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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Tajikistan
Index
Ethnic tensions increased in Tajikistan, as they did elsewhere in
Central Asia, under the troubled conditions of the late Soviet era.
Already in the late 1970s, some ethnic disturbances and anti-Soviet riots
had occurred. One consequence of heightened resentment of Soviet power was
violence directed at members of other nationalities, who were made
scapegoats for their attackers' economic grievances (see Economic
Conditions in the Early 1990s, this ch.). An example of this conflict was
a clash between Tajiks and Kyrgyz over land and water claims in 1989.
Antagonism between Uzbeks and Tajiks reached a new level during
Tajikistan's civil war of 1992, when Uzbeks living in Tajikistan joined
the faction attempting to restore a neo-Soviet regime to power (see
Transition to Post-Soviet Government, this ch.).
In 1989 attacks on Meskhetians (one of the Muslim groups deported from
Central Asia by Stalin) spilled over from Uzbekistan to Tajikistan when
about 2,000 Meskhetians were evacuated from eastern Uzbekistan to a remote
settlement in northern Tajikistan. A violent conflict between inhabitants
of the area and the Meskhetians resulted in the intervention of security
forces and removal of the Meskhetians entirely from Central Asia.
The late 1980s and early 1990s also saw open criticism by Tajiks of
their treatment as a people by the central Soviet authorities and by their
Turkic neighbors, especially the Uzbeks. A key issue was disparagement of
the Tajik heritage in statements of Soviet nationalities policy, which
labeled the Tajiks a "formerly backward" people that only began
to progress under Russian and Soviet tutelage. Tajiks, who claimed a
heritage of more than 2,000 years of Persian and Eastern Iranian
civilization, also were indignant at the emphasis on Russian and Western
civilization, at the expense of the Tajik heritage, in the history and
literature curricula of Soviet-era schools in their republic. Soviet
policy toward publication of literature and the two Soviet-mandated
alphabet changes served to isolate Tajiks from their cultural heritage.
One of the important consequences of the growth of Tajik nationalism in
the late Soviet era was the enactment in 1989 of a law declaring Tajik the
state language (although the use of Russian, Uzbek, or other languages was
still recognized under some circumstances). The law officially equated
Tajik with Persian and called for a gradual reintroduction of the Arabic
alphabet. By the early 1990s, however, the law's main impact was to alarm
the republic's Russian speakers; although some Russian loanwords were
dropped in favor of contemporary Iranian Persian terms, the use of the
Arabic alphabet remained sharply limited.
Like the Russians, the Uzbeks were criticized for denying the Tajiks'
distinctive ethnic identity and ancient roots in Central Asia. Tajik
nationalists accused the authorities in Soviet Uzbekistan of practicing
overt discrimination against the Tajik population by forcing Tajiks to
register their nationality as Uzbek, undercounting the size of the Tajik
minority in Uzbekistan, and failing to provide Tajiks there with adequate
access to educational and cultural resources in Tajik. Tajik nationalists
also complained that the central government and their Central Asian
neighbors had exploited Tajikistan's raw materials and damaged its
environment.
Although nationalism had an increased appeal in Tajikistan in the late
Soviet and early independence periods, it was not a dominant political
force there. No popular movement advocated secession from the Soviet Union
before its dissolution at the end of 1991, although there was support for
renegotiating the union treaty to obtain more favorable conditions for
Tajikistan. In the late 1980s, supporters of the communist old guard
played on nationalist feelings to enhance their own position, but after
Tajikistan became independent, those individuals became increasingly
antinationalist; identification with local patron-client networks
continued to rival nationalism as a political force.
Data as of March 1996
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