”, “the Most Merciful”, the “Most Compassionate” – in Arabic as well as English) and carries as its general message: “The Voice Demanding: Democracy, Freedom, And Dignity For All, Seeking To Enhance The Cause Of A Free, United Afghanistan.” Articles are taken from on-line sources and derived from original material. The editor, one of the few Afghan intellectuals who arrived in the US long before the series of catastrophes in Afghanistan, focuses on issues of human rights within the political picture and took an early anti-Taliban stance. This publication offers no distinct ethnic voice and clearly not a Pushtun one. Often backing Mas’ud and other Jami’at-e Islami figures, the newsletter also supports efforts of the Afghanistan Foundation (headed by Dauod Yaqub) and generally tries to build consensus, keep women’s issues in the forefront, and in general grieved over the actions of the Taliban. A second non-partisan force is the Institute for Afghan Studies (Institute-forAfghan-Studies.org) which is heavily under the influence of Afghan academics whose mission statement emphasizes the position that only Afghans ought to provide information on their country and people.17 Intended to be a means of linking Afghan academics, it is positioning itself, from its foreign base, to act in Afghanistan through research and information dissemination. The organization makes non-political claims for purposes of US charitable institution tax laws, and does not include outspoken Pushtun emigres. These and dozens of other Afghan internet sites bring news to the broader community in English, and provide for opinion exchange among Afghans and a few outsiders. Afghan news in Dari or Pushtu, on-line, appears from outside the US. Not to be ignored are the several Afghan women’s organizations, which also include sympathetic non-Afghans. The Women’s Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA) in Washington, DC is one such group, and the radical Revolutionary Afghan Women’s Association in Peshawar is another longstanding Afghan diaspora organization.

The Afghan diaspora 179 The most obviously partisan information service currently available is the “nonpartisan” site called “rebuild-afghanistan.com”, which sports the logo of the Afghan monarchial flag at the top of its home page. This logo was officially discarded in 1973 when Sardar Dauod declared Afghanistan a republic and dethroned his first cousin, the king. Billing itself as “a place to discuss, collaborate and add new ideas in regard to rebuilding Afghanistan,” the site works to encourage Afghan emigres to produce plans and create motives and opportunities for return. The various mostly internet sites of communications centered on the internet reflect the diversity of Afghan ethnic and political voices. But as a government in Kabul comes into better focus, and as it seems equally likely that the problem of ethnic warlords will plague attempts at unity, attention in the diaspora as in Kabul has turned to the promulgation of a constitution. Involved in this process are mainly Afghans who remained in the country, or at least did not join the western diaspora. By virtue of sheer numbers – 500 in the constitutional convention – the returning Afghans, so prominent in the interim cabinet, must promote their vision of Afghanistan through persuasion. Based as it is on the 1964 constitution, the draft presented to the convention in December 2003 faces many hurdles, not the least of which are ethnic balance, the place of Islam in Afghan law and society, and the position of women – all issues that have divided Afghan society internally and in diaspora for over two decades.

TO WHICH AFGHANISTAN WILL THEY RETURN? Indications of a desire to return to the pre-1973 mode of governance reflect an ardent wish to render the intervening years a forgotten episode. On its way toward democratic habits during the late 1960s, the Afghanistan of that era appears a model to which the Interim Authority, installed on December 22, 2001 through the Bonn Agreement, might aspire. But the Afghan population has doubled since then, educational levels have plummeted, and the infrastructure has all but vanished. Above all, ethnic relations have altered drastically. On the regional level, the co-ethnics of Afghanistan’s northern people are no longer under the control of Moscow but form independent states. As a result of the US intervention in Afghanistan, they are also becoming tied to Washington through bilateral aid treaties, especially Uzbekistan, which played a key role as a launching pad for US forces and military targeting of Taliban sites in northern Afghanistan. A future Afghan state that does not make allowance for a high level of autonomy for its own minorities, possibly by guaranteeing their right of secession, runs the danger of being regarded as restoring Pushtun colonial rule. The overwhelming dependence of international policy-makers, especially in the US, on a coterie of like-minded Pushtun elites living in the US, no matter how attractive and pliant, raises issues within the region that will prevent the regional peace, security, and economic advancement of all Afghans. Among Afghans who manifest a realistic attitude toward their devastated country is the respected Dr G. Rauf Roashan who, in January 2002, published “As

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Afghanistan Calls on Her Sons and Daughters” in which he asked the Tokyo Donors Conference to consider a project to be named Manpower and Urgent Investment Programs intended to provide a framework for the manner in which Afghan emigres can participate in the reconstruction of the country. Dr Roashan raises serious questions about how Afghans established in the West can maintain their lifestyles and families while doing useful work in Afghanistan. One Afghan emigre who has returned, in addition to the members of the Interim Authority, has been among the most influential persons to bring Afghan opinion to bear on international policy. Zalmay Khalilzad, the US-educated scion of a Pushtun family, entered Kabul after the defeat of the Taliban as the US representative to Afghanistan with an associate, Hamid Karzai. The appointment of Khalilzad by the superpower most influential in Afghanistan represents, as does the heavy support for pro-Zahir Shah men and women, the perspective of the elite Pushtun emigrants living in the Washington area for two decades. Shortly after his installment at the US Embassy, Khalilzad accused Iran of fomenting trouble in western Afghanistan (by supporting Isma’il Khan, a Rabbani adherent). Soon thereafter, the US State Department picked up the same anti-Iranian strain, and President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” focus on Iran as part of the trio of Iraq, Iran, and North Korea, went some distance to wreck the building of rapprochement between the US and Iran. Shortly thereafter, Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights, appeared in Afghanistan and raised the issue of persecution of Pushtuns in northern Afghanistan. Within days, an Iranian general and staff were captured by Afghans and turned over to US forces in Herat. While there may be a convergence of views between the US government and Afghan emigre elites in the “War on Terrorism”, it has become clear that, even without returning physically to Afghanistan and its obvious hardships, parts of the Afghan community in the US have profoundly affected the direction of Afghan internal as well as regional affairs. With the appointment of Khalilzad not only as the US presidential representative to Kabul but, in late 2003, also as the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, the apex of Afghan diaspora influence on US policy in Afghanistan has been reached. Khalilzad, who came to the US as an Afghan high school exchange student and completed his higher education in the US, has long been recognized as a skilled Middle East expert. His service in Iraq during the preparation and execution of the US-led coalition intervention, especially in negotiations among Kurds and Turks, had increased his standing. And he may be the first ever Middle East born emigre to return to his country of origin as the ambassador of his adopted country.

PROBLEMS OF THE RETURN OF AFGHAN EMIGRES FROM THE WEST Inducements for the return of skilled Afghans fall into four categories: the possibility of effective service (as exemplified by Dr Roashan above); the possibility

The Afghan diaspora 181 of regaining power and position (for family, if not the individual) from which they had been exiled for 20 years; the possibility of employment, in contrast to underemployed in the West; and nostalgia for a lifestyle and country imagined and romanticized. With the Taliban and their supporters sidelined at the insistence of Rabbani, and the reduction of the influence of Iran (and by extension the non-Pushtun ethnic groups it supports), the position of pro-monarchial Pushtun forces has increased many-fold beyond the agreements reached in the fall of 2001. A problem with the heightened role of Pushtuns from among emigres may be outlined as follows. First, their political and social views may be in conflict with local needs and possibilities. This is especially a problem in women’s issues since some of the most vocal voices in the West have been RAWA members – women associated with the PDPA efforts on this front. If they become active and are physically or otherwise sidelined, their voices will rage in the West to the detriment of the more measured efforts that are needed. Second, they may not be attuned to or willing to be cognizant of changed Afghan social and ethnic relationships. The interests of co-ethnics in the Central Asian republics may come into play if the Kabul government makes no provision for guarding the cultural and ethnic rights of Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Turkmens roughly associated in the Northern Alliance. Another issue raised by thoughtful analysts is pay scales. Should Afghan returnees be paid at a different rate than say, Swedes or Nigerians or Ukranians working as NGO employees on projects to dispense the development funds pledged at Tokyo? A suggestion that Afghan returnees working for the Afghan government each receive an extra $200 per month, plus Afghan government salary, would create imbalances. The most skilled among them would be skimmed off by the NGOs and the rest, if they still wanted to, would work for the Afghan government. This calls for true heroics on the part of those who accept government positions and live in no-water/no-toilet flats while compatriots working for a Western agency drive around in Land Rovers and drink imported wines. At best, Afghan doctors, engineers, and professors who return will do so on a temporary basis in much the same way as Afghan shopkeepers and farmers are doing from the regional refugee camps. They will leave the women and children in the diaspora while they return for a limited period of time (return ticket and Western passport safely tucked in the briefcase) to both serve and garner rewards. In this way, the long years that these Afghans spent on training and work in exile may yet serve Afghanistan. Once the fighting subsides, Afghanistan may be a land of opportunity for all sorts of people, both the dedicated and the opportunistic. Opportunity for doing good or for hitting a financial bonanza, among both Afghans and non-Afghans, may be as fanciful for one as for the other. For the Afghan diaspora, the emotional component of returning to a once-and-never country may prove disappointing. This is all the more true for non-Pushtuns for whom hopes for equitable treatment by Pushtuns in power appears to require constant vigilance.

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CONCLUSION The Afghan diaspora represents a case that is unique in many respects. Due to general sympathy for Afghans during the two decades of fighting, they generally found it relatively easy to seek and find asylum and to adjust to diaspora life, until the end of the Taliban regime in 2001. Because the formation of the Afghan diaspora has occurred as a result of what has widely been regarded as an unjust war, its numbers in the West have expanded rapidly, thereby resulting in the rapid formation of communities that have not yet had time to melt and assimilate. When the opportunity to participate in the reconstruction of their country arose, so early in the history of the diaspora, there was a natural inclination to return. Return, however, is complicated by insecurity and the stark reality of comfort and opportunity that will continue to be only a distant hope in Afghanistan for at least a decade. Therefore, while the return of farmers and shopkeepers, even Turkmen carpet-weavers from the near diaspora in Pakistan and from Iran, is feasible and under way, the permanent return of Afghan professionals from their Western locations is less assured. What is certain is that the presence of these professionals, mainly Pushtuns, in the US and the West, has provided them with opportunities to affect policy toward their own country of origin as in no other case in recent history, as epitomized by the career of the current Ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad. NOTES 1 In this paper, the term “Turkomans” is used for the descendants of the Aq Koyunlu and the Kara Koyunlu of the Zagros region while the term “Turkmens” is retained for those persons who are related to the main population of the former Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic, now the Turkmen Republic. The Turkmen of Afghanistan and Iran, if they are not part of the refugee population fleeing Tsarist, then communist rule, are part of the cross-border natural habitation prior to the establishment of international boundaries. 2 The term “Pathan,” widely used in British sources, refers to all Pushtuns, those on the Afghan and Pakistani side of the border. 3 The Yezidis, the Assyrians, the Druzes, the Baluches, and until recently, the Kurds are examples of cultures that survive in the Former Soviet Union thanks to the nationality system: in the national states of the Middle East, including Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, their struggle to survive as stateless cultures requires energy that few are capable of risking. 4 Afghan descendants of the army sent by Amanallah in support of the Amir of Bukhara when he was successfully attacked by the Red Army in 1922 live in and around Bukhara while those descended from the Afghan communists who fled Afghanistan in the late 1920s reside in the Hissar region of Tajikistan. Little remains of the original Pushtu language of these two groups. 5 Zahir Shah did return briefly in June 2002 as part of the attempt to bring unity to the country by parlaying nostalgia into political stability. In December 2003 he was again prevailed upon to make an appearance before the constitutional convention – a loya jirga – in an appeal to Pushtun solidarity.

The Afghan diaspora 183 6 According to some, the reintegration of the Afghans resident in the West meets with some daily disdain: some are being called “sag-shuy” meaning dog-bathers, a reference to the Western regard for household canine pets in contrast to the Afghan, and general Muslim regard of dogs as dirty animals (personal communication from Pierre Centrlivres, November 2003, Cambridge, MA). 7 Sayyid Baha’uddin Majruh, former president of the Afghan Historical Society and prominent scholar and journalist, born in Kunar in 1928, was assassinated in Peshawar by Afghans in 1988. See Ludwig W. Adamec, Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1991), p. 156. 8 This endeavor, begun in 1983 through the cooperative efforts of Cultural Survival and Yayla carpets, both in Cambridge, MA, has supported hundreds of families who undertake all aspects of production from the raising of sheep for wool to collecting the natural dyes, coloring, weaving, and wholesaling of the product. With the establishment of security in the country, the Turkmen are anxious to return to their lands in Juzjan province to resettle with their newly revived industry. 9 For a discussion of mujahidin destructive rivalries and the arrival of the Taliban, see Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000). 10 The destruction of the Kabul Museum, the banning of all music, and finally the use of cannon on the majestic Bamiyan buddhas alienated them from even the most devoted of the Afghans educated in diaspora. 11 This is an estimate from the Census Bureau. The uppermost possible figure in the estimate is 50,981. 12 Particularly strong in London has been representation of the Jami’at-e Islami, the party of Burhanuddin Rabbani and Ahmad Shah Masud, the brilliant Tajik military leader. The Jami’at office in London was headed by Ahmad Shah’s brother. 13 Ralph H. Magnus and Eden Naby, Afghanistan: Mullah, Marx and Mujahid (Boulder: Westview, 2002). 14 David C. Champagne, “Afghans,” in The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups (Cambridge, 1980), pp. 3–5. 15 Hedayat Amin Arsala, a nephew of Pir Gailani, the head of the chief monarchist party, served in the cabinet from 1992–4, and after the defeat of the Taliban, has held prominent posts in the interim government, including Vice President. His background is in Washington, including employment at the World Bank. Other Pushtuns from the Washington area now in the cabinet include Ashraf Ghani, Minister of Finance. Pushtuns like these men trained and gained experience in the West and hold most posts in the cabinet that require finance training. 16 In the disputed Herat elections (1992) when President Rabbani was re-elected, some Afghans residing in the US, who were known Jami’at-e Islami supporters, were invited to participate. These elections were not honored by all, especially the Pushtuns, and did much to bring disunity to the fragile post-PDPA mujahidin government. 17 The Institute’s mission statement reads: The Institute for Afghan Studies (IAS) is a nonprofit, non-political, and independent organization, founded and run by young Afghan scholars from around the globe. The mission of the Institute is to be a center for research and a credible source of information about Afghanistan. The IAS promotes research on social, economic, political, and other issues of critical importance pertaining to Afghanistan by providing a forum and soliciting contributions from recognized Afghan and non-Afghan scholars, think tanks, and experts on Afghan studies. The IAS, nevertheless, is of the belief and conviction that Afghans themselves have the best source of information and solutions for the numerous problems facing Afghanistan today. To this end, it encourages and makes possible quality interaction between informed, educated, and professional Afghans around the globe.

10 Islam in China Transnationalism or transgression Dru C. Gladney

China’s 20 million Muslims are both transnational (in that their identifications as “national minorities” is integral to China’s formation as a nation-state and most of them have significant populations outside of China) and transgressors of the nation-state (in that many of them, especially many Uighurs, are attempting to establish their own independent nation-state). This chapter will seek to understand both the transnational and transgressional aspects of Muslim identity in China in terms of the accommodation to or resistance against the dominant Chinese host culture and political milieu. Many of the challenges China’s Muslims confront remain the same as they have for the last 1,400 years of continuous interaction with Chinese society, but many are new as a result of China’s transformed and increasingly transnational, globalized society, and especially as a result of the watershed events of the September 11 terrorist attacks and the subsequent “war on terrorism.” Muslims in China live as minority communities amid a sea of people, in their view, who are largely pork-eating, polytheist, secularist, and kafir (“heathen”). Nevertheless, many of their small and isolated communities have survived in rather inhospitable circumstances for over a millennium. Though small in population percentage (about 2 percent in China), their numbers are nevertheless large in comparison with other Muslim states. For example, there are more Muslims in China than Malaysia, and more than every Middle Eastern Muslim nation except Iran, Turkey, and Egypt. East Asia is also increasingly dependent on mainly Muslim nations for energy and cheap labor, thus raising the importance of its Muslim transnational and diasporic communities for international and domestic relations. Japan has a rather small resident Muslim community, estimated to be less than 10,000; however, recent waves of Middle Eastern and South Asian migrant laborers to Japan’s large industrial cities suggest that the total Muslim population in Japan could be nearing the one million mark. Though these communities are temporary in terms of residency, they have as strong an impact on Japan’s rather insular society as the Turkish and Kurdish populations in the Scandinavian heartlands (which now have surpassed 10 percent). As Lipman1 insightfully noted, these long-term Muslim communities have often been the “familiar strangers” found in small enclaves throughout Asia. And if Kosovo and Bosnia are to serve as lessons, failure to accommodate Muslim minorities can lead to national dismemberment and

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international intervention. Indeed, China’s primary objection to North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) involvement in Kosovo centered on its fear that this might encourage the aiding and abetting of separatists, with independence groups in Xinjiang, Tibet, and perhaps Taiwan, clearly a major Chinese concern. This chapter will seek to examine Muslim minority identity in Asia with specific reference to China, not only because it is where this author has conducted most of his research, but also because, with the largest Muslim minority in East Asia, China’s Muslims are clearly the most threatened in terms of self-preservation and Islamic identity. However, it is hoped that lessons gleaned from the Chinese case might be useful for other Muslim communities in East Asia, and perhaps elsewhere in Asia as well. Most relevant is the thesis put forth that successful Muslim accommodation to minority status in Asia can be seen to be a measure of the extent to which Muslim groups allow the reconciliation of the dictates of Islamic culture to their host culture, be it Chinese, Japanese, Korean, or other. This goes against the opposite view that can be found in the writings of some analysts of Islam in China, such as Raphael Israeli and Michael Dillon, that Islam in the region is inherently rebellious and that Muslims as minorities are always problematic to the security of a non-Muslim state.2

ISLAM IN CHINA Islam in China has primarily been propagated over the last 1,300 years among the people now known as “Hui,” but many of the issues confronting them are relevant to the Turkic and Indo-European Muslims on China’s Inner Asian frontier. “Hui teaching” (Hui jiao) was the term once used in Chinese to indicate “Islam” in general, and probably derives from an early Chinese rendering of the term for the modern Uighur people. According to the reasonably accurate 2000 national census of China, the total Muslim population is 20.3 million, including: Hui (9,816,805); Uighur (8,399,393); Kazakh (1,250,458); Dongxiang (513,805); Kyrgyz (160,823); Salar (104,503); Tadjik (41,028); Uzbek (14,502); Bonan (16,505); Tatar (4,890). This represents about a 40 percent population increase over 1990 census figures. The Hui speak mainly Sino-Tibetan languages; Turkiclanguage speakers include the Uighur, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Uzbek, and Tatar; combined Turkic-Mongolian speakers include the Dongxiang, Salar, and Bonan, concentrated in Gansu’s mountainous Hexi corridor; and the Tajik speak a variety of Indo-Persian dialects. It is important to note, however, that the Chinese census registered people by nationality, not religious affiliation, so the actual number of Muslims is still unknown, and all population figures are influenced by politics in their use and interpretation. While the Hui have been labeled the “Chinese-speaking Muslims,” “Chinese Muslims,” and most recently, as “Sino-Muslims,”3 this is misleading since by law all Muslims living in China are “Chinese” by citizenship, and many Hui speak many of the non-Chinese languages where they live, such as the Tibetan, Mongolian, Thai, and Hainan Muslims, who are also classified by the state as Hui.

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Yet most Hui are closer to the Han Chinese than the other Muslim nationalities in terms of demographic proximity and cultural accommodation, adapting many of their Islamic practices to Han ways of life, which often became the source for many of the criticisms of the Muslim reformers. In the past, this was not as great a problem for the Turkish and Indo-European Muslim groups, as they were traditionally more isolated from the Han and their identities not as threatened, though this has begun to change in the last 40 years. As a result of state-sponsored nationality identification campaigns over the course of the last 30 years, these groups have begun to think of themselves more as ethnic nationalities, something more than just “Muslims.” The Hui are unique among the 55 identified nationalities in China in that they are the sole nationality for whom religion (Islam) is the only unifying category of identity, even though many members of the Hui nationality may not practice Islam. Resulting from a succession of Islamic reform movements that swept across China over the last 600 years, one finds among the Muslims in China today a wide spectrum of Islamic belief. Archeological discoveries of large collections of Islamic artifacts and epigraphy on the southeast coast suggest that the earliest Muslim communities in China descended from Arab, Persian, Central Asian, and Mongolian Muslim merchants, militia, and officials who settled first along China’s southeast coast from the 7th to the 10th centuries, and then in larger migrations to the North from Central Asia under the Mongol Yuan dynasty in the 13th and 14th centuries, gradually intermarrying with the local Chinese populations, and raising their children as Muslims. Practicing Sunni, Hanafi Islam, residing in independent small communities clustered around a central mosque, these communities were characterized by relatively isolated, independent Islamic villages and urban enclaves, who related with each other via trading networks and recognition of belonging to the wider Islamic “Umma,” headed by an ahong (from the Persian, akhun[d]) who was invited to teach on a more or less temporary basis. Sufism began to make a substantial impact in China proper in the late 17th century, arriving mainly along the Central Asian trade routes with saintly shaykhs, both Chinese and foreign, who brought new teachings from the pilgrimage cities. These charismatic teachers and tradesmen established widespread networks and brotherhood associations, including most prominently the Naqshbandiyya, Qadariyya, and Kubrawiyya. The hierarchical organization of these Sufi networks helped in the mobilization of large numbers of Hui during economic and political crises in the 17th–19th centuries, assisting widespread Muslim-led rebellions and resistance movements against late Ming and Qing imperial rule in Yunnan, Shaanxi, Gansu, and Xinjiang. The 1912 nationalist revolution allowed further autonomy in Muslim-concentrated regions of the northwest, and wide areas came under virtual Muslim warlord control, leading to frequent intraMuslim and Muslim-Han conflicts until the eventual communist victory led to the reassertion of central control. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Wahhabi-inspired reform movements, known as the Yihewani (from Ikhwan), rose to popularity under Nationalist and warlord sponsorship, and were noted for their critical stance toward traditionalist

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Islam as too acculturated to Chinese practices, and Sufism as too attached to saint and tomb veneration. These Islamic movements influenced all Muslim nationalities in China today; however, they found their most political expression among the Hui who were faced with the task of accommodating each new Islamic movement with Chinese culture. Among the northwestern Muslim communities, especially the Uighur, their more recent integration into Chinese society as a result of Mongolian and Manchu expansion into Central Asia has forced them to reach social and political accommodations that have challenged their identity. In terms of integration, the Uighur as a people represent perhaps the least integrated into Chinese society, while the Hui are at the other end of the spectrum, due to several historical and social factors that I will discuss below.

UIGHUR INDIGENEITY AND THE CHALLENGE TO CHINESE SOVEREIGNTY In 1997, bombs exploded in a city park in Beijing on May 13 (killing one) and on two buses on March 7 (killing two), as well as in the northwestern border city of Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, on February 25 (killing nine), with over 30 other bombings last year and six in Tibet alone. Most of these are thought to be related to demands by Muslim and Tibetan separatists. Eight members of the Uighur Muslim minority were executed on May 29, 1997 for alleged bombings in northwest China, with hundreds arrested on suspicion of taking part in ethnic riots and engaging in separatist activities. Though sporadically reported since the early 1980s, such incidents have become increasingly common since 1997 and are documented in a recent scathing report of Chinese government policy in the region by Amnesty International.4 A very recent report in the Wall Street Journal of the arrest on August 11, 1999 of Rebiya Kadir, a well-known Uighur business woman, during a visit by the US Congressional Research Service delegation to the region, indicates that China’s random arrests have not diminished since the report, nor is China concerned by Western criticism.5 As we consider the interaction of Uighur Muslims with Chinese society, we must examine three interrelated aspects of regional history, economy, and politics. First, Chinese histories notwithstanding, every Uighur firmly believes that their ancestors were the indigenous people of the Tarim basin, which did not become known in Chinese as “Xinjiang” (“new dominion”) until the 18th century. Nevertheless, I have argued elsewhere the constructed “ethnogenesis” of the Uighur, in which the current understanding of the indigeneity of the present people classified as Uighur by the Chinese state is a rather recent phenomenon related to Great Game rivalries, Sino-Soviet geopolitical maneuverings, and Chinese nation-building.6 While a collection of nomadic steppe peoples known as the “Uighur” have existed since before the 8th century, this identity was lost from the 15th to the 20th centuries. It was not until the fall of the Turkish Khanate (552–744 ce) to a people reported by the Chinese historians as Hui-he or Hui-hu

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that we find the beginnings of the Uighur Empire. At this time the Uighur were but one collection of nine nomadic tribes who, initially in confederation with other Basmil and Karlukh nomads, defeated the Second Turkish Khanate and then dominated the federation under the leadership of Koli Beile in 742. Gradual sedentarization of the Uighur, and their defeat of the Turkish Khanate, occurred precisely as trade with the unified Tang state became especially lucrative. Sedentarization and interaction with the Chinese state was accompanied by socioreligious change: the traditional shamanistic Turkicspeaking Uighur came increasingly under the influence of Persian Manichaeanism, Buddhism, and eventually, Nestorian Christianity. Extensive trade and military alliances along the old Silk Road with the Chinese state developed to the extent that the Uighur gradually adopted cultural, dress, and even agricultural practices of the Chinese. Conquest of the Uighur capital of Karabalghasun in Mongolia by the nomadic Kyrgyz in 840 led to further sedentarization and crystallization of Uighur identity. One branch that ended up in what is now Turpan took advantage of the unique socioecology of the glacier-fed oases surrounding the Taklamakan and were able to preserve their merchant and limited agrarian practices, gradually establishing Khocho or Gaochang, the great Uighur city-state based in Turpan for four centuries (850–1250). The Islamicization of the Uighur from the 10th to as late as the 17th centuries, while displacing their Buddhist religion, did little to bridge these oases-based loyalties. From that time on, the last group to be known as Uighur was centered in Turpan and resisted Islamic conversion until the 17th century. The others were known only by their oasis or by the generic term of “Turki.” With the arrival of Islam, the ethnonym “Uighur” faded from the historical record. It was not until 1760 that the Manchu Qing dynasty exerted full and formal control over the region, establishing it as their “new dominions” (Xinjiang), an administration that lasted barely 100 years when it fell to the Yakub Beg rebellion (1864–77) and expanding Russian influence.7 The end of the Qing dynasty and the rise of Great Game rivalries between China, Russia, and Britain saw the region torn by competing loyalties and marked by two short-lived and drastically different attempts at an independence: the short-lived proclamations of an “East Turkestan Republic” in Kashgar in 1933 and another in Yining (Ghulje) in 1944.8 As Andrew Forbes has noted, these rebellions and attempts at self-rule did little to bridge competing political, religious, and regional differences within the Turkic people who became known as the Uighur in 1934 under successive Chinese KMT warlord administrations.9 Justin Rudelson’s recent work suggests there is persistent regional diversity along three, and perhaps four macro-regions: the northwestern Zungaria plateau, the southern Tarim basin, the southwest Pamir region, and the eastern Kumul– Turpan–Hami corridor.10 The recognition of the Uighur as an official Chinese “nationality” (minzu) in the 1930s in Xinjiang under a Soviet-influenced policy of nationality recognition contributed to a widespread acceptance today of continuity with the ancient Uighur kingdom and their eventual “ethnogenesis” as a bona fide nationality. The “nationality” policy under the KMT identified five

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peoples of China, with the Han in the majority. This policy was continued under the Communists, eventually recognizing 56 nationalities, with the Han occupying a 91 percent majority in 1990. The “peaceful liberation” by the Chinese Communists of Xinjiang in 1949, and its subsequent establishment of the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region on October 1, 1955, perpetuated the Nationalist policy of recognizing the Uighur as a minority nationality under Chinese rule.11 This nationality designation not only masks tremendous regional and linguistic diversity, it also includes groups such as the Loplyk and Dolans that had very little to do with the oasis-based Turkic Muslims who became known as the Uighur. At the same time, contemporary Uighur separatists look back to the brief periods of independent self-rule under Yakub Beg and the Eastern Turkestan Republic, in addition to the earlier glories of the Uighur kingdoms in Turpan and Karabalghasan, as evidence of their rightful claims to the region. Contemporary Uighur separatist organizations based in Istanbul, Ankara, Almaty, Munich, Amsterdam, Melbourne, and Washington, DC, may differ on their political goals and strategies for the region, but they all share a common vision of a unilineal Uighur claim on the region, disrupted by Chinese and Soviet intervention. The independence of the former Soviet Central Asian Republics in 1991 has done much to encourage these Uighur organizations in their hopes for an independent “Turkestan,” despite the fact the new, mainly Muslim Central Asian governments have all signed protocols with China in spring 1996 that they would not harbor or support separatist groups. Within the region, though many portray the Uighur as united around separatist or Islamist causes, they continue to be divided from within by religious conflicts, in this case competing Sufi and non-Sufi factions, territorial loyalties (whether they be oases or places of origin), linguistic discrepancies, commoner–elite alienation, and competing political loyalties. These divided loyalties where evidenced by the attack in May 1996 on the Imam of the Idgah Mosque in Kashgar by other Uighurs, as well as the assassination of at least six Uighur officials last September. It is also important to note that Islam was only one of several unifying markers for Uighur identity, depending on those with whom they were cooperating at the time. For example, to the Hui Muslim Chinese, the Uighur distinguish themselves as the legitimate autochthonous minority, since both share a belief in Sunni Islam. In contrast to the nomadic Muslim peoples (Kazakh or Kyrgyz), Uighur might stress their attachment to their land and oasis of origin. In opposition to the Han Chinese, the Uighur will generally emphasize their long history in the region. This suggests that Islamic fundamentalist groups such as the Taliban in Afghanistan (often glossed as “Wahhabiyya” in the region) will have only limited appeal among the Uighur. It is this contested understanding of history that continues to influence much of the current debate over separatist and Chinese claims to the region. Amnesty International has claimed that the round-ups of so-called terrorists and separatists have led to hurried public trials and immediate, summary executions of possibly thousands of locals. One Amnesty International estimate suggested that in a country known for its frequent executions, Xinjiang had the highest

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number, averaging 1.8 per week, most of them Uighur. Troop movements to the area, related to the nationwide campaign against crime known as “Strike Hard” launched in 1998 that includes the call to erect a “great wall of steel” against separatists in Xinjiang, have reportedly been the largest since the suppression of the large Akto insurrection near Baren Township in April 1990 (the first major uprising in Xinjiang that took place in the southern Tarim region, which initiated a series of unrelated and sporadic protests). Alleged incursions of Taliban fighters through the Wakhan corridor into China where Xinjiang shares a narrow border with Afghanistan have led to the area being swamped with Chinese security forces and large military exercises, beginning at least one month prior to the September 11 attack. These military exercises suggested growing government concern about these border areas much earlier than 9/11. Recently, under US and Chinese pressure, Pakistan returned one Uighur activist to China, apprehended among hundreds of Taliban detainees, which follows a pattern of repatriations of suspected Uighur separatists in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. International campaigns for Uighur rights and possible independence have become increasingly vocal and well organized, especially on the internet. Repeated public appeals have been made to Abdulahat Abdurixit, the Uighur People’s Government Chairman of Xinjiang in Urumqi. Notably, the elected chair of the Unrepresented Nations and People’s Organization (UNPO) based in The Hague is a Uighur, Erkin Alptekin, son of the separatist leader Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who is buried in Istanbul where there is a park dedicated to his memory. Supporting primarily an audience of approximately one million expatriate Uighurs (few Uighurs in Central Asia and China have access to these internet sites), there are at least 25 international organizations and web sites working for the independence of “Eastern Turkestan,” based in Amsterdam, Munich, Istanbul, Melbourne, Washington, DC, and New York. Since September 11, each of these organizations has disclaimed any support for violence or terrorism, pressing for a peaceful resolution of ongoing conflicts in the region. The growing influence of “cyber-separatism” and international popularization of the Uighur cause concerns Chinese authorities, who hope to convince the world that the Uighurs do pose a real domestic and international terrorist threat. The second pressing issue is economic. Since 1991, China has been a net oil importer. It also has 20 million Muslims. Mishandling of its Muslim problems will alienate trading partners in the Middle East, who are primarily Muslims. Already, after an ethnic riot on February 5, 1997, in the northwestern Xinjiang city of Yining, that left at least nine Uighur Muslims dead and several hundreds arrested, the Saudi Arabian official newspaper al-Bilad warned China about the “suffering of [its] Muslims whose human rights are violated.” Turkey’s Defense Minister, Turhan Tayan, officially condemned China’s handling of the issue, and China responded by telling Turkey not to interfere in China’s internal affairs. Muslim nations on China’s borders, including the new Central Asian states, Pakistan, and Afghanistan, though officially unsupportive of Uighur separatists, may be increasingly critical of harsh treatment extended to fellow Turkic and/or Muslim co-religionists in China.

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Unrest in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region may lead to a decline in outside oil investment and revenues that are already operating at a loss. Recently, Exxon reported that its two wells came up dry in China’s supposedly oil-rich Tarim basin of southern Xinjiang, with the entire region yielding only 3.15 million metric tons of crude oil, much less than China’s overall output of 156 million tons. The World Bank loans over $3 billion a year to China, investing over $780.5 million in 15 projects in the Xinjiang Region alone, with some of that money allegedly going to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) that human rights activist Harry Wu has claimed employs prison “laogai” labor. International companies and organizations, from the World Bank to Exxon, may not wish to subject their employees and investors to social and political upheavals. China’s trade with Central Asia is expanding at a rapid rate, with the opening of direct rail, air, and six overland links since 1991. Energy economist James P. Dorian has noted that Xinjiang’s trade with Central Asia increased from $463 million in 1992 to $775 million in 1996. The end of 1992 saw an increase of 130 percent in cross-border trade, with Kazakhstan benefiting the most. China is now Kazakhstan’s fifth largest trade partner. Xinjiang’s top external trading partners are Kazakhstan and Hong Kong, with China–Kazakhstan trade alone totaling more than Turkey’s trade with all of Central Asia.12 Additionally, China is hoping to increase revenues from tourism to the region, marketing it as an important link in the ancient Silk Road. It has been a tremendous draw to foreign Muslim tourists, as well as Japanese, Taiwanese, Southeast Asian, and domestic tourists, with touristic development assisting the establishment of five-star hotels throughout the region, including the Holiday Inn in Urumqi. Economic development in Urumqi alone has witnessed 80 new skyscrapers in the last ten years. It is clear that Uighur separatism or Muslim complaints regarding Chinese policy will have important consequences for China’s economic development of the region. Tourists and foreign businesspeople will certainly avoid areas with ethnic strife and terrorist activities. China will continue to use its economic leverage with its Central Asian neighbors and Russia to prevent such disruptions. The third aspect is political. China’s international relations with its bordering nations and internal regions such as Xinjiang and Tibet have become increasingly important not only for the economic reasons discussed above, but also for China’s desire to participate in international organizations such as the World Trade Organization and Asia-Pacific Economic Council. Though Tibet is no longer of any real strategic or substantial economic value to China, it is politically important to China’s current leadership to indicate that they will not submit to foreign pressure and withdraw its iron hand from Tibet. Uighurs have begun to work closely with Tibetans internationally to put political pressure on China in international fora. In an April 7, 1997 interview by this author in Istanbul with Ahmet Türköz, Vice-Director of the Eastern Turkestan Foundation that works for an independent Uighur homeland, he noted that since 1981, meetings had taken place between the Dalai Lama and Uighur leaders, initiated by the deceased Uighur nationalist, Isa Yusup Alptekin. These international fora cannot force

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China to change its policy, any more than the annual debate in the US over the renewal of China’s Most-Favored Nation status. Nevertheless, they continue to influence China’s ability to cooperate internationally. As a result, China has sought to respond rapidly, and often militarily to domestic ethnic affairs that might have international implications. As China goes through the process of reintegrating Hong Kong since 1997 with the hope of eventually reuniting with Taiwan, residents of Hong Kong will be watching how China deals with other problems of national integration. During the Dalai Lama’s March 1998 visit to Taiwan, he again renounced independence, calling for China to consider Tibet under the same “two systems, one country” policy as Hong Kong, yet the People’s Daily continued to call him a “separatist.” Taiwan will certainly be watching how well Hong Kong is integrated into China as a “Special Administrative Region” with a true separate system of government, as opposed to Tibet and Xinjiang, which as so-called “Autonomous Regions” have very little actual autonomy from decision-makers in Beijing. China’s handling of ethnic and integrationist issues in Xinjiang and Hong Kong will have a direct bearing on its possible reunification with Taiwan. In addition, outside of the official minorities, China possesses tremendous ethnic, linguistic, and regional diversity. Intolerance toward difference in Xinjiang might be extended to limiting cultural pluralism in Guangdong, where at least 15 dialects of Cantonese are spoken and folk religious practice is rampant. Memories are strong of the repressions of the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), when all forms of diversity, political or cultural, were severely curtailed. If rising Chinese nationalism entails reducing ethnic and cultural difference, then anyone who is regarded as “other” in China will suffer, not just the Uighurs.

HUI MUSLIMS AND ISLAMIC ACCOMMODATION TO CHINESE SOCIETY As a result of the history of Islamic reform movements that have swept across China, the Hui continue to subscribe to a wide spectrum of Islamic belief. The variety of religious orders within Hui Islam represent a long history of reforms and Islamic movements that resulted from interaction with the Islamic world. The late Joseph Fletcher was the first to suggest that the nature of China’s present-day Islamic communities and orders can be traced to successive “tides” of influence and individuals who entered China during critical periods of exchange with the outside world.13 Like a swelling and ebbing tide, the influence of these movements grew or diminished with the interaction of China’s Muslims and the Islamic world. This influence was not based on population movements as much as gradual and profound exchange between the two regions. While this study does not begin to address Islam’s complex history in China, an introduction to the context of Islamic reforms is necessary for an understanding of the rise of fundamentalism in China. Each of these tides can be considered successive reform movements in that they all seek to transform Islam in China, accommodating

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Chinese culture with Islamic requirements, in reference to textual and discursive standards in the Middle East as discovered by Muslims from China on the Hadj or preached by peripatic Middle Eastern representatives of these movements in China. What many of the Muslims in China did not recognize, however, was that just as Islam in China had shifted over time on the periphery, so had the so-called “center” in the Middle East. The somewhat quixotic quest of these Muslims at the distant edge of Islamic influence for the fundamentals of their faith, and the dialectic interaction between periphery and center, engendered the rise of a series of reformist tides that washed across China’s Islamic hinterland. This is parallel to similar reform movements among all Muslims in Asia that are on its periphery in relation to the Meccan heartlands. Just as Muslims in the Middle East “peripheralize” those in the wider diaspora as not “truly Muslims” (especially those not conversant in Arabic), Muslims in Asia often homogenize Middle Eastern Muslims as all Arab, Sunni, and religiously alike. This reflects a kind of “oriental orientalism,” a rather facetious term I employed in an earlier article,14 to describe the process whereby Muslims and minorities exoticize their own communities for purposes of pride and sometimes profit.

The first tide: Gedimu traditional Chinese Islam The earliest Muslim communities were descended from the Arab, Persian, Central Asian, and Mongolian Muslim merchants, militia, and officials who settled along China’s southeast coast and in the Northwest in large and small numbers from the 7th to the 14th centuries. Generally residing in independent small communities clustered around a central mosque, they became known as the Gedimu (from the Arabic qadîm, “old”). For these communities, it was Sunni, Hanafi Islam that became so standard that few Hui with whom I spoke in the Northwest had even heard of Shi’ism, even though the Iran/Iraq war was at its height during my fieldwork and in the daily news. These “old” Islamic communities established an early Hui pattern of zealously preserving and protecting their identity as enclaves ensconced in the dominant Han society. Each village was centered upon a single mosque headed by an Ahong (from the Persian, akhun[d]) who was invited to teach on a more or less temporary basis. These Ahong generally moved on an average of every three years from one mosque to another. A council of senior local elders and Ahong were responsible for the affairs of each village and for inviting the itinerant Imam. Late 19th century and early 20th century travelers noted the maintenance of these isolated communities. “I know of no strictly farming village where there is an equal mixture of the two groups [Han and Hui];” Ekvall observed, “in every case the village is predominantly one or the other. In some instances, the population is composed almost entirely of one group, with only a few hangers-on of the other.” He goes on to suggest that due to different cultural, ritual, and dietary preferences that sometimes led to open conflict, the communities preferred physical separation.15 Another frequent Northwest traveler noted:

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Dru C. Gladney In some districts throughout the province [Gansu] the Moslems are found in such numbers as to outnumber the Chinese in the proportion of seven to one. Again, in other districts it is possible to travel for days without coming across one Moslem family, and in such districts it would be next to impossible for a Moslem family to settle. . . .To find Chinese and Moslems living harmoniously intermingled is but on the rarest occasion.16

This isolation was mitigated somewhat during the collectivization campaigns in the 1950s, when Han and Hui villages were often administered as clusters by a single commune. They have also been brought closer together through national telecommunications and transportation networks established by the State, including such umbrella organizations as the Chinese Islamic Organization, established in 1955, which seeks to coordinate religious affairs among all Muslim groups. With the recent dismantling of the commune in many areas, however, these homogeneous Hui communities are once again becoming more segregated. While these disparate communities among the Gedimu were generally linked only by trade and a sense of a common religious heritage, an attachment to the basic Islamic beliefs as handed down to them by their ancestors, it was the center of the Sufi brotherhoods into China that eventually began to link many of these isolated communities together through extensive socioreligious networks.

The second tide: Sufi communities and national networks Sufism did not begin to make a substantial impact in China until the late 17th century, during the “second tide” of Islam’s entrance into China. Like Sufi centers that proliferated after the 13th century in other countries,17 many of these Sufi movements in China developed socioeconomic and religio-political institutions built around the schools established by descendants of early Sufi saintly leaders. The institutions became known in Chinese as the menhuan, the “leading” or “saintly” descent groups. The important contribution that Sufism made to religious organization in China was that the leaders of mosques throughout their order owed their allegiance to their shaykh, the founder of the order who appointed them. These designated followers were loyal to the leader of their order and remained in the community for long periods of time, unlike the Gedimu Ahong who were generally itinerant, not well connected to the community, and less imbued with appointed authority. Gedimu mosque elders were loyal to their village first, and connected only by trade to other communities. While it is beyond this chapter to delineate the history and distribution of these Sufi menhuan, the late Joseph Fletcher’s cogent introductory discussion of their development is worth citing: Over the course of the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries a considerable number of these “saintly lineages” came into being in northwest China, most of them within the Naqsbandi “path.” Typically, each

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saint’s tomb had a shrine, or qubba (Chinese gongbai or gongbei), and the main shrines became centers of devotional activity. The “saintly lineages” obtained contributions from their followers and amassed substantial amounts of property. The growth in the number and importance of the menhuan represented an important change, because they gradually replaced the “old” (gedimu) pattern by linking together the menhuan adherents all over the northwest. The widening compass of social integration that resulted made it easier for the “saintly lineages” and other leaders to harness the Muslims’ political and economic potential, facilitating the rise of Muslim warlordism in that region in the twentieth century.18 Many Sufi reforms spread throughout Northwest China during the early decades of the Qing dynasty (mid-17th to the early 18th centuries). Increased travel and communication between Muslims, both east and west, during what Fletcher terms the “general orthodox revival” of the 18th century, had great influence on Muslims from West Africa to Indonesia, and not least of all, on China’s Hui Muslims.19 Exposure to these new ideas led to a reformulation of traditional Islamic concepts that rendered them more meaningful and practical for the Hui Muslims of that time. While it is socioeconomic organization that was perhaps Sufism’s most lasting contribution to Islam in China, the original contest between Sufis and non-Sufis was over much more practical turf. Sufis criticized traditional Muslims as being too materialistic, bound to their mosques, the burning of incense to ancestors, and a lack of proficiency in the original texts. They condemned the non-Sufis for their use of Chinese in worship, adorning their mosques with Quranic quotations and hadith on colorful banners and flags. They condemned the Muslims for wearing traditional Chinese white funeral dress and sullying Islam with many other Chinese cultural practices, calling for a purified return to the ascetic ideals of the Prophet and his Sufi followers. They also offered a more immediate experience of Islam through the rituals of remembrance and meditation, and the efficacy of the Saint, instead of the daunting memorization and recitation of Quranic texts. While theirs was a reformist movement, it was less textual than experiential, revealing the power of Allah and his Saints to transform one’s life through miracles, healings, and other transformative acts. Sufi orders were gradually institutionalized into such forms as the menhuan. Only four orders maintain significant influence among the Hui today, that Claude Pickens as a Protestant missionary in Northwest China first discovered as the four menhuan of China: the Qadiriyya, Khufiyya, Jahriyya, and Kubrawiyya.20 While these are the four main menhuan, they are subdivided into a myriad of smaller branch solidarities, divided along ideological, political, geographical, and historical lines. A detailed history of these divisions and alliances would reveal the tensions and new meanings created by Hui communities as they attempted to reconcile perceived disparities between the indigenous practice of Islam in China with the Islamic ideals as represented by returned Hajji or itinerant foreign preachers who maintained, in their eyes, more “orthodox” interpretations of Islam.

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It is unfortunate but perhaps quite natural that Western scholarship has prolonged the confusion of early Chinese writers over the rise of Sufism and later Islamic orders in China. As each Islamic reformer established a new following in China, often in conflict with other older Islamic orders, these “new” arrivals replaced or converted the “old” traditional Islamic communities. Chinese officials during the Ming and the Qing naturally referred to these communities with their new teachings as “xin jiao” (lit., “new religion” or “teaching,” not “new sect” as it has been erroneously translated). As each new arrival replaced the older, they became known as the “new,” or even “new new” teachings (“xin xin jiao”), as in the case of the arrival of the Ikhwan in China. Traditional Islam among the Hui generally was referred to as “lao jiao,” the old teaching(s), and even some orders that were new at one time, when others that arrived were gradually classed as old, lao jiao, which is the case with the Khufiyya, an early Naqshbandiyya Sufi order, which itself is now classified as an “old teaching” (see below). It was often the case that those who regarded themselves as maintaining the established traditional beliefs of Islam in China represented the reformers as “new,” and thus, suspect, while they saw themselves as “old,” or more true to their traditions. The reformers, on the other hand, generally thought of themselves as the more orthodox, based on their more informed, sometimes esoteric, interpretations of Islam due to their recent contact with movements in the Muslim heartlands. They thus resented the title of “new teachings,” or the even more derisive “new new teachings,” calling themselves by the more exact names of their orders, Qadiriyya, Naqshbandiyya, Wahhabi, Ikwan, etc., but the names “new teaching” or “new sect” stuck as it was applied by their critics. Even the name, Gedimu, for the “older” Islamic communities in China, is a not-so-subtle jibe at the other Islamic orders as being newer, and removed from the traditional fundamentals of Islam in China. These designations became important politically as well as theologically in that during the mid-nineteenth century Northwest rebellions, some of which were led by Sufi leaders, the Chinese State proscribed all of those movements that became known as “new teachings” in order to root out the more rebellious Hui communities. This is precisely the rationale whereby all Buddhist sectarian movements were proscribed under the general rubric of the “White Lotus” rebellion in China, whereas recent scholarship has revealed only a few Buddhist movements fell under the shadow of that stem.21 Unfortunately, Chinese and Western scholars perpetuated these designations and until recently there were no accurate descriptions of Hui Islamic orders in China.22 The post-1979 opening of China to the West has allowed the appearance of Chinese publications on these groups as well as Western fieldwork for the first time, giving us a better glimpse into their origins and socioreligious complexity.

The Qadiriyya While there is some dispute among the Sufis themselves as to which order was the earliest to enter China proper, as there had been regular contacts on an individual

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basis with the Sufi orders of Central Asia that had already begun to proliferate in Xinjiang in the early part of the 15th century, it is generally agreed that one of the earliest to be established firmly on Chinese soil was the Qadiri tarîqa (“path,” or Islamic “order”). The founder of the Qadiriyya menhuan in China is Qi Jingyi, Hilal al-Din (1656–1719). Known among the Hui as Qi Daozu (Grand Master Qi), he was buried in Linxia’s “great tomb” (da gongbei) shrine complex, which became the center of Qadiriyya Sufism in China.23 One of the reasons that Grand Master Qi continues to be greatly revered among all Sufis in China is because tradition suggests he received his early training under two of the most famous Central Asian Sufi teachers, Khoja Afaq and Khoja Abd Alla. Qi Jingyi supposedly met with the revered Naqshbandi leader Khoja Afaq (see below) in Xining in 1672, where according to Qadiriyya records, the master sent the 16-year-old acolyte home, saying “I am not your teacher ( yu er fei shi), my ancient teaching is not to be passed on to you, your teacher has already crossed the Eastern Sea and arrived in the Eastern land. You must therefore return home quickly, and you will become a famous teacher in the land.”24 Qadiriyya followers today feel that their saint received the blessing of the great Naqshbandi Khoja Afaq, while their order was formally founded by his second teacher, Khoja Abd Alla, a 29th generation descendant of Muhammad.25 Chinese Sufi records state that he entered China in 1674 and preached in Guangdong, Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou, and Linxia, Gansu, before his eventual death in Guizhou in 1689. While Abd al-Kadir al-Jilani is the reputed founder of the Qadiri tarîqa, it is not surprising to find that Abd Alla perhaps studied in Medina under the renowned Kurdish mystic, Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kurani (1616–90), who was initiated into both the Naqshbandi and Qadiri tarîqas, as well as several other Sufi orders (see below). The appeal of Qadiriyya Sufism as a renewal movement among the Hui is related to its combining ascetic mysticism with a non-institutionalized form of worship, which centers around the tomb complex of deceased saints rather than the mosque.26 The early Qadiriyya advocated long-term isolated meditation, poverty, and vows of celibacy. The head of the order did not marry and eschewed family life, a radical departure from other Islamic traditions in China. Qadiriyya Sufi continue to attend the Gedimu mosques in the local communities in which they live, gathering at the tombs for holidays and individual worship. Qi Jingyi was known for his emphasis upon ascetic withdrawal from society, poverty, and selfcultivation. Formalized Islamic ritual as represented by the “five pillars” (fasting, pilgrimage, prayer, almsgiving, and recitation of the shahadah) was de-emphasized by Qi Jingyi in favor of private meditation. Qadiriyya maintain: “Those who know themselves clearly will know Allah” and “The Saints help us to know ourselves first before knowing Allah.” Union with the divine is accomplished through meditation and self-cultivation, rather than formalized public ritual. “The moment of thinking about Allah,” they maintain, “is superior to worshiping him for a thousand years.” Sufi mysticism in China combines many of the similar themes of the Daoist tradition, and draws heavily on its metaphysical vocabulary.27

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A Chinese inscription above the entrance to a Qadiriyya branch tomb complex in Beishan Hui cemetery, Linxia, reads: “The Dao is Unceasing” (Ti Dao wu she). Through religious terminology familiar to the Hui in China, Confucian moral tenets, Daoist mystical concepts, and Buddhist folk rituals infused with new Islamic content pervade Qadiriyya Sufism.28 Although the Qadiriyya menhuan has always been less influential than other Sufi orders in China due to its rejection of “worldly” political involvement, it set the stage for many Sufi orders to follow. By stressing the intimate experience of Allah through the power of his appointed shaykh, Sufism in China became a force for renewal and transformation. Calling for a return to the pure aescetic ideals of Islam, as well as initiating a new sociopolitical Islamic order, at once reformist and transformative, it initiated a new tide of reform that swept across China.

The Naqshbandiyya The Naqshbandi tarîqa became most rooted in Chinese soil through the establishment of two menhuan, the Khufiyya and Jahriyya, that were to exercise tremendous influence on the history of Islam in China and the Northwest. As Joseph Fletcher argued, “the history of the Naqshbandiyya is the history of Islam” from 18th to 19th century China. Fletcher goes on to explain that the reform movement emphasized “. . . a shar’ist orthopraxy, political activism, propagation of the religion, and a strong Sunni orientation [which] came to mark the Naqshbandiyya in a way that proved definitive in the mystical path’s subsequent history. . . . Two other general characteristics of popular mysticism, namely the veneration of saints (misleadingly called ‘saint worship’ by non-Muslim writers) and the seeking of inspiration by visiting and meditating at the saints’ tombs (misleadingly referred to as ‘tomb worship’), were also prominent features of the Altishahr Naqshbandiyya.”29 Founded by Baha’ ad-Din Naqshband (d. 1389), who lived in Mawarannahr (a Central Asian region west of the Pamirs), the Naqshbandiyya order gradually spread East across the trade routes, and by the middle of the 15th century gained ascendance over other Central Asian Sufi orders in the oasis cities of Altishahr, surrounding the Tarim river basin in what is now southern Xinjiang. The Naqshbandi order that gained the most prominence in the Tarim basin, and played an important role in later 18th- and 19th-century politics in Xinjiang, was the Makhdumzada, established by Makhdum-i A’zam (also known as Ahmad Kasani, 1461–1542). It was his great grandson, Khoja Afaq (d. 1694), known in the Chinese sources as Hidayat Allah, who was the saint most responsible for establishing the Naqshbandiyya among the Hui in Northwest China.30 Khoja Afaq (Khwaja-yi Afaq, “the Master of the Horizons”) founded the Afaqiyya in Xinjiang, and from 1671–2 visited Gansu, where his father, Muhammad Yusuf, had previously visited and preached, reportedly converting a few Hui and a substantial number of Salars to Naqshbandi Sufism. During this influential tour, Khoja Afaq visited the northwest cities of Xining, Lintao, and Hezhou (now Linxia, China’s “little Mecca”), preaching to Hui, Salar, and Northeastern

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Tibetan Muslims. Two of these early Hui Gansu Muslims became his disciples and went to Central Asia and the pilgrimage cities to become further trained in the order. When they returned to China, they established the two most important Naqshbandi brotherhoods among the Hui in the Northwest, the Khufiyya, and the Jahriyya. Throughout its history, the Naqshbandiyya has stressed an active participation in worldly affairs.31 Their shaykhs worked wonders, chanted the powerful Mathanawi texts of the Turkish mystic Rumi al-Balkhi, Maulana Jalluddin (d. 1273), and advocated scriptural reforms. They emphasized both self-cultivation and formal ritual, and withdrawal from and involvement in society. Unlike the Qadiriyya, their leaders enjoyed families and the material wealth accrued from the donations of their followers. They also became committed to political involvement and social change based on the principles of Islam. Some of the Naqshbandiyya orders in China advocated, I argue, more of a “transformationist” perspective, in which they sought to change the social order in accord with their own visions of propriety and morality. This inevitably led to conflicts with Chinese rule and local governments, causing some orders of the Naqshbandiyya, especially the Jahriyya, to be singled out for suppression and persecution. By contrast, the Khuffiyya tended to seek more conformist solutions to local conflicts, stressing personal internal reform over political change. The different stance that the Naqshbandiyya orders took in China with regard to the State and Chinese culture reflects their dialectical interaction with local interpretations of identity and changing sociopolitical realities in the Northwest. So there were two movements, one Sufi tradition, and two interpretations of fundamental reform. A brief introduction to these two movements is necessary for our understanding of the later challenges to the movements by the Muslim Brotherhood as a means of accommodating their interpretations of Islam with a changing Chinese political culture.

The Naqshbandi Khufiyya During his 1672 visit to Hezhou, Khoja Afaq played an important role in the life of a certain Ma Laichi (1673–1753), a Hezhou Hui of extraordinary talent who went on to found one of the earliest and most influential Naqshbandiyya orders in China, the Khufiyya menhuan. According to Sufi tradition, Ma Laichi was born to a childless couple after receiving Khoja Afaq’s blessing, and was later raised and trained by one of his disciples, Ma Tai Baba (“Great Father”), who later gave him his daughter in marriage and passed on to him the leadership of the mystical path that he had received from Khoja Afaq.32 From 1728–81, Ma Laichi went on the pilgrimage to Mecca, Yemen, and Bukhara where he studied several Sufi orders, and became particularly influenced by Mawlana Makhdum, a man of uncertain origin, who Fletcher hypothesizes may have been Indian. When he returned from his pilgrimage, Ma Laichi established the most powerful of the Khufiyya menhuan, the Huasi (“flowery mosque”) branch, propagating the order for 32 years among the Hui and Salar in Gansu and Qinghai, before his death in 1766 at the age

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of 86. The menhuan is still quite active and centered in Linxia Hui Autonomous Region, Gansu, at the tomb of Ma Laichi, which was restored in 1986. Originating in an earlier Central Asian and Yemeni Naqshbandi Sufism, the Khufiyya order was permeated with an emphasis on a more passive participation in society, the veneration of saints, the seeking of inspiration at tombs, and the silent dhikr (“remembrance,” properly “Khafiyya,” the “silent” ones).33 There are now over 20 sub-branch menhuan throughout China, with mosques in Yunnan, Xinjiang, and Beijing. Most Khufiyya orders are concentrated in Gansu, Qinghai, Ningxia, and Xinjiang with several of the original Khufiyya practices in some outlying areas such as northern Ningxia beginning to lose their distinctiveness over time.

The Naqshbandi Jahriyya The second Naqshbandi tarîqa, the Jahriyya order, was founded in China under the dynamic leadership of Ma Mingxin (1719–81). One of the most fascinating detective stories in historical discovery is the tracing of Ma Mingxin’s spiritual lineage to Mizjaja, a village on the outskirts of Zabid in Northern Yemen, by Joseph Fletcher.34 While Chinese Sufis have known for generations that their saint Ma Mingxin studied in the Middle East, it was never clear whom he received his “New Teaching” from or where he studied. Middle Eastern Sufi accounts recorded the presence of Chinese Muslims studying in certain Sufi areas, but only Joseph Fletcher was able to put the two together. This was an important discovery as Ma Mingxin’s Sufi practice was thought to be novel, even heterodox, and the subject of many conflicts in Northwest China. This controversy is mainly over Ma Mingxin’s use of the jahr in remembrance (“vocal dhikr,” from whence comes the name “Jahriyya,” the “vocal” ones), which he openly advocated in opposition to the Khufiyya’s silent remembrance, the more standard Naqshbandi practice. After an extensive search through arcane Sufi documents in Arabic, Persian, Turkish, and Chinese, and a final personal trip to Yemen, Fletcher discovered that the name of the Sufi saint whom Chinese Muslim records indicated Ma Mingxin studied under, but did not know exactly who he was, was a Naqshbandi Sufi, az-Zayn b. Muhammad ‘Abd al-Baqi al-Mizjaji (1643/4–1725), whose family home was in Mizjaja, the Zabid. Chinese Sufi records only indicate that Ma Mingxin studied in Yemen in a Sufi order known as the Shazilinye, whose shaykh was Muhammad Bulu Seni, but did not know the full ancestry and origins of the order. Most Jahriyya only say: “The root of our order is Arabia, the branches and leaves are in China.”35 This discovery is extremely significant in the history of ideas, as it is known that az-Zayn had studied in Medina under the famous Kurdish mystic, Ibrahim b. Hasan al-Kurani (1616–90), who also advocated the use of vocal formulae in the remembrance of Allah (al-jahr bi-’dh-dhikr). Al-Kurani’s students were at the forefront of Islamic reform and revolutionary movements throughout the Islamic world. Under al-Kurani’s student’s direction, it is not surprising that Ma Mingxin returned after 16 years of study in Yemen and the Arabian Peninsula in 1744

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with more activist and radical reforms on his mind. While advocating the use of the vocal dhikr, he generally opposed the heavy emphasis upon the veneration of Islamic saints that had become popular in China. He also disputed the breaking of the fast at the beginning of the Ramadan feast with the Khufiyya: he maintained it was to be after the prayer, whereas the Khufiyya allowed for feasting before going to the mosque for prayer. This dispute led to bloody conflicts well into the early 20th century. As the disputes grew worse and conflicts erupted, Qing troops, fresh from the conquest of Xinjiang in 1759, did not wish to have any more trouble among Muslims in Gansu. They arrested Ma Mingxin in 1781 and executed him as his followers attempted to free him. Three years later they crushed another uprising led by a Jahriyya Sufi, Tian Wu. From this point on, the Qing sought to limit the spread of the movements, outlawing many of the so-called “New Teachings,” primarily the Jahriyya. The great Northwest Hui rebellion (1862–76) was led by Ma Hualong, another Jahriyya Sufi murshid and fifth generation descendant of Ma Mingxin. His rebellion was responsible for cutting the Qing State off from the Northwest, making way for the great 1864–77 Uighur-led rebellion in Xinjiang under Yakub Beg. In 1871 Ma Hualong was captured and executed, supposedly with his entire family. His body is entombed in Dongta Township, Jinji, just east of the Yellow River in Ningxia, while his head is reported to have been buried in Xuanhuagang, a Jahriyya center, north of Zhangjiachuan in south Gansu. There is also evidence that suggests Du Wenxiu, the Panthay Hui Muslim rebellion in Yunnan (1855–73), was also influenced by Jahriyya. Following the failure of these uprisings, the Jahriyya became much more secretive and dispersed, leading to the establishment of five main Jahriyya branch orders, all named after their ritual and historical centers: Shagou, Beishan, Xindianzi, Banqiao, and Nanchuan.

The Kubrawiyya Of minor influence in China is the fourth main Sufi order, the Kubrawiyya.36 An Arab, Mohidin, is said to have first introduced the order to China in the 1600s.37 He taught in Henan, Qinghai, Gansu, and died in the Dawantou, Dongxiang prefecture, Gansu province. Presently, many of the Dongxiang Muslim minority concentrated in that area are members of the Kubrawiyya menhuan.

SUFI NETWORKS AND ISLAMIC RESURGENCE The importance and extensiveness of these Sufi orders for uniting disparate Hui communities across China cannot be underestimated. Gellner’s suggestion that “Sufism provides a theory, terminology, and technique of leadership”38 seems applicable to understanding the rapid proliferation of various orders during the turmoil of the late 18th and 19th centuries, when China was faced with widespread domestic social unrest and the advancing encroachment of Western

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imperialist powers. Unlike the isolated “patchwork” Gedimu communities that had been the norm until that time, Sufi orders provided the leadership and organization that could help Hui survive politically and economically.39 During the fragmented Republican period (1911–49), extensive Sufi networks proved helpful to some Hui warlords in the Northwest, and disruptive to others. At the 1985 commemoration ceremony (ermaili) of the death of the Jahriyya order’s founder, Ma Mingxin, over 20,000 adherents gathered for three days at the site of his original tomb outside Lanzhou. The local municipality had intended originally to refrain from participation in the ceremony, but owing to the unexpected number of participants, the city eventually supplied sanitation facilities and food. The Provincial Islamic Society subsequently agreed to allow Ma Mingxin’s tomb to be rebuilt. Two months earlier, a similar ermaili was held in remembrance of Ma Hualong, the Jahriyya rebellion leader. A crowd of over 10,000 followers from as far away as Urumqi, Kunming, and Harbin arrived at his grave in Lingwu County, Dongta Township, demonstrating the extensive influence of this order and the important focus the Sufi leader’s tomb provides for galvanizing collective action. Membership in various Islamic orders often significantly influences social interaction, especially among the Sufi orders who sometimes distinguish themselves by dress. Unlike the rounded white hat worn by most Hui men, Sufi followers often wear a six-cornered hat, sometimes black. Many Jahriyya Hui shave the sides of their beards to commemorate their founder, Ma Mingxin, whose beard is said to have been shorn by Qing soldiers before his execution in 1781. While these markers are almost universally unnoticed by the Han majority – for whom a Hui is a Hui – Northwest Hui can easily identify in the marketplace members of the various orders that divide them internally. The exclusivity of Sufi orders in China illustrates the centrality of identity and authority for Sufi Hui. Hui can enter these orders through ritual vow or by birth, but seldom maintain allegiance to two menhuan at once. This is unlike Sufi orders in other parts of the world that tend to be less exclusive and allow simultaneous membership in several orders.40 In China, membership in these orders is exclusive; changing to a new order is tantamount to a conversion experience for Muslims in China, perhaps the only one they will ever have, since most Muslims in China entered Islam by birth or marriage.

THE THIRD TIDE: SCRIPTURALIST CONCERNS AND MODERNIST REFORMS The third tide in Chinese Islam began at the end of the Qing dynasty, a period of accelerated exchange between China and the outside world, when many Muslims began traveling to and returning from the Middle East. In the early decades of the 20th century, China was exposed to many new foreign ideas and in the face of Japanese and Western imperialist encroachment sought a Chinese approach to governance. Intellectual and organizational activity by Chinese Muslims during

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this period was also intense. Increased contact with the Middle East led Chinese Muslims to re-evaluate their traditional notions of Islam. Pickens records that from 1923 to 1934 there were 834 known Hui Muslims who made the Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca.41 In 1937, according to one observer, over 170 Hui pilgrims boarded a steamer in Shanghai bound for Mecca.42 By 1939, at least 33 Hui Muslims had studied at Cairo’s prestigious Al-Azhar University. While these numbers are not significant when compared with pilgrims on the Hajj from other Southeast Asian Muslim areas, the influence and prestige attached to these returning Hui Hajji was profound, particularly in isolated communities. “In this respect,” Fletcher observed, “the more secluded and remote a Muslim community was from the main centers of Islamic cultural life in the Middle East, the more susceptible it was to those centers’ most recent trends.”43 As a result of political events and the influence of foreign Muslim ideas, numerous new Hui organizations emerged. In 1912, one year after Sun Yat-sen was inaugurated, provisional President of the Chinese Republic in Nanjing, the Chinese Muslim Federation was also formed in that city. This was followed by the establishment of other Hui Muslim associations: the Chinese Muslim Mutual Progress Association (Beijing, 1912), the Chinese Muslim Educational Association (Shanghai, 1925), the Chinese Muslim Association (1925), the Chinese Muslim Young Students Association (Nanjing, 1931), the Society for the Promotion of Education Among Muslims (Nanjing, 1931), and the Chinese Muslim General Association (Jinan, 1934). The Muslim periodical press flourished as never before. Although Löwenthal reports that circulation was low; there were over 100 known Muslim periodicals produced before the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937.44 Thirty journals were published between 1911 and 1937 in Beijing alone, prompting one author to suggest that while Chinese Islam’s traditional religious center was still Linxia (Hezhou), its cultural center had shifted to Beijing.45 This took place when many Hui intellectuals traveled to Japan, the Middle East, and the West. Caught up in the nationalist fervor of the first half of this century, they published magazines and founded organizations, questioning their identity as never before in a process that one Hui historian, Ma Shouqian, has recently termed “The New Awakening of the Hui at the end of 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries.”46 As many of these Hui Hajji returned from their pilgrimages to the Middle East, they initiated several reforms, engaging themselves once again in the contested space between Islamic ideals and Chinese culture.

THE WAHHABI MUSLIM BROTHERHOOD Influenced by Wahhabi ideals in the Arabian peninsula, returning Hui reformers introduced the Ikwan Muslim Brotherhood to China – a religious movement in tune, in some cases, with China’s nationalist concerns, and in others, with warlord politics. While the Muslim Brotherhood elsewhere in the Islamic world has been depicted as anti-modernist and fundamentalist, this is not true of the movement

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in China. “There a fundamentalist, revivalist impulse among returned pilgrims influenced by Wahhabi notions,” Lipman suggests, “was transformed into a nationalist, modernist, anti-Sufi solidarity group which advocated not only Muslim unity but Chinese national strength and consciousness.”47 The beginnings of the Ikhwan movement in China can be traced to Ma Wanfu (1849–1934), who returned from the Hajj in 1892 to teach in the Linxia, Dongxiang area. Eventually known as the Yihewani (Chinese for the Ikhwan al-Muslimin), the initial reformers were primarily concerned with religious scripturalist orthodoxy – so much so that they are still known as the “venerate the scriptures faction” (zunjing pai). Seeking perhaps to replace “Islamic theater” with scripture,48 they proscribed the veneration of saints, their tombs and shrines, and sought to stem the growing influence of well-known individual Ahong and Sufi menhuan leaders. Advocating a purified, “non-Chinese” Islam, they criticized such cultural accretions as the wearing of white mourning dress (dai xiao) and the decoration of Mosques with Chinese or Arabic texts. At one point, Ma Wanfu even proposed the exclusive use of Arabic and Persian in all education instead of Chinese. Following strict Wahhabi practice, Yihewani mosques are distinguished by their almost complete lack of adornment on the inside, with white walls and no inscriptions, as well as a preference for Arabian-style mosque architecture. This contrasts sharply with other more Chinese-style mosques in China, typical of the “old” Gedimu, whose architecture resembles Confucian temples in their sweeping roofs and symmetrical courtyards (with the Xi’an Huajue Great Mosque as the best example). The Yihewani also proscribed the adornment of their mosques with Arabic, especially Chinese, Quranic texts and banners, whereas this is the most striking marker of Sufi mosques and worship centers in the Northwest, whose walls are often layered with calligraphy and unique Hui-style art. Many Muslims supported the earliest communist call for equity, autonomy, freedom of religion, and recognized nationality status, and were active in the early establishment of the People’s Republic (PRC), but became disenchanted by growing critiques of religious practice during several radical periods in the PRC beginning in 1957. During the Cultural Revolution (1966–76), Muslims became the focus for both anti-religious and anti-ethnic nationalism critiques, leading to widespread persecutions, mosque-closings, and at least one large massacre of 1,000 Hui following a 1975 uprising in Yunnan province. Since Deng Xiaoping’s post1978 reforms, Muslims have sought to take advantage of liberalized economic and religious policies, while keeping a watchful eye on the ever-swinging pendulum of Chinese radical politics. There are now more mosques open in China than there were prior to 1949, and Muslims travel freely on the Hajj to Mecca, as well as engaging in cross-border trade with co-religionists in Central Asia, the Middle East, and increasingly, Southeast Asia. It should be noted here that increasing Muslim activism in China does not necessarily entail increasing religious conservatism, or the rise of a Wahhabi-inspired Muslim tide of fundamentalism. Indeed, like the term “xinjiao” (new teaching), which was a euphemism in the last century to refer to any new Islamic teaching that made its way into China, the term “Wahhabi” today in China, especially in Xinjiang, is often merely a general

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term to refer to Muslims who are more conservative, and not necessarily organized into any school or sect. Increasing Muslim political activism on a national scale and rapid state response indicates the growing importance Beijing places upon Muslim-related issues. In 1986, Uighurs in Xinjiang marched through the streets of Urumqi protesting against a wide range of issues, including the environmental degradation of the Zungharian plain, nuclear testing in the Taklamakan, increased Han immigration to Xinjiang, and ethnic insults at Xinjiang University. Muslims throughout China protested the publication of a Chinese book Sexual Customs in May 1989, and a children’s book in October 1993 that portrayed Muslims, particularly their restriction against pork (which Mao once called, “China’s greatest national treasure”), in a derogatory fashion. In each case, the government quickly responded, meeting most of the Muslims’ demands, condemning the publications, arresting the authors, and closing down the printing houses.49 Islamic factional struggles continue to divide China’s Muslims internally, especially as increased travel to the Middle East prompts criticism of Muslim practice at home and exposes China’s Muslims to new, often politically radical, Islamic ideals. In February 1994, four Naqshbandi Sufi leaders were sentenced to long-term imprisonments for their support of internal factional disputes in the southern Ningxia region, that had led to at least 60 deaths on both sides and intervention by the People’s Liberation Army. As noted above, throughout the 1990s, there was increasing Uighur activism in Xinjiang, declining substantially in the early part of the new millennium, and the government’s Strike Hard campaign has curtailed any organized Uighur efforts. Beijing has responded with increased military presence, particularly in Kashgar and Urumqi, as well as diplomatic efforts in the Central Asian states and Turkey to discourage foreign support for separatist movements. It is important to note that in general Hui, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and other Muslim minorities are not necessarily sympathetic to any of these separatist actions among the Uighur, and it is not yet clear how much support even among the Uighur there is for violent acts, especially the 1996 attempt to assassinate a “collaborating” Imam in Kashgar. At the same time, cross-border trade between Xinjiang and Central Asia has grown tremendously, especially due to the reopening in 1991 of the Eurasian Railroad, linking Urumqi and Alma Ata with markets in China and Eastern Europe. Overland travel between Xinjiang and Pakistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan has also increased dramatically with the relaxation of travel restrictions based on Deng Xiaoping’s prioritization of trade over security interests in the area. The government’s policy of seeking to buy support through stimulating the local economy seems to be working at the present, as income levels in Xinjiang are often far higher than those across the border, yet increased Han migration to participate in the region’s lucrative oil and mining industries continues to exacerbate ethnic tension. Muslim areas in northern and central China, however, continue to be left behind as China’s rapid economic growth expands unevenly, enriching the southern coastal areas far beyond that of the interior.

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While further restricting Islamic freedoms in the border regions, at the same time the state has become more keenly aware of the importance foreign Muslim governments place on China’s treatment of its Muslim minorities as a factor in China’s lucrative trade and military agreements. The establishment of full diplomatic ties with Saudi Arabia in 1991 and increasing military and technical trade with Middle Eastern Muslim states enhances the economic and political salience of China’s treatment of its internal Muslim minority population. The increased transnationalism of China’s Muslims will be an important factor in their ethnic expression as well as accommodation to Chinese culture and state authority.

INTERNAL CONVERSION While these Islamic associations are as confusing to the non-initiate as the numerous schools of Buddhist thought in China, they differ in that membership is hotly disputed in China. Unlike Middle Eastern or Central Asian Islamic orders, where one might belong to two or even three Brotherhoods at once, the Hui belong to only one. Among the Hui, one is generally born into one’s Islamic order, or converts dramatically to another. In fact, this is the only instance of conversion I encountered during my sojourn among the Hui. I never met a Han who had converted to Islam in China without having been married to a Hui or adopted into a Hui family, though I heard of a few isolated instances. Fletcher records the conversion of 28 Tibetan tribes as well as their “Living Buddha” by Ma Laichi in Xunhua, Qinghai in the mid-18th century.50 After the 1784 Ma Mingxin uprising, the Qing government forbade non-Muslims from converting to Islam, and this may have had some influence on the few recorded Han conversions. This goes against the common assumption that Islam in China was spread through proselytization and conversion. Islamic preachers in China, including Ma Laichi, Ma Mingxin, Qi Jingyi, and Ma Qixi, spent most of their time trying to convert other Muslims. Islam in China for the most part has grown biologically through birth and intermarriage.

HUI ISLAMIC ORDERS AND CHINESE CULTURE The tensions and conflicts that led to the rise and divisions of the Sufi menhuan in Northwest China, and subsequent non-Sufi reforms, are impossible to enumerate in their complexity. They give evidence, however, of the ongoing struggles that continue to make Islam meaningful to Hui Muslims. These tensions between Islamic ideals and social realities are often left unresolved. Their very dynamism derives from the questions they raise and the doubts they engender among people struggling with traditional meanings in the midst of changing social contexts. Questions of purity and legitimacy become paramount when the Hui are faced with radical internal socioeconomic and political change, and are exposed to

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different interpretations of Islam from the outside Muslim world. These conflicts and reforms reflect an ongoing debate in China over Islamic orthodoxy, revealing an important disjunction between “scripturalist” or “mystical” interpretations. In a similar fashion, the study of Southeast Asian Islam has often centered on the contradictions and compromises between the native culture of the indigenous Muslims and the shari’a of orthodox Islam, the mystical and scriptural, the real and the ideal.51 The supposed accommodation of orthodox Islamic tenets to local cultural practices has led scholars to dismiss or explain such compromise as syncretism, assimilation, and “sinification,” as has been described among the Hui. An alternative approach, and one perhaps more in tune with the interests of Hui themselves, sees this incongruence as the basis for ongoing dialectical tensions that have often led to reform movements and conflicts within Muslim communities.52 Following Max Weber,53 one can see the wide variety of Islamic expression as reflecting processes of local world construction and programs for social conduct whereby a major religious tradition becomes meaningful to an indigenous society. In the competition for scarce resources, these conflicts are also prompted by and expressed in economic concerns, such as we saw in the defeat of the Xi Dao Tang above by the Khufiyya Ma Anliang – clearly a case of coveting his Muslim brother’s wealth. Fletcher notes that one of the criticisms of the Khufiyya was that their recitation of the Ming Sha Le took less time than the normal Quranic suras by non-Sufi clergy, and therefore their Imams were cheaper to hire at ritual ceremonies. He suggests that this assisted their rise in popularity and criticism by Gedimu religious leaders.54 The Yihewani criticized both the Gedimus and Sufis for only performing rituals in believer’s homes for profit, and advocated the practice, “If you recite, do not eat; if you eat, do not recite” (nian jing bu chi, chi by nian jing). The Chinese State has generally found economic reasons for criticizing certain Islamic orders among the Hui. During the Land Reform campaigns of the 1950s, which appropriate mosque and wag f (Islamic endowment) holdings, they met with great resistance from the Sufi menhuan that had accumulated a great deal due to their hierarchical centralized leadership. In a 1958 document criticizing Ma Zhenwu, the Jahriyya Sufi shaykh, the following accusations are quite revealing: According to these representatives, Ma Chen-wu instituted many “A-mai-lis,” or festival days to commemorate the dead ancestors to which the A-hungs must be invited to chant the scriptures and be treated with big feasts, thereby squeezing money out of the living for the dead. For example, he has kept a record of the days of birth and death of all the family members of his followers and has seen to it that religious services be held on such days. These include “Grandmother’s Day,” “Wife’s Day,” “Aunt’s Day,” and others, sixtyfive of such “A-mai-lis” in a year. On the average, one of such “A-mai-lis” is held every six or seven days, among which are seven occasions of big festival. . . . All the A-hungs of the Islamic mosques have been appointed by Ma Chen-wu. Through the appointment of A-hungs he has squeezed a big sum of money. . . . Ma has regularly, in the name of repairing the “kung-peis” [i.e., tombs], squeezed the Hui people for money.55

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Figure 10.1 Islam and culture: a range of alternatives. Source: Dru C. Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic

The tensions arising from the conflict between Chinese cultural practices and Islamic ideals have led to the rise and powerful appeal of Islamic movements among Hui Muslims. I have explored one way of looking at this tension between cultural practice and Islamic ideals in an earlier work (Figure 10.1).56 In China there were many attempts to reconcile Chinese culture with Islam, leading to a range of alternatives (see Figure 10.2). At one extreme there are those who reject any integration of Islam with Chinese culture, such as Ma Wanfu’s return to an Arabicized “pure” Islam. Conversely, at the other extreme, there are those leaders of the Gedimu, such as Hu Dengzhou, who accepted more integration with traditional Chinese society. Likewise, Ma Qixi’s Xi Dao Tang stressed the complete compatibility of Chinese and Islamic culture, the importance of Chinese Islamic Confucian texts, the harmony of the two systems, and the reading of the Quran in Chinese. In between, one finds various attempts at changing Chinese society to “fit” a Muslim world, through transformationist or militant Islam, as illustrated by the largely Naqshbandiyya-led 19th-century Hui uprisings. The Jahriyya sought to implement an alternative vision of the world in their society, and this posed a threat to the Qing, as well as other Hui Muslims, earning them the label of “heterodox” (xie jiao) and persecution by the Chinese State. By contrast, other Hui reformers have attempted throughout history to make Islam “fit” Chinese society, such as Liu Zhi’s monumental effort to demonstrate the Confucian morality of Islam. The Qadiriyya alternative represents a resolution of this tension through ascetic withdrawal from the world. Qi Jingyi advocated an inner mystical journey where the dualism of Islam and the Chinese world is absolved through grasping the oneness of Allah found inside every believer. These various approaches in Chinese Islam represent sociohistorical attempts to deal with the relationship of relating the world religion of Islam with the local Chinese realm.

Separatist

Dualist

Transformationist

(Early (Qadiriyya) Yihewani) (Kubrawiyya) (Salafiyya)

Jahriyya) (Khufiyya)

Reformist

Synthesis

(Yihewani)

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Less distinction

Ma Qixi

Ma Yinghuan

Hu Dengzhou

Ma Songting

Liu shi

Hu Songshan

Ma Hualong

Ma Laichi

Ma Mingxin

Zhang Hairu

Qi Jingyi

Ma Debao

Ma Wanfu

More distinction

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More distinction

Figure 10.2 Hui Islam and Chinese culture: a range of alternatives.

Uyghur?

Kazakh Kyrgyz Uzbek

Salar Tatar

Dongxiang Baonan

Hui?

Figure 10.3 Muslim minorities and Chinese culture.

Another way to examine this range of alternatives is to generalize about the Muslim nationalities themselves (Figure 10.3). In this scheme, the Uighur can be seen to be much more resistant to accepting integration into Chinese society than other Muslim groups, in that they are the only Muslim minority in China expressing strong desires for a separate state (Uighuristan), although it is not at all clear that all Uighur desire independence. At the other extreme, it could be argued that the Hui are the most integrated of all the Muslim minorities into Chinese society and culture. This is both an advantage and a disadvantage in that they often have greater access to power and resources

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within Chinese society, but at the same time risk either the loss of their identity or the rejection of other Muslim groups in China as being too assimilated into Chinese society to the detriment of Islam. In between there are a range of Muslim nationalities who are closer to the Uighur in terms of resisting Chinese culture and maintaining a distinct language and identity (Uzbeks, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, and Tajiks) and those who are much closer to the Hui in terms of accommodation to Chinese culture (Dongxiang, Baonan). While much of this is due to historical interaction and locale, it can be a heuristic way of examining the challenges faced by each Muslim minority in their daily expression of identity and Islam in Chinese society. Here, it must be clearly noted, however, that there are many exceptions to this overly generalized pattern, e.g. Uighur (such as Party officials and secularists) who are quite integrated into Chinese society and Hui (such as religious Imams and rebellious youths) who live their lives in strident resistance to Chinese culture.

THE FOURTH TIDE: ETHNIC NATIONALISM IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION China is not immune from the new tide of ethnic nationalism and “primordial politics” sweeping Europe, Africa, and Asia in the post-Cold War period. Much of it is clearly due to a response to globalization in terms of localization: increasing nationalism arising from the organization of the world into nation-states. No longer content to sit on the sidelines, the nations within these states are playing a greater role in the public sphere, which Jürgen Habermas suggests is the defining characteristic of civil society in the modern nation-state.57 In most of these nationalist movements, religion, culture, and racialization play a privileged role in defining the boundaries of the nation. In China, and perhaps much of Muslim Asia, Islam will continue to play an important role in defining the nation, especially in countries where nationality is defined by a mix of religion and ethnicity (i.e. China, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines). A fourth tide of Muslim activism in China cannot but be nationalistic, but a nationalism that may often transcend the boundaries of the contemporary nation-state, via mass communications, increased travel, and the virtuality of the internet. The three previous “tides” of Islam in China, according to Joseph Fletcher, were precipitated by China’s opening to the outside world. A new tide is now washing across China’s terrain. No matter what conservative leaders in the government might wish, China’s Muslim politics have reached a new stage of openness. If China wants to participate in the international political sphere of the nation-states, this is unavoidable. With the opening to the West in recent years, travel to and from the Islamic heartlands has dramatically increased in China. In 1984, over 1,400 Muslims left China to go on the Hajj. This number increased to over 2,000 in 1987, representing a return to pre-1949 levels. Several Hui students are presently enrolled in Islamic and Arabic studies at the Al-Azhar University in Egypt. In September 1987, I visited the home of a Hui elder in Xi’an who had just

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returned from the Hajj. He was escorted home from the airport in a procession of over 100 taxis, all owned and operated privately by Hui. His trip was financed by local Hui, who turned over 10,000 yuan (US$3,300) to the Chinese Islamic Society in Beijing. The Islamic Society arranged his travel to Pakistan, where his visa was arranged at the Saudi Embassy (China has no formal diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia), and supplied him with US$80 for use on the trip, since local currency is non-convertible. Upon his return he traveled throughout the northwest, preaching and lecturing about his pilgrimage experiences and the need to reform Islam along Middle Eastern lines. I met him again recently in November 1998 and he has since returned three times on the Hajj, with frequent businessrelated travel to the Middle East. His trips to the Middle East are often sponsored by local and national government organizations. Encouraged by the Chinese state, relations between Muslims in China and the Middle East are becoming stronger and more frequent, partly from a desire to establish trading partners for arms, commodities, and currency exchanges, and partly by China’s traditional view of itself as a leader of the Third World. Delegations of foreign Muslims regularly travel to prominent Islamic sites in China, in a kind of state-sponsored religious tourism, and donations are encouraged. While the state hopes that private Islamic investment will assist economic development, the vast majority of grants by visiting foreign Muslims have been donated to the rebuilding of Islamic mosques, schools, and hospitals. As Hui in China are further exposed to Islamic internationalism, and they return from studies and pilgrimages abroad, traditional Hui identities will once again be reshaped and called into question, giving rise to a fourth tide of Islam in China. Global Islam is thus localized into Hui Islam, finding its expression as a range of accommodations between Chineseness and Muslimness as defined in each local community. These accommodations of China’s Muslims are not unlike those made on a daily basis among other Muslim minorities in Asia. The only difference may be the increasingly post-modern contraction of time and space: accommodations that took over a millennium in China are now being required of Muslim diasporic communities in a matter of hours or days. For Hui in China, Pakistani and Bangladeshi workers in Tokyo and Seoul, and the other wider diaspora, Muslims may becoming increasingly “unfamiliar” strangers. This does not bode well for the future integration of Muslims into the Chinese leviathan.

NOTES 1 Jonathan Lipman, Familiar Strangers: A History of Muslims in Northwest China (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1997), p. 2. 2 Raphael Israeli, Muslims in China (London and Atlantic Highlands: Curzon and Humanities Press, 1978); Michael Dillon, Hui Muslims in China (London: Curzon Press, 1997). 3 For the debate over the definition of Hui and reference to them as “Sino-Muslims”, see Lipman, Familiar Strangers, p. xxiv.

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4 Amnesty International, Peoples Republic of China: Gross Violations of Human Rights in the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (London, April 21, 1999). 5 Wall Street Journal, Ian Johnson, “China Arrests Noted Businesswoman in Crackdown in Muslim Region”, August 18, 1999. 6 Dru C. Gladney, “The Ethnogenesis of the Uighur”, Central Asian Studies, 9.1, 1990, p. 3. 7 For the best treatment of the Yakub Beg rebellion, see Kim Ho-dong, “The Muslim Rebellion of the Kashgar Emirate in Chinese Central Asia, 1864–1877,” Ph.D. dissertation, Harvard University, 1986. 8 Linda Benson, The Ili Rebellion: The Moslem Challenge to Chinese Authority in Xinjiang, 1944–1949 (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1990). 9 Andrew D. W. Forbes, Warlords and Muslims in Chinese Central Asia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), p. 29. 10 Justin Rudelson, Oasis Identities: Uyghur Nationalism along China’s Silk Road (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). 11 Burhan Shahidi, Xinjiang Wushi Nian (Beijing: Wenshi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1984). 12 James P. Dorian, Brett Wigdortz, and Dru Gladney, “Central Asia and Xinjiang, China: Emerging Energy, Economic, and Ethnic Relations,” Central Asian Survey, v. 16:4, pp. 461–86. 13 Joseph Fletcher, “Les voies (turuq) sufies en Chine,” in Les ordres mystiques dans l’Islam, cheminements et situation actuelle, eds A. Popovic and G. Veinstein (Paris: s.n., 1988). 14 (Gladney 1994a). 15 Ekvall (1939: 19). 16 [Andrew 1921: 10]. 17 (Trimingham 1971: 10). 18 [Fletcher 1988: 15]. 19 (See Voll 1982: 33–86.) 20 Claude Pickens (1942). 21 (Harrell and Perry 1982: 283–305; Naquin 1976). 22 (See Israeli 1978: 155–80.) 23 (Gladney 1987: 507–8). 24 Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai yu Menhuan Zhidu Shilue (A History of Muslim Factions and the Menhuan System in China) (1st edn, 1981, Yinchuan: Ningxia People’s Publishing Society, 1983), p. 330. 25 (Trimingham 1971: 40–4). 26 Forbes, Warlords and Muslims, p. 75, regards the popularity of tombs among the Hui as “probably due to isolation from the Islamic mainstream.” On the other hand, Joseph Trippner, “Islamische Gruppe und Graberkult in Nordwest China” (Muslim groups and grave-cults in northwest China), Die Welt des Islams, 7, 1961, p. 145, argued that these “grave-worshiping cults” give evidence of the pervasive influence of Shi’ism among the Hui. Alternatively, I suggest (Dru C. Gladney “Muslim Tombs and Ethnic Folklore: Charters for Hui Identity,” The Journal of Asian Studies 46.3, 1987, pp. 501–17) that the tombs reveal a wide variety of Hui religious meaning, serving as important charters that link different Hui communities to their foreign Muslim heritage. 27 See Toshihiko Izutsu, Sufism and Daoism (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983). 28 Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai, pp. 328–54. 29 Joseph Fletcher, “The Naqshbandiyya in Northwest China,” unpublished manuscript, Harvard University, n.d., p. 11. 30 (See Trippner 1961: 142–71.) 31 Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimensions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1975), p. 367. 32 Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai, pp. 223–47.

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33 Fletcher 1978: 38; Schimmel 1975: 172, 366. 34 See Joseph Ford, “Some Chinese Muslims of the 17th and 18th Centuries,” Asian Affairs (New Series) 5.2, 1974, pp. 153–5; Joseph Fletcher, “Central Asian Sufism and Ma Ming-hsin’s New Teaching,” Proceedings of the Fourth East Asian Altaistic Conference, ed. Ch’en Chieh-hsien, Taibei: National Taiwan University, 1975. 35 Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai, p. 365. 36 For the origins of the Kubrawiyya, see Trimingham, op. cit., pp. 55–8. 37 Ma Tong suggests the Kubrawiyya may have come to China as early as 1370, see Ma Tong, Zhongguo Yisilan Jiaopai, pp. 451–5. 38 Ernest Gellner, Muslim Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 103. 39 See Jonathan Lipman, “Patchwork Society, Network Society: A Study of Sino-Muslim Communities,” in Islam in Asia, ed. Raphael Israeli and Anthony H. Johns, vol. 2, Boulder: Westview Press, 1984b. 40 Trimingham, ibid., p. 11. 41 Claude L. Pickens, “The Challenge of Chinese Moslems,” The Chinese Recorder, 68, 1937, pp. 231–5. 42 Anonymous, “Japanese Infiltration Among Muslims in China,” unpublished report, Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, 1944, p. 127. 43 Fletcher, n.d., op. cit., p. 7. 44 Rudolf Löwenthal, “The Mohammedan Press in China,” in The Religious Periodical Press in China (Peking: Synodal Committee on China, 1940), pp. 211–50. 45 Anonymous, “Japanese Infiltration,” p. 27. 46 Ma Shouqian, “The Hui People’s New Awakening at the End of the 19th Century and Beginning of the 20th Century,” in The Legacy of Islam in China: An International Symposium in Memory of Joseph F. Fletcher, ed. Dru C. Gladney (Conference Volume, Harvard University, April 14–16, 1989). 47 Jonathan Lipman, “The Third Wave: Establishment and Transformation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Modern China.” Paper presented at the China Colloquium of the Henry S. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, February 20, 1986, p. 21. 48 The phrase is from Richard Eaton, “The Political and Religious Authority of the Shrine of Baba Farid,” in Moral Conduct and Authority: The Place of Adab in South Asian Islam (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1984), pp. 334–5. 49 Dru Gladney, “Salman Rushdie in China: Religion, Ethnicity, and State Definition in the People’s Republic,” in Asian Visions of Authority: Religion and the Modern States of East and Southeast Asia, eds Helen Hardacre, Laurel Kendall, and Charles Keyes (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1994), p. 268. 50 See also Trippner, op. cit., pp. 154–5. 51 This distinction was most fully articulated by William Roff, “Islam Obscured? Some Reflections on Studies of Islam and Society in Asia,” L’Islam en Indonesie, 1.29, 1985, pp. 8–10. 52 See Dale F. Eickelman, Moroccan Islam: Tradition and society in a pilgrimage center (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1976), pp. 10–13. 53 Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978). 54 Fletcher, op. cit., n.d., p. 21. 55 Quoted in Donald E. MacInnis, Religious Policy and Practice in Communist China (New York: Macmillan Company, 1972), pp. 171–2. 56 Gladney, Muslim Chinese: Ethnic Nationalism in the People’s Republic (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996 [1991]), p. 75. This interpretive scheme is influenced by H. Richard Niebuhr’s analysis of Christian social ethics in Christ and Culture (New York: Harper and Row, 1951). 57 Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere, translated by Thomas Burger and Frederick Lawrence (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1989 [1962]).

11 The Assyrian diaspora Cultural survival in the absence of state structure Eden Naby

Assyrians have become twice scattered: they live in diaspora in the Middle East and they live in diaspora outside the Middle East. Assyrian communities everywhere have experienced displacement, even those who have been forced to move from places like El Qush and Ankawa to Baghdad (in Iraq) or those pressured to abandon Sanandaj, Maragha, and prevented from resettling in Urmia (in Iran). Thus at the beginning of the twenty-first century, there are about an equal number of Assyrians living in Middle East diaspora as in diaspora outside the Middle East. In the Middle East, no coherent Assyrian community exists that has not been displaced within the twentieth century except around Mosul, the site of ancient Nineveh.1 Many Assyrians born in the first two decades of the twentieth century had, by the close of that century, moved or been displaced three, sometimes four times. Assyrians living in diaspora have faced the problem of maintaining culture and community as a stateless people without the benefit of reliable institutional backing. Under these conditions, they have persevered in many locations, but also have lost cohesion and those opportunities that would allow them to prosper culturally. These conditions are not unique to Assyrians but may be contrasted with the experiences of other communities in similar conditions such as, historically, the Jews, and contemporaneously, the Zoroastrians. Scholarship on Assyrians suffers from a dearth of sources for most periods and a concentration of non-native sources for others, such as the missionary archives of the nineteenth century. With the decline of Syriac studies since World War II, the collecting of native sources at research institutions has also decreased. Assyrian institutions have not valued their archives enough to store them reliably,2 and the gradual restrictions by the Ottoman successor states of Assyrians’ cultural rights have all but strangled Assyrian language publication.3 Together with the trend of existing Western-based university scholars to stress Assyrian sectarian history and identity, the field of secular Assyrian studies is confined to Assyrians themselves scattered in secluded, and insecure, diaspora.4 Published memoirs are becoming the leading printed source for information though they tend to provide raw, uncontextualized data.5

The Assyrian diaspora 215 Assyrians living in Middle East diaspora have faced severe political restrictions that have made their historically most viable institutions, the churches, all but subject to the dictates of state governments with little ability to preserve community or language.6 Added to restrictions on secular activity in the Middle East, the responsibility for institutional maintenance falls chiefly to the Assyrians in diaspora outside the Middle East. Up to the 1960s and 1970s when Europe began to become a haven for refugees, the United States diaspora functioned as the most active source of institutional support. In the case of the Church of the East, the Patriarch experienced the humiliation of being stripped of all citizenship in 1933 when he insisted on taking the Assyrian case to the League of Nations contrary to the wishes of the Iraqi monarchy. Rather than bow to constant state pressure somewhere in the Middle East, this Patriarchate exists in diaspora in the United States although officially its See is in Baghdad.7 Given the unfriendly conditions for Assyrians in the Middle East, whether as a result of state-sponsored Arabizing Baathist ideology in Syria (1963) and Iraq (1963), the capricious enforcement of Shiite Islamic law in Iran since 1979, or the rigidity of Turkish secular identity, emigration continues unabated. It may yet begin to decelerate or even reverse itself if conditions change. In many Assyrian communities the dangers of not surviving into the twenty-second century as a cultural community spread out over many countries are being recognized. But solutions for the reversal of this trend do not readily present themselves. At certain times over the past two centuries, emigration has either slowed its pace or accelerated. This chapter examines the conditions under which emigration began to enter the minds of Assyrians, the circumstances that allowed or forced diaspora, and the start of the formation of diaspora institutions. The effects of the Genocide on culture, state, and the position of women, as well as other issues involving the political situation of the Near East from 1900 to the start of World War II, can only be alluded to in this chapter. It should also be noted that this study is preliminary, examining only on the period leading up to World War II and focusing on Assyrian diaspora in the United States, which even today remains the most important one in terms of its impact and history. Conditions in the Middle East following World War II are, in particular, colored by the rise of Arab nationalism which drastically increased emigration. However, patterns of movement and institutional development were already apparent by the beginning of World War I. The Assyrian diaspora formed as a result of conditions in the Middle East that, Assyrians realized, placed them at a disadvantage in Islamic societies. When they began to see an alternative to the centuries of living as a protected “people of the book,” but essentially second-class citizens of countries governed under Islamic law, they, like many other Christian communities, began to consider leaving the Middle East. This was not a quick or easy decision, but a process that has taken nearly two centuries.

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GEOGRAPHY, WAR, AND THE SEARCH FOR EQUALITY UNDER LAW Among the traits most odious to zealous Western missionaries bent on “saving Assyrian souls for Christ” was the indulgence in drink that they noted among Assyrian villagers. They did not look for any explanation of this factor in the life endured by Assyrians, but rather ascribed it to poor moral grounding and church institutions riddled with superstition. British and American missionaries, in particular, note this trait, confined to men, and wonder at the low level of civilization of this easternmost Christian outpost remaining in the Muslim Middle East. This is but one indication of the general state of cultural disfunctionality in which Assyrians found themselves at the start of the nineteenth century: the practice of their singularly distinctive feature, Christianity, had been reduced to drunken saint’s days. The desire to dwell among other Christians arose less from religious fervor than from the desire to live where they would be treated equally among others rather than be discriminated against on a daily basis without recourse to law or a power base. This was the factor that fueled the initial emigration. Its direction became dictated by geography, war, and the expansion of Tsarist Russia. The flight of the population of whole Assyrian villages northward to Russia during the early nineteenth century can be explained by the poor treatment that Assyrian Christians received under Muslim rule. Russia had begun to encroach on Ottoman territory, first in the Crimea during the late eighteenth century, and then into the Transcaucasus where it began a steady reduction of Qajar Persian control. In 1804, war broke out between Iran and Russia when Russian armies marched into the Qajar Khanate of Yerevan. After seven years of disastrous conflict for which Iranian armies were unprepared, finally Tehran signed the Treaty of Gulistan in 1813 conceding much territory and the military use of the Caspian Sea.8 This meant that a large swath of Iranian territory with an ethnically mixed Muslim population, but a substantial Christian population as well came under Russian control. Some Assyrian emigration appears to have taken place at this time to what is now Armenia. The second Russo-Iranian war, an Iran-declared holy war in 1826, brought about even greater Russian expansion, all the way south into Tabriz. The subsequent Treaty of Turkmanchai (1828) gave Russia territory, an indemnity, and, most important in the long term for Assyrians and other Christians, capitulations that gave Russian subjects residing in Iran special rights in legal proceedings. Although Russia gained territory, it withdrew its forces from Tabriz and other regions south of the Aras River. Many Assyrians living in Urmia and Salamas, as well as their satellite villages, had no wish to return to Muslim rule once the Russian armies withdrew to the new borders of Iran and they, too, left Iran. The move meant leaving homes, churches, the graves of their parents, and some, though probably little, property. They settled in villages in the Krasnodar region of southern Russia, in particular in the large village of Urmia, the name-

The Assyrian diaspora 217 sake of the town they had left in Iran, and in Armavir. Some also settled in, what is now, the Republic of Azerbaijan, and in Armenia and Georgia, all territories that had been ceded to Russia by 1828. This marks the first major Assyrian emigration from one of the four chief areas of Assyrian residence in the Middle East. Iran’s border problems, resulting from the contraction of the empire as it had been under the Safavids, and from the rising military power of Russia and Great Britain, extended also to boundary disputes with Ottoman Turkey. Aside from the problems in the south (near the Shatt al-Arab), border issues in the area where Assyrians lived in the north also affected emigration from the Middle East, both in the nineteenth century and later. The Hakkari mountains and the Urmia plain, falling respectively into Ottoman and Iranian territory, contained the bulk of eastern Assyrian populations living more or less contiguously, but dispersed among Kurdish and other Muslim populations. The borders along the Zagros range, fluid since the beginning of recorded history, have changed hands between Assyrians and Manneans, Persians and Greeks, Parthians and Romans, Persians and Byzantines, and so forth to the Qajar and Ottoman era. Not until 1878 (the Treaty of Berlin) was the border delineated between Turkey and Iran. When it was, the easy flow among co-ethnics became affected. Prior to that, some members of Assyrian tribes from the Hakkari had already found their way into Russian territory as well, although how early during the nineteenth century and to what extent remains unclear. Thus, the early Assyrian migration to Russia occurred from among both the tribal Assyrians and the plains-dwelling Assyrians long before any missionary presence was felt at either location. The early emigration to Russia demonstrates the attraction exerted on a not very pious Christian community by the prospect of living among fellow Christians. Even though in later literature the need to dwell in “Christian” Western countries has been stressed by Assyrian authors, focusing on the spiritual advantages, in fact it was the harsh conditions of life as nonMuslims in a Muslim society that played a major role in the earliest historically understood emigration. Economic emigration, a strong factor for moving to Russian-controlled areas later in the nineteenth century, has not yet come into play.

THE PACE OF IMMIGRATION AND ITS RELATIONSHIP TO SOCIO-POLITICAL CONDITIONS In the Middle East, prior to the mass deportations and ethnic cleansing that upturned all Christian communities, Assyrians lived in four distinct socio-cultural settings. First, the westernmost, plains-dwelling Assyrians lived among a mixed religious population of Muslims, Jews, and other Christians. In towns such as Homs, Malula, Aleppo, and Damascus, they had their own urban quarters as well as rural dwellers in satellite villages. Many major towns had their Assyrian quarters, including Jerusalem. Communal life revolved around the Assyrian

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Apostolic Church of Antioch, otherwise known as Jacobite.9 This monophysite church retained classical Syriac liturgy at the expense of the vernacular language. That Assyrians lived in close quarters with Armenians, also belonging to a monophysite church and using the Armenian vernacular for common writing, meant that many Assyrians from these towns stopped using Syriac altogether, in favor of Armenian, except for religious purposes. The shared Christological doctrine also allowed intermarriage and the acceptance of sacraments (baptisms, marriages, and so forth) among members of the two communities. Second, in the eastern part of the Taurus Mountains, in an area referred to as Tur Abdin (“the mountain of believers”), Assyrians lived in small villages from Mardin eastward to Midyat. Amid (Diyarbeker), Edessa (Turkish towns “Urfa,” native “Urhoy”), and Harput, the other towns from which substantial numbers of Assyrians fled and eventually found their way to other parts of the Middle East and beyond, lie near but outside Tur Abdin. Armenians, some Kurds, Yezidis, and Arabs also lived in this area. The vernacular Suryoyo was widely spoken as were the languages of their neighbors, especially by men, not women.10 The area possessed many medieval monasteries such as Deir As-Sa’faron, the Patriarchal See of the Jacobite church, located in Mardin. This population extended into Mosul, located on the Nineveh plain. The entire area formed the medieval province known to Arabs as Jazira.11 The third community was located to the northeast of these Assyrians, extending into the mountains north of the ancient Assyrian empire, but largely inhabiting narrow mountain valleys referred to as Hakkari. These Assyrians lived as rural semi-pasturalists and administered themselves semi-independently as tribes. The most prominent of these tribes were Jilu, Tiyari, Baz, Tkhouma, and Dez. Each self-governed through its chief (Malik) who in turn formed a council with the Patriarch of the Apostolic Church of the East to administer internal Assyrian affairs. The mountain valleys often were distinguished by their own dialects, but all these related to the eastern dialect called Suryaya. The tribes followed the spiritual leadership of the Patriarch whose base was in Qudchannis, a large village now just over the Iraqi border in Turkey near the town of Julamarek. The Ottoman government recognized the Patriarch as heading a millet. Fourth, the easternmost Assyrians, proliferated eastward along the foothills of the Zagros onto the plains of Salamas (Shapur) and Urmia (Rizaiyeh), in west Iranian Azerbaijan. These two towns became the centers of Assyrian culture (Catholic and non-Catholic) in Iran. Bishops appointed by the Patriarch in Ottoman Turkey governed church affairs. But the Assyrian villagers were direct subjects of the Arbabs (owners) of villages. The ambition of most was to own their own agricultural land, a feat achieved not by being a day laborer in Iran, but by seasonal work outside Iran. The power of the Patriarch in the Hakkari extended well beyond spiritual matters and into the running of civil government to a far greater extent than that of the other Patriarchs recognized by the Ottoman Porte. Because the Patriarch’s duties extended beyond the mere collection of taxes and the registration of births and deaths to the administration of family law, the Patriarchal line of the Mar

The Assyrian diaspora 219 Shumon of the Church of the East played a strong political role during World War I and in the diaspora. Among Iranian Assyrians, the early presence of American, British, French and Russian missionaries broke down the power of the Patriarch from neighboring Turkey. Likewise, due to the diminished presence of the Church of the East, and the cultural presence of American missionaries, Assyrians from Iran were among the first to seek travel to the United States as a means of improving their lives. The presence of American missionaries since 1832 and the opening of a broad network of village schools and schools for advanced training in Urmia (and in Salamas by Catholic-Chaldean missionaries) led directly to a revolutionary change in the socio-cultural lives of Assyrians in Iran. To a far more limited extent, the British and American presence in the Hakkari had a similar effect. Congregational and Episcopalian, French Catholic, and Anglican missionaries accomplished a degree of awakening Assyrians in the other regions. By 1850, when a Protestant “millet” came to be recognized by the Porte, converts from among Assyrians to various branches of Protestantism had begun to grow. Advantages such as schools attracted many among the young and ambitious.

THE IMMIGRATION ALTERNATIVE While the primary impetus for permanent emigration came from a desire to live outside a Muslim milieu, for which Russian expansion southward served nicely, Russia also served as a temporary place to seek education and employment. During the second half of the nineteenth century, an increasing number of eastern Assyrians headed to Urmia for their early education, then Tiflis for advanced training. There they could board with relatives who had settled permanently earlier. In addition, whole groups of young men went seasonally to Russia and Georgia to work in semi-skilled trades such as house-painting, brick-laying and so forth. Money brought back went toward land purchase and house construction, mainly in the villages from which they had originated. Particularly after the establishment of a Russian missionary presence in Urmia in 1898, knowledge of the Russian language spread among Assyrians. An alternative to the convenience of Russia began to appear soon after the first generation of Assyrians had completed their education at the advanced American school for boys called Qala (1832). Up to the eve of World War I, this school provided the most advanced education for men in northwest Iran. Generations of Assyrian men trained there as doctors, pastors, teachers, writers, and journalists. By the turn of the twentieth century, even Muslims of good family were graduating from this institution. Qala became a stepping stone to education in America. As a result of just such training, a young Assyrian family was invited to New York city in 1886 by the American Bible Society to work on the translation of the bible into the vernacular eastern Syriac spoken by Assyrians. That is how Professor Abraham Yohannan (1853–1925) arrived in New York with his wife and

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two sons. Although he is certainly not the first Assyrian to arrive in the United States, he is probably the first Middle Easterner to teach a Middle Eastern subject at an American university. He stayed beyond the project for which he had come, received his Ph.D. at Columbia University, and taught languages there until his death. Although he wrote passionately about the ethnic cleansing and Genocide that decimated Assyrians of the Middle East, he never returned to Iran.12 His two sons, following their graduation from Columbia as well, made their careers in the New York area as a physician and a pastor respectively. They too did not return to the land of their birth. Professor Yohannan participated in the small community of Assyrians that had begun to form in the New York/New Jersey area by the turn of the century. More learned than most, he served as a community leader for those Assyrians coming from eastern areas. The church community in Yonkers, congregating at St John’s Episcopal Church, had grown to the extent that his son was able to serve as its pastor. In fact, many of the educated Assyrians who had escaped the Genocide opted to partake of Episcopalian services rather than Presbyterian. The Presbyterian Church of the Assyrian community in Yonkers existed for many decades from the 1940s until the leading community members died or moved to California during the 1970s. It was replaced by a congregation of the Church of the East, in a pattern that reflects both the country of origin of the Assyrians in American diaspora, and the ready assimilation of Protestant Assyrians into the fabric of American society. For western Assyrians too, the New York area gradually became a hub for immigration, education, and work. The height of immigration among the western Assyrians did not arrive until after World War I but already, as a result of the Ottoman massacres of Christians in 1895–6, families had begun to arrive, usually having already lost someone to the massacre. In Diyarbeker, where the attacking Muslim mobs spared few, widows and orphans who had sheltered at the church began to make their way out of the Middle East.13 In some cases, the family would send out the only remaining male to make certain the family line survived.14 Many of these men, though involved in the silk trade or other major commerce (wholesale trade with India, for example), upon arrival at their diaspora destination, were reduced to small shop-keeping, especially dry-cleaning and tailoring, trades that did not require extensive language knowledge. A few began printing shops, while others engaged in the grocery business, especially in Brooklyn. By 1898 there was a large community of Assyrians from Mardin and from Diyarbeker in the Patterson and West New York area. They maintained close ties with their families in their home towns, and marriages were frequently arranged through the intercession of family in the Middle East. Most of these old families can be identified by their Turkified last names, often associated with a profession or place: Basmajy, Mardinly, Redvanly, and so forth. Most spoke Turkish or Mardin Arabo/Suryoyo, but few, if any, spoke classical Syriac. For the men, reading the latter was de rigeur if they were at all educated since that would be expected in a church school. However, because the western church had always frowned upon the

The Assyrian diaspora 221 writing of vernacular Syriac (unlike the eastern church), the vernacular became associated with country folk much as Turkish was for refined Ottomans of the same period. In this manner, the spoken western Suryoyo survived only in the villages of Tur Abdin. In the pre-World War II diaspora, the vernacular made little impact. The Syriac alphabet was used instead to write the other languages in use, such as Turkish. Turkish and Armenian also formed the spoken languages of Assyrians who arrived in Massachusetts from the town of Harput (Kharput, Kharpert), a location which, having come under the care of American missionaries, had seen considerable improvement in its education system, its healthcare system, and in the position of its Christian population. The latter consisted of Armenians and Assyrians. Most of the diaspora from Harput came in the aftermath of World War I. Prior to that, however, some men had arrived to work in industry or to study. The most noteworthy of these was Captain A. K. Yusef, a dentist who had made his home in Worcester, still the base of the descendants of immigrants from Harput. Captain Yusef had served in World War I in the American army and was later one of the Assyrian delegates to the Paris Peace Conference.15 Thus, along the East Coast of the United States, prior to World War I, educated individuals, transient industrial workers, and some with professional careers formed the Assyrian community. They settled in colonies according to their places of origin, and only in rare instances of marriage did they change residences from one American locale to another. More striking is the fact that Assyrians from the two mother Church communities (the Church of the East and the Assyrian Orthodox Church) met and formed associations together in diaspora, something for which there would have been no occasion or opportunity in the Middle East. It is fair to say that the seeds for secular identity as Assyrians had been laid in the late nineteenth century prior to their arrival in the United States through the activities of such intellectuals as Ashour Yusuf (1858–1915) and Naoum Faik (1868–1930) of Harput and Diyarbeker respectively. In the United States, especially in the New York/New Jersey area, a unique geographic proximity allowed western Assyrians to meet eastern Assyrians and realize that they belonged to the same community. What is striking is that they had no language in common except English, and in some instances Turkish or Armenian. An anecdote illustrates this point: Senharib Balley who had come as a young man to New Jersey from Diyarbeker after the 1895 massacres, while visiting the grocery store of a man named Chomokly in Brooklyn, learned that a young man who called himself Assyrian was boarding with the shopkeeper. But the shopkeeper complained that he could not understand the young man’s speech and did not believe he was really an Assyrian. Senharib, who knew many languages, including classical Syriac and Suryoyo, anxiously went to visit the young Assyrian to discover that he was from Urmia. They could only converse in Turkish.16 Despite such opportunities, the ability to converse in a single language has continued to elude the Assyrian community in diaspora in the United States, making English an even more important medium of exchange than it might otherwise be for immigrant communities of the same ethnicity. For this reason

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too, the assimilation into diaspora organizations of newly arriving Assyrians, particularly when refugee arrivals increased during the 1970s, has presented serious problems for interaction between the members of the old diaspora and the new. New immigrants tend to be steeped in the dominant culture of the country from which they originate, just as Assyrian Americans are in theirs.

SIGNS OF PERMANENT SETTLEMENT: WOMEN AND PUBLISHING Continued massacres and persecution, especially the abduction of young women, began to affect the attitude toward permanent residency in the United States. Among the many instances of Assyrians coming from or through Urmia to the United States, there are numerous stories of men who returned to their homes with gold coins stitched into their clothing, and jewelry for their female relatives. They bought agricultural land, even on the eve of the outbreak of war. By 1911 Tsarist armies had occupied many parts of northern Iran, including Urmia, and the Christian population of the area felt some confidence in their security. But one sector of the population that is not recorded as returning to Iran were the women who came to the United States. Who were the women who came? In photographs of Assyrians from Iran from the turn of the century, few women are to be seen. This lack of women is not due to any vestiges of Middle Eastern diffidence: the wife of a traveling pastor may be seen here and there in records of the western Assyrian community, which was larger because these people had made a permanent move out of fear of persecution. There were few women among Assyrians from Iran because few men came to settle, and so few women came. There were some exceptions, generally young orphaned girls. These girls had lost either one or both parents as a result of an epidemic or accident. Due to the threat of abduction by marauding Kurds or Turks,17 when these girls were too young to marry into the protection of a family, relatives would persuade a respectable man to take the girl to America to work, stay with other relatives, and eventually marry.18 Thus it was that some men who came and went with some frequency brought with them unrelated women and ushered them through the formalities of travel. In one instance, a 12-year-old girl whose mother had been carried away after the death of the father was packed off to New Jersey with a traveling Assyrian evangelist.19 That same evangelist on his next trip brought his own daughter whose mother had died. He placed her in a boarding school in Tennessee recommended to him by American missionaries. He never lost touch with her until he died in Urmia and the tie with her Assyrian background was thus broken. On his third trip he brought with him an orphaned relative, whom he settled in New York with friends until she eventually married an Assyrian activist from Urmia who had come to Philadelphia via Marseilles after having served in the Assyro-Chaldean Army of Assyrian Protectorate in Jazira.20 The girls, when marriageable, stayed and formed families that became the second generation of

The Assyrian diaspora 223 the Assyrian diaspora to the United States. After World War I conditions changed: even among men who arrived in the United States, few ever returned to the Middle East. By then, not many had homes to which to return. The few men who did go back did so because they could not persuade their family members who survived to join them in diaspora. Aside from the arrival of women, two other important signs of Assyrian resignation to permanently live in the New World came as secular and religious institutions became established. The first Assyrian association was established in 1898 in New Jersey. The Assyrian Orphanage and School came into being to meet the needs of Assyrians orphaned by the massacres of 1895. A group of men in West New York and in Patterson, Said Basmajy among them, served as Charter members. Since the community’s economic situation was weak and they were unable to establish an endowment, they decided to buy a three-story apartment building and send income from that to Adana where a large number of orphans were being schooled. Eventually they succeeded in setting the organization on a sounder financial basis. The organization continues to fund-raise and support education for the community in Lebanon although it has changed from a secular organization to one which is closely affiliated with the church, a shift that is in part dictated by the sectarian make-up of the Middle East. Another important sign of permanence came with the printing and circulation of books and periodicals by editors and authors from Assyrian communities in the Middle East. Educated in mission-affiliated schools or in native church schools, these men had put down permanent roots in the United States and established their periodicals or presses independent of organizations. Their efforts usually resulted in short-lived periodical titles that, in any event, did not survive them. The first such newspaper appeared in New York under the title of Izgadda: Persian American Courier in 1915 (later changed to Assyrian American Courier). The editor, the Reverend Joel E. Werda, later served in the Assyrian delegation to the Paris Peace Conference as the representative of the Assyrian National Associations of America. This publication lasted until 1931. It was published mainly in eastern Assyrian.21 Three other periodicals appearing in a similar time frame were Bethnahrin (Mesopotamia): The Assyrian Paper (1916–30) whose editor, Naoum Faik, had started his journalism and teaching career in his native Diyarbeker before being warned by his Turkish students in 1912 to flee in anticipation of a coming attack on Christians. His presence in New Jersey bolstered the cultural and educational life of that community and his newspaper achieved such success that for a few years, efforts were made to continue it after his death. Another newspaper made its appearance in Chicago, again from the pen of a clergyman, the Reverend Paul S. Newey, the product of marriage between a tribal Assyrian woman and an Urmia man. His newspaper, also begun in 1916, ran until 1920 under the title Assyrian Herald.22 Yet a fourth that began and ended in this period was Babylon (c. 1919–20) from Boston. The peculiarity of this last periodical is that nearly all the text appears in the Armenian alphabet but most is in classical Syriac. This reflects the language situation in Harput, the probable origin of its editor,

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Beshrov, of whom little is known. Of great significance is the fact that all these periodical publications appear following 1915 or, as that year is known in Christian communities, “The Year of the Sword.” A resignation to starting a cultural life in diaspora began to descend on the Assyrians in the United States only after the reality of genocide had severed hope for life in a homeland.

FORMING INSTITUTIONS IN DIASPORA Once the notion of permanent alienation from the homeland entered into the psyche of the Assyrian community, several activities began to take place: the rescue of relatives, the search to salvage a homeland anywhere in the world (even British Guyana as a location was bandied about), and the dual desires to fit into American life and to maintain Assyrian identity into future generations. It should be remembered too that dozens if not hundreds of young Assyrian men had come for transient work, without family or wife. Few in that generation cared to marry outside the community although this became fairly common after World War II. Therefore, as young Assyrian women who had survived the genocide began arriving in the United States, often from well-educated backgrounds, they began to marry the less-educated working-class men who had come earlier. The deliberate targeting of intellectual or professional Assyrian men in the Middle East had left a gender gap in the community. These educationally and socially unequal unions produced a new generation that did not adjust well to Assyrian community life, but rather avoided it in many instances. These children went on to become educated as the mothers had been but they did not appreciate the ambience of Assyrian social life that resembled more the uneducated community of the fathers. Assyrian publications of the 1930s decry the drifting away of the second generation, especially in the growing tendency of young American-born Assyrian men to marry outside the community.23 The rush to find and rescue family members after the genocide is poignantly documented by the young daughter of a family from Siri, a village outside Urmia, who could not recall her father when she arrived with her brother, sister, and mother after a long voyage by ship across the Pacific Ocean. Once he found his family through relief agencies, he sent them papers and money to make the voyage. But he had been working in Chicago for over a decade and the girl was afraid of the mustachioed man who put her on his knee and placed a kiss on her cheek.24 In many cases, it fell to the local American missionaries in the Middle East to answer the many letters that arrived to inquire about family members. These same Protestant missionaries were the ones who had to write to the Pope informing him of the murder of the entire Catholic clerical establishment in Urmia, from its Chaldean Bishop (Mar Toma Audo, d. 1918) to the French missionaries, to the nuns.25 While turmoil gripped the American Assyrians as they tried to find word of their families, others among them hurried to see what could be rescued of the Assyrian nation. In this effort, the role of the Assyrians in diaspora, as important

The Assyrian diaspora 225 as it was, nonetheless was trumped by that of the key European players in the peace settlement. Britain, vying for power in Ottoman successor states, had promised the Assyrians a homeland if they would aid in securing British oil interests in Baku, in Mosul, and in Basra (World War II). At the treaty table Britain betrayed the Assyrians, but kept the promise alive long enough to make sure that Assyrian refugees did not settle in French-held Syria but remained hostage to Arab/British negotiations in Iraq. With no hope of indemnity for the murder of the Patriarch in Iran (1918), no response for claims of reparations against the Iranian government for mob incitement and outright military action against Assyrian civilians, and without the prospect of returning to their homes, Assyrians began to flood out of the Middle East in an exodus that was only diverted to the United States as a result of emigration reforms beginning in 1922. At the Paris Peace Conference, as during the fighting of the war, a constant tug for power plagued relations between the church hierarchy and the secular leadership as represented by the Maliks or chiefs of the tribes. The struggle allowed foreign powers to diminish the unity of the Assyrian community and make the diaspora of Assyrians in the Middle East permanent. The sectarian/secular dissension later allowed the newly formed states in the Middle East to pit Assyrian churches against each other and against secular leadership. The struggle crossed the oceans as well to plague Assyrians in the American diaspora. The culminating event prior to World War II among Assyrian Americans was the establishment of the organization that came to be the Assyrian American National Federation, one of the oldest Assyrian secular units in the world. Formed in 1933 in response to the massacre of Assyrians by the Iraqi army at the Syrian–Iraqi crossing point at Semele, the news of the event brought together organizations that affiliated themselves, regardless of church, into one organization with the primary goal of serving as a self-help group. Under its aegis, the longest running Assyrian periodical continues to publish. Whereas at its beginning in 1952 this publication had appeared solely in English, the language that allowed communication among Assyrians from the two different dialect groups of Assyrians in the Middle East, the Assyrian Star has come under pressure to publish in Arabic, as well as in English and Assyrian, to meet the reading needs of newcomers whose refugee status in Arab lands has not allowed them to be comfortable in any other language. In Europe, where the diaspora includes large numbers of refugees from Turkey, Assyrian publications must appear in five languages: Swedish or German, English, Arabic, Turkish, and two dialects of Assyrian. Communication continues to be a major problem in the Western diaspora.

GENOCIDE AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE EXPANSION OF DIASPORA Knowledge about the fate of Assyrians during the period after the fourteenth century is sketchy until Western travelers begin discovering the regions in which

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they lived. From the first accounts it is clear that the community lived in enclaves subject to constant harassment from Muslim neighbors who viewed the Christians as fair game for plunder. The most egregious kind of outrage committed against Christians was the abduction of young females, some pre-teen, who entered Muslim households as wives or maid/concubines never to be seen by their families again. In pre-modern societies such as that of the Turks and Kurds of the time, where brides cost money, a Christian girl’s abduction was a cheap way to acquire a mother to produce progeny. Abductions and worse are documented during the Genocide. Bearing witness to Genocide has not been easy for the victims. Shame and humiliation, lack of opportunity, lack of an interested audience, and lack of material proof have hampered efforts to make this precursor to the Holocaust against the Jews better understood. Unlike the Jews, the Assyrians have had no state apparatus to organize and disseminate information whereas the perpetrators of the murder, pillage, and massacre are able to marshal institutional support for denial. Again the basic statelessness of Assyrians placed an impediment on them stating their case. From Tur Abdin, the Hakkari, and the Urmia/Salamas plain, Assyrians lost about two-thirds of their numbers. Assyrians in the westernmost sector were little affected except to take in refugees. Most villages in Tur Abdin, Hakkari, and Urmia/Salamas were abandoned and are now occupied by Kurds and Turks. Governments that formed in the region from Iran to Iraq to Turkey refused to allow the Assyrians to return. Muslims in the area rejoiced to be Christian-free.26 Assyrians have not been settled in proximity to each other since the Genocide, except in the Jazira, briefly between 1919 and 1922, when the French allowed the Assyro-Chaldean Army to create a protectorate under Malik Kambar, chief of the Jelu tribe. When the British would not cooperate in moving all Assyrian refugees there, and specifically urged the French to disallow the use of the term “Assyrian” in a territorial name, the plan fell apart.27 The presence of a large number of Assyrians in the post-Genocide communities in the Khabour region of Syria since the 1920s is, in part, a result of such events as the Massacre of Semele in 1933, which convinced many Assyrians in British refugee camps around Mosul and Baghdad that the British did not have their best interests at heart.28

SUMMARIZING DIASPORA IN THE MIDDLE EAST AND WORLDWIDE During the unsettled conditions following 1915, Assyrian survivors fled in every direction of the Middle East and outside. From the Harput area, many came to New England or went to Bethlehem and Jerusalem.29 Some fled toward Yerevan and Russia.30 From Urmia and Hakkari, they came to Chicago or were taken to the Baquba and Mandan refugee camps in Mesopotamia. Some went to the USSR from the east also, but there they ended up in Stalin’s Gulag or before firing squads in the purges of intellectuals during the 1930s and 1940s. Others who

The Assyrian diaspora 227 had fled to the Transcaucasus joined the fledgling Assyro-Chaldean Army and ended up in Lebanon for a time. Many who settled in Iraq during the 1920s fled to Syria in the 1930s. After Baathist regimes came to power (Syria 1963, Iraq 1968) and especially after the Shah of Iran abandoned the Kurdish rebellion in 1975, more fled Iraq and found their way to Sweden, Germany, Holland, and France. The diaspora continues. In the 1980s, Australia became a place of refuge for Assyrians from Iraq and Iran. Those who fled to Turkey from Iraq, and then were forcibly repatriated, were killed. Some managed to flee to Syria, and from there to Lebanon. In Lebanon, so long torn by sectarian strife, their status as recent refugees in the Middle East is in limbo, without the opportunity to work or become educated. The Assyrians in northern Iraq have come under pressure from Kurds of several persuasions and are powerless to counter abuses without the help of the Assyrians in diaspora or the international community. For the Assyrians, World War I meant the loss of their ancient homeland, their churches, monasteries, and cemeteries. It also meant human losses. Some estimates show that had the Assyrian population of the Middle East not suffered Genocide and diaspora, it would today number around 20 million. Instead, Assyrians are left with a worldwide population of about four million. Without a base in the Middle East, assimilation and absorption will take a further toll on their communities. By the end of the twentieth century, the stateless Assyrians are already in danger of losing their language in diaspora and in much of the Middle East. Without a home base, their chances of survival for another two generations is doubtful.

NOTES 1 In this area, stretching east and north from Mosul are large villages, such as El Qush, TelKeif, Shekwana, Bartella, and others, where Assyrians have not been displaced and have continuously inhabited since the eighth century bc. Assyrian Christian sites in towns such as Tikrit and Mosul attest to the thriving communities in these and other towns which, however, were more or less emptied of non-Muslims from the fourteenth century forward, especially after the predetations of Timur. From that period onward, indigenous Christians who did not convert to Islam fled into the countryside where they maintained both their religious practices and their unique Aramaic language until World War I. 2 The archives of the Assyrian American National Federation, an organization that (despite a slight change in name) dates to 1933, are being put on microfilm at Harvard University and therefore will be both preserved from deterioration and available for research. No other Assyrian organizational records are preserved in a reliable form. 3 In Iraq, to where the bulk of Assyrians fled or were deported after World War I, the promised autonomous territory did not materialize. Since 1933 Baghdad has increased pressure on Assyrians to the point where after 1977 they were no longer considered in the Iraqi census. See Sargon O. Dadesho, The Assyrian National Question at the United Nations: A Historical Injustice Redressed (Modesto, CA: s.n., 1987), p. 203. 4 The leading examples of writing that focuses on sectarian history within the Assyrian community while denying secular identity are two books by John Joseph, The Nestorians

228

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6

7

8 9

10 11

12

13

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and their Muslim Neighbors: A Study of Western Influence on Their Relations (Princeton, NJ, 1961) and Muslim-Christian Relations and the Inter-Christian Rivalries in the Middle East: The Case of the Jacobites in an Age of Transition (Albany, SUNY Press, 1983). The first was reissued under a different title in 2000. The more recent three-volume coffee-table set edited by Sebastian Brock, The Hidden Pearl (2001), represents the most flagrant catering to church institutional hierarchy to appear yet, even in the category of publications that are church-funded. Among the most interesting are: Youel A. Baaba (editor), An Assyrian Odyssey: Covering the Journey of Kasha Yacoub Yauvre and his Wife Mourassa from Urmia to the Court of Queen Victoria (1879–1881) and The Exodus of Assyrians from their Ancestral Home, 1918 (Alamo, CA, Youel A Baaba Library, 1998, 2000) and Helen N. J. Schwarten, My Story: Persia to America: The Story of the Assyrians (Chicago, Ashurbanipal Library, 1986). A recent historical novel by Ivan Kakovitch, Mount Semele (Alexandria, VA, Mandrill, 2002) marks a move toward placing Assyrian individual history within the historical context. The Assyrian/Syrian Orthodox church, which moved its Patriarchal See from Mardin to Damascus after World War I, has become increasingly Arabicized in Syria, especially as under the Baath party there is little tolerance for ethnic diversity, whether Christian or Muslim. The discouragement of writing in the vernacular, as opposed to classical Syriac, has further eroded the use of their native language among western Assyrians. In turn, church services are shifting from classical Syriac to Arabic, a process also occurring rapidly in the Chaldean church and Syrian Catholic church, although for different reasons. In 1972, a day before his departure from a visit made to Baghdad on the invitation of the Baathist government, the Patriarch of the Church of the East was granted his Iraqi citizenship again. This was part of a scheme by Baghdad to enlist the Assyrians in its efforts to quell the Kurdish rebellion, a scheme with which the Assyrians refused to cooperate (Dadesho, The Assyrian National Question, p. 199, among others). Rouhollah K. Ramazani, The Foreign Policy of Iran, 1500–1941: A Developing Nation in World Affairs (Charlottesville, The University Press of Virginia, 1966), pp. 44–56. The name of this church has undergone several changes during the twentieth century owing, in part, to the policy of Arabization forced upon the community in Syria and Iraq. Increasingly this very hierarchical church has opted to adopt forms related to “Syrian” or “Syriac.” The earliest churches built in the United States were called “Assyrian” and some still fight to keep this name in the face of newer Arabized immigrants who find it more politically expedient to adopt a term such as “Syrian.” There are today, in the twenty-first century, old women born in villages in Tur Abdin, who fled to Syrian villages, emigrated to the United States, and still only know how to speak the suryoyo of Tur Abdin. Guy Le Strange (Lands of the Eastern Caliphate) devotes two chapters to the province of Jazira and its description in geographic works from the tenth through the fourteenth centuries. The term “Jazira,” meaning “island” refers to its being bordered by the two rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris. For Assyrians this same area is called “Bet Nahrain” meaning “the land between the two rivers.” Professor Yohannan attended the Paris Peace Conference as the “elected representative of the Assyrian Christians of Persia” for which he received a commendation from Lord Balfour. See archives of Columbia University and the Assyrian Star (LIV, no. 2, 2002), p. 27. His book, The Death of a Nation: or, The Ever Persecuted Nestorians or Assyrian Christians, appeared in 1916 published by Putnam’s Sons. The story of Meryam Betterbed, born about 1850, and widowed in 1895, has appeared in the Assyrian Star. A woman of means, she left Diyarbeker in 1899 with her five children. See Assyrian Star (LIII, no. 4, 2001).

The Assyrian diaspora 229 14 The story of Sencharib Balley, the well-known Assyrian poet from Diyarbeker illustrates this. See Assyrian Star (LIII, no. 3, 2001). 15 For an excellent analysis of the community in Worcester, see Sargon Donabed’s Remnants of Heroes (Chicago, The Assyrian Academic Society, 2003). Also on the topic of refugees from Harput is Hagop Derannian, Worcester is America: The Story of Worcester’s Armenians: The Early Years (Worcester, Bennate, 1998). 16 Story about his father told to Eden Naby in Marbella, Spain by Raymond Balley in May 2001. 17 In one of those cruel ironies of scholarship, abducted Assyrian women have been identified as sighe wives/concubines who entered a Muslim man’s bed due to the poverty of the Assyrian community. Such a glossing of circumstances illustrates the ignorance of the powerless condition of the Christian Assyrian community in northwest Iran in particular where they were the lowest of the rayas (subjects). See especially Shahla Haeri, Law of Desire: Temporary Marriage in Shi’i Iran (Syracuse, Syracuse University Press, 1989). 18 In his novel, The Well of Ararat (New York, 1938), Emmanuel P. Varandyan describes in great detail the problems of protecting a girl from Muslims until she is safely married. Although marriage was no sure protection for a Christian woman, the most desired girls were virgins. The ever earlier marriage of girls, as young as fourteen and fifteen, even when they had been enrolled in school, resulted from the fear of their forced marriage to Muslims. In Iran this fear also stemmed from Shiite hereditary law, which gave the convert to Islam, forced or voluntary, the right to the inheritance of all siblings. 19 Elizabeh Neesan (d. 1982) was brought to New Jersey by Abraham Yohannan of Ada, who worked in Gary, Indiana as a bricklayer. Her real name was Nanajan but since the only word she could say was Elizabeth (in New Jersey, the place to which she was being escorted), that is the name under which she became registered officially. 20 Alexander Gabriel (born ca. 1900 in Mart Maryam d’Mdita) had served as the secretary to Malik Kambar d’Malik Warda of Jelu. The Assyrian Protectorate lasted from 1919 to 1922. See Sam Parhad, Beyond the Call of Duty: The Biography of Malik Kambar of Jeelu (s.l.: Metropolitan Press, 1986). 21 The Reverend Werda is the author of one of the most important books to document the Genocide against Assyrians in Urmia and Hakkari. See his The Flickering Light of Asia, or the Assyrian Nation and Church (s.l.: s.n., 1925). 22 The Assyrian Herald is the only Assyrian periodical that is being preserved on microfilm (by the Chicago Historical Society). All others, although existing either at Harvard University, the Ashurbanipal Library, or in private collections, are in desperate need of preservation, especially those printed after the introduction of acid paper after World War I. 23 Sparzona (1936, no. 12, p. 6). 24 See Schwarten, My Story. 25 See copy of letter from Dr Harry P. Packard to His Holiness, Pope Benedict XV, in George Davis, ed., Genocides Against the Assyrians (Chicago, s.n., 1999), pp. 16–17. 26 Examples from Persian language sources emanating from Iranian Azerbaijan are plentiful on this subject. A recent one is Hasan Anzali, Urumia dar guzari zaman (Urmia in light of history) (Urmia, Intisharat-e anzali, 1378/1999–2000). Anzali says that Urmia “was Christian-free” for a few years. 27 For details on this period, see Parhad, Beyond the Call of Duty, pp. 38–40. 28 See Yusuf Malek, The British Betrayal of the Assyrians (Chicago, Assyrian National Federation and Assyrian National League of America, 1935). 29 By 1926 there were enough Assyrian refugees from eastern Turkey in Bethlehem to construct the Church of the Virgin Mary. The cornerstone for this church was laid on March 22 in the presence of “Mar Ignatious Elias the 3rd, Assyrian Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch.”

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30 In a typical family history of displacement, the great grandson of Professor Ashour Yusef, killed in Harput in 1915, relocated to Norway in 2001 following the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In 1915 his grandfather fled to Russia, while his uncle fled to Worcester. See George D. Sefer, A Dream of a Long Journey (c. 1921) for an account of what happened to Professor Yusef.

Index

1923 Treaty of Lausanne 35 Afghan community 8, 140, 143–6, 175, 177 Afghan diaspora 9, 169–72, 175–8, 180–2 Afghan refugees 8, 142–3, 145, 175 Afghanistan 1, 2, 8–9, 25–6, 66, 70–1, 73, 140–1, 143–6, 166, 169–82, 189–90 Akiner, Shirin 8, 21 Alma Ata (Almaty) 28, 67, 72, 75, 151–2, 154, 157–9, 162–5, 189, 205 Anderson, Benedict 9, 18, 116 Appandurai, Arjun 14–16 Armenia 5–6, 83, 86–90, 92–5, 9–8, 113–14, 116–33, 216–17 Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADLP) 82, 92, 94, 96 Armenian diaspora 8, 81–2, 92, 96, 102–3, 113, 116 Armenian genocide of 1915 82–5, 87, 89, 93, 116, 120–1, 169 Armenian Pan-National Movement (APNM) 83–9, 92, 94, 96 Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) 82–4, 86, 88, 92, 94–6, 120, 123 Armenians 1, 5–7, 13, 81, 84, 86–8, 90, 93, 95–6, 100, 116–19, 122–4, 128, 131–2, 155, 158, 171, 176, 218, 221 Assyrian diaspora 9, 214–15, 223 Assyrians 171, 176, 214–22, 224–7 Astourian, Stephan H. 8, 80 Atabaki, Touraj 1 Azerbaijan 5–6, 85–6, 88, 92, 98–102, 122,124–5, 131, 217 Azerbaijani diaspora 8, 81, 87, 98–9, 101–3 Azerbaijanis 1, 5, 7, 98–100, 103 Azeris 5–6, 96, 163, 171

Baku 86, 100–1, 172, 225 Belarusian diaspora 51 Belarusians 29, 51, 56, 155, 158 Bishkek 154–5, 165 Bolsheviks 1, 3–4, 150, 160 British Empire 8, 56–7 Bukhara 2 Caucasus 1, 4–7, 9, 11, 35–7, 42, 89, 113, 127, 134, 163 Central Asia 1, 3–4,6–9, 24, 32, 34–7, 44, 49, 66–7, 69–72, 74, 76–7, 88, 99, 113, 148–54, 156–7, 160–6, 171–2, 174, 186–7, 190–1, 197, 199, 204 Central Asian states [republics] 2, 8, 40, 66–7, 69–71, 74, 76–7, 148, 153, 157, 181, 190, 205 Central Asians 30 Central committee 1 Chechen 7, 34, 41–2, 46, 48, 53, 58, 155, 158 Chechnya 7 China 1, 8–9, 21, 24–6, 31, 38–9, 66, 73, 149–52, 154, 158, 160–2, 164, 184–211 civil war 11, 15, 34, 38, 72, 77, 119, 145, 177 Cold War 11, 82, 93, 115, 121 collective identity 9, 18 collectivization 3, 25–6, 36, 49, 69, 140, 194 Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) 22, 26–7, 50–3, 55, 70–2, 89 Communist Party of Kazakhstan 27, 29, 50, 67 Communist party 2, 4, 26, 48, 67, 93, 173 conflict dynamics 10, 13–14, 18–19 conflict 8, 10–11, 13, 15, 17 Conner, Walker 7, 80–1

232

Index

Crimean Tatars 4–5, 7, 29, 33–4,39, 41, 46–7, 59–60 cultural identity 25, 45, 54, 165 culture 3, 16 Demmers, Jolle 8, 10 democracy 11, 91, 123 diaspora communities 1, 7–12, 15–18, 48, 50–4, 60, 82–3, 92, 113, 116–18, 131–2 diaspora identity 7, 9 diaspora 1, 7–8, 12–13, 16, 19, 23, 28–30, 33, 35, 37, 44, 50, 52–4, 80, 83, 86, 89, 92, 94–103, 113–14, 116–18, 121, 123–5, 131–3, 157, 163, 166, 171–3, 175, 179, 181–2, 211, 214–15, 219–22, 224–7 diasporas 8, 10–12, 14, 18, 21, 40, 42, 44, 48, 53–5, 60, 80–1, 103, 114, 164–5, 169–70 discrimination 22, 50, 53, 57, 69, 75 dual citizenship 73–5, 94–5, 176 Dushanbe 67, 71, 172, 174 emigrants 50–52, 125, 149, 176 emigrate 16, 46–7 emigration 22, 26, 40–1, 53, 98, 117–19, 130, 174, 215–17, 219, 225 ethnic composition 4–6, 155, 163 ethnic diaspora 37–8 ethnic groups 2, 4–6, 21, 23–4, 28–30, 38, 42, 44, 49, 54–5, 58–9, 144, 155, 157–8, 160, 163, 170–1, 181 ethnic minorities 2–3, 5–7, 12, 73, 152, 157, 170, 174 ethnic tension 4 ethno-nationalism 2–4, 208, 210 Europe 1, 12, 16, 69–70, 117–18, 164–5, 169–70, 172, 175–6, 210, 215, 225 exile 9, 16, 39–40, 42, 45–7, 55, 59–60, 80, 114, 116, 172, 181 exodus 29, 50–3, 55, 58–9, 72–5, 151, 166, 225 Ferghana Valley 2, 31, 145–6, 149, 155–6 forced migration 4 Former Soviet Union 8, 171 Gellner, Ernest 16, 201 Georgia 6, 35–6, 99–100, 217, 219 Georgians 1, 6, 155 German immigration 31

Germans 5, 7, 23, 30–3, 38–43, 45–8, 52, 59–60, 155, 158, 163 Germany 51–3, 59, 66, 98, 142, 145, 164, 176, 227 Gladney, Dru C. 9, 164, 208 glasnost 69, 122 global civil society 8, 113–15 globalization 14, 16, 80, 113–14, 210 Gorbachev, Mikhail 4, 27, 69, 120, 124 Han 186, 189, 193–4, 202, 205–6 homeland 1, 4, 7–10, 12–13, 16–18, 34–6, 46–7, 52–3, 55, 57, 59, 69, 74, 80–4, 91, 93, 97, 100, 103, 114, 116–21, 123, 125–6, 128, 130, 132, 152–3, 157, 160–1, 163–5, 224, 227 homogenization 2, 69 Hui Islam 192, 209 Hui 31–2, 185–7, 192–9, 201–3, 205–11 human rights 71, 77, 101, 123, 142, 164, 176, 178 identity groups 11–12, 15, 17 identity 6, 16, 37, 49, 69, 82, 91, 103, 114, 160, 165, 175, 186–7, 199, 202–3, 210 immigrants 12, 25, 28, 30, 51–2, 74, 80, 114, 141, 152–3, 173, 221 immigration 1, 27, 29, 35, 37, 44, 60, 73, 75, 118, 220, 172, 205, 217, 219 independence 6–7, 22, 27, 48, 50–1, 54–6, 73, 83–4, 103, 118, 120–2, 124, 126, 132, 141, 146, 152, 160–1, 189–90 indigenization 8, 77 industrialization 3 integration 47, 54, 70, 146, 208–9, 211 internet 14–15, 17, 178, 190, 210 intra-state conflict 15–16, 18 Iran 1–2, 25–6, 33, 66, 82, 99, 102, 119, 171, 173–7, 180–2, 184, 193, 214–20, 222, 225–7 Iranians 7, 169, 176 Ishkanian, Armine 8, 113 Islam 9, 24–5, 31–2, 37, 41, 44–5, 71, 163, 165, 179, 184–9, 192–6, 198–9, 202–4, 206–8, 210–11 Jews 5–6, 41, 88, 163, 171, 176, 214, 217, 226 Kabul 172–4, 176–80 Kamalov, Ablet 8, 148 Karakalpak 3 Kazakh diaspora 27

Index Kazakhs 1–2, 5, 24–7, 31–2, 38–9, 41–2, 45, 50, 53–4, 68, 70, 73–4, 77, 149, 155, 158, 163, 185, 189, 205, 210 Kazakhstan 3, 5–6, 8, 21–5, 27–57, 60, 66–70, 72, 74–6, 148, 151–2, 154–5, 157–65, 190–1, 205 Khan, Natalya 8, 140 Khasbulatov, Ruslan 48 Khiva 2 Khrushchev 4, 153 Kokand 2 Koreans 23, 36, 39, 41, 43, 45, 47–8, 53, 59, 155, 158, 163 Kunaev, Dinmukhamed 27, 29, 67 Kurds 5–6, 10, 12, 16, 23, 36, 39, 41, 157, 163, 170–1, 180, 218, 222, 226 Kyrgyz 1–3, 5, 30–1, 69–70, 155–6, 158, 185, 188–9, 205, 210 Kyrgyz, diaspora 31 Kyrgyzstan 3, 5, 21, 67–8, 70, 72–4, 76, 141, 154–5, 161–2, 164–5, 190, 205 locality 13–15, 18–19, 114 long-distance nationalism 8–10, 13–14, 16, 103, 116 mass migration 1, 4, 7, 16, 50, 149, 151 Meskhetians 4, 7, 53, 60 Middle-East 1, 4, 7, 25–6, 96, 117–21, 165, 171–2, 180, 190, 193, 200, 202–6, 211, 214–18, 220–7 migration 23, 27–8, 66, 73–4, 76, 114, 131–2, 142, 144–6, 148–9, 151–2, 155–6, 161, 164, 173, 205 minority groups 3, 16, 163 modernization 25 Mongolia 25–6, 69, 188 Moscow 2–4, 27, 36, 48, 70, 72, 74, 83, 86, 88–9, 99, 101, 121, 124, 172, 179 Muslim minorities 184–5, 205–6, 209–11 Muslims 9, 30, 34–6, 40, 67, 163, 184–7, 190, 192–3, 195, 199, 201–7, 211, 216–17, 226 Naby, Eden 9, 169, 214 Nagorno-Karabagh (Mountainous Karabagh) 5, 7, 89, 92, 94–5, 97, 100, 102, 120, 122–5 national identities 16, 69, 99, 170 national languages 3 national parties 48 nationalism 8–10, 15–16, 18–19, 69, 160, 171, 192, 210, 215

233

nationality 2, 23, 156, 160, 185–6, 188 nation-building 19, 69, 132, 187 nation-states 7, 11, 13–15, 49, 75, 80, 114–15, 160, 163, 184, 210 nativization 2 Nazarbaev, Nursultan 50 newly independent states 55 nomenklatura 2 Non-Governmental Organizations 8, 100, 113–15, 142–3, 173, 181 Ottoman empire 83 Pakistan 141, 144–5, 173–7, 182, 190, 205, 211 perestroika 69, 152–3, 160 Poles 32, 38–40, 43, 45, 52, 59 political purges 25 political refugees 1 political tensions 5 Pontic Greeks 35–6,39, 48, 52–3, 59 population dislocation 1, 4, 8 post-Soviet Central Asia 8, 66, 69, 77, 154 post-Soviet era 7, 41, 53 post-Soviet period 113, 121, 148, 154, 163 post-Soviet transition 8, 113 refugees 11, 13, 23, 38, 80, 114, 129, 140–3, 146, 169, 173–4, 176, 215, 225–7 religious diaspora 41 Russia 6, 8–9, 24, 26–8, 31–2, 50, 53, 57, 66–7, 69–77, 83, 88, 90, 95, 100–2, 131, 150, 153, 162–3, 188, 191, 216–17, 219, 226 Russian 2–3, 7, 27, 33,39, 42–4, 47, 53, 75, 152, 155, 158, 163, 165 Russian communist party 1 Russian diaspora 51, 69, 102 Russian Empire 3, 24, 31–2, 57, 118, 149, 156 Russian Federation 6, 21, 77 Russians 4–8, 27–30, 32, 38, 41, 51, 56, 58, 60, 66–70, 72–5, 77, 101, 149, 163, 169 secularization 25 sedentarization 3, 25–6, 49, 188 Siberia 32, 34, 40, 74, 119 Slavs 28, 38–42, 47, 51–2, 56–8 sovietskij chelovek 2–4, 7

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Soviet Central Asia 9, 30–1, 67, 151–3, 157, 160, 164, 171, 173, 177 Soviet Central Asian Republics (state) 5, 9, 30, 189 Soviet era 3, 23, 33, 41, 44, 48, 50, 160 Soviet government 1, 3, 118, 122, 153, 156 Soviet period 22, 28–9, 33, 37–8, 40, 44, 54–5, 57–8, 69, 83, 103, 126, 144, 155–7, 165 Soviet policies 153 Soviet Republics 4, 22, 25–6, 39–40, 120, 123, 153–4 Soviet Republics of the Caucasus 6 Soviet rule 1, 7–8, 22, 25, 28–9, 32, 36, 120–1 Soviet state 1–2, 6, 174 Soviet Union 1–6, 9, 25, 28, 31–3, 35–7, 42–5, 47–8, 52, 55–6, 66, 69–70, 83, 88, 115, 117, 120–3, 125, 129–30, 140, 145–6, 150, 152–3, 159–60, 162, 171, 173 sovieticized 2 sovietization 3, 25, 93, 98 Sredazburo (Central Asian Bureau) 1 Stalin’s death 34, 42, 46, 119 State 2, 8, 15, 80, 82, 97–8, 102–3 State-building 3, 84 Tajikistan 3, 5, 41, 67, 70–2, 76–7, 141, 145–6, 157, 161–3, 171, 174, 205 Tajiks 2, 5, 53, 67, 70, 73, 144, 155, 158, 163, 171, 173, 175, 177, 181, 185, 210 Tashkent 2, 40–1, 67, 140–6, 156, 162, 172, 174 Tatars 1, 5–6, 23, 29–30, 33, 41, 44, 57–8, 158, 185 Ter-Petrosian, Levon 83–4, 86, 88–92, 94, 96–7, 132 Ter-Petrosian, Telman 95 Tibet 185, 187, 191–2 titular ethnic community 7 titular ethnic groups 2 titular nation 2–3, 22–4, 153 titular nationalities 3, 66–7, 69, 77, 153, 163 transgression 9, 184 transnational communities 23 transnationalism 1, 7–9, 13, 80, 115, 184, 206 Tsarist empire 1, 29–30, 32–3, 35–7 Tsarist rule 31 Tsarist Russia 1, 77, 150, 162, 216

Turkestan 1–2, 37, 148, 157, 160–1, 189 Turkey 1, 7, 16, 25–6, 33, 45, 47, 52, 73, 83, 87–90, 93, 98, 118–20, 132, 164, 171, 184,190–1, 205, 217–19, 225–6 Turkic 34 Turkmen 1–3, 5, 30–1, 33, 70, 74, 158, 170–1, 173–4, 177, 181 Turkmenistan 3, 5–6, 21, 66–7, 74, 76, 154, 156–7, 170 Turks 5–6, 86, 121, 171, 180, 222, 226 Uighur 8, 44, 152, 155, 158, 162, 165, 185, 187–90, 209–10 Uighur communities 8, 148, 150, 153, 155–7, 160, 164–5 Uighur population 149–50, 154, 156, 158, 163 Uighurs 5, 31 38, 42, 53, 148–9, 151–60, 162–6, 184, 191–2, 205 Ukraine 31–2, 52 Ukrainians 5–7, 23, 29, 33, 38–9, 41, 51, 56, 68, 155, 158, 181 UN 12, 84–5, 124, 175, 177, 180 UNHCR 73, 140–3, 145, 173–4 University of California, Berkeley 7–8, 126–7 USA 1, 10, 50, 59, 70, 82–3, 94, 101–2, 115, 117–18, 121, 126–9, 145, 164, 169–70, 172, 175–9, 182, 190, 192, 215, 219–24 USSR 25, 29, 36, 38, 42, 58–9, 83, 85, 117, 140–1, 146, 150–4, 160–1, 165, 226 Uzbek diaspora 30 Uzbekistan 2–3, 5–6, 8, 21, 24–5, 30–1, 33, 35–6, 41, 67–70, 72–3, 76, 140–6, 152, 154–5, 162–3, 171, 179, 190 Uzbeks 1–2, 5, 30–1, 41, 44, 53, 67, 70, 73, 140, 144, 146, 155–6, 158, 163, 173, 175, 177, 181, 185, 210 Vätän (homeland) society 99 Volga Germans 4, 32, 46 war 10–11, 169, 216, 225 Warikoo, Kulbhushan 8, 66 West 10, 12, 53, 70, 83, 96, 119, 125, 129, 170, 172, 174–5, 180–2, 203, 210 Western Europe 21, 25–6, 50 World War I 32, 88, 122, 169, 171, 215, 219–21, 223, 227

Index

235

World War II 1, 4, 12, 28, 30, 35, 40, 66, 118, 140, 172, 214–15, 220, 224–5

Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Province 24, 31, 148, 161, 164–5, 187, 189–91

Xinjiang 8, 25, 32, 148–54, 157, 159–61, 163–6, 185–9, 191–2, 198, 201, 204–5

Yeltsin, Boris 71–4 Yerevan 85–8, 90, 121–2, 132, 226